What is best board for Athlon 1.4ghz?

[Jimbo29]

I currently have a K7s5a motherboad, and am curious about the best motherboard for the athlon 1.4ghz. I've read good reviews about the abit kg7-raid and the epox+8kha. I am interested in a good gaming board. If I continue to have problems with my K7s5a I'll be lookin for something else. What do you suggest?

K7s5a MOBO
AMD Athlon 1.4ghz
64m GeForce 2 mx 400
PC2100 DDR-SDram
24x10x40 cd-rw

 

[2ndtonunn]

We build plenty of systems with the same spec as yours and experience very few problems, before you ditch the board check the Ram, there's some suspect stuff around.

 

[paparazi]

The Via KT266a chipset is King of the chipsets at the moment, for AMD Durons, Athlons and Palomino XP's. It is proving to be the fastest and most stable platform and has taken the performance crown away from the SIS 735 that you have on your board.
I have just made this same decision and have been reading up on all the reviews so here goes.
Best raid boards: Soyo Dragon and Abit KR7A-raid (ATA133)
Best non raid: Soltek SL-75DRV4 (ATA133)
Gigabyte GA-7VTXE (ATA100)Good value!
The two boards you chose: KG7-Raid (last years best!)
Based on the slower AMD760 chipset.
Epox 8KHA+ (very good KT266a board, but not as stable as some) Soltek SL-75DRV4 Better! same price, more stable and with ATA133 support. ALSO!!!!! Purple Ray! COOOOOOL Purple PCB, very nice with a clear sided case! Martin Vote if you found this post helpful please!!

 

[Jakespeare]

Check out the hardware pro sites on the internet, for very exacting and rigorously tested mainboard reviews.

> What your looking for is reviews of the KT266A chipset
based mainboards:

My favorite:

http://www.anandtech.com

VIA KT266A Motherboard Roundup - January 2002

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1578

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/

If you want unbiased, and REALLY professional reviews, Anandtech is the excellent.

 

[Jimbo29]

Concerning the RAM. is there a particular brand that works best? I have pc2100 - 256 mb.. not sure what brand. i experience keyboard and mouse not booting on intial boot as my main (and possibly my only)problem.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Kingston or Crucial RAM are best. Use Registered RAM if you want to use your board's full potential.

I hope this helps

 

[Scotsdude]

I'd say use the Gigabyte GA7VTXE mobo.

I currently have one, with a AMD Duron 950MHz purring away on it.
It's an extremely stable board, and runs games with no probs whatsoever, and that's with a much lower spec than yours...

GA7-VTXE MOBO
AMD Duron 950Mhz
32m GeForce 2 mx 200
128 Mb PC2100 DDR-SDram

The on-board sound isn't too bad either, although it mught be advisable to buy a dedicated sound card, because the onboard sound does steal some processor time, but nothing which is too noticeable on my system, so shouldn't be much of a problem on yours.

Scotsdude

 

[Rhort]

If your machine's a bit flaky, Jimbo, I'd also suggest checking the PSU out. Make sure that the wattage and rating are as advertised. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen reports of problems on 1Ghz+ systems running on descent boards (such as the one you have, which is excellent, BTW) which have been down to a pants PSU.

Check out the Hardware Analysis website at

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com

and look in the "Latest Topics" section, there's been quite a bit of activity there in relation to your board of late. The in-house tech support specialist there, a guy called Robert Kropiewnicki is an expert in this sort of thing.

 

[paparazi]

ECS K7S5a revision 1, did have a few compatibility issues (4* below last slot)
Flash bios to latest version.
3a (latest) more stable. Martin Vote if you found this post helpful please!!

 

[Jimbo29]

does my bios setup tell me what version I'm running? i just bought the board, v3.1 does it have the latest bios?

james


vote if you think i'm a moron... lol

 

[paparazi]

Sorry Jimbo29, I meant V3.1, and it is the latest version.
Just a note* my local vendor uses a lot of these boards, 5-15 a day, and one thing he has noticed is they don't like SDram PC133. If ever he has a problem (and there have been all sorts) with this board, swopping the SDram for DDR nearly always cures them.
You're gonna tell me U R already using DDR so ignore this.
Martin Vote if you found this post helpful please!!

 

[Guest_imported]

im running pc133 sdram, could this be why my k7s5a system gets a "windows protection error, you must restart your computer. system halted" error? It boots fine if i do a step by step confirmation boot

 

[paparazi]

Yes as I said, if you have an early board then flashing the bios may help but in certain configurations they just don't like SDram! don't know why! It's only because I see so many returned for random faults that I know this and nearly all are cured when they are changed over to DDR.
Having said all of that! you are showing classic memory error faults, so just replacing what may well be a faulty stick of SDram for the same could well cure your problem.
I must say one last thing, I did have a K7S5a rev 4* (first version)that I had to replace, with similar problems to yours, no matter what I did I would get errors when using the restart boot, it was OK when booting fully.
Just couldn't cure it. Martin Vote if you found this post helpful please!!

 

[MSeven20]

The problems with the ECS K7S5a might be the motherboard + 1400 cpu combination. I bought another ECS board, the K7VZA, wich was advertized as capable of using Athlons up to 1200 mhz. I tried to use a Athlon 1200 in it, but it was seriously unstable, would not run at all at 133 bus speed. I put a duron 800, then a Duron 1000 in it and it worked perfectly.
The K7S5A was advertized to run an Athlon up to 1400 mhz. I have seen many posts detailing problems with this board running the Athlon 1400, but slower processors run fine. My K7S5A runs great with a Duron 1000.
Ecs may be over-stating the upper limits of their motherboards. Put a 1200 into it, it may work fine.