VIA chipsets on motherboards

M

mboud

New member
so i keep hearing bad things about VIA chipsets on motherboards. are the problems people are reporting current problems with VIA or left over from a couple of years ago? if they are current, are all VIA chipsets bad, or just certain batches or product lines? someone please help, this is holding me up on buyinng a computer for my DAW. i am wanting to get a pc with dual pIII's, but the only motherboards made to accept dual pIII's are made with VIA chipsets. fyi, the program i'm dealing with will be able to take advantage of dual processors.

thanks for any info,

mboud
 
Check out the recent thread "Its time for a new Motherboard....

In my opinion, VIA chipsets are fine. My opinion is based on my experiance with my home systems, my purchase of work systems, and what I have read on the net and in magazines.

If you research this issue through this board you will find reports (including one in the above thread) of people who had problems which they attribute to the VIA chipset. Since I did not work on their problems, I can not verify their claims. But I am not aware of ANY cases where a manufacturer of music hardware has posted anything saying "our product X does not work properly with VIA chipsets". If anyone knows otherwise, please correct me.
 
I know that Echo's website says that if you use an intel processor make sure you also use an intel chipset. If you have or are planning on buying one of their soundcards make sure you check their website for compatibility issues. I guess that last bit of advice goes for all soundcards.
 
This was the reply from Terratec Support when asked about how does the Terratec EWX 24/96 will work with my non purchased computer:

"Hello!

The only thing you should be aware of is the KT-133 chipset
from VIA-technologies. This chipset is buggy and leads to
crackle in the audio-material.

You can find more information here:

http://www.via-cyrix.de/viaboardlist.html

The rest of the hardware will work fine with the card."

So here is one hardware dealer who is worried about the chipset

I'm facing almost the same problem...
 
Riku - I went to that site and its all in German. Know where the English version is?

Virtual - can you give me the site where it says use Intel only? I would like to check it out....
 
Sorry RWhite I'm too lacking the skills in german language and I haven't find that information in english...

I think the problem maybe isn't the chipset. It's more likely the compatibility between the chipset and certain soundcards...

I might be wrong...

So someone whose is speaking german could you help and translate the at least main points of the article?


http://www.via-cyrix.de/viaboardlist.html
 
The echo site is www.echoaudio.com

check out the support link

Here is a quote from their FAQ regarding k6 and intel processors with via chipsets:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------


What about AMD K6 processors (or an Intel processor with a non-Intel chipset)?

This may or may not work. Officially, AMD K6 processors and Pentiums with non-Intel chipets are not supported. Some users have enjoyed success while others experience lockups or other problems.

If you go ahead anyhow with a VIA chipset motherboard, it is known to have problems with IRQ routing in Windows 98 that cause our cards to not work properly. Some customers have had success with the VIA chipset and our hardware by downloading the latest software updates from the VIA website. Follow the link below to download the IRQ routing miniport driver. If you are using an AGP graphics card, you should probably grab the AGP driver as well. http://www.viatech.com/support/faq.htm#irq



If your motherboard uses the VIA chipset, it is known to have problems with IRQ routing in Windows 98 that cause our cards to not work properly. Many of our customers have had success with the Via chipset and our cards by downloading the latest software updates from the VIA website. Follow the link below to download the IRQ routing miniport driver. If you are using an AGP graphics card, you should probably grab the AGP driver as well. http://www.viatech.com/support/faq.htm#irq




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the million dollar question is are they reffering to all pentium processors or only 1st generation ones since this quote seems to lump them with the infamous k6.
 
RWhite, you wanted to know if any hardware manufacturer of audio equipment has posted about VIA chipsets. Digidesign has. I got this info off the compatibility document on the website.

Known Incompatibilities
Caution - Pro Tools LE does NOT support the following systems or systems with the following components:

Hewlett Packard Pavillion line of computers
AMD K6, K6-2 or K6-III processor based computers
Original Pentium processor based computers (Pentium I)
VIA chipset based motherboard computers
Laptop Computers
"ESS Solo-1 PCI AudioDrive" Sound, video and game controller. This device can be disabled from the "Device Manager" in the "System" Control Panel.

VIA Chipset Incompatibility

The VIA chipsets handle IRQ routing and the PCI bus in a way that does not work well with bus master cards. Because Digi 001 is a bus master card we can not support motherboards based on the VIA driver - this incompatibility is consistent with other digital audio cards that are bus masters. To check what kind of bus master driver you have follow these steps:

Right-click the "My Computer" Icon and select "Properties" from the drop-down menu

Select the "Device Manager" tab

Select "Hard Disk Controllers"

The Bus Mastering driver will be listed here

So, there you have it! Digidesign doesn't like VIA either. But I read a post lately that says Digidesign is in the process of 'qualifying' VIA chipsets for use. The fact is that Asus A7V133, with the VIA KT133A chipset is one of the fast motherboards with the Digi 001 acording to performance test posted on the DUC. I also have a 1.2 Athalon and GA-7DX motherboard which uses the AMD/VIA combo shipset and it works great. With the DDR ram it is even faster than the A7V with the same CPU speed. Digi does not support this chipset either, but I believe they will shortly in the future. The P4 is a very poor performer on performance tests and the PIII is not bad. I love my Athlon. Very fast, very stable.
 
many thanks people,

this board has been indispensible in my search for information. thanks to everyone who has replied. when i get my system up and running, i will let evereyone know how it performs. of course, anything will be great since i currently have no machine to work on.

thanks again,

mboud
 
Yes, thanks to all for the info. The Digidesign "laundry list" is interesting - lumping together all laptops for example. That the K6 would not work does not suprise me since that processor had pretty poor float-point performance.

I am still somewhat skeptical about the claim that VIA chipsets have problems with Bus-Mastering cards. If this were true this would be a major problem - for example, all Adaptec SCSI cards in the 29XX family would go wacky, and certainly this has not been happening or it would be all over the tech boards. But after the posts I've seen I guess I can accept that there must be SOMETHING to the rumors about VIA chipsets.

For those of you who have VIA chipset motherboards, I urge you to keep an eye out for updates to the 4in1 driver. This comprehensive driver package updates not only the IDE Bus driver, but also the AGP and IRQ routing driver mentioned in VirtualSamana's post. The driver comes as an executable, you run it and it automaticly detects which VIA chipset you have and installs the right updates.

I believe the current version is 429V. You can download it from:

http://www.via.com.tw/drivers/index_new2.htm
 
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