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For those of you with experience with them, what's your opinion of VIA chipsets?

In my research for my next upgrade, I see good reviews on the Abit KT7A-RAID (usingVIA KT133A chipset). I'm tempted by the RAID and the 6 PCI, 1 ISA slots. However, a couple friends tell me 'For the love of god don't do it!'.

It seems they've experienced wierd compatibility issues (esp with sound/video cards) that made them end up spending days instead of hours getting the rig stable. Both of them just ended up forgoing all the nice features of the ABit and going with ASUS (A7V).

Any comments?
 
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Both the abit and the asus use the VIA KT133A chipset, so whatever problems they had, it wasn't due to the chipset. I myself have had both mainboards and te nd to like the abit a bit better cuz of the softbios for overclocking. And the 6 pci /1 isa also did it for me, stil having an isa card i dont want to get rid off
:p


Passoa :)
 

RavenPrime

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Dec 31, 2007
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Via does have a bad history of unstable chipsets but the latest ones esp. the kt133 are very stable once you upgrade the drivers with the latest 4in1 driver currently v4.25a.

Unstable chipsets has been the bane of AMD's existence but both AMD and VIA have done an excellent job of fixing those problems. Now they just have to overcome that bad reputation.

<i>So what if I don't NEED 170fps. Your point is what?</i> :cool: James
 

phsstpok

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Dec 31, 2007
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If you don't need RAID don't get it. Save yourself $30 and save one IRQ. (Although, the availability of 8 IDE devices vs 4 devices would be nice).

My KT7 has run great for 3 months. Just the initial installation of the Via 4-in-1 drivers, ver 4.25a and absolutely no BIOS updates needed for stability. I have a 5-6 year-old Turtle Beach sound card, ISA. That works too. On a KT7 family board just remember when you change or move I/O cards, in the BIOS you must enable "Reset Configuration Data". You will avoid a lot of Resource Conflict headaches if you do.


Here is a great guide that will help you avoid instability problems.

http://www.icrontic.com/faqs/kt7faq/faqinstability.html

Good luck with whatever you choose.
 
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I just got a KT7A Raid. This board is super stable and fast. No compatibility probs. I'm using beta 4.28 as well. This board has a lot of bells and whistles, if you don't need them buy a KT7A instead. Most of the problems people report seem to be resource conficts. Don't install hardware which you don't need and you'll minimize your troubles. With careful planning you can avoid most of the trouble. Read "Pauls Unofficial FAQ for KT7 KT7 Raid ..." Very helpful. Saved me a ton of work.
 
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I don't know why a keep on hearing people dissing VIA chipsets. I have worked with well over 50+ via chipset motherboards and they have worked just as good as an intel chipset.

I can see lots of people running into problems if you go out and buy some cheap motherboard with a via chipset and have problems with them. But if you stick to the GOOD motherboard manufactures like I have (EX ASUS, ABIT) you won't run into any problems.
 
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I don't know why a keep on hearing people dissing VIA chipsets. I have worked with well over 50+ via chipset motherboards and they have worked just as good as an intel chipset.

I can see lots of people running into problems if you go out and buy some cheap motherboard with a via chipset and have problems with them. But if you stick to the GOOD motherboard manufactures like I have (EX ASUS, ABIT) you won't run into any problems.