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  #1  
Old 07-29-2001, 08:21 AM
threshar threshar is offline
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Default ASUS A7V133 vs ASUS A7M266

I got a digi001 system and it has some issues which I believe are directly correlated to my kt133 NOT kt133a chipset. (Unfortunate blunder on my part - thought I had a kt7a not a kt7 abit mobo) and I've been reading a lot of forums here and the general consensus is that the asus boards are good. I've read success with both the v133 and m266. I guess the question I have is which would be better? I know the m266 has both via & amd chipsets which has a no no next to it on the compato pages.
This box also has a symbios 5c38xx scsi card (I dunno if that raises any red flags to people).

Here's the compete setup:
ABIT KT7
Tbird 800Mhz
384MB pc133
digi001
Symbios 53C875 dual channel scsi (it actually has two of those chips on teh board)
DEC Tulip ethernet
Plextor 12/10/32 cdrw (scsi)
Seagate ST19101W 9GB drive (sys & audio - 50% full and defragged)

I've been seeing a lot of people just using ata100 here. I've tried various things like trying to get the digi its own IRQ but the scsi card doesn't like it (it is a devilish card and actually has the 2 scsi chips AND the NIC on the board). been playing musical pci slots changing things around. Disabled the NIC and stuff.

Playback seems to be generally OK, but recording I can record 1 track fairly decently at a time, but if I do more ptle locks up quite solid. If ptle doesn't lock up I get some DAE error (9162 is common if it actually gives me one).

Perhaps the HDD is not good enough - test of the drive show it can do 6MB/sec.

Thanks

[ July 29, 2001: Message edited by: threshar ]
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  #2  
Old 07-29-2001, 01:27 PM
Allen Hallada Allen Hallada is offline
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Location: Sun Valley, ID
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Default Re: ASUS A7V133 vs ASUS A7M266

threshar,
You are going to get alot of different responses on that one. I have had both the A7V133 and the A7M266 in my computer and I'm sticking with the A7M266. Best motherboard I've ever had period.
Two big advantages of the A7V133 is that it is supported by Digi now and it has onboard Promise ATA100 controller with RAID0 support. If you plan on hooking up two identicle ATA100 hard drives for a RAID configuration, it is a bargain for 124.00. To set up a RAID 0 with the A7M266 it would cost you around 250.00 because you would need to add the Promise FastTrack100 RAID Controller card for 75.00 on top of the 168.00 for the motherboard. The A7M266 is working great with Digi001 and has the highest track and plugin counts so far on the Davec Performance Test. The reason for this is that it supports 1.4Ghz AMD processors and it uses faster DDR Ram which you can buy now for about the same price as the older SDRAM. I have a 1.33Ghz AMD 266FSB processor with 512MB PC2100 DDR Ram and am using a Promise Ultra100 TX2 controller card for hooking both of my hard drives up as seperate masters and I get 24 Tracks + 12 Auxillary tracks with 5 plugins each for a total of 180 plugins. Yavuzj has an A7M266 and a 1.4Ghz AMD and is getting around 200 plugins with the same Promise controller card. The other advantage of this board is that it will be upgraded to accept the faster processors as they come out ie. 1.5ghz+.
So to wrap it up:

A7V133
1. 60.00 less
2. Onboard Promise Raid0 and ATA100 controller
3. Approved Digi motherboard

A7M266
1. Accepts new faster DDR ram
2. Highest track and plugin counts for Digi
3. Supports 1.4Ghz + processors

Summary: They are both excellent and stable motherboards and you can't lose with either one.

Good luck.
Allen [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
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  #3  
Old 07-29-2001, 01:41 PM
Allen Hallada Allen Hallada is offline
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Default Re: ASUS A7V133 vs ASUS A7M266

threshar,
Although the KT133A has been approved by Digi, many people were using the A7V with KT133 chipset with success way before the A7V133 with the KT133a chipset arrived. I would list your complete setup on the DUC and give it a try first. May want to do a search on that motherboard in the DUC. One of the work arounds that I know about were:

Changing performance setting in BIOS from Optimal to Normal.
There is also a load of info on optimizing computers for Digi on the DUC including enabling DMA for your hard drives, changing the PCI latency setting in the bios to none, and selecting "no sounds" under sound schemes in Sounds and Multimedia of control panel. Give it a try.
Good luck either way.
Allen [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[ July 29, 2001: Message edited by: Allen Hallada ]
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  #4  
Old 07-29-2001, 01:49 PM
Allen Hallada Allen Hallada is offline
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Default Re: ASUS A7V133 vs ASUS A7M266

Here is an old post with a KT133 chipset from Feb. 2001.

"I made a leap of faith and went totally against digi recommendations...
The power and price of an AMD T-bird 1.1 Ghz paired with the kt133 chipset made me take that chance. And I also tested the setup with my Duron 600 that overclocks to 1000 Mhz (10 x 100)<it is really cool that unlike an intel chip, you can unlock an AMD multiplier so that you don't mess with the FSB causing the pci bus to flub the digi card>
Before I list the spec's I want to say that I have had NO problems with my digi 001 and either of these setups...

1100 AMD T-bird overclocked to 1250(12.5x100)
600 AMD Duron overclocked to 1000(10x100)
I used a Thermaltake SuperORB cooler and Arctic Silver heat transfer past to get these chips to clock this high. I also had to turn the voltage up to 1.85 and 1.8 respectively.

Asus A7V with via kt133 chipset

With the price of ram so low and having saved a huge chunk of change from not buying a p3 1000, I spent $270 for 768 MB (3 sticks of 256) pc133 micron ram. Ram prices are even lower now so you can get it for less than 25 cents per MB.

The sweet spot in the hard drive market seems to be the 45 GB IBM Deskstar GPX series that I bought two of for $165 each. I think it is important to have a separate drive for audio.

I wanted to be able to edit on my 52" big screen so I snagged an Asus Twinview Geforce2 MX with a TVout. I can only push 800x600 to the TV, but it sure looks sweet...

I put in a generic 56k winmodem that I got for free after rebate just to be able to download patches, and browse a little.

I also dropped in an HP 10x4x32 CDRW and a Creative Labs 52x CDrom to make masters and load proggies.

So, I plugged the digi interface card in and it hasn't given me a problem yet. Although I do think it is important to use the promise ata100 ide controller instead of the ata66 ide controller that uses the via chipset. I also recommend placing any pci cards in a slot that doesn't share IRQ's with the promise controller or the Digi 001. I hope to see more people venturing into the AMD power workstations as time goes by and I have heard a lot about digides testing a wide variety of AMD setups. I am $1500 less rich, but I can run 24 tracks with as many as 4 d-verbs(I havn't needed more yet)..."
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  #5  
Old 07-29-2001, 07:57 PM
threshar threshar is offline
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Default Re: ASUS A7V133 vs ASUS A7M266

I've done some tinkering tonight and I think I finally got thigns stable with the KT133 (ABIT KT7) board. It revolved around playing with irq's and moving pci cards around. I was able to record 5 minutes with 5 tracks with virtually no cpu being used, no slowdowns or anything. (Before I could instantly crash recording 2 tracks). I will do a more comprehensive test.
I think perhaps this IRQ thing should go in the official FAQ - that the digi really does need its own irq.

I still may get the new board (Excuse to upgrade) I dunno.
Thanks to those who responded!
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  #6  
Old 07-29-2001, 11:29 PM
Allen Hallada Allen Hallada is offline
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Default Re: ASUS A7V133 vs ASUS A7M266

threshar,
Copy and paste your IRQ settings here on the DUC so that experienced Athlon users can help you out. These guys are amazing in here. You can print them out on paper and just type them in if you aren't able to copy and paste. Good luck and keep us informed.
Allen
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  #7  
Old 07-30-2001, 02:52 PM
threshar threshar is offline
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Default Re: ASUS A7V133 vs ASUS A7M266

Things seem to be working good. Damn PTLE is a nice piece of software. some learning curves to get used to (I am used to cool edit pro) but I already find it more flexable. Anyway - here's the IRQ lowdown:
(non-system ones)
5: scsi 1
7: digi001
9: nic, tnt2 (video)
10: scsi 2, serial 1, serial 2

I have onboard IDE controllers disabled since it is a fully scsi box.
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  #8  
Old 07-30-2001, 03:12 PM
Allen Hallada Allen Hallada is offline
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Location: Sun Valley, ID
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Default Re: ASUS A7V133 vs ASUS A7M266

threshar,
Way to go bud. Those are some interesting IRQ settings. Your Digi is actually in a lower priority position than it could be. If your bios will allow it, you could try forcing it to 9 or 10. The key seems to be getting it on its own so maybe all this priority stuff doesn't matter that much in this application. If I remember the priority for IRQ settings starts out
1
2
then skips to
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
then back to
3
4
5
6
7

So as you can see your Digi card is on the lowest priority of all your devices. That means that all the other components get priority over the Digi for running. I've never seen the serial controllers that far up on the list. Most people are having the best results with Digi in slot 3 from the AGP slot.
But hey if it works, don't break it right?

Just a thought.
Allen
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