G400 and Socket7 - VIA or ALi?

[Livius]

Hi! I am building a Socket7 system for a friend, consisting in a G400, a SB Live! and either a Gigabyte 5AA (ALi Aladdin V - 1542 chipset) or a Soyo 5EHM (VIA MVP3). Which is more stable with SS7, ALI or VIA?

[DarkSyd]

Is there any particluar reason for going SS7? If it is a new system, I'd strongly recommend a BX/Cel combo as opposed to AMD/via/Ali. There are enough things already that could go wrong with a computer system, without one having to worry about the chipset being to blame.
Just my $.02

DS

[Jon P. Inghram]

I've got my G400Max and SBLive! in a Epox MVP3G5 (Via based) and it does pretty good.

But, if I had known then that everyone was dropping support for SS7 as quickly as they seem to be now I would have MUCH rather bought a BX based board and either a Celeron or if I had the money a P3.

[anid]

At this point in time, I would have to agree that S7 probably is not a very good way to go. But, if you do decide to, the MVP3 is not problematic with the Matrox cards. You can't use AGP 2X, but even in 1X it outperforms the Ali in 2X (I have always heard). Using an Epox G-M with G200 myself, I am happy with it.

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"I wrestled with reality for 27 years and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it."

[HedsSpaz]

Take a look at this thread. There is an awful lot o fflaming in it but it also has a good bit of useful info. http://forums.murc.ws/ubb/Forum3/HTML/001792.html

Ian

[anid]

That did turn rather childish, didn't it? He's right, though, if you wanna dig, there is some useful info... I would voice my opinion, but don't want to start another holy war. One good point that I have noticed myself, though - the Ali does tend to offer broader compatability and less set-up headaches (if you stay away from there BM drivers, same as Via), but Via does tend to offer better performance. There are a _few_ issues with Matrox on Via boards, but they are usually pretty easy to work around. Mostly in which driver releases you will be able to use.

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"I wrestled with reality for 27 years and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it."

[Damien Green]

I agree, I think that you need a newer CPU to take advantage of the G400, K6 2's etc. just don't cut it anymore when paired with an advanced chipset like the G400.

[Livius]

He's already got a K6-III/400 so I cannot argue with him over the platform. (I myself have made the jump from Celeron to Coppermine and it was well worth it, but that's another story.) My question was simply whether I should choose the ALI over the VIA. We are interested less in speed or performance, and more in stability.

[Livius]

OK, I've read the thread you suggested and I can summarize the findings in the following way: VIA sucks, VIA is great, ALI sucks, ALI is great.

I am no "certified" technician like Greebe and M..M..X4 but I have built several dozens of system in my life; unfortunately none based on an ALI+G400+Live combination. I know that on some VIA boards the G400+Live finally worked together, while on others they didn't. I also know that a few days ago I spent half the day trying to make a TNT work on a Tekram MVP3 mobo in games and I failed after the exact same proceedings that resulted in a success on other VIA boards.

If anybody feels they have something meaningful to add, please do. I would be grateful.

[anid]

If you want stability over all else, take it from an MVP3 user - go with the Asus P5 or Iwill.

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"I wrestled with reality for 27 years and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it."

[EchoWars]

With VIA chipsets and the latest 4-in-1 drivers, installing in 'Normal' mode enables AGP 2x. This is because the newest 4-in-1 packages are designed to support both the MVP3 chipset and the 133a chipset, which is able to utilize AGP 4x. I have found that any 4-in-1 package newer than 4.17 will enable AGP 2x on SS7 boards even if installed in 'Normal' mode. The answer is to hack the Registry to force either the vid card or the MB to AGP 1x. Then the TNT's and Matrox's will run fine on VIA SS7 systems. Paulcs helped me find out how....kudo's...

[Joel]

Joel

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System Specs

[Jon P. Inghram]

Actually, my G400Max seems to be happy running at AGPx2 on this board. My old G200 would crash when Windows started if I used the reg hacks to force it to x2.

[mynx]

I have a G400 + Live + via (Epox MVP3m-g5). I have no stability problems or driver problems. I don't game alot, but my system is on 24/7 for weeks at a time without any problems.
My girlfriends G200 + Via system has had driver problems, but once running is just as stable.

[kjliew]

For SS7, both chipsets have their own pros and cons. I don't have an ALi though, I am using MVP3.

In the earlier time, ALi seemed to have more problems than MVP3 especially with AGP. But for Matrox cards today, MVP3 seems to have more drivers issues than ALi. I have heard that PD5.52+TGL1.3 work on ALi. For MVP3, the best PD is still PD5.30.

Stability wise, both chipsets are about the same. We have to accept the fact that most hardware/software will be validated on Intel chipsets. Non-Intel chipsets will probably come next, or none at all.... So there got to be fixes and patches everywhere. So it largely depends whether the user is experience in PC stuffs, SS7 need more skills to tweak and tune to come up with a stable system. People who don't bother to flash for new BIOS and upgrade drivers are best to avoid any SS7/Non-Intel platform.

From software standpoint, ALi has come up with an AGP utility aka. AGPWizard, which allows the users to tune and tweak various chipsets behaviour regarding AGP. A plus for ALi. However, VIA provides easy accesses to most of its products' datasheets. A plus from a programmer standpoint.

No matter which chipsets you decided on, you'll likely be experiencing deteriorating supports from IHV/ISV. This cruel history of PC industry is unavoidable for an aging platform.