Why do you hate the VIA KT133a chipset...or just VIA chipsets in general

[duuuma]

I've always wondered why so many people hate VIA based boards. I run Win2k with a KT133e mobo from EPoX and have had almost a perfect experience with it.

 

[Daovonnaex]

<< I've always wondered why so many people hate VIA based boards. I run Win2k with a KT133e mobo from EPoX and have had almost a perfect experience with it. >>

Ask anyone who bought a KT133/KT133a based board and an SB Live! Also, many probably didn't like the KT266...

 

[duuuma]

What kind of problems does it have with SB Live? My Monster MX300 wouldn't work with it either until I changed some PCI bus settings with WPCredit.

 

[Daovonnaex]

<< What kind of problems does it have with SB Live? My Monster MX300 wouldn't work with it either until I changed some PCI bus settings with WPCredit. >>

The SB Live didn't work at all with it, until much later.

 

[JustStarting]

SBLive! works fine with VIA KT133 and KT133A. Many people gave up and RMA'd boards. Play in the bios to optimize settings and it works. Just reserve an IRQ for sb16 emulation or disable sb16 emulation.

 

[FiveDoubleO]

That is bull!

a board should work out of the box with 99% of devices
the Sb live problem was a huge miss, it isnt some rare card or device!

further more can you imagine having 400 via machines at a company.....
changing all those bios and updating with the 4in1 drivers

or a company like Dell with all that money lost from having to walk all those people over the phone to fix the problems
we are in the 5%... the 85% doesnt even know what a Bios is.

a huge amount also get the infinate loop error with Nvidia cards and the latest drivers.

VIA has kept this track record for some time
sure the KA266 and KA133 were and are the fastest AMD chipsets



I use my AMD machine to play Tribes 2. I play weekly in long matches, which I demand my machine not to hard lock running that 3d app. Restarting my pc, restarting Tribes 2 and getting back into the internet server would take some time.
Nor do I feel like spend the tons of time fine tuning a board like that to work.

I mean how would you feel if you had to wait 2 week for VIA to release a patch before you could have sound?

 

[FiveDoubleO]

id like to add some thing else!

I am American.
I buy American.

 

[Mem]

<< Ask anyone who bought a KT133/KT133a based board and an SB Live! Also, many probably didn't like the KT266... >>



Well my KT133 board and SB Live are still working great and I now also have a KT266A board with SB Audigy which also works great , I`m 2 for 2 .Infact I`ve never had a motherboard problem period with any of my chipsets I`ve owned including VIA.

 

[Deathwish2000]

My hate list KT133a:

USB problems, doesn't work with devices that pull more than 300mA from the ports.
SB Live!, horrible crackling/poping noises, even tried disabling ACPI, assigning IRQ's, disabling SB16 emulation!
ATA, Slow ATA performance, well for me anyway, doesn't pull above or anywhere near 66Mb/sec even though I have an ATA100 drive.
Loop, Infinate loop problems with my GeForce3 card, grr this ones really annoying!

Think thats it

 

[Quad]

i love my kt133a.....

no problems with my sblive at all. just be sure to put it in a slot that doesn't share irqs with anything..in my case that was pci slot 3 on my a7v133

 

[panhead49]

ditto............no problems at all......you just have to know how to set it up/tweak with it.......

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

<< id like to add some thing else!

I am American.
I buy American. >>


well, good luck buying anything that doesn't have foreign materials/parts in it. I'm not saying you don't mean well, but it's pretty impossible to buy anything (ESPECIALLY computer parts) and not get something that was made overseas, at least partially.


<< ATA, Slow ATA performance, well for me anyway, doesn't pull above or anywhere near 66Mb/sec even though I have an ATA100 drive. >>


i really can't belive you said that. that is not the motherboards fault. NO IDE drive performs at 66MB/sec. The fastest right now are around 40. (maybe 45)

with that out of the way, let me say that my A7V133 has not brought me as much joy as i would prefer. Next time i buy i'll be going i815 with a tualatin.

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

Loop, Infinate loop problems with my GeForce3 card, grr this ones really annoying!

Apparently, from reading other threads on this subject, The infinite loop is NOT confined to just VIA boards...

As far as SBLive! problems go, that was pretty much limited to the crap-ass 686B southbridge and seems to be taken care of with the newer 8233 southbridge. (as well as fixing ZIP drive bugs).

I don't hate VIA chipsets, they are just a little more "challenging" at times.

 

[Duvie]

MOst kt133 boards did not have sbliveissue as they ran the southbridge 686a and not the b version...


I do not hate via and would gladly take a board if someone gave it to me....anybody???

I think there are better more problem free chipsets out and coming out, so I don't recommend a purchase from via now for myself or others if they ask. I also think some of the newer chipsets coming look promising, and yes maybe even the kt333 boards...

Here's to via fixing their chipset issues, and giving amd the name it needs to be more of a serious contender....

 

[Killrose]

My KT133a board can handle 150MHz bus speeds no problem. Deffinately better than the ol KT133.

 

[duuuma]

what are the issues VIA has with Nvidia video cards? I'm thinking about buying a geforce2 mx200, but I don't want any problems. What are my alternatives that'll work for sure with my EPoX 8KTA2L (kt133e)?

 

[bigbootydaddy]

my via/amd mobo combo works perfectly with gf3 and herc gtxp.

no crashes in 2 weeks so far.

via works.

booty

 

[Boonesmi]

ive used so many via based boards ive totally lost track of them all

ive had very very few problems with any of the boards



so to answer your question not everyone hates via, via kt133a was a great chipset, and the kt266a is currently the best you can buy (at least in my opinion)

 

[ChemMan]

I love my kt133a, stable and reliable. I had a slight crackling problem with my old SB 128D which could be fixed with one bios setting and removing those crap DOS drivers.
My new philips sound card works and sounds great, even through my lousy desktop speakers.
Here's my 2 cents:

Via + SoundBlaster = Trouble:|

Why?

SoundBlaster = Garbage:disgust:

Solution

Buy products from companies that know how to make computer parts right!:Q

 

[cmaMath13]

I own the KT133 and have had no real problems with it (except it does NOT oc well). I am soon getting the KT133a and hope to have good luck again.

By the way, I have a SB Live!, too.

 

[WhiteWizard]

There's a lot of cheap mobos with VIAs chipsets, and some have problems or extrange incopatibilities, other boards could be even broken in parts. I always site for example the Epox 8KTA or 7KXA, the green line issue, an incompatibility with MS-Backup in Win98SE that other mobos using the same chipsets don't present. The surce of this problems varies, but lack of testing would be my choice. Recently I sow a SOYO DRAGON that refuse to power a USB ZIP 250 external.
Other reasons are the problems with drivers, since neither Win95 nor 98 fully understand these chipsets, and a proper OS installation is for meny people confuse. Also, some few cards didn't contemplate AGP diference betwen Pentiums and Athlons, for example the Creative Anihilator II, rewrites your AGP driver with a Pentium generic, therefore you run the APG at 2x, and experience hangs.
The solution is buying a top brand mobo and using it with a modern OS. I strongelly recomend ASUS, any one, even the ALI chipsets ones.

 

[cavemanmoron]

the 133a chipset boards i had were fine,iwill;epox;abit,and Msi,
using 266a {epox 8kha+} and an Ecs k7s5a,and one Iwill 133a board still
like the Iwill board better than the ECS

 

[MoFunk]

I was unable to use my HP 970cxi printer through the USB port using a VIA KT133 chipset. Kinda ticked me off!

 

[GCJ]

I have a KT133a based MoBo and a Soundblaster Live! here and I don't have any problems here.

the only thing is to make sure you have the Live! on a PCI slot which isn't sharing any IRQ. In my A7V133, this means PCI slot 3...it depends on your Mobo.


just my 2 cents!

 

[Wind]

I got no probs w/ VIA. Stable & fast. Owned Asus A7V133V (KT133A) & now Epox 8KHA+ (KT266A). Assembled KT133, KT266, KLE133...no probs either apart from some hiccups which I would not define as a "chipset probs".

I have to agreed tht installing 4in1 drivers frequently is a hassle if u hv 20++ machine in ur company. But look at the brighter side. Frequent update of drivers means better support for new s/ware & h/ware, unveil the potential of the chipset to the fullest...& so forth.