HELP

mason4 · Nov 8, 2002

Hello everyone,
Just wanted to know if this board is worth buying
ECS P4VXASD2 and a 2.26 GHz 533MHz FSB bare cpu.
Need to replace AMD 1800 on a soyo board that we are have lots of problems with bois, It is my lack of understanding how to flash bois, But tired of trying to get it to run at 133 FSB without locking up!
Thanks Dave
P.S. I have had lots of problems getting these new AMD boards to recognize the new chip at 133 FSB.
I have been told intel P4 does not have that same issue.

Edited by mason4 on 11/08/02 03:46 PM.

snotling · Nov 8, 2002

HUMM...

I don't understand the exact reason you switch to a P4...

Intel boards also have a BIOS you know?

why not keep the CPU and get the Best board for it?

Crashman · Nov 8, 2002

It's probably the blame of your board. If you have the CPU already you should simply replace your board. The best replacement for the money is the MSI 745 Ultra.

Getting the board to recognize the chip at 133? NOT! AMD doesn't use bus speed detection pins like Intel does. So with any AMD processor you DO have to set the bus speed manually at 133MHz. If the board you have doesn't work properly at 133MHz, it's probably either outdated (using the KT133 chipset) or junk, or you have a power problem.

ECS=junk. The best value in a P4 board is probably the Gigabyte GA-8SG667.

Worse the V in the model number probably indicates a VIA chipset for that P4 board. VIA chipsets are bad enough, but even a worse choice for a P4.

You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!

o1die · Nov 9, 2002

You can get by with the ecs board but use it with ddram; you'd be paying the equivalent of about $25 for the board over the price of the cpu only, which makes it almost free. Fry's will give you 30 days to return it for almost any reason, but only 15 to return the cpu. They give you a one year warranty on the cpu, but you have to pay $29.95 for a 2 year mobo warranty. Otherwise, you have to send it back to ecs after 30 days. The ecs board has few if any overclocking features. It also has slots for both sdram and ddram, which may not be as stable as ddram only. I don't know if the bios flash will fix the soyo board, but it's worth a try. It's not that hard to do.

Edited by o1die on 11/09/02 07:43 AM.

Mahogeny · Nov 11, 2002

Mason4:
A bit of warning. I purchased from Fry's yesterday the P4 2.26GZ CPU / ECS P4VXASD2+ motherboard combo and I'm having problems. Firstly, the system won't boot more than 1.7GZ and I can't get the board to even POST if I specify for it to boot at 133Mhz FSB. I believe I need to set it to 133 for it to boot with the proper CPU speed (1.33 x 1.7 = 2.26). Secondly, I have one stick of Crucial 256MB PC2100 2.5v DDR memory and, strangely enough, the system can only see about 130MB of it. I am wondering if the problem with the memory is also due to not being able to increase the FSB past the default 100Mhz speed...

Also, I don't have vast experience with motherboard (this is about my fifth or sixth motherboard) but never have I seen so many jumpers before and I'm annoyed that many of the things I need to change to test with are at the jumper level.

I submitted an email to ECS with a description of the CPU speed problem (I hadn't noticed the memory problem until it was later) so I will let you know what I find out if anyone's interested.

By the way, if anyone who reads this has any idea as to what I am doing wrong, or if I don't really have a 2.26Gz CPU or if it sounds like a bad motherboard, please.. let me know...

Hope that helps,
Mahogeny

PSULion · Nov 15, 2002

Thanks for the tip. I was eyeing that deal at Fry's but from your note and Crashman's view of the ECS boards and the VIA chipsets I may just keep looking. I was hoping this would be a good deal since I have the ATA 133 Maxtor Drive and want USB 2.0 (also firewire but this board does not support).

Any recommdations on a value board (I'm not really an overclocker)? Any idea if the P4's will be dropping more with the release of the 3.0+ GHz chips this week?

PSULion · Nov 15, 2002

Crashman, exactly what's the deal with the VIA chipset that makes it so bad for the P4. I was looking at the same deal but will likley pass on the ECS P4VXASD2+. What do do recommend as a solid P4 board for gaming (not much O/Cing), video editing with USB 2.0, firewire and support for the ATA DMA 133 drives?

Mahogeny · Nov 15, 2002

Note that I have NOT done a whole lot of homework on this but I read on anandtech.com in their (somewhat) weekly component guides that a good "value" board is the Albatron PX845PEV Pro i845PE. Note that someone else here at Tom's may have other ideas about what they would suggest for a good but inexpensive board. You should be able to grab one from newegg.com for about $93. I don't think there is any mainboard worth even looking for less than probably $70 (but I hope I'm wrong). Checkout www.pricewatch.com for good deals, and for retailers you are not sure of, look them up at www.resellerratings.com - I've never been steered wrong when ordering online by using these two sites

Good luck!
Sloan

Crashman · Nov 15, 2002

The best performing DDR board is the Gigabyte GA-8SG667, but you would still need a firewire card.

There are a lot of very nice i845PE chipset boards, but these don't support the worthless, useless ATA133 feature (no drives are actually this fast even if they support the "standard"). The 8SG667 DOES support ATA133, but that shouldn't even be a factor in your decision.

Anyway, you can see the 8SG667 <A HREF="http://www.giga-byte.com/products/8sg667.htm" target="_new">HERE</A> and the i845PE chipset 8PE667 <A HREF="http://www.giga-byte.com/products/8pe667ultra.htm" target="_new">HERE</A>.

VIA has always made garbage. And their latest garbage violates US patent laws. I hope Intel starts suing individual owners for purchasing boards with these chipsets.

You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!

PSULion · Nov 16, 2002

Crashman, I see you have strong views on the issue with the ATA 133. From what I have read I could have just purchased an ATA 100 HDD. I guess that's what it will be running at on my new mobo. I'm just curious if youknow how the ATA 133 thing came about anyway. Seems dumb to sell these HDD's with the spec if it's worthless.

Thanks for the recommedations, I will check these out. What's your take on firewire cards? Just anything will do or are there better or worse ones? (I know this is not a video forum!)

andlcs · Nov 16, 2002

Is SiS chipsets reliable?
I prefer VIA/nVIDIA than SiS in AMD mobos... As for P4 chipsets I would go w/ Intel (since VIA make chipsets w/o licence)
Why u don't like VIA chipsets? I have the old VIA Apollo Pro 133A and never had problems with it. And which one would you choose in my place when I bought my computer: Intel 440BX, i810 or VIA 694X?

ps-> Say the true... U like the P4X400 chipset don't you? (kiding...)
Edited by andlcs on 11/15/02 08:09 PM.

Unolocogringo · Nov 16, 2002

The Apollo Pro 133a was about 15% to 20% slower than a BX chipset board. Even when set to 4x in the bios ..

Plus it did not support AGP4x or 4/way memory interleave. You install a fast video card and the chipset would revert to 2x.

Thie PCI bus was limited to 25 to 27mbs instead of the spec of 33mbs. Soo all in all it was a terribl performing chipset.

I aint signing nothing!!!

Crashman · Nov 16, 2002

ATA133 has a MAX data transfer limit of 133MB/s. But no drives can average even half that. It's mostly a marketing gimick, ATA66 is just as fast for large file transfers. But then ATA66 wouldn't be fast enough for RAID with newer drives to be optimized. Anyway, it can help cache burst mode, but drive cache is relatively small (512kb-8MB) and used up rather quickly.

ATA133 was supposed to enable the use of larger drives I think, but I can't remember what the limit for ATA100 was, I just remember that it was so high as to be a non-issue for most builders.

IIRC ATA133 was a colaboration between Maxtor and VIA to come up with a new standard, not to increase performance, but to increase sales. SiS probably got the standard free, as Maxtor would want it to be widely supported in order to promote the sale of their drives.

As far as Firewire cards go, they probably use the same chips you'd find with onboard Firewire. Adaptec makes a nice combo card with Firewire and USB 2.0, but you wouldn't need the extra USB ports. ATI makes the Radeon 8500DV video card with a firewire port also, and a couple soundcards have them as well.

You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!

Crashman · Nov 16, 2002

SiS is far more reliable than VIA, better stability, better compatability, fewer bugs (in fact, none that I know of). VIA chipsets still have some problems with some sound cards that no other chipsets exhibit. And previous VIA chipsets had truely horrible compatability issues. Anyway, I've listed probably 15 or so common cards that have had problems with only VIA chipsets at one time or another over the past 2 years.

And then theirs the fact that VIA used extorsion to prevent motherboard manufacturers from using the SiS 735 chipset at a time when it outperformed anything VIA had to offer, causing several manufacturers to drop finished designs based on it (including Abit and MSI).

The BX still blows away anything else available for the old PIII processors, far more stable and compatable, and better performing, than even the i815EP. The only thing that could compare to it was the i840, and that was the expensive RDRAM chipset for PIII workstations. VIA chipsets for the PIII were turds, underperforming even the i815, and this was at a time when VIA had far more problems than they do now.

Now the latest chipsets from VIA still underperform those from SiS. I've seen problems with SiS648 boards from Asus and a couple other companies that are indicative of sloppy board design, as the Gigabyte GA-8SG667 doesn't exhibit these problems. If you're tied to Asus and want a good inexpensive chipset, I recommend their 645DX board, the P4S533, instead, as their 648 board, the P4S8X, is very low grade.

You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!

Mahogeny · Nov 16, 2002

Actually, I got my problems fixed. The memory problems were due to not having the EXACT correct settings in BIOS and the system not booting up at 2.26Ghz was due to a silly documentation flaw that I have already emailed ECS about. For the full scoop on this, see this thread at www.techsupportforums.com:
http://www.techsupportforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=24182#post24182

Mahogeny/Sloan

DrJeckyl · Nov 16, 2002

Just so you all know, the GA-8PE667U does support ATA133 over the promise RAID controller. All you have to do is set it in the bios to run as ATA133 IDE instead of RAID.
Even though, just like Crash said, it does nada!
But, if you really like this feature, you do have that option on this board as well.

andlcs · Nov 16, 2002

And then theirs the fact that VIA used extorsion to prevent motherboard manufacturers from using the SiS 735 chipset at a time when it outperformed anything VIA had to offer, causing several manufacturers to drop finished designs based on it (including Abit and MSI).

(Shocked)

The BX still blows away anything else available for the old PIII processors, far more stable and compatable, and better performing, than even the i815EP. The only thing that could compare to it was the i840, and that was the expensive RDRAM chipset for PIII workstations. VIA chipsets for the PIII were turds, underperforming even the i815, and this was at a time when VIA had far more problems than they do now.

But I needed a chipset w/ 133MHz FSB support (and in that time there was no i815 yet)

SidVicious · Nov 16, 2002

I know that no HDD can fill up a 133MB/s IDE channel but the onboard HDD cache memory can. The cache memory on Maxtor's drive is PC133 instead of the PC100 SDRAM found on the others...

Fok Speling Misstake

Kronos · Nov 17, 2002

Heh....these are Pro-Business conservative times. You will be waiting a long time for the vast majority of consumer VIA users to be prosecuted by the vote hungry conservative elite. Then again...many conservative supporters are "sheep" anyway and the opposition indifferent to political meanderings. It may be enough that they are threatened by loss of their first born male children (It could happen in such apathetic times) to force compliance with such shallow governmental regulation. Besides...when was the last time any Corporate Elite were thrown in the "hoosegow" under conservative management? WorldCom...Enron...Microsoft...yes and even VIA? Didn`t think so. If one wants the powerful made accountable then the answer is to vote for those who will do just that.

I want to die like my Grandfather...in my sleep...not screaming in terror like his passengers.Edited by Kronos on 11/16/02 07:52 PM.

Crashman · Nov 17, 2002

BX supports 133MHz "unoficially" and does so better than any other chipset. I run my BA6+III at 150MHz all the without problems.

You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!

Crashman · Nov 17, 2002

Yes, but the difference in actual performance is extremely small.

You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!

Crashman · Nov 17, 2002

So we should vote for liberals so they can publicly cry over the problem? I certainly don't see any strong MODERATES running that would do anything about it.

You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!

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