MSI KT3-Ultra ARU w/ 1800 $189

[U2ForNow]

TCWO has the MSI KT3 Ultra ARU with an AMD 1800xp retail for $189. Link Has anyone ever used this board? Comments on the raid?

 

[SolderSucker]

I hate MSI. They suck. I bought one of their older boards for my P3 machine and had 2 capacitors blow up so bad they dislodged the voltage regulator on the board. This was about a month ago. Just yesterday, my friends machine i built had the same two capacitors blow. I hope they are using better quality capacitors on the newer boards.

 

[monoab]

This is a smokin' deal. The review on Anandtech was favorable for this board in the VIA KT333 motherboard shootout a few months ago.

Remember, this is for a board with RAID and a retail chip. Best price I've seen by far, and I have been looking for a deal around this price for the non-raid board and the oem chip (and aftermarket fan). Awesome deal.

 

[IgoByte]

Good deal...

 

[Crashedout]

I did very well with the MSI KT2. Their boards tend to be stable, at the cost of raw speed and overclocking. Good value though.

 

[TheGizmo]

I have this board... it rocks

 

[guywithoutaclue]

I have this board and its great! check out my rig .... I have the kt3 ultra and the kt3 ARU in another system, because they are such fine boards! MSI is great ... don't listen to soldersucker... msi is a great manufacturer.... they update its bios listing very often .... the board has high potential for oc... but its about 7-10% slower than the gigabyte kt333 ... but the ARU board has soo many extras! definately a deal ... grab it up.

Word of caution... the Raid controller allows only 2 devices unlike other onboard raid chips that offer up to 4 devices... but most of us use only 2 at most so blah... message me for info. if you care...

 

[bearauto]

What's with the the MSI Ultra2 boards? There 3 different versions, and I am not really sure what the differences are...are the Ultra2 boards superior to the Ultra ARU?

 

[guywithoutaclue]

hehehhe I wondered the same thing ... visit their site link you'll see that they revised the older kt3 ultra by replacing the south bridge from the older vt8233a to the newer vt8235 chipset.... also they included new functions to the ultra2 which include Bluetooth in the BR version...

 

[SolderSucker]

guywithoutaclue,
Telling people not to listen to me is pretty stupid. I bought four identical model MSI boards and two of them died in the manner i stated above and the other two became unstable. Willing to bet it is the two same capacitors that blew on the other boards. You may be doing great with your board now but for how long? I don't know about you but I like to get more than a year and a half out of my motherboards.My Abit BP6 is stilling running fine since 1999. Why aren't the 4 MSI boards? I suppose i can solder in new capacitors and get the boards working again but thats not the point. Anyhow, I am just warning people with my experience. MSI could be using finer quality capacitors on their newer boards.I would check around before buying but then again the problems may not show up for a while.

 

[Banana]

I've had my MSI KT133A board for 1.5 years now. No problems. Hope my computer doesn't blow up soon. But if it does, I have a fire extinguisher ready . . .

 

[Soldat]

don't listen to soldersucker.......msi boards are fantastic

 

[guywithoutaclue]

soldersucker,

First off, Companies improve with time: MSI is not the same company it used to be 3 years ago or whenever you had your p3 system built... I have to admit that back then they were nobodies who used 2nd rate components, but now they've improved to be a definate market competitor.

Second, your case is an isolated case... do you think that everyone who bought your board 3 years ago (or whenever the hell you built it) had the exact same problem? Manufacturers occasionally build sh!t products, but that is why all manufacturers have return policies on their "defective products" or else you can sue them.

Lastly, my msi aru has been running rock solid under linux for 146 straight days without a crash and even then it was due to the hd over heating... the board is just fine, and is as solid since the day I bought it.... maybe you installed your system wrong or didn't use the right precautions to prevent the damage that occured, but I'm just speculating...

Based on the above arguements all I have to say is "shut the litter box" -dr. evil

If anyone else agrees with me then please post the above quote and direct it to soldersucker....

 

[SolderSucker]

Want to buy 4 dead P3 MSI boards? Or better yet I will fix them because I know how to and can. My system assembly skills are not what was lacking. Thank you.

 

[guywithoutaclue]

Maybe it wasn't your skills that was lacking, or maybe you've been sucking on too much solder j/p Nevertheless you have to admit that you can't use your old msi boards as a defense that msi boards in general suck. Unless you have the kt3 ultra then I must say it once again...

"shut the litter box"-dr. evil

 

[BigJ]

I can vouch for the fact that MSI builds good quality motherboards. I've been using them since the KT266a boards, and really haven't had any problems with them. If you want to do some serious overclocking, then one thing I would say is that these boards aren't made for it. True, you can get some marginal overclocking out of it, but when I switched to an Abit KX7-333R mobo I was able to get an extra ~100mhz overclock outta my AGOIA Xp 1600+. Definitely a good deal. Also, the differnce between the Ultra and Ultra2 I believe is with the VIA Southbridge (Nec USB 2.0 in Ultra as opposed to Via Usb 2.0 in Ultra2), a different sound chip, and also a new version of the D-Bracket I believe (version 1 and 2 for Ultra and Ultra2 respectively). Also, for the BR model of the Ultra2, this:

* Bluetooth (KT3 Ultra2-BR)
- 1 bluetooth connector on-board for bluetooth module
connection (bluetooth module optional)

Lemme know if I'm mistaken in any part.

 

[GhettoFob]

I bought the exact same parts from Newegg a few weeks back. I was consistently getting corrupt files on WinXP (probably nothing to do with the board or cpu), but now that I'm using Win2K again, it's been stable as a rock.

 

[Oakenfold]

Another nod for MSI boards from me. I really dig the led indicator for troubleshooting status they seem to incorporate often. It got some great reviews from anandtech and there do not seem to be too many complaints.
If you would like to see how other users feel about these boards, I suggest you go over to athlonmb
which is a great site to see what kinds of athlon pc enthusiasts are having with particular motherboards.

Soldersucker your case is very extreme, 4 different boards going and it's only the capacitors? I have owned many different makes of motherboards and have NEVER had a capacitor go. The only time it would even be close would be while using a monster swiftech if a manufacturer placed the cap's in the no cap zone.

 

[rch4001]

my luck with MSI boards has been about the same as ASUS, Abit, Gigabyte, Epox. all seem to work OK without a clear star or loser.

 

[Mallow]

I have this board. It is stable and rocks. This is a way better price than I paid 4 months ago However, I don't have any use for the raid so I got just the KT3 w/o the aru.

 

[DanFungus]

i have this board, and it is REALLY nice. Lots of extra goodies, very solid for me

 

[loup garou]

I have the regular KT3 (w/o RAID & USB2.0) and it has been fantastically stable. Nice deal on the combo!

 

[Technogeek]

Sounds like a good deal, But I have a question about "Raid". I have not yet tried any raid capable mainboards yet, although I have researched raid a little bit. My question is: What if I did not want to set up any Raid arrays at this time, Could I still use the raid connections
as regular IDE channels?

Thanks in advance..

Found my answer Here

<quote> The MSI KT3 Ultra ARU model has one of the best list of features I have seen on a motherboard yet. First, MSI has included the Promise IDE RAID with the option to run the channels as just ATA133 channels instead of forcing you to setup RAID arrays. This is finally something that board manufacturer?s are catching on to! With the new VIA south bridge all of the IDE channels support ATA133 as well.<end quote>

Further research on the forums of the above site shows that this MB is fussy with different typs of RAM modules and sometimes cannot
handle populating all three dimm slots. No big deal about using all 3 slots though, but does anyone have any advise on the type/brand of
memory to use?

 

[Technogeek]

bumppppp

 

[U2ForNow]

Originally posted by: SolderSucker
I hate MSI. They suck. I bought one of their older boards for my P3 machine and had 2 capacitors blow up so bad they dislodged the voltage regulator on the board. This was about a month ago. Just yesterday, my friends machine i built had the same two capacitors blow. I hope they are using better quality capacitors on the newer boards.

Caps blow when they are shorted. Next time use stand off's! Just kidding, I'm sure you did, but it does sound like the boards were grounding somewhere. I have had a few MSI boards with no ptroblems ever.