How is the K7S5a mobo??

[masterc]

I'm looking to upgrade an old pentium 200 machine.
I found a good price on "Bare Box"... K7S5a, 1700 XP Cpu, 128mb sdram and mid 300watt ATX case for $279 Can ( ~$185 US). Do you guys think this is worth it???

Also, can you disable the on-board sound and network card on the K7S5A board??

 

[AppleTalking]

Wow, you might want to do a search on the forums about this one. This board has had a long and complicated history: some people swear by it, others swear that they'll never touch it, and still others just sit around and swear. There have been high RMA rates on this board, I'll tell you that much. I'd do a search on both this forum and the General Hardware forum for the phrase "K7S5A" and prepare to sit at your computer until your retinas burn out reading all the posts that come up.

That said, yes, you should be able to disable the onboard network and sound, although I have no idea why you'd want to disable the network as it won't hurt anything if left enabled.

You may want to look into pricing a KT333 or nForce board solution instead, especially since you will get much better performance with DDR RAM than you will with standard SDRAM, especially with that Athlon XP CPU.

Good luck!
Nick

 

[Evadman]

I am working on a FAQ since I have built so many systems around the board, and have run into just about every little quirk the board has. I am one of the poeple who swear by it, but know it has it's share of problems. If you have specific questions, please PM me.

 

[spanky]

i've worked with 4 k7s5a's and all have been very stable and easy to deal with. i am awaiting a 5th now (picking it up rom fed-ex tomorrow)

 

[Peter]

They're great if you treat them right (adequate PSU, good RAM), but they excuse no mistakes ... and there's little end user support from its makers. So if you know your stuff, it's a bargain, if this is your first time DIY, make sure you have someone to ask for assistance.

regards, Peter

 

[Buz2b]

For a good, comprehensive site on the K7S5A, go to this site. It has an FAQ, latest drivers, "unofficial" overclocking BIOS files and a database of users that can assist you also. However, there are a few of us around that can help you out here also.