Great board overall
Written: Nov 14 '00 (Updated Jan 20 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great features, actually has 7 usb, Stable
Cons: Incompatible with ATI Radeon, some bad boards
The Bottom Line: If you want to upgrade to a Socket A Thunderbird or Duron motherboard solution, this is a great way to go. Avoid Radeon line of cards due to incompatibility problems.
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| LeePenrod's Full Review: Asus A7V |
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Update: I was never able to get the ATI Radeon card to work. I recommend using a Geforce2 line of video card with this motherboard, as the driver support and compatability is better. Also be sure and upgrade to Bios version 1005c if using a new Geforce2 Line of card. I am happily running an Asus v7700 Deluxe Geforce2 GTS card with this computer.
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Recently a little money came my way so I decided I wanted to build a new computer based around the Athlon Tbird processor line. After much research I decided on the Asus A7V motherboard for the following reasons:
1. The Asus A7V is reported as the most stable board in its class of chipset (via kt133 motherboard), in almost every review I read. (And especially compared to its chief competitor the abit KT7 with raid)
2. The motherboard has a built-in Ultra ATA controller, which expands the expandability of the computer to 8 IDE devices, 4 of which can be the future UltraATA100 standard. (UltraATA drives have quicker access time, which is important for hard drives)
3. The Asus A7V is a top motherboard choice if you would like to over clock your processor. Through a series of dipswitches you can change the mhz rating by 1mhz increments- allowing you to squeeze the last mhz out of your processor. (Please note that the version of the motherboard with onboard sound does not have these dip switches. Also you need an unlocked Tbird or Duron chip in order to over clock-- [which can be done fairly easily if you know the graphite trick.] Comment if you would like a link on how to unlock the CPU)
4. The motherboard features a AGPpro slot, which could be used for a new standard of video card in the future, while still allowing standard AGP cards.
5. LOTS of USB lovin. The Asus A7V has upto 7 usb ports. (2 on back, 3 on a special connector card, and 2 that can be added to a header in the front of your case if you have the right cord+case) I don't see myself ever needing a USB hub in the future.
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Unfortunately, I chose the WRONG way to buy the Asus A7V motherboard.
Here's What I did wrong:
1. I didn't check pricewatch before I made my purchase, I simply added the motherboard to a order I already had out (which I had researched prices on). I would really recommend doing a search on www.pricewatch.com before purchasing this motherboard. The markup at some places for this motherboard is terrible. I lost about $40 by not researching price.
2. I did not research the RMA policy of the place I was ordering from. If you are going to buy a motherboard from an online store look for either NO RESTOCKING FEE, or a very low one (under 10%). When motherboards are created in the factory they have to be shipped from a factory overseas to a warehouse. When you buy online the box then has to be taken out of a crate, and re-packed to ship to you. Motherboards are pretty sensitive, and some of them even come off the factory floor bad! I had to RMA the first motherboard I recieved because it had a manufacturing defect that prevented it from loading bios. Luckily it was resolved and I bought a new Asus A7V locally.
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The end story
Once everything was assembled properly, I had to admit that the Asus A7V worked wonderfully. Here's a final breakdown of my personal pros-and-cons. (while using it)
Pros:
Features I didn't expect to find:
Power on by time and date. You can set the Asus A7V to power on at a specific date and time, or everyday at a certain time. (in bios)
Excellent Temperature and Fan information. The motherboard comes with a piece of software called Asus Probe which gives you a good readout of both fan RPS and the current temperature of 3 different temperature probes (2 on die (cpu, mobo) + 1 optional external probe).
The software also has some temperature reduction capabilities (like waterfall) for the CPU, and information on other components (hard drive, power, etc).
Cons:
Incompatibility Issues:
1. The ATI Radeon is an extreme pain to get to run with a Asus A7V motherboard. If you are building a system with the Asus A7V use a different AGP card if possible. I have tested 2 different video cards with my A7V the Voodoo3 2000 PCI, and the Radeon 32 meg DDR (AGP). Even with the newest drivers installed for both the via chipset and the Radeon DDR, my system is 80% less stable with the Radeon than with the Voodoo. After doing some research and testing, I am almost certain this is a driver issue. The current release seems to be more stable with a higher Video memory Interleave (memory that the system uses to assist the video function-- a bios setting). Although I cannot confirm this, I have been told that a setting of 256 megs in interleave will make the card really stable. To set interleave that high you need to have 320 megs of ram installed on the system. On my setup I have 128 megs of ram and an interleave of 64 megs. (Card will only run in 1x AGP)
Closing
Overall I am happy with my Asus A7V motherboard. While it has a few issues with the Radeon video card I feel that the pros out weigh the cons overall. If you would like more information, please feel free to leave a comment on this review and I will respond as quickly as possible.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 179
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Epinions.com ID:
LeePenrod
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Member: Leighly Penrod
Location: Indiana
Reviews written: 25
Trusted by: 6 members
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