Incompatibilities with KT133A?

[ET]

My motherboard died (well, just the AGP slot and one memory slot, but no AGP is enough to warrent a replacement), and I decided to buy a new MB/CPU combination (I now have ASUS CUV4X + P3-700), because if I bought just a new board, I'd feel like I wasted money.

Because I want to upgrade on the cheap, I'd rather use my existing 640MB of SDR RAM. So I decided to buy an AthlonXP (cheapest I can find, which is 2100+) and a Gigabyte GA-7ZXE. This should still provide a decent increase in performance over my existing P3.

But I vaguely remember about compatibility problems of graphics cards and the KT133A, on which the board is based. Is that true? Do these problems still exist? I have a GeForce3 now, but a Radeon may be in my future.

BTW, I'm sad that with this upgrade I'll finally have to give up my Sound Blaster AWE64 (ISA).

 

[rzr919]

First of all, I don't think there are problems with the kt133a. I have a ti4200 and had it running on kt133a for like one year. No problems at all.

Second, you might be able to find a kt133a based mobo with ISA slot. I had one (Jetway 663AS Ultra).

 

[ET]

Thanks. AMD CPUs aren't very successful here in Israel, and motherboards are hard to find. I really couldn't find another SDR one except the Gigabyte. It'd be a pity to put the AWE64 to rest, but I'll survive. I think that the Gigabyte board has sound output. Hopefully it'd be good enough.

 

[rzr919]

No way! The onboard sound on VIA motherboards (at least kt133/kt133a/kt266/a) are merely an AC'97 codec which does all sound processing on the CPU.

Moreover, the DAC on these boards suffer heavily on the quality side. You will be much more satisfied with a PCI card. Even a low-cost one. The onboard sound on these MBs are at the bottom of the quality chain .

 

[ET]

Actually I do have a cheap PCI card somewhere -- an old Hercules something based on some CM chip. I'd have to find it. I bought it but continued to use the AWE64 mainly because it has both a line out and headphones out, which I found pretty convenient. Now if only I knew where it was...

 

[mat]

you really want to get a KT133A Board now? the Chip with a defect IDE Controller? (aka 686B Bug?)

 

[rzr919]

Afaik kt133a/686b actually fixed the bug in the IDE controller that was present in the 686a/kt133.

 

[ET]

Yes, I'd like to get a KT133A MB, for the reasons I mentioned. The reason I'm posting here is to find out what potential problems I might have. If there's anything significant, I might go another way. But KT133A is my favoured course right now.

 

[mat]

Afaik kt133a/686b actually fixed the bug in the IDE controller that was present in the 686a/kt133.

no, the KT133A intrduced a funny new bug. if you copy large files from one ide Controller to the other one its quite possible to get data corruption. (just search google for "686B Bug")

but it may be fixed with the new 4in1 Drivers, but the last thing i've heard it still happens. (just not so often anymore)

btw: if you still want to use your old Ram, i'd get a Sis 735 Board. (the Kt133A is one of the slowes Chips available)

 

[mat]

Yes, I'd like to get a KT133A MB, for the reasons I mentioned. The reason I'm posting here is to find out what potential problems I might have. If there's anything significant, I might go another way. But KT133A is my favoured course right now.

one of my PCs has a KT133A Board.
it took me some Months to get this Board working find (crashed every 5-50 minutes; it didnt like my SB Live card).
Now its mostly ok, but everytime i start a Game and the PC was on for some time its kinda slow. (but only for 1/10 of a second every 5-10 seconds; no idea why, but i cant get rid of it). The only thing that helps is starting the Game right after booting the system.

 

[beyondhelp]

Rather than the Kt133a, I would look at the SiS735 chipset. It supported both SDRAM and DDR as with the ECS K7s5a Motherboard. It's stable, Faster than the KT133a by a long shot, will accept your SDRAM now and leave you room to upgade to DDR down the road. I've Worked with several Sis735 boards with good results. And they are cheap.

an example: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...=22&manufactory=1414&DEPA=1&sortby=14&order=1

$40 w/free shipping

 

[rzr919]

Yes, but the man said he is in Israel

 

[beyondhelp]

Yeah and that is why I put... "An Example" before the link. Only to make it easy to see the specs on the board.

 

[horvendile]

I have a KT133A board, the MSI K7T Turbo. I also have an SBLive and have not noticed any problems with this combo !
As for graphics, I have used a Voodoo 5 and a Radeon 9600 Pro. The Radeon does have major problems with some older games, but I wouldn't blame the motherboard for that.
One thing you really want to verify before you buy though is CPU compatibility. My MB only goes to XP1700+. If it's a new board you're looking at one should think that CPU support would be OK, but it's best to be on the safe side.

 

[ET]

One thing you really want to verify before you buy though is CPU compatibility. My MB only goes to XP1700+. If it's a new board you're looking at one should think that CPU support would be OK, but it's best to be on the safe side.

Thanks. Checked that already. The board supports all Athlon processors with the 266MHz bus (there's a detailed list at the Gigabyte site -- I was impressed).


Regarding the SiS chipset, I considered the dual RAM MBs. I may be able to get one, although I don't think it'd be cheaper than the Gigabyte. The disadvantages are that it won't have a 3 year warranty (I think that my CUV4X had that, but unfortunately it's 3 years and two months since I bought it), and it will only support 512MB of the 640MB I have (I have two 256MB DIMMS and one 128MB).

How much is "a long shot", considering speed? Assuming I'm not using DDR.

 

[Phantom_309]

I have the following configuration:

WinXP Pro
MSI K7T Turbo2 v.5 (supports all 266fsb AthlonXP's)/Athlon XP 1600+/512 PC133 Crucial
ATI Radeon 8500LE 64MB 275/275
351 Watt Enermax PSU
SB Live! Value
Cheap $4 Realtek RTL8139C NIC
Lite-On 52x32x52 CDRW
Mitsumi 24x CD
WD 80GB 8mb cache
WD 13GB
19" Dell M992 Monitor
Toshiba Cable Modem-RR
Guitar Port

I have had the MSI K7T Turbo2 with KT133A for 1-1/2 years and have had zero problems with it. I started out with a Voodoo 5500 and then bought the Radeon 8500LE which I am still using. It was an upgrade from an Asus P2B with Cel566@850 and I wanted to keep my PC133.

If I would do it today though I would go with the MSI KT2 Combo-L motherboard. It offers slightly better onboard sound (Realtek), a newer chipset (KT266A), has built in NIC and support SDR+DDR so you can upgrade to DDR later if you'd like. You can get it for $54.99 at newegg.com.

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/detail_spec/product_detail.asp?model=KT2_Combo-L

I would just ditch the 128MB stick of RAM and go with 512. You won't see that big of a difference anyway and you would be better of going with the better future abilities of the MSI KT2 Combo-L vs. the KT Turbo2. Don't let that 128MB stick of RAM hold you back from USB 2.0, better processor support, a newer chipset and the ability to go to DDR RAM later.

JMO.

 

[ET]

Thanks. USB 2.0 would indeed be a consideration. In terms of CPU support, this MB doesn't add anything. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to get hold of this MB. I could find a MicroATX MB with support for both RAM types, but that's less desirable. I'll try to see if I can find the MSI though.

 

[ET]

Okay, seems like I can get the ECS SiS735 MB. Not sure it's worth it, though. Only USB 1.1, like the KT133A, and less tweakable. I did see that it has pretty good memory speed benchmarks. The KT266A on the other hand seems to be quite a bit slower than the KT133A when it comes to SDR memory, so even if I could get that MSI board, I'm not sure it's worth it.

 

[Nappe1]

I have a KT133A board, the MSI K7T Turbo. I also have an SBLive and have not noticed any problems with this combo !
As for graphics, I have used a Voodoo 5 and a Radeon 9600 Pro. The Radeon does have major problems with some older games, but I wouldn't blame the motherboard for that.
One thing you really want to verify before you buy though is CPU compatibility. My MB only goes to XP1700+. If it's a new board you're looking at one should think that CPU support would be OK, but it's best to be on the safe side.

MSI K7T Turbo, Athlon XP1700+, 512MB PC-133 & Philips Seismic Edge.

problems with this chipset?
well, there is 686b bug, but it does not destroy data while moving it between IDE channels. BUT it sure does make PCI go it's knees. (in this case, because I have 2x40GB HDD at IDE0 and DVD-ROM & CD-RW on IDE1, it means no playing with winamp while burning CDs.) Bug happens when there's high amount of data transferred between IDE channels and it causes PCI performance drop dramatically during those transfers. Still, if you only have one HDD, you can always bypass this problem attaching the CD-burner on same IDE-interface as the HDD.


and those AGP problems mentioned above considered only KX133 chipset, that was SLOT A chipset from via. KT133 (that was first socket A chipset from via) didn't have any bigger problems with AGP cards. (and KT133A is fixed version of KT133, A version supports 133MHz fsb, while KT133 supports only 100MHz fsb.)

and what comes to CPU compability, my room mate has exact same mobo and he is running XP2100+ with it. (b-core throughbred mobo Bios version is latest: 3.6) though it is not officially supported, it seems working fine. In quick overclock tests, K7T Turbo recognizes XP's at least all way up to 2400+

 

[ET]

I got the Gigabyte board and the AthlonXP 2100+. The computer works quite well, except that I can't use the sound card, because the moment I plug it in the computer turns on, and can't be turned off.