A7V build from the How To:

[Sumadin]

Hello All
I've been loving this web site.
Man the socket A boards are coming out fast and furious.
I'm just about ready to start shelling out some cash for the components listed in the How To: section.
I see alot of posts around with people having problems with the A7V.
Should I go for the A7V133 mobo instead?
If this is the one with the new southbridge chipset, I'm wary about the effects on game performance.
But 133MHz sounds so good.
I really wanna get going on this.
I'm having EverQuest withdrawals :} LOL
Anyone with a nice A7V rig out there? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I wanna do this right(the 1st time)
haha

Thanks Guys

<font color=red>Sumadin</font color=red><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Sumadin on 01/19/01 11:57 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Bubba]

I've got an A7V and a Duron @950.
I can walk you through it with no problem.
But you need to tell me all the parts you are going to use. Details are important.

 

[lrmv]

I just built an A7V system from scratch. I must say, with all problems I've read about on this and other forums, I was really afraid when I was about to apply the power for the first time. But... no problems at all!!!

I have been very carefully in selecting the devices I was going to use and I have built it all together very carefully. I think that's the key to success.

I use a good power supply, Crucial PC133 CAS2 RAM, Hercules Prophet GTS2 PRO video card, Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Player (slot 3) and 3COM 3C905B Combo network card (slot 5).
I have NOT reserved IRQ's for legacy devices. I did disable serial port 2 to free an extra IRQ; I just use 1 serial port for my external modem.

When I first started the system up only these devices where present: video card and floppy drive. All other cards were removed and no harddisk nor CD drive was present. I have started the system up with a Win98 boot disk. The first thing I did was to update the bios to version 1005c. To do this I created a disk with the bios image and AFLASH on it on my old PC. Then I restarted and, activated the bios setup where I loaded the setup defaults. I left system performance to OPTIMAL.
Then I connected all drives (Harddisk to promise controller) and started installing WinME.

 

[Bubba]

Please, everyone trying to get an A7V to work, read Lrmv's post and do exactly what he did. That way you won't have any problems.

I'm just happy to see that someone is listening to me.
Thanks Lrmv !!!

*Warning*
This was posted solely to increase my post count and may not contain any relevant info

 

[lrmv]

Actually, it's LRMV. I know it's not very clear...

 

[xenite]

So the question is which is better for the gamer? A7V or A7V133? Or something else?

Beware the Sword of the Righteous, for it's hard to tell where the handle ends and the blade begins.

 

[Sumadin]

I had read that the new southbridge seemed to slow down the northbridge on the A7V.
The northbridge works with the AGP correct?
Meaning that the new southbridge would effect video performance.
But I beleive the A7V133 has a different northbridge.
I saw no info regarding the southbridge having an adverse affect on the northbridge on the A7V133.
Seems to me the A7V133 would be a better choice than the A7V. I could go with a cheaper Athlon for now and when the Athlon-c CPU's come down in price I'd be all set.
DDR is outta my financial realm for the forseeable future.
Seems too early in its introduction to dive in now anyhow.

I assume the A7V133 would use same bios upgrades as the A7V?

Please correct me if I am wrong

These forums are awesome!
I'm glad I stumbled across this web site while researching.






<font color=red>Sumadin</font color=red>


<font color=blue>"A mind is a terrible thing"</font color=blue><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by sumadin on 01/22/01 05:41 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Bubba]

I wouldn't assume that the same bios updates can be used for both boards. Be careful.

*Warning*
This was posted solely to increase my post count and may not contain any relevant info