I'm worried for my friend

Spitfire_x86

Splendid
Jun 26, 2002
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My friend had to buy K8T800 based ASUS K8V-X for his new A64 based system. There was not a single other A64 mobo in the market except a K8M800 based Asrock µATX mobo. Few days ago, they had an nForce3 250 based ASUS K8N-E but it was out of stock.

He won't overclock, he just wants a stable system which has to last years. The system will be used for casual use, such as preparing college assignment, undergraduate level programming practice and light gaming. Was it very wrong to go with this mobo? It seems to be a cheapened up version of ASUS K8V series mobos. When they bought the first one of these to build the system, it failed to boot out of the box. Then they had to swap it with another one.

Generally early Athlon "classic" adopters were enthusiasts. However quite a few people have used these rubbish early Slot-A Athlon mobos for some years. And I've seen many people who use PC as intelligent typewriter, are using their trash VIA's P3 chipset based systems for years. So I can be optimistic, can't I? 🙁
 
[/shrug]
It's obviously not the optimal chipset/mobo, but for his usage it should work. Just hope that Via supports the chipset with driver updates and you don't run into uber compatibility/reliability issues.
 
For non-OC, and basic tasks it will be fine. What Rugger said for the potential problems. Usually you won't have any, but sometimes...

I have 2 Via chipset PC's - My 'new' XP2600 (KT600) and an old 1ghz Tbird (KT133a). Both are fine.

Mike.
 
No, he won't use Creative sound cards. For graphics card he will be sticking with R9250SE for a while, so no potential problem there, too.

If fishmahn's KT133A system is still alive, then hopefully this be okay too.
 
Via is under a lot of preasure to do better. They have to make thier products and support a viable option
I have an Abit s939 board, with a via chipset. It has been flawless, even with a 25% OC. That doesn't mean I'd trust a via chipset on an ECS, or PC chips board, but on Abit, Asus or gigabyte boards, they should be fine.
 
I use via chipsets with agp on both my 754 and 939 system. No problems so far. The 754 has built in video that works very well for low to medium resolution. The 939 has dual core support with a bios update.
 
I put that board thru h.., umm, a lot. 24/7 operation for over 3 years, cheap PSU that came with the case (and the PSU fan quit after less than a year - but I did nothing for 2 more), Slight overclock on generic (not stock, generic) everything (just 105 fsb), etc. Still runs great & has 512meg of ram, but I'm waiting for $ to recover the stuff on its dead HDD, so I'm using just my 2600 instead of both. I don't miss the xtra cpu much...

Mike.