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Friday, October 22, 2004

Bill' s Atomic Rant, Part Deux: And I'm Not Too Happy with Gigabyte Either...
Specifically, the K8VT800 motherboard. The first one I ordered died in 2 days although it tried to hide its shame by tossing out BSDs with PFN_LIST_CORRUPT error messages. AMD said it was probably the memory but I was using Crucial PC3200 sticks and I trust Crucial. I've been dealing with them before they were Crucial. So I sent the motherboard back for a replacement, the new one arrived, and it worked fine. I felt justified that it wasn't the memory but the motherboard that had been the problem --but you know, there's always that little bit of doubt around the edges.

Then last week arrived. This replacement motherboard, three months after it became a replacement, started spitting PFN_LIST_CORRUPT error messages at me too. This time I contacted Crucial. They'd only had one return on 50 memory orders for the motherboard. Still, they were willing to swap out the standard PC3200 I had bought for an equal quantity of their Ballistix memory to see if it would help. (It comes with a GREAT decal!) It didn't. I played with BIOS settings like Harpo Marx giving a concert. Nuttin' honey. Then I bought an ASUS K8V Deluxe, yanked the Gigabyte board out, replanted everything on the ASUS board, and tucked it into the LanBoy case. Shazzam! Things are running again, quite well in fact.

Now, according to Crucial, Ballistix can be tweaked a bit. Time to play.

# Permalink Posted at 5:05 PM 9 comments Email this Link

Comments on this Item:

I have never had a gigabyte motherboard, just XFX, which I have never had any problems with, but Crucial is amazing. Their memory is top, and I have been eyeing that ballistix memory for a while, it really looks like the best of the best. Right decent of Crucial to give you an exchange, and an upgrade at the same time. I guess we put them on the good guy list. What was Crucial called before it was Crucial?

# posted by Cyrus 6:46 PM

How I love the Crucial. But how I TOTALLY LOVE the Corsair XMS. But Cricial is absolutely Quality Stuff and a Quality Company.

ASUS, on the other hand, has been on my bad side since going through two A7N8X-Deluxe boards with incessant, unresolvable sound driver issues. Grf. Oh, and the other Asus I got .. I forget the model .. for building my GF's computer. IMMENSE RAM issues. Their "approved" list was remarkably short. Newegg took back the Corsair ram and replaced it with whatever the damn board suggested. Bless* Newegg.

(Where "Bless" refers not specifically to any sort of religious tomroolery, but more generally to whatever religious tomfoolery the humble reader happens to prefer .. or simply luck .. or whatever. Gah.)

# posted by Terry 7:47 PM

Crucial is an offshoot of Micron Technology. I think Micron created it right around the time they sold their computer business.
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Have to agree about the A7N8X-Deluxe. It sucks better than a Hoover. The only other ASUS motherboard I had a problem with was the (otherwise amazing) A8V --but it was a pre-production board and I upgraded the BIOS. (Big no-no.)

Seems that quite a few otherwise reputable motherboard vendors have problems when they get to AMD product. (Personally, I don't think they know how to correctly implement the VIA chipsets they use.) Right now the hot Athlon64 mobo seems to be the MSI Neo 2. Who'd a thought? MSI all but faded into oblivion a few years ago!

# posted by Bill 8:30 PM

TYAN !!!!!!!!!!

*cough*

Sorry.

# posted by Terry 8:43 PM

OK Terry, you had to say that, huh? Now I'm working on a parody of the theme song from the old Cheyenne TV show.
http://www.geocities.com/tvshowthemelyrics/CheyenneSong.html

# posted by Bill 8:48 PM

You HAD to suggest that, didn't you Bill! Now I just wasted 10 minutes coming up with a really really crappy verse. Enjoy!

Tyan, Tyan, will your capacitors be alright?
Lonely board, Tyan, when will your bits finally byte?
Dream Tyan of 133MHz of love
Move along, Tyan........

Just move along. Seriously.

# posted by Terry 10:40 PM

Been using ASUS boards since.....'98? Sheesh, I just found an old P5A User Manual in the "Junk" Drawer. Never had any problems with any of them. My A7N8X-E Deluxe has been running great for the past 5 months, A7V266-E: going on three years, A7M266-D about the same.

WRM

# posted by Anonymous 8:12 AM

You might want to try this:
Take the board out 1. remove battery 2.clean both sides of the MB with a steam cleener 3. shake off excess water or use compressed air 4. set the board near a fan or an air purifier and let dry thoroughly
It should work as good as new,hopefully at least untill the next time someone sneezes real good,which believe it or not is the REAL CAUSE of the problem .

# posted by Anonymous 12:45 AM

That Asus KV8 Deluxe is awesome. I have built two PCs in the last month with it, and both are rock solid. One is a A64 3200+ and the other is a 3500+. Of all the boards out there I have used, ASUS is the only brand I have never had a problem with, both when putting it together and over the lifetime of the PC. MSI is still in my doghouse after I spent day after day trying to figure out what was causing BSODs. I threw a BIOSTAR MB in that I had sitting around and that proved the CPU, RAM, etc was ok. The replacement MSI was wiggy too, seemed to be a memory problem, but I gave up and got a ABIT from New Egg, and the problems ended. Like Maxtor hard drives, I'll pass on MSI...

# posted by Anonymous 2:33 AM

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