Chipset drivers

[hmg57]

I've heard about it many times and I still don't know what are these 4 in 1 drivers. In fact, I didn't even know that chipsets required drivers. I am planning to buy an A7V133 mobo (VIA KT133A) and would really like to have some tips on how to set these drivers for best performance. Also, do you recommend flashing the BIOS at the same time ?

To help you help me, here's my system
- A7V133 mobo
- Tbird 1.2 GHz
- 256 MB PC133
- GeForce 2 GTS 32 MB
- Maxtor 40 GB

Thanks for any help !


Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair...

 

[dmcmahon]

I have a similar system.
VIA chipset drivers: http://www.viatech.com/drivers/index_new2.htm
Asus BIOS updates: http://www.asus.com.tw/products/motherboard/bios_socka.html

I flashed my BIOS up from 1001c to 1004 (the latest), though there was no noticeable effect. I installed the VIA chipset drivers over the top of the default drivers that ship with Windows, to avoid known problems with the IDE and AGP support. If you have a DOS boot disk, you can flash the BIOS first, that's probably easier. You have to install the VIA drivers after you've installed the OS. If you are running W2K, you will also need a patch from Microsoft to avoid a problem with AMD CPUs and the AGP. I do not have that link handy but if necessary I can post the code (small 100K service pack) somewhere for you.

Several posters have been flaming VIA, and in some cases AMD, and recommend going to another chipset, or even back to Intel, for a stable system. Certainly you would not likely need all the patches.

You might consider a DDR board, at this point they are finally available and the memory prices are cheap, too. You could possibly avoid some VIA issues by going with a board based on the AMD 761 chipset (though such boards probably still use the VIA southbridge, and therefore still may have some issues e.g. with USB).

 

[hmg57]

In fact, I think the VIA southbridge is better than AMD's that's why many mobo manufacturer uses it with AMD761 northbridge. BTW, thanks for the patch but I'll be running WinME

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair...<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by hmg57 on 04/04/01 11:01 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[rfh1234]

Yeah, I've been flaming VIA cause their chipset sucks for USB. It's a shame to spend all that money on a motherboard then having to go out and buy a USB PCI card to have a reliable USB system, $50 extra bucks for something I should not have had to buy. The board vcomes with 4 ports, it shouldn't come with any. Aside from the KNOWN VIA USB problems, it is a great board, has been totally stable and fast, no other problems, but to me personally, the USB is a BIG problem because more and more things are using it these days so it MUST be reliable, not suddenly drop your internet connection, or delete your digital pictures when you try and transfer them to your computer, or stop a photo print job halfway through with loss of communication, wasting a $1 piece of photo paper and a ton of ink, yeah ink gets expensive at near $70 for a total refill. Aside from that the board is wonderful. I just wish VIA would ACKNOWLEDGE the problem and make a patch that really works, problem solved , everybody happy. Go to usbman.com and see the troubles people have with VIA and USB

 

[tartarhus]

Piss on intel stability. Their recent chipsets have stunk poo poo, and the P4 is an over glorified hunk of junk. Definitely go AMD. Far better performance to price ratio. Via chipsets are slowly getting better, maybe one day they'll give their chipset production the attention it deserves, but right now their chipsets offer what intel used to, compatability and upgradeability. They have their problems, but then lately all chipsets have had their problems -- It's just a mess. Use the latest bios, and the latest 4in1 driver, it'll make a difference. Nice motherboard, but i agree, wait for the ddr version coming out real soon.

 

[tartarhus]

Oh, buy the way, I'd go with an ibm or western digital hard drive instead. Ibm if you got the money, wester digital if you don't.

 

[Guest]

If your USB problems are VIA's fault, then why doesn't everyone have them? The simple truth is that there are people who have no trouble with the VIA chipset including some (myself included) who have the same A7V133 motherboard you do. I remember your post where you asked A7V133 owners if they had the same problems you do, and no one responded that they did. (Yeah there were very few replies and most were silly but that's still a valid point.) Unless you've got a bad MB, there has to be something different you are doing to make things unstable. While I'm not volunteering to come figure out what you've done wrong, there has to be something. You can't blame VIA because your specific setup has problems. Yes, installing OSes and drivers in the right order and configuration can be a pain to troubleshoot, but when you decide to build your own system, you accept that responsibility. It's just not a task everyone should be doing. Sometimes it ends up being more expensive to build your own system than buy a complete system from Dell/Gateway/whoever. Please understand I'm not trying to insult you or start a flame war. I even took the time to check out the usbman site you mentioned. Some of their information is just out of date. They don't even have the latest VIA drivers mentioned as an option so you have to take their recommendations with a grain of salt.

 

[BrainStorm]

Every Chipsets are requiring drivers, there just included with the OS for the majority of older systems. I have to admit that I had a hard time making the new system of my friend rock solid stable, there's no how-to on that. Most of the time if you dont have the right procedure and the little hints, you'll have a buggy system. But I still think the time I put on it worth it.

Is system:

Asus A7V
AMD T-Bird 1000
SB Live!
D-Link NIC
Hercule 3D Prophet II
UMAX E3470 USB Scanner
LG CD RE-Writer
Creative DVD Player
SideWinder Joystick
MS Intellimouse USB Mouse
Lexmark Z42

Wath I did

- Placed my HD Cable on old ATA-66 Controller
- Flashed BIOS to 1007
- Assigned specific IRQ's to my PCI devices
- FDISK, format
- Installed the OS (Win98SE)
- Installed lastest VIA chipset drivers (Make sure not to enable DMA, there still issues with this and VIA Chipset)
- Installed Promise ATA-100 drivers (those provided on ASUS website)
- Switched clable back to ATA-100 controller (Made the changes in BIOS)
- Configured my DSL
- Installed latest driver for video card
- Patched Windows on Windows Update
- Then I dowloaded all the newest drivers from websites and installed them
- Then is programs...

The the system passed from a real buggy one to a rock solid one.

Hope this will help somme of you


It's better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick!