W2K and New Chipsets: What Do You Like?

[paulcs]

I corporate reader wrote to me soliciting advice for a soon to be built system using Windows 2000, a fast CPU, and one of the newer chipsets. He has particular concerns about ease of installation, compatibility, and 2D performance.

I recommended either a G400 or G450 for a videocard, but my experience with Windows 2000 and the newer chipsets is fairly limited. I figured I'd pick the MURC braintrust's brains and get some W2K expert opinion on this.

He expressed concerns about "creative workarounds" and "questionable doctoring the driver setup." He's been hanging around Asus forums. His first choice, the Asus CUV266, apparently requires some jumping through hoops to get a good W2K install.

Stability his primary concern, but ease of installation is a big issue as this involves multiple, standardized machines.

I really like the KT-133A chipset and an 1.2 GHz Athlon for Windows 98 in a corporate environment. It's relatively cheap, fast, and very stable. I have no experience with this setup with Windows 2000, however.

He appears to be open to suggestions about all parts and manufacturers and would also appreciate feedback about drivers choices, component combinations, and installation tips. Again, he was very specific about 2D application performance. 3D gaming perfomance and audio effects do not appear to be considerations.

Thanks.

Paul
paulcs@speakeasy.net

[Chasbo]

I just did my first W2K install on a 815E motherboard and it was pretty easy. Installed W2K and then installed the Intel chipset update. Seems to be running pretty good so far.

Chuck

[Nuno]

Win2k runs just fine with my Asus A7V-ata100(KT133). I´m also actually using the Promise ATA100 controller, that way I´m using 2 HDD, a CD-ROM and a burner, each one being the master on its dedicated IDE channel. I´ve also tried Abit KT7-raid with highpoint controller and it ran smooth too.

Problems with the KT133 chipset?

1 - VIA 686A soutbridge was unable to recognize my older 6.4 Gb Fujitsu HDD, both on the KT7 and the A7V, no matter what bios revision I used. Both highpoint and promise IDE controlers bios recognised it without a hitch. So I wouldn´t expect full 686A compatibility, specially with older drives. Don´treally know about 686B.

2 - To get AGP2x working, it took asus bios rev 1007 and tweaking AGP driving value to EA. It also didn´t work properly on the KT7. So that´s one thing to troubleshoot if the system seems unstable.

But these are chipset/bios problems. Win2k installs just fine (although if using the boot hdd in an external IDE controler a floppy with drivers is usefull, as win2k doesn´t seem to have generic mass storage drivers as win9x), runs fine, just remember to install the latest Via 4-in-1 drivers.

[Rags]

The i815e is plain simple to set up. If you have SBLive drivers installed before you install your chipset drivers, then it can cause a problem during the install of the chipset drivers, but it's easy enough to get around. Just disable the SBLive in device manager and install the chipset drivers, reboot then reenable the SBLive.

Rags