KT880 based motherboards, where are those?

[Nappe1]

I am waiting for mainly Asus A7V880 or MSI KT880 Delta to replace my trusty old MSI K7T Turbo. (yeah, I think it is time to get on DDR train... )

anyone heard when KT880 boards are going hit the shops in europe?

[Novdid]

VIA...Nooooooooooooaoaoaaoooooooo!

Jokes aside, the chipset is fast. But remember it's a, you know what.

[Nappe1]

umh, I am not going buy nForce in any case, sooo... are you really saying that I should buy a SIS based motherboard instead?

I have been pretty happy with KT133A (except 686B southbridge problem... with my Seismic edge, transferring data from ATA0 to ATA1 makes the PCI go on it's knees.) and I am not looking exceptional performance, but more like pretty solid platform. (my K7T Turbo is 3 years old, so don't expect me changing to 64 bit architechture any time soon. )

[Nowhere]

Originally posted by Nappe1
...
except 686B southbridge problem... with my Seismic edge, transferring data from ATA0 to ATA1 makes the PCI go on it's knees.)
...

Did you use George Breese's VIA PCI Latency Patch?

[Nappe1]

Originally posted by Nowhere
Did you use George Breese's VIA PCI Latency Patch?

umm... no, where I can get that?
when the problem started, I just browsed the web and found that VIA actually made a fix in their 4-in-1 drivers, which is applied if creative sound card is found from the system. In my case, that fix won't be applied because I have Philips Seismic Edge. (which has been a excelent card, btw.)

any link to that Patch? though I am changing my motherboard, it would be still nice to able to listen winamp while burning cds until I'll get the new motherboard...

[Nowhere]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=George+Breese+VIA+PCI+Latency+Patch&btnG=Search

[The PIT]

Via aaaaAAAAArrrrrrGGGGGGGGhhh.

Don't bother they're pants. Try and find an SIS based board.

[bsdgeek]

SiS chipsets aren't bad at all, but not quite as fast as the KT880 or nForce2Ultra 400Gb are anymore.

I'm not quite sure on this, but the primary motherboard manufacturers for the SiS 748 are Gigabyte & ASRock, I don't know that they'll offer all of the tweaking options you'll see on VIA or Nvidia boards.

[Marshmallowman]

for pure PCI and IDE performance the SIS IS faster.

[Nappe1]

bringing this up.
due the fact that no big brands makes SIS748 based motherboards, I decided to give a try to KT880. I ordered a whole bunch of new parts and there will be a Asus A7V880 or MSI KT880 Delta, depending which will be easier / sooner available.

And real reason why I decided that it is time to make bigger update: My computer doesn't like to start on first try when booted cold. you need to push reset to give IDE and FDC a wake up call.

I'll let you know my findings when I have the system up and running.

EDIT: and oh... that PCI latency patch... it did help... a kind of. now my sound card does not scramble as much as it did before (but it still does it a bit.) and if my 10Mbps Ethernet gets full load (especially if transferring data with real time compression, like DC++ does.) the whole system slows down like a snail in a wall-paper paste. (basically you can't do much more than a sit and watch.)

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Nappe1

And real reason why I decided that it is time to make bigger update: My computer doesn't like to start on first try when booted cold. you need to push reset to give IDE and FDC a wake up call.

Which probably means that you need to set the bootup delay. Or if you've modded your CPU, that it's not quite right.

[Nappe1]

Originally posted by Wombat
Which probably means that you need to set the bootup delay. Or if you've modded your CPU, that it's not quite right.

not exactly. it used to work, but not anymore. the reason for this behaviour is most likely my 3 years old motherboard. (working voltage regulator in 3 year old MSI K7T Turbo is a miracle already. ) another thing is the PSU that is a bit too weak. 300 Watts isn't enough for 1700XP+ Palomine with 9700 non-pro, 2 HDDs, CD-ROM and DVD-CD/RW combo drive. (plus quite few fans running inside the case.)

new case that I ordered has 375 Watts HEC low noise PSU. (should have about 15 Amps more power on 3.3 and 5 volts lines.)

and the problem is that lights of Floppy Disk Drive and IDE bus are on, but it seems that one of two HDD's don't get enough power to start up. after reset, it's starts spinning. (you can easily hear it.) if I don't push the reset, lights keep up burning and after post, it just says that it can't find boot devices. (well, how it could, if it does not find hard disks either. )

[Wombat]

There should be a IDE spin-up delay setting in the BIOS.

[Nappe1]

Originally posted by Wombat
There should be a IDE spin-up delay setting in the BIOS.

there is but it is not the problem. if I unplug one HDD, (either one.) system boots up fine. also, it used to boot up with both HDDs attached just fine, but last 3 times it has started to do what I described earlier.

[Kurt]

It's probably just a cr*p PSU you're using - or your mobo like you said...

For your upgrade, get a quality 300/350W from any Fortron Source OEM you can find (Aopen Zalman, etc).

They're the best, hands down, in the PSUs-you-can-afford dept.

Antec, HTC, and whatnot are always a step behind and sometimes they can't even reach their advertised power. With Fortron Source you usually have another 20-25% safety margin.

If you can find one, get an Aopen tower (stay away from the Qxxxx line), cheapest way you can get your hands on an FS PSU...you can even keep the case if you like it!