Help--Athlon 1.33G scores a dismal 3DMark

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
For those guys who cant build a system !!!
Here is my advice : DO NOT DO IT !!!
Go to the store and buy a brand name computer !
If you feel brave enough to build yourself ,then dont complain when something goes wrong ! Find the solution or forget it !!!
I have a P3-1000 and a AMD 1.33 and I dont care what will be my next proc name Intel,AMD,Cyrix! WHO CARE ???
If the price/performance is good I gonna buy !
Both system had problem as well ! But I never complain why I bought this why not the others ! This is very lame !
And one more thing . Stop this stuipid AMD vs Intel war people who come here looking for solution for their problem not just read some 14 years old kids 50 post long bullshit !
You dont wanna loose this forum ! DO YOU ?
 
First off I want to say that any time you replace a motherboard, if you don't reformat, reinstall your OS your just asking for heartache, this should not be considered a last ditch effort but a neccesity. This would Apply if you were going from a via platform to an intel platform as well. Secondly, I am not sure if it effects your exact model number but IWILL had a recent recall on a certain model of there motherboards, check to make sure yours is not effected. After a reformat you should install your OS of choice with just the video card. After the OS is in place, install your via agp drivers, then install your video card drivers.
Does your motherboard have an onboard promise controller or RAID setup? If so did you install the drivers for it?
This process I would still highly recomend even if you were going from the bx to an I815 motherboard ( exception being the 4n1's)

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!
 
come on Tonestar.....Do you really think the guys problems have anything to do with the Processor? You know as well as I do it is the chipset...VIA. Seeing how you have an Intel system with a via chipset help him out a bit. And BTW, SMP will not do him a bit of good with 98SE.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!
 
i'm truly sorry you feel this way and for your trouble. i have no explanation. i've put together many athlon systems (as well as intel before you flaming bastards jump all over me) with no trouble at all. all run well to this day. everyting from classics to t-bird 'c's. many people i know have done the same. no chiped die's, no thermal issues (many overclocked)....my only suggestion to people who've had this problem is to gain more experience and to be more careful. is it worth the money to replace damaged parts over paying someone to build your system?

At the core of every system: "I'm sorry dave, i'm afraid i can't do that."
 
Ok. Wether it be the processor or the chipset, I can't say for sure. I've checked out other posts with the same setup and they are blaming other components. But why step into a minefield when you can just buy an Intel cpu. Does the discount really mean that much after you spend hours shuffling cards, flashing bios, reloading drivers and sometimes waiting months for the right update to come along? I think not. Once you have it running right then comes along the urge to tweak it. And then BANG!! BOING!! WHAM!!...somethings stuffed....oh it's my cpu. Is it all worth it? No. And yes if he doesn't know how to build a system maybe he shouldn't try but he sounds like he has enough experience. Its all part of being in the AMD club. Kinda like walking the streets late at night. Do it long enough and you'll probably get raped. A few people in this forum have been raped. AMD USES NO PROTECTION PEOPLE!!! Screw with them and you'll get aids and die a squealing maggot!! As for the VIA chipset, my board drives both my 733's hard and fast. I sorted out a modem problem the day I got it and it hasn't crashed once since. I walk the planet content, smiling with joy and happiness because Intel took care of me.
Thanks for letting me in on that secret about 98se. One of my duallies runs NT and the other W2K. You are soooo clever, yes 98se doesn't support dual's. Wait I think my neighbours four year old told me that ages ago.

"Cock-a-doodle-do" is what I say to my girl when I wake her UP in the morning!!
 
Followup: I finally broke down and bought a new hard drive so I could install a fresh clean copy of Windows 98SE to test the board. It failed miserably. I called Iwill and they said that I would need to exchange the board for a new one since they had "never heard" of my problems with the KK266.

It's actually worse than before. Now I cannot run 3DMark2001 at all. It just crashes before the first test completes.

The USB ports don't work either. They continue to freeze up at random intervals, about 3 to 15 minutes after a reboot. I hate Tom's Hardware and Anandtech now, for recommending the KT133A chipset. It is immature and buggy, and should not be recommended to anyone. Stick with Intel guys.

I cannot get a refund on the board, nor can I get a refund on the Athlon 1333 processor. Apparently the dealer knows all too well that most of its customers will never get the thing to work reliably, so they don't accept refunds on them. I'm out $400 worth of stuff on this project. I'm going to cut my losses now and purchase a Pentium 4 system, as much as it pains me to support companies like Rambus. Ugh.

Consumer agencies really ought to be contacted and alerted regarding companies such as Via that make such shoddy products and distribute them as finished products.
 
AMD is not at fault. Once again, <b>THANKS TO THE [-peep-]IEST CHIPSET MAKER OF ALL TIME VIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</b>

From now on when someone asks you how fast your computer is, tell them your benchmark scores.
 
I only wish I could myself give it a go with your components to see if it was in fact a faulty motherboard or just operator error. You may be totally correct if you got a bad motherboard, you never will get it to work right. Thats not an AMD problem or a via problem it would be a Iwill problem. Btw are you saying that your usb ports freeze up?

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!
 
Sorry to hear about your situation man seriously. Good luck with what ever you get next. Always remember one thing, no matter what review you read always jump on a forum to see what problems come with it. Just check out all the problem AMD posts on this forum. What software do you run dude? Maybe a dual P3 setup might be good for you? My VIA 694xdp chipset runs my dual 733's just fine. I always get 97% to 100% cpu utilisation in CAD and 3D Max. No conflicting IRQ's, hangs or crashes. Life is just beautiful. Thank you Intel for taking care of me.

"Cock-a-doodle-do" is what I say to my girl when I wake her UP in the morning!!
 
Just check out all the problem VIA posts on this forum, is what is it. AMD is not at fault, however it's unfortunate it's the AMD <i>platform</i> which has problems.

From now on when someone asks you how fast your computer is, tell them your benchmark scores.
 
I don't see how operator error could come into play here. There is not much to screw up. It's just a motherboard, cpu, cooler, psu, harddrive, memory. You just plug it all in and go. The parts only fit together one way. It's impossible to screw up.

I install Windows 98SE, Via chipset drivers (4in1 4.29 the latest available), latest NVidia Detonator drivers, DirectX 8, and 3DMark2001. No-go. How can operator error be introduced? If there is a lack of information or documentation on how to make this stuff work, that is not "operator error". That is simply Via not giving a damn about their customers, the people that pay their unearned salaries.

AMD's incompetence is also on display. How? Because they allow their nice chip to run on crap like the KT133A chipset. If they were smart, they would revoke Via's license and produce their own chipsets, like Intel does.

Here's a tip for AMD: The only way to do anything right is to do it yourself.

By the way, the RAM is Mushkin PC133 Rev3 SDRAM, "guaranteed to run CL2 at 150 MHz", although I don't because I want to make sure that everything on this rig is conservative and "stable". (HA!)
 
They do make their own chipsets. The AMD760 is the best chipset available for the AMD platform. If you didn't buy it it's not AMD's fault.

From now on when someone asks you how fast your computer is, tell them your benchmark scores.
 
Oh, about the USB ports. Yes they do freeze up, but I am going to give them a chance to correct this with a swapout of the board. They asked to replace the board for me, and I agreed. The reason I'm giving them this is that it's a problem I have not seen anyone discuss before, so I'm hoping that this is just an aberration. It happens. Maybe I have one of the unlucky 1-in-1000 boards that got screwed at the factory. So, I'm waiting for a new board to come in next week to try out.

I've also arranged to upgrade to an Enermax 350W PSU.

I will update this again when those things happen. If it's still screwed up after all that, well then Via is just a company I will never do business with again, and will strongly discourage anyone else to as well. That probably means that I will have to lose my Athlon and go with Intel, since there aren't any other Athlon chipsets that are any better unfortunately. I hope they will exchange otherwise I lose a lot of money here.
 
Please go with an AMD760 board. The chipset is wonderful, unlike VIA crap.

From now on when someone asks you how fast your computer is, tell them your benchmark scores.
 
I just bought this Mushkin RAM a little over a month ago. So, you can see why I'm hesitant to lose that investment by purchasing a 760 board, which requires yet another new RAM investment.

Also, at this point I am extremely wary of investing in a brand-new chipset, with no idea of how stable it is. I hope by this time you can understand the source of my skepticism at non-Intel chipsets. If there is any reason why I should trust in the reliability of the 760 chipset after this experience that I've had with Via, please enlighten me.
 
Yes, I see....

However, they are two totally different chipsets, and I don't remember ever seeing any problem/complaints with the chipset.

From now on when someone asks you how fast your computer is, tell them your benchmark scores.
 
What would be cool is if Intel would just dump the whole Pentium4 group and concentrate all their efforts on making a GREAT chipset for the AMD Athlon. I think that would be the best of all possible worlds.
 
LOL I have to agree. Intel is awsome at making chipsets. Maybe they should just make chipsets?

From now on when someone asks you how fast your computer is, tell them your benchmark scores.
 
Hey, do not take offense, It is so hard to tell ones level of expertise when communicating this way. The USB problem is a new one indeed. I do know that earlier revisions of your motherboard were recalled. Whether or not yours was is hard to say. Have you tried all this with the usb disabled to see if this is the source of the problem?

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!
 
Yeah the USB is disabled now. I'm on analog 56K modem until the replacement board comes in.

I really wish I knew a month ago what I know now. I could have saved myself a lot of money and heartache. I don't know that I would have gone with the 760 chipset either, since you can't change the clock multiplier. (I love to overclock, but so far this system I have now has been too unstable to try it.)

What bothers me is the Via "4in1" drivers and how crappy they are. It bothers me that you can't select DMA using Device Manager without simultaneously disabling the drivers altogether. It bothers me that what little documentation seems to be written in pig-English. You can tell when technical documenation was translated by a Chinese person who didn't make very good grades in his English classes. (Applies to pretty much all Via-related motherboards.) If I'd gone with the 760 chipset, at least the documentation would have been written by an American and that would be nice to see right about now. It also bothers me that users are left out in the cold to sort it all out for themselves, and experienced Intel people that are new to the whole AMD scene (such as myself) must sort through thousands and thousands of posts all over the Internet to find out basic information just to get a Via chipset board to run. It bothers me that the primary method of fixing problems is to edit binary code with WPCREDIT, and that this dismal situation is accepted by the Via community as "normal".

I never realized how backward the whole Via chipset community is, and that NONE of this information is provided as a warning by people like Tom Pabst. He is out there evangelizing Via's chipsets, which may very well be 10 years behind the rest of the world in quality, stability and usability. He does not give any of the negatives at all. Why? For years I thought Toms Hardware was a fair, objective viewpoint. Heh, what a fool I was.
 
Your not using the via busmaster drivers are you????? OMG! If that is the case uninstall them immediatly. The only driver you should use from the 4n1 driver set is the agp driver and nothing else. The microsoft default drivers for yor ide devices are by far the best.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!
 
Interesting because I have this motherboard KK266 as well and its been stable from the get go. Have you updated the bios to the newest, 0416? Which fixes the 686b problem in corruption and much better burnning with cdrs plus many more ram options to increase speed. Download from here:
<A HREF="http://support.iwill.net/index_e.html" target="_new">http://support.iwill.net/index_e.html</A>

Also here is another resource dealing with the KK266(R) which could be very helpful:

<b><font color=purple>The Unoffical Iwill KK266 FAQ and Guide</b></font color=purple>
<A HREF="http://fullon3d.com/kk266faq/kk266faq.shtml#Bios Optim" target="_new">http://fullon3d.com/kk266faq/kk266faq.shtml#Bios Optim</A>

Oh yes with my rather slow 866mhz T-Bird I scored 3407 in 3dMark2001 with this motherboard and a Radeon64 Vivo.

Work the problem and enjoy your success.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 04/21/01 04:34 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom