The KG7 - a bad card for multimedia?

[Guest]

I bought an abit kg7 and I experience bad sound reproduction now. The new PC skips and skitter when playing both mp3's and CD's, even when it's doing nothing else. If I copy and do other tasks, e.g. surf the net it gets even worse, and the sound hisses at me and behaves weird.

My system:
abit kg7-raid / tbird 1400 / taisol ckg760
512 micron ddr
soundblaster live! player
western digital hd
smc networkcard

and so on.

I have asked everywhere about this, but most forums have closed down or got broken after I have asked, so now I am trying here. I have heard this comes from a conflict between the 686b southbridge and the live!-card.

Is this so?
Will the skitter go away if I invest in an audigy-card?
Or can Abit release a new biosversion, which fixes this issue?

In front, Thanks for your replies

 

[Guest]

Are you sure you dont have an interference problem, try moving speakers away from the pc ,or check the wires.
I have an Abit KG-7 (non raid) and soundblaster live and have got no problems.
Just a thought but is this when playing from the CD? I once had a cheap CD drive that caused a constant hum through the speakers when operating.

"If it ain't broke, it soon will be"

 

[Delf]

I have similar problem with the KG7, expect for me there is no skipping just crashes sometimes... I downloaded a newer version of VIA 4 in1 but I did not have time to test yet.

Could you tell us where are your pci cards ( wich slots) and your configuration KKDFOS?

Athlon 1.4
Abit KG7-Lite
256 meg DDR @ 266mhz
SbLive 5.1
Asus Geforce3 Pure
windows 98


Delf

 

[Guest]

There is no interference-problems about, and I have used the rest of my system perfectly with a se6 mainboard with a pentium 3/866 installed. You're kg7-lite lack the 686b south-bridge, because that is part of the raid-controller, (I think.) Or something. I don't understand very much of them chipsets, but anyhow. I have tried everything, and this is bound to be a hardware-issue, I just want to confirm it by someone else.

I don't know what kkdfos is, but the live!-card is placed at the second pci-slot, if the first one is the one next to the AGP-slot.

 

[njeske]

The 686B is still on all the KG7 models. The KG7-Raid just has another IDE/RAID controller in addition to the 686B southbridge.

I am almost positive the problems you are having are with the SB Live! and 686B southbridge compatibility issues. Read the FAQ on Abit's site regarding BIOS settings if you have a SB Live! series card. They tell you what PCI setting changes to make to improve the sound quality. I made these changes on my KT7A-Raid board and it made a huge difference with no loss in system performance.


<font color=red>"I'm not gonna launch a $2 million missile at a $10 tent and hit a camel's butt." -Bush</font color=red>

 

[Delf]

KDDFOS is the name of the guy that replied to the first post :-D


Delf

 

[Nightowl]

There's good information on setting up and dealing with problems for KG7-R here: <A HREF="http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kg7kr7/sound.htm" target="_new">Paul's Unofficial Abit KG7-Raid & KR7-Raid FAQ</A>

 

[Guest]

Thanks folks. I am not home now i realize, I am at my parents place until sunday, and now I have all this information and I can't do nothing about it! So this is a bad thing, but I must be hard so I can study and concentrate and be social and so on. Thanks again, I think the answer is somewhere in there

Maroder_S

 

[FatBurger]

We'll just keep bumping it so you don't have to dig for it again!

<font color=green>I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP</font color=green>

 

[Guest]

I run a KG7-Raid with a SoundBlaster X-Gamer and am having great luck with it. HOWEVER, I did notice when I was first building my computer everything seemed to post to the same IRQ. (And the computer acted like a dork!)

Experiment with which slot your sound card (and other PCI cards too) is in to get minimum IRQ sharing on your post screen.

(you can hit Pause when the post screen gets to the part where it shows the IRQ assignments and just turn off your computer then if you want to re-shuffle to save time instead of waiting for windows to start and try to install the cards each time you make a switch)

Note: be sure to uninstall the software for the card you are moving and then shutdown windows (NOT restart) when you are going to try moving it if its software is already installed.

My setup:

GeForce2 GTS (AGP)
NetGear FA10TX (Slot 2)
SoundBlaster X-Gamer (slot 4)

Be sure to steer clear of slot 5 if you can.. it shares IRQ with hpt370 IDE controller (Raid version only)

Finally: (all the 'pat' answers)
Be sure to install latest 4-in-one drivers (4.33)(do NOT install the AGP part, just the others) <A HREF="http://www.viahardware.com/download/index.shtm#4in1" target="_new">http://www.viahardware.com/download/index.shtm#4in1</A>
Latest AGP Miniport drivre (4.08) <A HREF="http://www.amd.com/" target="_new">http://www.amd.com/</A>
Latest BIOS (4J) <A HREF="http://www.abit-usa.com/eng/download/bios/bios-kg7.htm" target="_new">http://www.abit-usa.com/eng/download/bios/bios-kg7.htm</A>

 

[Boondock_Saint]

The KG7, like all 686B Southbridge equipped mainboards, has problems with Soundblaster Live! cards, until the BIOS and other updates are installed.

 

[Guest]

yep, yep, yep....

That's why the windy posting.....

If you install most recent stufforz right, this MoBo is a dream! (686 and all)