Abit NV7-133R Motherboard

Pros: Tons of features, jumperless, and very stable.
Cons: None!

Introduction

Motherboards, are the central nervous system of a computer. They essentially channel information from all areas; video card, sound card, harddrive, et cetera. The importance of having a good motherboard is crucial in...

Pros: RAID, good onboard audio, very stable, USB 2.0, plenty of USB ports.
Cons: just a few (see below).

I've got this motherboard running an Athlon XP 1800+ with 768MB of PC2100 RAM, and it's stable as can be. i'm using a cooler master heatsink. set up was easy, one thing to keep in mind is to make sure you get your RAM in before your video card - the...

DO NOT use the chipset drivers which come with the MB. Go to NVidia and Via sites and DL new set. After DLing the new drivers and starting from scratch I found the sequence and all drivers loaded clean. The USB 2.0 driver MUST be upgraded from Via or it locks in large file Xfrs. The sound leaves a lot to be desired. I could not get the rear spkrs to work even after the new drivers. After many non-detailed emails from NVidia it was suggested that my backplate was faulty. I requested a replacement and was told to send a check. When I reminded them that the board was brand new I received no replies to me repeated requests. I suggest disabling the onboard sound and buy a $30 SoundBlaster 5.1 card. It installed perfectly and works great! After many reloads and experimentation I was able to properly load all software and the board does run very fast. All in all I wish I had purchased another MB and after the lack of support will not purchase an Abit MB again.

From time I heard of the nForce chipset, I had my eye on this motherboard for an addition to my arsenal. I was finally able to purchase this motherboard after the cost came down and I haven't been disappointed. Features are overwhelming with ATA-133 RAID, Dual 128-bit Memory Pipelines, USB 2.0 support, a plethora of USB headers, 5.1 audio with SPDIF outputs, and the list goes on. My only beef(s) with the motherboard are: 1. Extreme power consumption - the manual stated that a 250watt power supply was needed. I would say nothing smaller than 300watt. I had several stability problems with a 250watt. 2. USB Support - several USB 2.0 devices caused errors in windows "you have plugged a 2.0 device into a 1.1 hub" (which is not hard to do since there are a mix of USB - 2-2.0, 4-1.1) In the end, the pros outweigh the cons! With 512-mb Crucial PC2700, excellent memory benchmarks! And even with a 1.0 Athlon (don't laugh, no money in bank account), performance exceeds most P4 systems.