Asus A8V.... Is VIA Junk??? HELP!

S

sandman78

Gawd
Joined
Jun 5, 2004
Messages
587
I was all ready to order the Asus A8V motherboard for use with an AMD FX-53 chip, until I was reading some other threads where certain users are saying that VIA is "complete and total junk" and that the NFORCE 3 chipset is the ONLY way to go. Is this true? I purchased an ASUS A7V way back when it first came out, ( the first day the board was available to order) and it was the biggest biece of shit I had ever used. They finally got the board lined out about 13 bios release's later, but I sent that board back, and other than that this is my first AMD system. I have heard VIA has come a long way, etc... but reading these user's posts has made me "skidish" about ordering a VIA chipset board. Are they right? Please let me know as I need to get a board ordered ASAP.

Thanks,
S@ndman
 
well... i've heard of problems with VIA boards in this current iteration as well. i, myself, went through something like three VIA boards back when i was running an AMD thunderbird processor before settling on an nforce 1 motherboard.

i wouldn't recommend VIA at all. spend a few more bucks and you can get an extremely stable and fast machine with nforce 3 motherboards.
 
See, I was told just the opposite. And the people I have seen on here talking about their new FX-53 setup have been using the Asus A8V. If anyone else has some input, please let me know.

S@ndman
 
i'm using a K8V Deluxe (via chipset) without much of a problem. I've not noticed any strange behaviour and since i'm constantly benchmarking, gaming, typing, etc. i should know. It's not worth it, imho, to squeeze 3 fps more outta my system in order to go either way. I want something that is consistent, middle of the road in price, and that frankly won't blow up 2 months down the road. For intel, that means their chipsets; for AMD that means Via and nVidia. you can't go wrong either way.

cheers,

dave
 
dave_graham said:
It's not worth it, imho, to squeeze 3 fps more outta my system in order to go either way. I want something that is consistent, middle of the road in price, and that frankly won't blow up 2 months down the road. For intel, that means their chipsets; for AMD that means Via and nVidia. you can't go wrong either way.
dave
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? What's not worth it? Squeeze 3 more FPS? (I know you mean Frames per sec) ? What platform are you saying WOULD blow up 2 months down the road?

S@nDmAn
 
BTW, does anyone know of a good NFORCE 3 Chipset board for the Socket 939 FX-53s?

S@nDmAn
 
I have the A8V and I'm having all sorts of problems...I'm changing mobos as soon as someone else comes out with one unless they finally get a good bios update....they just cmae out with a new one two days ago to take care of some vid card problems, but I'm still having them....not to mention memory and HD problems.
 
DaMaDo said:
I have the A8V and I'm having all sorts of problems...I'm changing mobos as soon as someone else comes out with one unless they finally get a good bios update....they just cmae out with a new one two days ago to take care of some vid card problems, but I'm still having them....not to mention memory and HD problems.
Click to expand...

Sorry you're having problems. Thanks for telling me tho. I'm going to hold off on my order for right now. Are you going to go for another VIA chipset by another manufacturer, or are you going to get a NFORCE 3 chipset board?

S@nDmaN
 
I'm going to wait for the NF3....if I were you, I would wait.....at least to get opinions on the new boards.
 
DaMaDo said:
I'm going to wait for the NF3....if I were you, I would wait.....at least to get opinions on the new boards.
Click to expand...

I don't know if that will be the answer. I have ran the NF3 250Gb and the KT800Pro and found the VIA solution more stable just lacked the true AGP/PCI lock. Once I get my KT800Pro RMA back from Abit, I will return the NF3 based board.
 
i think im going to have to rma my via "piece of shit" as you put it, so no, i wont buy another via chipset
 
In my experience, the last VIA chipset which was a true POS was the KT133 one. The joyful times I've spend with buggy MSI (K7T Pro), KT133-based mainboards...

*shivers*
 
Elledan said:
In my experience, the last VIA chipset which was a true POS was the KT133 one. The joyful times I've spend with buggy MSI (K7T Pro), KT133-based mainboards...

*shivers*
Click to expand...

Hahaha thats what I'm using right now... K7T Turbo from MSI. I've had it for about 2 and half yrs now, and still running stable like a rock. I have 9800 pro as well, so gaming ain't that bad especially on newer games (Red Orchestra for Ut2004 has been taking alot of my time lately :cool: ) I plan to get a AMD 64 system within the next few weeks for college tho :D
 
toenexx said:
Hahaha thats what I'm using right now... K7T Turbo from MSI. I've had it for about 2 and half yrs now, and still running stable like a rock. I have 9800 pro as well, so gaming ain't that bad especially on newer games (Red Orchestra for Ut2004 has been taking alot of my time lately :cool: ) I plan to get a AMD 64 system within the next few weeks for college tho :D
Click to expand...
Sounds like you're one of those lucky guys we've all come to hate ;)

Over at Anandtech they used to have servers based on K7T Pro boards as well until they upgraded them. The problems they experienced with those boards were the same as those that I experienced. I've been told that this was due to a bug in the design of the CPU voltage regulator circuit on this board, causing the CPU to be supplied a too low voltage at times. Leaving the system sitting unplugged for a couple of weeks/months often would fix it temporarily.

The latency issues of the PCI-bus especially with soundcards was another one of those things which were extremely annoying.
 
I ordered the FX-53, but I plan on returning it when it arrives. I have decided to buy another Asus P4C800-E Deluxe. I had a system, (which I just sold) that had that motherboard in it, and it was a great board. I guess when you have a system that works perfectly you get kind of board and want to try something different. At least I have caught myself doing that over the years. :) "If it ain't broke, change it around." LOL Hope everyone gets their problems lined out. Thanks for all the input!

S@NdmAn
 
Overall, our VIA boards have been much more stable than the NF3 boards we have experienced....
 
Yes, and with way more undocumented bu-- I mean, features. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with VIA, just nForce 3 is (10^n)x better. Especially the 250 variety considering it can function asynchronously with no problem, while 80% of shipped K800T Pro chipsets miserably fail. There are more issues than that, some can be obviously attributed to the motherboard manufacturers themselves, while others are common accross several. Nobody's stopping you from running out and buying all the stuff that just came out yesterday. Nobody was stopping the people who were buying gefoce 5800U's for $400 either.
 
Yeah, thats why I'm going to get something I know will work for now and a I will let some time go by allowing some of the "kinks" to get worked out of the s939 boards. I wish intel would come out with a chipset for the AMD 64's. :)LOL An FX-53 processor on a motherboard as stable as the good ol" Asus P2B, P3B, CUSL2, P4B266, etc.. I'm sure there will be Ice Tea, Ice Cream, and Cold beer served in hell before Intel ever comes out with a chipset for an AMD processor. You have to admit tho, it would be sweet.

S@nDmAn
 
DaMaDo said:
I have the A8V and I'm having all sorts of problems...I'm changing mobos as soon as someone else comes out with one unless they finally get a good bios update....they just cmae out with a new one two days ago to take care of some vid card problems, but I'm still having them....not to mention memory and HD problems.
Click to expand...

I had some raid issues, but they cleared up when I switched to the promise controller. Seems that via raid is crappola. That bios actually seems to fix the vid card issues I had with the board.
 
Ya im a rokking out with my Fx-53 and Asus mobo, im just looking for the Beta Bios that locks the PCI/AGP dividers, i had some Hiccups with Memory and Raid problems nothing out of the ordinary, but its solid boots right up at 2600 Mhz at 1.60 volts and havnt changed it since i set it there and the system runs flawlessly.
 
I wish AMD had the resources to currently make their own desktop chipsets. Nvidia and Via just seem to consistently put out half assed products.
 
AMD used to make their own chipsets, but they were all garbage. They quickly gave up and let nvidia and VIA have it.
 
The kt133a was one heck of a chipset.
The rest have been OK (although the new a64 chipsets i hear good things about)

The NF2 is the best all around chipset atm for socket A. Awesome integrated sound, good performance, support for bells and whistles, whats not to like?


I certainly wouldnt call the NF2 half assed. Its as good as the 440 was in its heyday.
 
nVidia makes great chipsets, the just never seem to get it right the first time. Or the second. Usually the third is the best one.
 
OK, before I post content, let me lay down some general rules of posting.

1.) Please refrain from using triple question marks in the thread title, it's obnoxious.
2.) Please refrain from being strident and disengaging your common sense in the thread body, it's obnoxious.
3.) Please refrain from using vague, poorly-supported, and/or false blanket statements in the thread body, it's obnoxious.

*ahem*

1. nVidia haven't put out a properly half-assed product line other than the original FX52/6/800 series cards. The 5700 and 59x0 line are quite good, even if the 5900XT renders the 5700 series redundant. (Hey, they need SOMETHING to compete directly with the 9600Pro.) I suppose arguments could be made for the GF4MX series' half-assedness, but they make nice secondary graphics cards for us poor people.

2. What was wrong with nForce1? :confused: Anyway, nForce2's integrated video is far from half-assed; if it is, then you'll have to call Intel's rather laughable 845G and 865G graphics cores (Intel Extreme Graphics 1 and 2, respectively) lack-assed. And as a general chipset for socket A, nForce2 is the best one available. Sadly, nVidia is discontinuing production of the MCP2-T, because they're basically dropping the nForce APU as a product. It should come back eventually as a stand-alone card product though. :D
...2b. I've used nVidia chipsets ONLY for my Socket A ventures, so go ahead and call me an nForce fanboy. I don't care.

3. VIA's AMD64 chipsets have been their best products to date. nForce3 250/250Gb is still better IMO, but I would actually choose the KT800 line over nForce3 150 any day. If you need an inexpensive A64 board, there are some nice K8T800 ones out there. KT400 and KT600 aren't bad either...but I still use nForce2 (Biostar M7NCG) for budget builds.

4. Nowadays, there isn't much point in AMD making their own chipsets for us desktop users, since VIA and nVidia are at each other's throats for the right to spoil us rotten. AMD do still make their own server chipsets, though. 8xxx for Opteron (I don't remember the exact designation), 760MPX for AthlonMP. Oh yeah, ServerWorks is taking care of the >4-CPU chipsets for Opteron.

Did I miss anything?
 
These kinds of problems are the MAIN reason why I have always used Intel for everything. I've had a Athlon in the past and it was a nightmare.

With Intel chipsets, drivers and stability are NEVER a problem unless you get some shitty ECS board.
 
I own a socket 940 VIA SK8V and it works great. Believe me I saw all the "VIA sucks" comments on the web and I was skeptical but I must say this board is stellar.

I remember my first Nforce2 board, a Chaintech model, in my last PC was a POS and I had to swap it out for a MSI version. I don't think it was because Chaintech makes crappy boards in general, I just got a lemon unfortunately.

I think AMD gets a bum rap now for problems in the past just like ATI does.
 
Arioch said:
I own a socket 940 VIA SK8V and it works great. Believe me I saw all the "VIA sucks" comments on the web and I was skeptical but I must say this board is stellar.

I remember my first Nforce2 board, a Chaintech model, in my last PC was a POS and I had to swap it out for a MSI version. I don't think it was because Chaintech makes crappy boards in general, I just got a lemon unfortunately.

I think AMD gets a bum rap now for problems in the past just like ATI does.
Click to expand...

eerrr, i just now read your post. I came SO close to ordering an AMD FX-53 on the SK8V. If I would have read your post, I probably would have done that. I ended up ordering an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe and a P4 3.4c. You've got to be trying really hard to "go wrong" with a p4. <--Since I just typed that, this system is going to probably explode when I get it all together and power it on.:D Seriously tho, I know it will be a good system, but I was anxious to play with an "athy".:D Oh well, I will just run that setup for a while and let all the s939 boards mature. But you know that as soon as that happens, I will get ready to order the board and then PCI Express is ready. LOL It's a never ending cycle. Also, just because I went with the P4 setup, I am not insinuating that your via setup is no good, bad, etc.. I guess I am just still shaken by my Asus A7V :eek: experience. Thanks everyone for all the posts, I really appreciate all the input from everyone.
 
Sir-Fragalot said:
These kinds of problems are the MAIN reason why I have always used Intel for everything. I've had a Athlon in the past and it was a nightmare.

With Intel chipsets, drivers and stability are NEVER a problem unless you get some shitty ECS board.
Click to expand...

Which chipset was it?

As far as stability goes, they're pretty dead even i would think. I would put an AXP or A64 against a P4.
 
dave_graham said:
i'm using a K8V Deluxe (via chipset) without much of a problem. I've not noticed any strange behaviour and since i'm constantly benchmarking, gaming, typing, etc. i should know. It's not worth it, imho, to squeeze 3 fps more outta my system in order to go either way. I want something that is consistent, middle of the road in price, and that frankly won't blow up 2 months down the road. For intel, that means their chipsets; for AMD that means Via and nVidia. you can't go wrong either way.

cheers,

dave
Click to expand...

i like how typing got into that mix

high5 on that one.
 
That's why I can't see overclocking my video too much either as the extra couple FPS at high resolutions are not worth the occasional system lockup that may occur.
 
101 said:
I wish AMD had the resources to currently make their own desktop chipsets. Nvidia and Via just seem to consistently put out half assed products.
Click to expand...

I agree. That's part of why Intel systems are so stable. Their chipsets are bar none better than the competition. Not always faster, but definatley more reliable. Their chipset drivers are the most stable of all the chipset makers.

I have no experience with N-Force chipsets at all, and I know VIA sucks but lets not forget how much SIS blows.
 
Wixard said:
Which chipset was it?

As far as stability goes, they're pretty dead even i would think. I would put an AXP or A64 against a P4.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't. I've used a number of VIA based boards in machines and work and on customers machines. I've used a number of SIS and Intel based as well. My experience has taught me two things.

Non-Intel chipsets suck and alot of the board manufacturers do a shitty job at building boards for the AMD platform. This is not AMD's fault. I like thier processors just fine.

The *ONLY* board maker I would consider to build a Athlon with is Asus. And even then I'd have a hard time spending the green. Especially since the Athlon's are getting to be as expensive as the Intel's. So I'd rather pay the same amount of money and get a product that I know I can OC the shit out of and not fry as long as I keep my voltage below 1.7V.
 
M4d-K10wN said:
AMD used to make their own chipsets, but they were all garbage. They quickly gave up and let nvidia and VIA have it.
Click to expand...

The AMD 760 chipset for the original Athlons was quite good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top