Best Socket A Motherboard

Anaconda · Mar 14, 2001

Alright people its time now to say which Socket A motherboard is the BEST! Im building a whole new computer and I want the absolute best for a 1.2 gig T-BIRD system. So whats the best out there??? Asus, Abit, MSI, Chaintech, Iwill, or Gigabyte? TEll me PLZ!

Pers · Mar 14, 2001

ok each mobo has its own good points and bad...it all depends on what you want..
If your looking to oc some mobos would be better than others..
If you are not worried about raid you are better off getting a cheaper mobo...

Be more specific on ur system, then ask for reccomendations..

jamesbond007 · Mar 14, 2001

Reguardless of what you're doing with it, you simply CANNOT go wrong with Asus. I own a few Asus A7Vs, A7V133s, etc. They are all damn fast and ultra stable.

My vote goes to the Asus A7V133.

Anaconda · Mar 14, 2001

I want the best motherboard for gaming and video editing. Basically multimedia. I do not plan to oc though. What does RAID do?

xinxb71 · Mar 14, 2001

I will vote Abit KT7A-RAID.
link
http://www.1steweb.net/web/merchant...MB-AB-KT7A-Raid&Category_Code=Abit-Boards link

canukWabbit · Mar 14, 2001

For you, go Gigabyte. If you want to overclock, the Asus board. Gigabyte is as stable and reliable as you can get. Set the FSB and mem clock to 133 with 133 CL 2 mem and fly. Gigabyte also has a good mx vidio card. Another tip, get the OEM Athion and add your own Alpha PEP66T heatsink with the stock fan.

canukWabbit · Mar 14, 2001

SP: get your hands on a Antec case, They are da bomb.

Dulanic · Mar 14, 2001

Asus A7V133 is super stable, and the leader performance wise.

mztykal · Mar 14, 2001

MSI K7T Pro-2A

No problems here. Nice layout and super stable. Also you can oc with it if you choose to.

mztykal · Mar 14, 2001

MSI K7T Pro-2A

No problems here. Nice layout and super stable. Also you can oc with it if you choose to.

Regalk · Mar 15, 2001

I would have recommended the A7V133 2 hours ago. But i just went thru hell after flashing BIOS 1004. No I a going to retract from this board for a while until I am convinced the BIOS is not a repeat of the A7V (which finally is OK with BIOS 1007). I cannot recommend ABIT for obvious reasons and Iwill has fell into a heap of problems recently which may stick on peoplles memories for a while. Looks like the MSI boards (a bit slower) may be the way to go for now for stability.

Dulanic · Mar 15, 2001

<< I would have recommended the A7V133 2 hours ago. But i just went thru hell after flashing BIOS 1004. No I a going to retract from this board for a while until I am convinced the BIOS is not a repeat of the A7V (which finally is OK with BIOS 1007). >>

What do you mean? 1004 seems to work flawless for everyone else... your the first person who Ive heard say they had a problem with 1004.

jobie1 · Mar 15, 2001

Hi everyone,
a newbie here
Agree with Regalk,
I have just gone through hell with my ASUS board A7V 133A. The board when purchased would not work until I flashed the bios to 1004 and then worked only ok. Then the big problems hit. BTW not o clocked 1 gig AMD TB.

After I installed my other devices I found that it was not stable when using USB on printers, (HP photosmart 1100), USB mouse lock-ups, including many crashes. The printer loses connections zip drive crashes system, cdroms fail over and over again etc.

The board works fine until you connect devices other than video...
This upgrade was from a Abit K7V Raid and devices that were working flawless and which I changed back to, and guess what?
After re-installing my cards, hard drive ...and such boom, everything works perfect again and I didn't even bother to
re format like I ended up doing with the ASUS.... 3 times! What a mess!

Didn't have much luck with the ASUS maybe just bad luck with a defective board I guess.... :|

cjhrph · Mar 15, 2001

I had some USB printing issues with 1004, but I just flashed back to 1003a and all was well again. As for the board, well, it's just flat out the best socket a solution on the market right now. Its fast as hell and stable as a rock. Don't get too upset over a few problems with a new bios, it happens sometimes. You probably didn't need it anyway. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Anyway, if there are problems with the bios, ASUS will make good on it soon. You can count on that.

Technonut · Mar 15, 2001

I would have to say the A7V133. I have always used ABIT KT7s/KT7As before for my personal system, until I tried an A7V133. The board has been stable and fast. The only issue that I have had with this board was the ability to count the amount of RAM correctly with all DIMM slots filled. This was with Mosel Vitelic and 256MB sticks of Infineon. The 1004 BIOS (I had no problems flashing) fixed that.

As for USB issues, I have a modem installed on one onboard USB port, and a powered hub on the other, with 2 USB/1 serial/1 printer ports. I have a scanner on the hub, along with an HP 895Cse printer, and digital camera with no problems.

twong82 · Mar 15, 2001

Abit KT7A-Raid, IMO best mobo

TungFree · Mar 15, 2001

do you think the new upcoming DDR and SDRAM slotted board will work right? or would u just buye the present board? I have already purchased 516 megs of ram and a ATI AIW for video editing and I want Raid for 2 30 gig hard drives from Matrox I am thinking to get locally fron Costco.

Biggs · Mar 15, 2001

Currently it's a toss-up between Asus A7V133(w/ latest BIOS) and IWill KK266R(w/o the multiplier problem).

jobie1 · Mar 15, 2001

Wow your usb works ok?

Well mine didn't work very well at all. The thing acted like it was conflicting the devices it had on line.

For example, while printing with a usb printer, the usb mouse would stop working, along with the printer, it just locked up. After a re-boot the mouse would work again but if you tried to print, the same thing.

The cd-roms would occasionally do the same, SCSI or regular cd-roms
would lock up and would have to soft boot out.

Yes I swaped out the memory, the cpu ran started after format with nothing and added devices, but didn't get past just a video card and ide cdrom without a crash freeze or some other problem.

Again went back and put everything back on the original Abit Kt7 Raid and everything worked fine....

Defective board you think????

(update): looks like the vender will RMA it cause it sounds to them like it is defective as well. Maybe I should have gone with Abit KT7A-R?

webmonkey8888 · Mar 15, 2001

I'll vote Asus A7V133, it's probably my favorite.

ErikaeanLogic · Mar 15, 2001

A7V133, definitely!

Dulanic · Mar 15, 2001

<< For example, while printing with a usb printer, the usb mouse would stop working, along with the printer, it just locked up. After a re-boot the mouse would work again but if you tried to print, the same thing.

The cd-roms would occasionally do the same, SCSI or regular cd-roms
would lock up and would have to soft boot out.

Yes I swaped out the memory, the cpu ran started after format with nothing and added devices, but didn't get past just a video card and ide cdrom without a crash freeze or some other problem. >>

It could be a bad board.... but what did you have in PCI 4 and 5? (They share with USB)

jobie1 · Mar 15, 2001

Dulanic,
At some points nothing. Like after a format and having only the video card, ASUS 7700 deluxe 32 meg and would be using a reg cd-rom , (not SCSI cd-rom), I would install the printer and...mouse freeze. soon after system lock up, soft boot out. Try again same thing, mostly after trying to print...

The first time I loaded most of the programs and devices with a few problems such as where the cd-rom would stop responding...and of course soft boot out start again...strange...

I tried all the things I could think of like I said before just using the video card and adding one thing at a time...then thinking what the heck is this? This stuff worked fine with the other board!

Again on the last attempt I said the heck with it and took the devices out and re-installed them back in the old abit board without changing a thing from when it was in the ASUS and it worked fine...

We will see how it works when it is exchanged....

BTW I don't recommend it for most mid towers if you are going to have more than two CD-Rom drives as there is some clearance problems with the board and case.

My system:
1Gig AMD
(In This case I was trying the ASUS A7V 133) back to my old ABIT K7V-RAID
384 Megs Micron Ram
ASUS 7700 Deluxe 32 meg
1, 30 gig IBM 7200 (not using raid at this time)
Initio 9300 SCSI controller
Yamaha 4260 SCSI writer
Plextor 12/20 reader
Creative DVD (running software not hardware card)
HP 1100 on USB
Logitech Marble USB
Sound Blaster Live (Not Value)
Umax 1200S scanner
WIN ME OS

BTW thanks for the replies

lillazy23 · Mar 15, 2001

another vote for a7v133

i previously had msi k7t turbo and abit kt7a-raid and i like my asus the best.

lillazy23 · Mar 15, 2001

my USB mouse wouldnt turn on when windows started. Turned out to be IRQ conflicts, fixed that and everything is A ok now.

Best Socket A Motherboard

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