A7M266/Athlon 1.4/DDR on my mind

[scrapser]

OK, here I go. I'm thinking of this combination to build a custom PC; however, there are so many other variants and there's always something "new" just around the corner that I keep having second thoughts as to when to jump. Plus, since I've never bought any components before, I'm leary of where to go to place an order for these and other necessary hardware to build the PC.

Can anyone give me their thoughts on the above combination and suggest (from experience) some reliable and fairly priced sources for hardware. I've been to Sharky's and Anandtech but still get information overload; so I thought some advice from the Tom's Hardware community would be helpful. Thanks.

scrapser

 

[Guest]

Check out my thread on this board. I have that setup right now. BTW: the A7M266 is NOT on AMD's list of approved boards for use with a 1.4 Gig Athlon. That said that's what I'm typig this on. I did try a 1.2 Gig Athlon in this sytem and it behaved exactly as stated in the other thread.

Good luck.
-Clovis

 

[scrapser]

Clovis,
Thanks for the reply. I read your other thread and it appears you're about to throw in the towel. It's odd that you're having so much trouble. Sharky's site recommends the A7M266 as the board of choice for their high end and extreme gaming systems saying it's stable.

So I guess the question now is: What is the best DDR board to use with the Athlon 1.4? There's so much confusion with all the different chipset/MB combos, I don't know what to move on. I hope someone can throw some light on all this.

Thanks,
scrapser

 

[Guest]

I can't speak from experience yet but right now I would go with a Gigabyte 7dxR board. Performance wise it is beating the A7M266 in all the standard benchmarks. However I can speak from experience as where to buy, monarchcomputer.com was very good for me as well as three of my friends. Thier price was better than any that I could find.

 

[dpaige]

I have that very same combination. I haven't had one problem since I brought it. Actually the only problem I had was when I installed a Netgear FA311 IC card.

Dante

 

[Guest]

I'm have a A7M266 too and the difference is I'm only using a 1GHz cpu.

My config is :
Mobo: A7M266
CPU: 1GHz (266MHz)
Memory: Kingston DDR 256M
Harddisk: Quantum Fireball 30GB 7200rpm
Video: Asus 7100 Geforce2 MX 400
Speaker: Creative FPS 2000
CD Writer: Aopen 12X10X32(with justlink)
DVD Rom: Pioneer 16X slot
Sound card: No sound card needed... save $$$. The onboard sound of A7M266 sounds great too.

I have been enjoying this baby watching DVDs, VCDs, listening to Audio cds, mp3s, burning CDs and no complaints whatsoever, except some hangups due to Bill Gates.... Windows 98 which I believe is the software problem. Other than that, I'm satisfied with my system at a resonable budget. That's all.. Good luck to whoever wants to build with a A7M266

 

[jc14all]

I have had good support from J&N Computer Service <A HREF="http://www.jncs.com/" target="_new">http://www.jncs.com/</A> for their bundled M/B packages. Right now they are offering I think $399 for an Athlon 1.4 GHz on an Asus A7M266 w/256 DDR PC2100, plus Taisol Cooler. These boards come tested and setup, ready to install. Good tech support also.

JC-------<*){{{>{~~~~~
Fisher of men

 

[cadman]

I also have the K7m266 and had a lot of problems with stability at first untill I changed the ram to CL2.It now runs like a dream with my 1ghz overclocked to 1.4ghz.

Mike

 

[Guest]

I can't comment on using a 1.4 GHZ Athlon on the A7M266 but my 1.2 GHZ processor works great. The two biggest things in my mind as far as matching components are 1) avoid Netgear FA-311 and 312 network cards (cause rebooting problems) and 2) go with something other than a SBlive! soundcard. Yes I know that plenty of people use SBlive! cards without any problems on this board, but combining an SBlive 5.1 Platinum with a Hercules Geforce 3 on my system caused hard drive corruption problems that could not be fixed with any patches (i.e. BIOS patches, Via 4-in-1 drivers, etc.). I would suggest the Philips Acoustic Edge (what I now use) or Turtle Beach Santa Cruz.

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. - Mark Twain

 

[FatBurger]

I agree with both counts. I could never get my FA312 working with W2k's SP2, and my Live! was great at first, but a headache recently.



<font color=blue>Quarter pounder inside</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Change the Sig of the Week!!!</font color=red>