nd22 wrote on 2025-07-04, 06:03:

Archer57 wrote on 2025-06-30, 15:02:

SATA on socketA, from what i've personally seen - VIA does not work (sata1 devices only), nvidia works with no issues, sil controllers may work or may break spectacularly - data corruption and everything.

On my Abit NF7-S2G NO ssd works! I tried multiple brands and none worked. The only 2 socket A Abit boards that accepts SSD's are: AN7 and NF7-S 2.0. On the rest of the boards nothing worked! Not even with adapters!

Well, for that i have no other explanation than BIOS bug or hardware implementation issue specific to abit boards.

I have no strong preference in terms of motherboard manufacturers. In fact i consider such preference to be extremely harmful and limiting, so i consciously avoid it. Even my hate for gigabyte... i try to limit and once in a while still try their stuff. I try to pick boards based on functionality and price/functionality, old or new. So i have a reasonably diverse set of S462 boards: asus, gigabyte, ECS, epox. I do not have any abit boards simply because i never chanced upon one with good price/functionality (i do have AM2 board from abit though).

When i was testing some flaky GPUs i was literally swapping the same cheap 120GB aliexpress SSD based on SMI2259XT attached to IDE-SATA adapter between a bunch of different boards and it worked perfectly first try everywhere. With onboard SATA i've had some issues i've described before, but IDE-SATA - none. Well, except one epox board decided the adapter is 40 pin cable and had no override in BIOS, so it worked at UDMA33. But that's not SSD related and it still worked with no issues other than speed.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-07-02, 11:31:

New addition to my Athlon XP boards, another KT880 board since the MSI 880 is in the repair bin for new caps. […]
Show full quote

New addition to my Athlon XP boards, another KT880 board since the MSI 880 is in the repair bin for new caps.

The attachment ASUS A7V880.jpg is no longer available

The attachment 2500+.jpg is no longer available

The attachment Post.jpg is no longer available

The attachment deets.jpg is no longer available

As soon as it arrives Ill put it through some testing with both an unlocked 3200+ and the XP-M 3000+, just going to use the 7900GS I have that I know works good .. might throw the 6800 Ultra at it too to see just how much improvement the 7000 series are even in a Athlon XP build.

Got 2Gb of DDR500 to throw in it as well, should allow for some wiggle room on memory speed and timings since I know these DDR500 sticks can get some super tight timings running at DDR400 speeds.

i didnt even knew that Asus had a MB with KT880

the only one that came to Argentina was the MSI KT880 Delta-FSR. At that point everyone after the last chipset was going for Nforce 2 and the ones on a budget for a KT400 or Sis 741GX, both with IGPU

by the time that 754 and 939 gained traction, VIA was already a minor player in the chipset market. The Nforce 4xx was BY FAR one of the most successful, longest lived and recycled chipset of all time, i seen that chipset in many flavors until at least 2016 in some Asrock AM3 motherboards

Living wrote on 2025-07-04, 10:34:

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-07-02, 11:31:

New addition to my Athlon XP boards, another KT880 board since the MSI 880 is in the repair bin for new caps. […]
Show full quote

New addition to my Athlon XP boards, another KT880 board since the MSI 880 is in the repair bin for new caps.

The attachment ASUS A7V880.jpg is no longer available

The attachment 2500+.jpg is no longer available

The attachment Post.jpg is no longer available

The attachment deets.jpg is no longer available

As soon as it arrives Ill put it through some testing with both an unlocked 3200+ and the XP-M 3000+, just going to use the 7900GS I have that I know works good .. might throw the 6800 Ultra at it too to see just how much improvement the 7000 series are even in a Athlon XP build.

Got 2Gb of DDR500 to throw in it as well, should allow for some wiggle room on memory speed and timings since I know these DDR500 sticks can get some super tight timings running at DDR400 speeds.

i didnt even knew that Asus had a MB with KT880

the only one that came to Argentina was the MSI KT880 Delta-FSR. At that point everyone after the last chipset was going for Nforce 2 and the ones on a budget for a KT400 or Sis 741GX, both with IGPU

Neither did I till I saw it, the only issue with this board is the lack of the 4 pin P4 power socket but it shouldn't be a show stopper.

I just needed a board to replace the MSI one and to have as a spare once I get the MSI recapped, I also have a pair of Nforce NF7-S 2 boards I can do some testing with, im curious about how each chipset handles dual channel. IIRC KT880 could be pretty damn picky about the modules you could use when trying for 4Gb.

Archer57 wrote on 2025-07-04, 07:51:

I have no strong preference in terms of motherboard manufacturers. In fact i consider such preference to be extremely harmful and limiting, so i consciously avoid it. Even my hate for gigabyte... i try to limit and once in a while still try their stuff. I try to pick boards based on functionality and price/functionality, old or new. So i have a reasonably diverse set of S462 boards: asus, gigabyte, ECS, epox. I do not have any abit boards simply because i never chanced upon one with good price/functionality (i do have AM2 board from abit though).

All my collection is made up of Abit boards and all geforce3 and 4 series cards are Siluro from Abit; in fact I got the whole lineup: geforce3 standard, ti200 & 500; geforce4 ti 4200 64mb & 128mb; 4400, 4600. I do not consider this to be harmful in any way, in fact this is the driving force behind all the stuff I got over the years.

nd22 wrote on 2025-07-29, 06:30:

All my collection is made up of Abit boards and all geforce3 and 4 series cards are Siluro from Abit; in fact I got the whole lineup: geforce3 standard, ti200 & 500; geforce4 ti 4200 64mb & 128mb; 4400, 4600. I do not consider this to be harmful in any way, in fact this is the driving force behind all the stuff I got over the years.

Well, if you are collecting stuff from specific manufacturer as a collector there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It can absolutely be fun and i understand that.

But for simply building a system... different manufacturers tend to have different offers, advantages and disadvantages. For example with vidocards coolers can be different, frequencies can be different, etc. With motherboard BIOS options, layouts, compatibility, etc can be different. Locking oneself to single manufacturer removes a lot of options, which is not good.

Not to mention old stuff like this can be quite hard to find and getting something like a motherboard with specific chipset and features from specific manufacturer can be... challenging.

It was really challenging; in fact getting Abit parts today has become very challenging! I estimate that by 2030 they will become so scarce that it will be impossible to actually get some of them - even today in 2025 Abit boards has become very rare. I am very happy with 165 boards - practically I got 98% of all boards ever made by Abit.

Today, after 7 years, I reached the end of this journey! Everything I had to say and do with socket A I considered it done. I tried to test from as many angles as possible to better gauge the performance, the compatibility and the little tricks required (bridged AGP cards on AMD760 boards for example) of all the boards and processors tested.
Over the course of the years I learned a lot about testing, compatibility and what is needed to have good and repeatable results; the first tests on AN7 took me 6 months, the last - also on AN7 - took me 2 weeks!
This is not a farewell, my favorite system with an Athlon 3200 and gf7600gt on AN7 remains the one and only permanently assembled PC used for gaming which I consider perfect for the 2000 - 2004 era. It also feels just right, games are really enjoyable on it and and can also deliver the performance required for games that would be impossible to play on the hardware that was available when they were released - example original Age of empires 2 can not run with maximum number of players and units on any Pentium 3 or classic Athlon.
For me it was full of fun and unexpected twists and turns. Socket A era is one of the most memorable periods for me.This is also a tribute to Abit - a legendary company in the history of computing for its innovations! THANK YOU ABIT.
In the hope that I helped at least one colleague today is the end of this trip down the memory lane!

nd22 wrote on 2025-07-29, 09:03:

Today, after 7 years, I reached the end of this journey! Everything I had to say and do with socket A I considered it done.

Thanks for all of your effort on researching this!

There's a ton of useful information in this thread, which people can reference when considering different options for their builds. Great job!

nd22 wrote on 2025-07-29, 09:03:

Today, after 7 years, I reached the end of this journey! Everything I had to say and do with socket A I considered it done. I t […]
Show full quote

Today, after 7 years, I reached the end of this journey! Everything I had to say and do with socket A I considered it done. I tried to test from as many angles as possible to better gauge the performance, the compatibility and the little tricks required (bridged AGP cards on AMD760 boards for example) of all the boards and processors tested.
Over the course of the years I learned a lot about testing, compatibility and what is needed to have good and repeatable results; the first tests on AN7 took me 6 months, the last - also on AN7 - took me 2 weeks!
This is not a farewell, my favorite system with an Athlon 3200 and gf7600gt on AN7 remains the one and only permanently assembled PC used for gaming which I consider perfect for the 2000 - 2004 era. It also feels just right, games are really enjoyable on it and and can also deliver the performance required for games that would be impossible to play on the hardware that was available when they were released - example original Age of empires 2 can not run with maximum number of players and units on any Pentium 3 or classic Athlon.
For me it was full of fun and unexpected twists and turns. Socket A era is one of the most memorable periods for me.This is also a tribute to Abit - a legendary company in the history of computing for its innovations! THANK YOU ABIT.
In the hope that I helped at least one colleague today is the end of this trip down the memory lane!

...

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-07-29, 09:25:

nd22 wrote on 2025-07-29, 09:03:

Today, after 7 years, I reached the end of this journey! Everything I had to say and do with socket A I considered it done.

Thanks for all of your effort on researching this!

There's a ton of useful information in this thread, which people can reference when considering different options for their builds. Great job!

Thank you sir.
Thank you all.
Thank you VOGONS.