Want an AthlonXP motherboard that supports PC133? MSI K7T Turbo2 $56.00 shipped!

[breweyez]

I have a K7S5A(rev1) and it wasnt a picky board at all...worked with generic ram & power supply

 

[Ring]

azncarjunkie

I had just the opposite experience with MSI tech support. I had trouble getting a K7T board (I bought here) to post and they replaced it with a new K7t Turbo2 quickly and with no hassles. I have recommended them highly to others.

 

[tedinde1]

THis board still sucks

 

[audscott]

I looked at the MSI board on Friday, but decided on the Shuttle AK32L instead.

Still have DDR upgrade path (if I want), KK266 (not A) chipset and loads of slots.

Just another course for those staying with PC1XX

 

[Flatbroke]

iwill KK266 R

Is poor choice for XP chips. It has a 50/50 chance of running XP's without cold boot, lock-up problems. Iwill KK266R+ is better, but not considered to be 100% trouble free with an XP. Many people have had problems with both boards. That being said, someone will say they put a XP chip in and didnt have any problems, the threads on other forums are full of people who werent so lucky. I would chose a board with a better track record.

 

[Northland]

I had a<FONT size=3> KK266R and had nothing but trouble getting an XP to run at all. Purchased an MSI K7T Turbo2 and have had no problems with it!

Northland</FONT>

 

[Bagger]

Originally posted by: Praxis

KT133A not KT266A.
Which places it about 4 generations old. (KT400, KT333, KT266a, KT133a)

Don't forget the KT266 chipset...

If I wanted PC133 support on an Athlon XP board I think I'd reach for the Biostar M7VIG. It is VIA KM266 chipset (which shares the VT8233A Southbridge chipset with the KT266 & KT333, I believe), it has onboard audio, video and LAN, plus an AGP slot, 3 PCI slots, a CNR slot, 2 SDRAM PC133 slots and 2 DDR slots. It runs about $59 delivered and I don't think it is quite as picky about RAM or power supplies as the ECS K7S5A. It currently supports up to an Athlon XP2600+ processor. The board runs about $59 delivered.

Frankly, I don't thing there is that much real world performance differences between SDRAM and DDR (or for that matter, between the KT133A and KT400) for the sorts of things most people do with their computers and these days SDRAM is about half the price of DDR.

I would LOVE to see a review that compared all the Athlon chipsets against each other with a wide variety of benchmarks using a few different processors in each board. Probably won't have much luck finding anything like that. One of my biggest gripes about hardware review sites is that they tend to focus SO MUCH on the latest products without giving you a good reference to how it compares with the last generation of stuff. An example of where someone did it right is the Tom's Hardware VGA Charts. I have no idea HOW MANY times I have referenced that chart. I realize it takes alot of time to do anything as ambitious as the VGA charts, but review sites could at least throw in one or two older versions of the product to compare with (For example, Anand's review of the ATI 9500 Pro focused only on the 9500 pro, 9700, and GF4 Ti4600. Why not throw in a Radeon 8500 or GF3 Ti200 so that the majority of us can see how these new cards compare to the ones we're MUCH more likely to own?)

 

[blueribb]

My vote goes with the Biostar M7VIG. I've been using these boards for the last few months with no problems.

If you want DDR support only, then I recommend these Biostar boards:

M7VIP
M7VIQ
M7VIT
M7VIK

 

[Gverig]

I do not see one MB mentioned here though it has a very good review on the site I usually go to for hardware info (it is not in english so URL is of no use for most of you guys). What about Gigabyte 7Z-XE? You can get it from $50 (before shipment) and $59 with shipment was the first I tried, maybe you can find cheaper. It is KT-133 chipset as well.

Any word on it? Any experiences?
BTW, for those who prefer not to by online (to keep shipment money if the board dies and for some better warranties), MSI Turbo-2 is $79 at PC-Club. Much more expensive but thought it might be interesting for some people.

BTW, Biostar MB has just 3 PCI slots. How good is onboard video? I have less then perfect history with S3 but maybe things have changed...

 

[blueribb]

The Gigabyte GA-7ZXE looks like an older model board and also lacks on-board video like the Biostar M7VIG.
The Biostar onboard video works quite well and is necessary for those on a tight budget.

 

[Gverig]

Ok, so aside from onboard video thing (I don't think that it can measure up to G4 ti4200 that I want to buy with money I save from not buying DDR) is there any word on which one is better? Is This Review for the motherboard being discussed (it says Turbo, not Turbo-2)?

 

[Praxis]

BTW, Biostar MB has just 3 PCI slots. How good is onboard video?

The M7VIG onboard video seems fine to me, but I'm not a gamer. For my purposes it works as well as the onboard Geforce 2 level video on the Asus A7N266-VM (Nvidia Nforce 220-D chipset).

The PCI slot limitation isn't that big a deal, since the board comes with an AGP slot as well as integrated video, sound and LAN. You could get an external or CNR modem if you were hard up for slots, I suppose. There are firewire/USB 2.0 combo controller cards for about $45. Room enough for you PVR TV card and maybe a SCSI adapter. If you need more room than that, you shouldn't be looking at this budget mobo.

 

[ChurchOfSubgenius]

Try to stay away from the KT-133 chipsets without the "a" at the end, way too buggy and limited. I have a FIC AZ11EA (KT133a chipset) running a Duron 600@931mhz (7X133) 24/7 with nary a hiccup on generic PC133 RAM. I have a Duron 950 sitting around but don't want to use it because I loose my 133mhz bus.

 

[mindless1]

I used one of these for about a year, never had any problems with it but I did have to take a dremel tool to an Alpha Pal8045 to allow clearance from two caps above the socket.

KM266 video isn't too bad for a non-3D-gaming box, I have an MSI KM266 board (forget the model number, maybe 6390) that even has 1/5 PCI divider, though the onboard video craps out at about 145Mhz (290DDR) so in order to make use of the 1/5 divider I had to use an AGP video card anyway. Running DDR memory at 140FSB (280DDR) it had barely less performance than a TNT2 (regular TNT2, way better than TNT2 M64/Vanta).

 

[mrbentley]

Question:
I'm going to build a system and would like to know how high (but stable) can I overclock this setup:
MSI K7T Turbo 2
1600+ XP(AGOIA core)
GC68
PNY 512mb PC133 (infineon chip)
Antec SLK-1600 w/300 watt Antec Smart Power

Thanks

 

[CrimsonKing]

Originally posted by: RedShirt
What about the ECS K7S5A which supports PC133 and DDR ram and is a faster chipset and is cheaper at 54 dollars shipped at newegg....

Is anyone else having trouble getting their K7S5A to run at 133? This is getting annoying. Every time I bump up to 133/133, it crashes. I bought an Athlon 1600+ and I get to run it at 1050!

 

[Maelsturm]

Is anyone else having trouble getting their K7S5A to run at 133? This is getting annoying. Every time I bump up to 133/133, it crashes. I bought an Athlon 1600+ and I get to run it at 1050!

Yes... the K7S5A's major fatal flaw is the heatsink on the chipset. It's held there with like, double sided tape or some bullshit. Take it off and glue it on with a little superglue and grease or arctic silver. Chipset overheating is your problem, I'm 99% sure.

 

[CrimsonKing]

Originally posted by: Maelsturm
Yes... the K7S5A's major fatal flaw is the heatsink on the chipset. It's held there with like, double sided tape or some bullshit. Take it off and glue it on with a little superglue and grease or arctic silver. Chipset overheating is your problem, I'm 99% sure.

Thanks! I'll give that a shot tonight. Not that I'm comfortable with that, but WTH. I have some grease. You're serious about the glue and grease combo?

 

[METALWORK]

Got the Biostar for my son as a Christmas gift and wanted to say thanks for the info.
Setting up the system was a breeze and seems to be solid. Only issue is temp is running 50 C
using 800 MB TB. Only goes up to 53C under full game load so I'm a little confused. Originally thought
the heatsink wasn't seated correctly so redid and some improvement. Going to get a shim and an SVC Golden Gate 40.
Thanks again!

 

[Lestan]

A tiny bit off-topic but I just wanted to confirm that info about the K7S5A. I had the same problem with lockups at 133. Pried off the heatsink, razored off the tape crap, used Arctic Silver Epoxy and attached a 486 fan, and now that board runs 133, 24x7 and not one problem since. Alot of the K7S5A msg boards confirm that this fixes 99% of the problems people have with running this board at 133.

 

[ZakPC]

I have this one on the way:
MS-6378
Not a great chipset, but supports PC133 (which you can get 256MB of at Best Buy this week for about $13 AR) and it has onboard audio, video, LAN....

 

[ZakPC]

Originally posted by: AMDBOY
originally posted by OS:

Yeah seriously, don't buy a KT133A mobo these days. Most of these boards don't support XPs out of the box, you have to flash them. Plus the KT133A was kind of a crappy chipset, it was buggy as hell.

Roger that, I agree, there are way newer/better chipsets for sale at a VERY REASONABLE price. Don't get me wrong, I have this board as well as other MSI boards(and epox). My boys & I kickass online nightly with this. But yes, the original KT133 chipsets (resistor in the wrong place issue) and SOME subsequent boards had some issues. (as does most any mfgr. from time to time). How much do you really expect for fifty bucks?? Spend a little more, get a little better. But, for the price & some reasonably priced PC133, joila!! instant gaming, er, uh, I mean computing. imho

Yes, you can find GREAT new boards for under $75 but then you have to spend money on DDR RAM as it is starting to get somewhat hard to find new, brand-name, SDRAM boards
Some that I found (price w/ shipping) - note that these are not all what I consider relaible brands - use the anandtechers' Rig Stats for a good list of reliable brands:

Oops - I can't find my list I had - I'll edit and post as soon as I do
I never found my shopping list I had but....
if I remember right it was pretty much Z-Buy, newegg and mwave that had the good prices on these boards
Avlogic has a good deal on an Asus DDR board (same one newgg has only slightly cheaper)

 

[ZakPC]

Originally posted by: mrbentley
Question:
I'm going to build a system and would like to know how high (but stable) can I overclock this setup:
MSI K7T Turbo 2
1600+ XP(AGOIA core)
GC68
PNY 512mb PC133 (infineon chip)
Antec SLK-1600 w/300 watt Antec Smart Power

Thanks

Try the motherboards or overclockers tech forums rather than hot deals

 

[Praxis]

Got the Biostar for my son as a Christmas gift and wanted to say thanks for the info. Setting up the system was a breeze and seems to be solid. Only issue is temp is running 50 C using 800 MB TB. Only goes up to 53C under full game load so I'm a little confused.

Flash the latest version of the M7VIG BIOS if that number concerns you. The older BIOS overstates the CPU temperature by about 10 C. Your real CPU temps are probably 40-43 C. In any case, AMD processors can run warm without problems. Anything less than about 65 C. is in the normal range.

BTW, the Pro version of the M7VIG is now available here for about $62 delivered (from NY I believe). It has USB 2.0 instead of 1.1 with 2 rear USB ports and 4 front ports, as well as a front audio port. Apparently it comes with updated S3 ProSavage 8 integrated video, as well as the WarpSpeeder utility, which allows overclocking from within Windows.

It think its about time to put a fork in the K7S5A unless you buy it as part of one of the Fry's combos.

 

[kenja]

For those who have thread replies shown in reverse chronological order (like me): this is not a fresh topic; the deal in the headline is dead.