Aaargggghhhhh - VIA

sabashuali

sabashuali

Ani Ma'amin
I want to join Mega in his relentless rant against VIA and their chipsets. Further more, I challenge Mega to find his original thread where he slated VIA and we all got our backs up and ganged up on him! I want mega to tell me I told you so a thousand times!!! Mega, please humiliate me!

AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH :swear: VIA!!!!!

My ARSERock mobo is slowly but surely failing me and guess what chipset it is using???

:swear: VIA!!!!!! I cannot get any installation to work on my :swear: machine and it all started when my :swear: via SATA chipset went......

*sobbing into my mouse mat* My PC is going to devon..... :(

VIA :swear: who the :swear: thought you up?

*rant over* I feel much better now! I really do....:doh:
 
Yea I hear VIA was not very good but I think someone on the forum said that VIA were ok, maybe BigB? I cant remember :P
 
Addis said:
How do you know it was the via chipset that's causing the problem? Mine's still going fine.
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Well... in all honesty this was just a good ol' rant of a desperate man. I did not check it thoroughly so I cannot say 100% that that is true. However, my ARSERock mobo does 'favour' VIA chips. My current trial and tribulations started When my SATA controller (VIA onboard) went. I since got a PCI expansion card with VIA chip and that also is not really working very well. So as it stands now, any installation which relies on SATA will not work.... :(

So the rant should really be taken 'tongue-in-geek'....
I really just blame my self, again, for cutting corner and prefering quantity over quality... :O tight git!
 
Funny. I've run numerous VIA motherboards without issue. From various manufacturers. There's only one I can name as a problem board, the Epox 8K3A+, which went belly up after a few weeks of purchase.

I've run:
Abit VP6 (Apollo Pro 133) (dual Socket 370)
Asus A7V (KT133)
AOpen AK77 (KT266)
Epox 8K3A+ (KT333)
Epox EP-MVP3-G5 (VIA MVP3)
Gigabyte GA-7VAXP Ultra (KT400)
MSI 694D Pro (694D) (dual socket 370)
Soyo KT600 Dragon+ (KT600)
SuperMicro P3TDDE (Apollo Pro 266T) (dual socket 370)
Tyan Trinity 133 (694D)

Except for the aformetioned one Epox motherboard, I've seen no reason to cite VIA as a problem. Keep in mind that a number of these have been used as the motherboard in my main box. The hardware isn't the issue. However, they're driver support has not been necessarily the best...although with the length of time it's taken nVidia to sort out their IDE driver issues, VIA doesn't look as bad in hindsight. Most of these I've sold/traded off in prime working condition. These are motherboard's I've dealt with over a span of about six years, and I've never seen an issue relating to hardware. I've seen issues related to stupid things I've done, but the hardware hasn't been an issue.

I've used VIA chipsets more than any other so far, and I've had no problems with them. I've had memory issues with 2 nForce 2 motherboards, I've had a horrid experience with an ALi Magik chipset board (Iwill XP333-R), I've even had a bad Intel 440BX-based board (Abit BE6). With the exception of ALi (and that's really due to disappearing from the chipset market and returning as ULi before nVidia bought them out), I've purchased motherboards with chipsets from the rest.

I'm not going to say that you don't have a hardware problem or that VIA is perfect (if you believe any chipset manufacturer is, you're fooling yourself), but I've used over 20 different motherboards over the years, so I am saying that I do know what I'm talking about when I tell you VIA is not the problem people make them out to be.
 
Big B said:
Abit VP6 (Apollo Pro 133) (dual Socket 370)
Asus A7V (KT133)
AOpen AK77 (KT266)
Epox 8K3A+ (KT333)
Epox EP-MVP3-G5 (VIA MVP3)
Gigabyte GA-7VAXP Ultra (KT400)
MSI 694D Pro (694D) (dual socket 370)
Soyo KT600 Dragon+ (KT600)
SuperMicro P3TDDE (Apollo Pro 266T) (dual socket 370)
Tyan Trinity 133 (694D)
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i can only afford one mobo, so i hope this won't die on me, but thankfully it's a SIS 651
Big B said:
so I am saying that I do know what I'm talking about when I tell you VIA is not the problem people make them out to be.
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nobody could ever say that about you B[ot]i'll stick up for you, but you don't need lil ol me[/ot]
 
sabashuali said:
So the rant should really be taken 'tongue-in-geek'....
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So far, in all of my experience (that's a joke....) I have used two mobos -

ASRock and Intel BX440 (I think....). So I can hardly be an authority on such matters. Which is why I have posted a rant in the war zone.

VIA probably make good chips and I am sure their track record is on par with the rest, give or take. So please, do not take the post too seriously.... :cool:
 
Sorry if I'm a little testy. I've been on edge as of late, and I've been getting snippy over minor things.

I did want to illustrate that VIA is not an issue like a few people believe. I think they've gotten an extremely bad rap stemming from some past chipsets that were bad. However, later issues, particularly the SoundBlaster Live! on the 686B southbridge turned out to be due to Creative not following PCI design guidelines. Why? Because some of the same issues turned up on Intel-based motherboards. VIA released a patch pretty quickly, while Creative took a few years to acknowledge there was a problem, let alone attempt to remedy it.

The hardware is fine, and VIA has done well there. There drivers have caused problems for some people in the past. As far as the market status, they did kinda shoot themselves in the foot by not moving to AGP/PCI locks and resting on dividers. Not a huge deal for most people, but it was a problem for overclockers. Another possible issue stems from a lawsuit against nVidia claiming that nVidia was getting motherboard manufacturers not to use VIA chipsets.

ASrock probably uses VIA chipsets along with SiS ones because of their target market: basic, inexpensive motherboards. A lot of the people in ASrock's target market just want something to drop in for a cheap computer. I suspect that ASrock may also use some cheaper capacitors, resistors and other surface mount components. Doesn't mean they're bad, but just know that it's another way to cut costs. Same with the minimal accessory inclusion.
 
The reason I got flared up was because of VIA's terrible USB controller chips. They are producing knock-off chips which are being used by no-name manufacturers in their USB PCI cards. I bought one of these and used it in conjunction with the VIA chipset on my motherboard and I got nothing but grief. System instability, random blue screens; Windows 2000 wouldn't even boot! Driver support was/is terrible and I just gave up in the end.

But that being said, I probably went a little too far in that thread. Attacking VIA's processors was probably a bit much. But hey, I needed to let off some steam ;) To set the record straight, I don't hate VIA. In fact, I quite like some of VIA's products.
 
megamaced said:
But that being said, I probably went a little too far in that thread. Attacking VIA's processors was probably a bit much. But hey, I needed to let off some steam ;) To set the record straight, I don't hate VIA. In fact, I quite like some of VIA's products.
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Yup, I supposed the same goes for me..... As I admitted before, I cannot confirm that the culprit was indeed a VIA chip but there was no one else around.... :P

[ot]I want to try and look for an alternative mobo. Any suggestion? A good stable, S478, SATA support board. No OCing is requiered but AGP 8X is. Sound preferbly onboard as I do not have a seperate card.[/ot]
 
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