KM400 good/bad?

G

Geshtar

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 15, 2004
Messages
227
i've seen a super cheap deal for a barebones system using this chipset and am thinking it would make for a good cheap way for me to make a second PC to learn linux with....but I've heard people saying bad things about older via chipsets on the forum....is this one of them and what is good/bad about it?

thanks in advance.
 
I think the KT400 and KM400 chipsets are very good. They arnt as fast as NF2 but very stable and reliable. If I was building a PC that wasnt all about overclocking and benchmarks I would pick the via chipset over NF2 I think they are easier to set up and less finicky Oh Ya very reasonable
 
i have a KT400 VIA on my a7v8x-x it can still overclock well, veryyy stable and reliable like what backstabber said. id say go for the KT400 or KM400 if your building a cheap-ish system or your not doing much overclocking and such. also its very easy to set up, i once ran a month w/o the drivers
 
The last VIA chipset which was really bad was the KT133. KT133A was decent, KT266(A) was quite good. KT333 (using a mainboard based on this one right now) and onwards are very good and stable.
 
Elledan said:
The last VIA chipset which was really bad was the KT133. KT133A was decent, KT266(A) was quite good. KT333 (using a mainboard based on this one right now) and onwards are very good and stable.
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You're forgetting the 686B Southbridge & SB Live! troubles (and other PCI bus timing issues), aren't you?
 
Schro said:
You're forgetting the 686B Southbridge & SB Live! troubles (and other PCI bus timing issues), aren't you?
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Wasn't that more due to the SB Live itself? At least that was my understanding of this issue.

Note that I'm not claiming to be an expert on VIA chipsets. I'm just speaking from my own (limited) experience :)
 
Elledan said:
Wasn't that more due to the SB Live itself? At least that was my understanding of this issue.

Note that I'm not claiming to be an expert on VIA chipsets. I'm just speaking from my own (limited) experience :)
Click to expand...

IIRC, it was a PCI bus latency issue that would also rear its ugly head to dump upon people's raid arrays and other heavy PCI traffic type issues.

http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT042501034500
 
My rig is on a KT400 and it is rock-solid stable. I would assume the KM400 would be as well, since it is just the KT400 with integrated graphics strapped on.
 
I have an MSI KT4 Ultra with the KT400 and have been running stable for over a year now. Good chipset and very stable. I also use the SB Live with no issue.

The only complaint I have against the KM400 is that the chipset gets HOT!!! I have used the ABIT VA-10 and that is the only complaint I have had. It is cheap and reliable. Just put a heat sink/fan arrangement on the chipset and you should have no issues.
 
Schro said:
IIRC, it was a PCI bus latency issue that would also rear its ugly head to dump upon people's raid arrays and other heavy PCI traffic type issues.

http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT042501034500
Click to expand...
That seems to narrow the problem down to only the 686 series Southbridge when used with a VIA Northbridge, and only when a SBLV is installed. Whether Intel or AMD CPU, or different VIA Northbridge, it still happens. No 686 Southbridge and VIA Northbridge and there doesn’t appear to be any problems, even if a SBLV is installed.
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So only the combination of a 686 series SB combined with a VIA NB gives problems, and only in certain conditions. Sounds like there's some kind of bug in the 686 SB, preventing it from playing nice with certain NBs (which happen to be those of VIA).
 
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