IWILL KK266 LOSERS !!!!

[nino]

Good news.
Hey gang, I just got an email from an Iwill rep that told me that there is no design difference between the version 1.1 and 1.2. I guess they added a capacitor to the back of the 1.1 boards after manufacturing and now it is incorporated on the "correct" side of the mobo and that is the only significant difference.

Yeah, yeah other than the fact that the 1.2's had problems too because of an improperly located resistor.

 

[White Widow]

Well, my conductive pen from radio Shack uses silver, which I believe is slightly more conductive than copper. Also, it is MUCH easier to apply, driest very fast, and is easy to remove. Besides, with the conductive pen I get a lot extra and it will keep for at least a year. I'm sure both work extremely well, though, since they are both designed to repair circuit breaks. It seems to me it's mostly just personal preference.

-Aaron

 

[Praxis]

I have a Version 1.1 KK266 that won't POST at all at the default settings with either a T-Bird 750 or a Duron 650. The L1 bridges on the CPUs are still factory cut. I used known good stuff, and tried different RAM including a stick of Crucial CAS 2, video cards, power supplies, everything. I tried clearing the CMOS; no effect. Reseated the CPU; nada. Took the board out of the case to make sure I wasn't shorting anything. Never even got a screen, so forget about flashing a different BIOS. The green light would go an and the Taisol fan would spin, but that was it. I didn't try to connect the L7 bridges. The thing should boot at the default voltage (my A7V has no trouble with the CPUs).

I like the nifty box and the yellow jumpers with the handles. But the manual wasn't very clear or well written (or spelled), with several egregious errors (for instance, the manual and the board didn't agree about which was the DIMM 1 and which was the DIMM 3 slot) & the panel connectors were hard to figure out from the board and manual.

I wish I'd got another Epox EP-8KTA+ for $86 instead of this turkey for $132, but I'm building this for a friend who wanted the latest and greatest despite having no intention of overclocking his CPU (he thinks he may want a 133 FSB CPU somewhere down the line). Oh well, the board is going back, and hopefully its replacement will work as advertised.

 

[White Widow]

That's just bad luck. I would send it to Iwill or your retailr and get a rev 1.2 replacement. By noiw, they are all working 100% and are really nice boards.

-Aaron

 

[nino]

Hey you've got nothing to lose so connect the L7 bridges anyhow.

Anyway, that isn't why I'm posting.

I just wanted you all to know that Iwill is going to release a BIOS shortly (probably Monday) that is similar to the TurkOC bios (i.e. includes memory tweaks). I am running with it right now and it doesn't have ALL the tweaks but I think all the important ones.

Things just keep getting better

I'm sorry for those of you who have had problems but I think that all of us with working boards will agree that Iwill is doing something REALLY right.

Keep a lookout for the bios.

 

[White Widow]

Any chance you could send me a copy of the BIN? I have a broadband connection, and would be happy to make it available (or not).

Thanks,
Aaron

 

[White Widow]

On another note, I have been REALLY IMPERSSED with the wai Iwill has handled the Rev 1.2 KK266 fiasco. Not only did they own up to it right away, they made getting a replacement really easy. I FAXed the special express form in on Wednesday, and on Thursday they CALLED me to let me know they had shipped the replacement and wanted to know if I had any questions or other concerns. Wow! I have to give Iwill a lot of credit for the way they have responded, and I would not hesitate to purchase their stuff in the future. Top class company all the way.

-Aaron

 

[Superdoopercooper]

New Iwill Bios is HERE!!!!!

Iwill KK266 Turbo Bios -- March 07

Iwill KK266-RAID Turbo Bios - March 07

Over in the AMDMB forums, they say they're getting a good performance increase.

 

[nino]

Yeah, I have to agree WW.
I think Iwill is by FAR the best company. It's like a breath of fresh air.
When I emailed them and asked them the difference about the 1.2 and 1.1 boards they said

"We had to add a capacitor to the back of the 1.1 boards and we incorporated that in front of the 1.2 boards. When we build our boards we like to build them right and that is why we revised the design"

Incredible if you ask me.

 

[KevinH]

Nino, do you have an email I can reach you at? Need some help.


Kevin

 

[sweetboy]

Link down?

 

[AnMig]

so are these bad boards still around?????

planning on buying one but dont want to go thru hassle of rma.

I guess over all consensus is that its a good board

 

[Motero]

NINO: Could you go easy on the CAPS! My eyes FREAKIN' hurt!! Bold the words instead or something.

 

[nino]

It's nino@purdue.edu

 

[nino]

Hey Gang,
Just thought that I'd make an important discovery known. Yeah, I know that some of you already know this and some of you have probably even posted it too.
I haven't been thrilled with the disk performance with my KT133A. I was noticing skipping while listening to MP3's (on HD) while accessing the hard disk (Duron 750@933 & IBM 45GB 75GXP) and I created a bunch of coasters so I knew that there was something wrong with IDE communications while doing other things.
Long story short...I knew the processing power was there so that these problems shouldn't exist and I should be able to do multiple things at once because I used to without problems with my PIII700@933 (rest of the hardware is the same). Well, I'm back to a smoother system but I don't know if my hard disk performance is the same though although I don't notice any differences.

I'm using the default Microsoft IDE drivers (make sure to set DMA on also) and things are better but I haven't done any benchmarks. I leave that to someone else. If you do a benchmark with the via 4.29a drivers using the Via bus master drivers and again using the via 4.29a drivers without the Via bus master drivers (i.e. Microsoft IDE drivers) please send me an email with the results @ nino@purdue.edu.

A friend asked me to do this so I can't take any credit for it. Well, I could...but that wouldn't be very ninoly of me to do
Nino

 

[nino]

Well it looks like I spoke too soon. I still get skips in MP3 playbacks. It is far fewer occurrences but it still happens.
I'll let you know when I figure it out.

 

[Ozzman1113]

nino...
about the mp3 skipping - i had a similar problem on my p3 450. with running win2k i ran disk defrag. in analyze it lets you view each file that it is fragmented and the percentage of fragmentation. for some reason all my mp3s were listed and heavily fragmented, close to 80%. after running defrag they became much smoother. maybe that is similar to your problem.
btw i cant wait to get my KA up with a 1.2g t-bird. this pentium crap is getting on my nerves

 

[IntelConvert]

IMHO, this thread should be re-labeled "VIA losers"! :disgust:

 

[AnMig]

does any one know how to flash this new bios for kk266?
I have have been spoiled by bios updates that you extract to a floppy and bootup.

the instructions in there site are not so clear (at least to me)

are you guys touching your memory voltagejumpers at all to overclock?

is the via 2.9 drivers ok with this board?

 

[stingygrrl]

which drivers should we use? The iwill site says to use .23 not .29 the latest

 

[nino]

Oh yeah,
I ran into the same problems with the 4.23 drivers and so I upgraded to the 4.29 and had the same problems.