Need help...thoughts on this motherboard Gigabyte GA-7VAXP

Goober · TweakNOOB Joined: 11 Oct 2002 Posts: 9

Need help...thoughts on this motherboard Gigabyte GA-7VAXP. I had a bad experience along time ago with amd 200mhz...like i said a long time ago. well im gonna give amd another try with an amd athlon xp 2400 processor. and im trying to find a good to great motherboard. plz tell me your thoughts on this gigabyte motherboard. Thx Also i really dont plan on overclocking this system but you never no i might wanna try. Also just give me any info you know about this motherboard and also any ideas for fans to go with say a xp2400 cpu on this mother.thx

Goober

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Goober · TweakNOOB Joined: 11 Oct 2002 Posts: 9

Thank you for welcoming to the forum....makes me feel welcome

Thanks for your help im about to go out..but im sure i will have plenty more questions.

[TN] Nathan · ALMIGHTY PWNER! Joined: 14 Feb 2002 Posts: 7406

Goober, we are here to help and seeing the amount of hardware that we go through, we have a lot of expertise to give you and all of our viewers.

Any questions you have, shoot them in here and we will get them answered promptly.

Welcome to the board!!!
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DMW · SirTweaksabit Joined: 16 May 2002 Posts: 457

ok...nuff greatings...get on with the opinions......

I too am looking at this board ever since I discovered my current MOBO inly supports up to XP2000...AFTER I got my XP2100.....DOH~!

DMW · SirTweaksabit Joined: 16 May 2002 Posts: 457

ok....this looks like a good buy at 114.00 US.

Any thought given to the:

KT4 Ultra-FISR (MS-6590) 120.00
• 200/266/333 MHz or Above FSB, Socket A AMD Athlon XP up to 2200+
• DDR 266/333/400* DIMM up to 3GB *DDR 400 memory support by MSI certified module only Note: DDR400 (PC3200) Max. up to 2 Memory Dimm slots with 4 memory banks only
• Ultra DMA 100/133, Serial ATA, IEEE1394, Gigabit LAN
• ATX Form Factor, 6 PCI, 4X/8X AGP, 6X USB 2.0
• 5.1 Channel Audio, Live BIOS, Fuzzy Logic, D-Bracket

OR

ASUS A7V8X 141.00
Socket A for AMD® Athlon XP/ Athlon/ Duron up to 2.4GHz+
Thoroughbred core CPU ready
Chipset
North Bridge: VIA® KT400
South Bridge: VIA® VT8235
FSB 266/200 MHz
Memory 3 x DDR DIMM Sockets
Max. 3 GB unbuffered *PC3200/PC2700/PC2100/PC1600 non-ECC SDRAM Memory (Note: PC3200 Max. to 2 banks only; PC2700 Max. to 4 banks only)
Expansion Slots
1 x AGP 8X
6 x PCI (one shared with optional ASUS proprietary wireless slot)
IDE Ports 2 x UltraDMA/133/100/66
Flexible Serial ATA Promise® controller supports one ATA133 and two serial ATA connectors
RAID 0 support by two to three Parallel ATA or Serial ATA connectors. RAID 1 support by two Parallel or Serial ATA connectors.
Audio Realtek 6-channel CODEC
S/PDIF in/out interface
LAN Broadcom® 10/100 Mbps or 1000 Mbps Ethernet controller
USB 2.0 VIA® VT8235 built-in USB 2.0 / 6 x USB 2.0 port
IEEE-1394 (optional) VIA® 1394 controller / 2 x 1394 port
Back Panel I/O Ports
1 x Parallel
2 x Serial
1 x PS/2 Keyboard
1 x PS/2 Mouse
1 x Audio I/O (on audio model only)
1 x RJ-45 Port (on LAN model only)
4 x USB 2.0

OR any others preferred?

jadison · Guest

Do you need RAID support? Are you going to be connecting several USB devices to this computer (more than 4)?

I've had experience with MSI so naturally I'd choose the KT4 (1st choice).

suemccartin · TweakNOOB Joined: 19 Nov 2002 Posts: 1

I too was in the market for a newer board (mostly because xp service package one seems to drive most via 686B driven chipsets nuts in the ide department-long story). I was also attracted to the MSI KT4 FISR but I could not find a single place offering one for sale.

I found the KT4 BSR model all over the place but no one admitted to carrying the FISR version of the board. In my research on the gigabyte usenet groups, (there are three for different parts of the world) I saw a lot of complaining going on about the ga-7vaxp. From what I've heard, avoid the 1.0 version of the board, it had many issues that are resolved in the 1.1 version. I've also heard it's extremely picky about high speed memory and most folks seem to be having the best luck with DDR2700 memory--less luck with the faster stuff. There were also complaints from folks trying to use the 166 bus selection for the thoroughbred. However there were also a great number of people who said they've built many systems on this board with no issues at all. Sounds like gigabyte has a bit more work to do on the bios for this board but like everyone here said, it's a heckuva bargain for all you get.

I was at a computer show this weekend and saw one for sale for about what I could get it for online with shipping so I took the plunge, now I just have to resign myself to a few hours of rebuilding and cramped fingers. I also got xp professional oem in the hopes that it will be better behaved than home edition. I'm sick of maintenance reinstalls every few months when it decides it can't see some of my hardware anymore.

I hope you are one of the people who have a smooth installation, hope the same for myself too !

Kao-Sama · TweakNOOB Joined: 08 Dec 2002 Posts: 11

I just bought the GA-7VAXP mobo with Athlon XP 2100. I've heard a lot of talk about this board, a lot of it being very bad and other good. Heard that the board locks up and restarts randomly and is not stable....what do you guys think of this; i've just got the mobo, not even installed it yet, I hope that the board isn't that bad of a choice.
I also heard of the overclocking that can be done with this board as well but considering the 2100 athlon is locked (and is tricky to unlock), can only the fsb adjustments be enough to overclock the ahtlon consideribly. I'm also gettin a volcano 9 with it, so coolin isn't a problem. Since memory is going to be affected by this fsb adjustment, is their any memory chips that you guys may recommend; i took a look at corsair 333 512mb chip, but it's a tad bit expensive. Any comments would be great, thnks