Asus P3V4X worst motherboard ever created?

Duckers · Jul 7, 2000

Russ · Jul 8, 2000

What you don't see are the thousands using the board without a hitch. It is a fine product but, like all bleeding edge hardware, it can easily be perceived as problematic when in the hands of a variety of people who may not have the skills necessary to properly set it up.

Russ, NCNE

Mikewarrior2 · Jul 8, 2000

I agree, it is a good product. I wouldn't say its a great product(the Soyo 6Vca that I got for another computer is a bit better, and a bit less quirky) but nevertheless is a good mb. It has its quirks, something I wasn't used to switching over from a BX mb, but once those are overcome, its rock solid. I've had mine going for at least 2 months now, without a single crash or incompatibility.

Mike

John · Jul 8, 2000

Russ, you saying I don't have skills?

The board is more stable than my BXMaster, and the only flaw I can see while benchmarking is the "SANDRA memory bench". I finally got WCPRSET to improve it by 60 marks, but it is still way below a bx board. Overall I am very satisfied with the P3V4X.

Wingznut · Jul 8, 2000

Hell, if you wanted to find threads complaining about a particular piece of hardware... You'd never find anything "worth it." Besides, there's an above average chance that many of those problems aren't caused by the mobo.

For instance, on the second thread listed, it sounds like improper installation killed the mobo. How can this be blamed on the board? It could've happened with any board.

In the "floppy troubles" thread... The user had one of the cables installed incorrectly.

One thread regarding a Cel566 that won't overclock past 890mhz... PUH-LEEZE.

Please explain to me how joystick problems can be attributed to the mobo.

And many of those can be directly contributed to not using the latest 4-in-1 drivers.

Please read the content of the threads in question, before proclaiming that this is the "worst motherboard ever created." You may very well be influencing somebody, with false pretenses.

And count me in as one of those who believe that the P3V4X mobo is an excellent board. I've never had a single problem.

Wingznut · Jul 8, 2000

One of the many falicies of benchmarking... So what if SANDRA says memory performance is low? What about real world programs? Does the machine run apps/games well or not?

Futuramatic · Jul 8, 2000

Only problem I had with the board was trying to install the 4.22 4 in 1 drivers. I used 4.20 and it works like a charm. I installed the 4.03 AGP drivers over the ones that came with the 4 in 1 drivers. I kept the bios at 1003. I think maybe Russ is right, some peopel are not gettign the settings right, or are trying to install the board without reinstalling Win 98. I have had several people who bought this board have problems for those very reasons. I was forced to slap them.

dszd0g · Jul 8, 2000

No, the worst motherboards ever created were the ones made by Elite around 1992 or so (I don't remember exactly). Running certain software programs on them would toast them. I used 386Max back then (This was before Qemm was better) and as soon as 386Max ran you would here a pop the machine would shut down and never turn back on. I am sorry, no software should be able to kill a mobo. Especially software that ran fine on any other mobo I used.

Burn · Jul 8, 2000

I love my Asus P3V4X and with the right setup you can beat the Athlon 600 in the Sandra memory test.

Burn · Jul 8, 2000

Here is a pic of my transfer rates on my P3V4X:
http://members.home.net/burnstech/SANDRA.JPG

Mikewarrior2 · Jul 8, 2000

I get 410/478, running 150FSB Cas2.. So i'm happy, too

Burn · Jul 8, 2000

Nice mike! I am at Cas3 so you can whip my @$$ all day...lol

Mikewarrior2 · Jul 8, 2000

I didnt' mean to insult you or anything... Your scores are actually quite a bit better than my cas3 scores...I think i got like 290/360 in cas3... But the P3v4x(and VIA 133A chipsets in general) love cas2 ram .

Mike

DeadlyKnight · Jul 8, 2000

new boards new problems same thing with all new stuff ,i can say im very happy with my p3v4x i had a little trouble gettingup and going but if you follows directions like your supposed to most people wouldnt have some of these problems ,i beleive its a standard when you change motherboards especially with different chipsets you need to do a format or clean instal of os

DeadlyKnight · Jul 8, 2000

oh yea does that mean that geforces are a peice of doo doo also ive read numerous problems with them also why dont you look them up all kinds of people have problems with them and people still keep buying them one right after another ..just my two cents

nEoTeChMaN · Jul 8, 2000

Anand aren't that stupid when it comes to giving Asus P3V4X the 'AnandTech Editor's Choice award'.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1241&p=5

Do you know how hard it is to get the 'AnandTech Editor's Choice award' ?

The majority of the problems is coming from the users..not hardware.

nEo

toadstool · Jul 8, 2000

I don't think it is the "worst " motherboard ever....that may be stretching it.

Although, you DO have to do a LOT of extra things to try to get this board to work correctly.

1) Had to buy a heatsink to get the ICS chip to work properly

2) had to buy a "golden orb" SECC2 cooler , because apparently the CPU runs hot on this board ...or something. I STILL can't get my p3 700e to overclock to 933mghz stable the way I could on my old ABIT BH6. The only thing I did to get it to run at that speed on my BH6 six was......................plug it into the slot and start up my computer. That's all!
This board has REAL problems running it at 933. Still don't know why.

3) Have to get the "memory tweak" to improve memory scores.

4) Have to edit the registy to get AGP 4X to work...although a lot of video cards, even with that, won't work properly.

Some problems I've had with this board.

1) Microsoft joystick can not be recognized. (worked fine on other board)

2) Internet Explorer locks up for some reason. (this is a strange problem.

3) can not overclock as well as BX chipset (mentioned this above)

That's not a HUGE list......but I'm pretty dissapointed with the overclocking (or lack of).....and some of the features that don't work (AGP 4x).

If I had to make a choice today, would I buy this board??

NO!

I would probably wait for the new i815 motherboards to come out. This isn't the "worst" motherboard, but it does have some real problems, and compared to my ABIT BH6, it's pretty disappointing.

DeadlyKnight · Jul 8, 2000

im not sure about your problems but all the features work on mine and i got 913 out of my 550e before i used a heatsink on my ics chip now its just more stable with it

Dennis Travis · Jul 8, 2000

Russ beat me to this as I just got home and on the fourms, but what he said is right on. Asus boards are very good overall. I have had many and not one problem except with one P5A/B that would not run an AMD K6/2-450 at 450. It was one of the few that did that. Other than that all the Asus boards I have ever either used, owned or installed have been very reliable and first rate. So many have good luck with Asus boards. They have a very LOW RMA rate.

I have seen the same negetive stuff about the Asus CUBX but most of the complaints I have read are by people that are not installing either the drivers for the CMD controler correctly or other mistakes. I have the board and it's fine. I had some problems at first but it was all due to drivers and aranging the cards right so the IRQ's would not fight. Once done the CUBX is one fine board just like Anand and Tom and others have said it is. I have read so many positive reviews and comments about the P3V4X that I am sure most of the bad comments are people doing something wrong or hardware that conflicts. The only reason I DID not get the P3V4X is that I prefer right now the BX chipset. Sure it's old but it's stable and if set up right benches with the best out there. The Via is getting pretty darn good but still in memory benchmarks the 440BX still beats it and I wanted the best so I got a board with a BX chipset.

Ausm · Jul 8, 2000

I think alot of these problems are caused by people who either do not have the ability to properly set-up a machine correctly or by people who VERY seldom if ever to a clean install of windows.

Case in point my old man, he has not done a clean install of Windows since DOS 6.22 DOHHHH!!!. Yet when I cannot get a component to work properly on his morphadite setup all he does is piss and moan. People who do not believe in a clean reinstall of windows every six months(for Win 95/98..Win2K much more stable) piss me off

Ausm

termite99 · Jul 8, 2000

Is the Asus P3V4X the perfect MB? NO

Is the Asus P3V4X a high quality MB? Yes

Is the Asus P3V4X in-expensive MB? Yes

Is the Asus P3V4X as easy to setup as other Asus BX MB? Yes

Is the Asus P3V4X easier to setup that the Abit BH-6 BX MB? Yes

Is the Asus P3V4X easier to setup that the MSI 6163 BX MB? Yes

Does the Asus P3V4X run faster than BX MB using Celeron 2? Yes, if you set the system/SDRAM frequency ratio to 3/4.

Does the Asus P3V4X run faster than BX MB using P3 coppermine? No

Can you find a better MB that supports AGP4 and ATA66 for less than $120? Probably not.

Duckers, you are missing out a lot dismissing the P3V4X.

LXi · Jul 8, 2000

termite99: I dont see the point of comparing the P3V4X to the Abit BH6 and the MSI MS-6163. These are very old BX motherboards, you want to compare it to something more recent, like Abit BE6-2 or MSI BX Master. Also, I know Abits are troublesome to setup, but in my experience, MSIs have been extremely friendly to work with.

termite99 · Jul 10, 2000

LXi wrote:

>>I dont see the point of comparing the P3V4X to the Abit BH6 and
>>the MSI MS-6163. These are very old BX motherboards, you want to
>>compare it to something more recent, like Abit BE6-2 or MSI BX
>>Master. Also, I know Abits are troublesome to setup, but in my
>>experience, MSIs have been extremely friendly to work with.

I am not a reviewer who has access to a lot of hardware. I can comment only on the hardwares the I own. It happens to be:

Abit BH-6, >2 years
Asus P2B-S, 1.5 years
MSI 6163, 1 years
Asus P3V4X, 3 months

There are not a lot of BX boards that is less than one year old.

Asus P3V4X worst motherboard ever created?

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