As a heads up, we've build about 600 systems using KT133A based boards from Asus, Abit and MSI and have ZERO (count 'em!) problems with user complaints regarding the "Many problems" some users here are ranting about, nor returns from defects.
They don't crash or have the Live card problems that some of the adamant posters in here are still yapping about 3 months after everyone discovered and FIXED the issues incorrectly reported as “problems with the 686B”. It should be noted that TO THIS DAY Via still notes that there are NO KNOWN BUGS with the 686B, but rather motherboard OEM's using REFERENCE BIOS and drivers to build their respective systems. It would be especially nice if people starting realizing that Creative Labs isn't worrying about compatibility NOR providing support. Thus, this should be considered a creative problem and not a Via problem.
Last week some bonehead pointed out in one of my posts that not only do Creative Labs Live cards have this problem, but also Audigy based cards... excuse me but.. DUH.. IT'S THE SAME DAMN THING. As Audigy is OWNED by Creative, I would assume everyone would that the two issues are inseparable.
Sure, we had SOME problems initially, but they have been corrected through correct card placement, interrupt settings and BIOS/driver updates.
I think some of the posters in these groups assume that everyone is running their systems on the edge by overclocking and by using custom configurations. For the majority of consumers, these issues just don't come into play. This majority isn't interested in squeezing out every last MHz by making 20 BIOS adjustments and playing with voltages and step settings that push the envelope of stability.
On the other hand, there are those that DO want to push systems to the edge. Some go a bit to far (pardon the pun) and push the system over the edge through voltage burnouts, fried CPU's and leaking capacitors. Then there are the people that overclock without realizing that the overclocking process itself shortens the lifespan of ALL of the systems' components, never mind producing sometimes-unusual bugs. WAKE UP AND REMEMBER THAT IF YOU RUN OUT OF SPECIFICATION, YOU MAY HAVE PROBLEMS!
Yes, Asus ships with default voltages set too high. They do this to get better specifications and that is the ONLY reason. Users should lower the voltages to the correct settings to preserve components and increase stability.
Finally, we come to my favorite group of users. The people that bitch about problems THEY don't have, but have "Heard of". I had one guy point me to an article where you had to be in a very specific situation to replicate the problem. The only issue I had with this particular situation was that it would never be repeated as the particular configuration in question was so outlandish that nobody in his or her right mind would be running like that ANYWAY.
I mean why the hell would anyone put a Promise Ultra-100 controller in an Asus A7V133 Rev.1 board with an Ultra 160 SCSI Card, A sound blaster Live card, two NICs and two CD-Burners? This system wasn't designed for this kind of configuration so building it like this is just plain stupid. It's not the PC's fault it is the users.
Motherboard selection should be based on your needs. You figure out what you want to do with it and then select the best board, based on these needs and possible future requirements. No motherboard can be all things to all people, assuming so makes you more stupid than Intel in building the I845.
I haven't seen any truly bad boards since the I820 Chipsets (not including the I845 which is a fiasco in that the manufacturer (Intel) agrees that the CPU was not designed to run in this configuration!). Even the KT133 boards aren't as bad as some people would have you believe.
People come to this site for INSIGHT and ADVISE regarding which products to use for different circumstances and to get help fixing problems. Most of the problems (probably 95%) on here are FIXABLE, thus we experts should concentrate on giving good GENERAL advise when it comes to making recommendations for NEW hardware, and give our best insights on issues relating to fixing problems. We shouldn't waste our time slamming products that MAY be a decent solution for the mainstream, but less than perfect in a system that is overclocked by 25% with a deluge of odd components. We should point out possible weaknesses regarding overclocking, but again, with the insight to identify that there are truly no horrifically bad products besides I820 and I845 builds. In closing I would like to point out that the 440BX is probably STILL the best platform for managing PC133 RAM, a whopping 7 years after it came out! So while people are running around bitching about the I815E (which all of our business customers running office applications love BECAUSE of the onboard features, not despite them) and the KT133A, which people say have all kinds of problems, yet 99% of the KT133A user base can’t replicate, maybe we should concentrate on bigger and better things like how we can get the new IA-64 CPU’s to market quicker.
Oh yeah, we have two spec boards with the KT266A on them here and we love them. But then again, we never really bitched about the KT266 (other than it was slower than our 761 setups, which we knew about in advance anyway). All of the newest AMD support chipsets look fairly nice, each having little difference from the next, with very close specifications in most cases. We look for the best boards (in terms of stability FIRST and FOREMOST) and then look to performance after, but that's just us.
Steve Benoit
Stable Technologies
'The way IT should be!'
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