Anyone else have an Asus A7S-VM?

[cloasters]

Anyone have an Asus A7S-VM? Or am I the only one with a penchant for oddball mainboards?

[dabaerman]

Originally posted by cloasters
Anyone have an Asus A7S-VM? Or am I the only one with a penchant for oddball mainboards?

got two(sig). almost bought #3. waiting for the 735 or ? DDR. I have had three or four good SIS boards. they don't oc without
some effort, however they are most stable/reliable for the
average user. good biz boxen too!

[cloasters]

And a fellow Washingtonian, no less. That's "State," not "DC," y'all. I too bought one because the SiS 735 chipset wasn't purchasable then. Perhaps the fact that it's an Asus mainboard--with built-in Vid, Sound and LAN, for less than $100 also swayed me.

Mine came with an in-house BIOS--not a public release BIOS. Don't do this, folks. Of course, I knew to ask --right? As if I could have gotten an honest answer. Hah!

I was told that a BIOS update would allow me to completely shut-off the built-in Vidcard. More accurately, the Vidcard can be disabled in BIOS. The prob is that it steals some of your RAM, even when disabled.

Two up to date BIOS's would not "kill" the built-in RAM theft by the Vidcard. The beauty? The built-in Soundcard didn't like the new BIOS--it's forever dead, as far as I can tell.

It's possible that SiS chipsets are simply weird. I have a very similar built-in Soundcard problem with an ECS K7S5A mainboard.

Right out of the box, the Asus A7S-VM is a fine mainboard for a budget business box. The built-in sound, video and LAN features work just fine. The mobo let's you play UT--no lie. Not as if you have GF19Super and a $500 sound system, you can't have the moon for $92. Duron's are cheap, who's to complain?

Just don't mess with the BIOS. If you don't want to use a built-in feature, DON'T load the driver for it. If you do want to use the built-in sound, vid or LAN--use it forever. As far as I can tell, this seems to hold true for both the SiS 730S and SiS 735 chipsets.

[dabaerman]

You are right on about the video. I put in a pair of 256mb PC133
and crank the vid mem to 64mb to play Quake this onbd vid
is right up there with my Asus 6600 Nividia 32mb AGP. the onbd
lan works just fine with my Lynksys Router/RCA Cable Modem. I
have two Asus P5S-VM with AMD K6-2 500 that are working for a
CPA. he's too cheep to up-grade:-D

[cloasters]

Hee hee! Those K6-2's are mondo number cruncher's. Half a minute...actually, they aren't that bad.

I'll re-install my Asus A7S-VM in my B box soon. Do you remember if this is the mobo that gives you the "Son, you in a heap o' trouble. This BIOS just ain't right" kind of message the first time you boot it? Which you ignore, and never see again??

I can't remember if this is an A7S-VM or an ECS K7S5A "feature." Thank you for your help on this!

[dabaerman]

not too sure about that. one has the latest bios, the other one
is older. could that be an in house bios? just too lazy to flash it. actually, I don't want to stop Folding just to flash the bios.
price got me into the SIS boards and they have been around since the 286. maybe longer. I think they work with AMD very
nicely

[cloasters]

Thank you for the reply, dabaerman! I posted the BIOS nasty message Q on another BBS. It's the ECS K7S5A that gives you the "you got big BIOS trouble" message during its first boot. If you choose the "press ?F11" to see puzzackly what the problem is, don't. Just press the correct key to continue booting. You won't see the "April Fool's" message again.

[dabaerman]

well, I didn't wait three weeks for the XP1800+. I picked up the retail version Monday. $196.00 w/tax. I like the idea of a three
year warantee. put it in the A7S-VM locked @ 11.5 but have the fsb @ 140 for 1610 and 1.75v 50c load and the retail hsf. not too bad for a mobo with few options for oc'n. I'll try to slip a 1500-1700 in the other A7S-VM,(wifes)later. she lets it fold 24/7 too!

[cloasters]

Well done! There's something nice about getting inexpensive mainboards to get up and fly. Haven't tried to OC my A7S-VM OR K7S5A. Frankly, I have too much time of watching Intel(temperature wusses and prima donna's) processor temps under my belt. 3 years is more than enough. For me, anyway.

[K6-III]

Yeah, SIS chipsets rule. I've been very happy with my K7S6A (SIS745), but I am definitely missing the OC options of my Epox 8K7A. Prepping myself for some voltage modding.

[dabaerman]

Originally posted by cloasters
Well done! There's something nice about getting inexpensive mainboards to get up and fly. Haven't tried to OC my A7S-VM OR K7S5A. Frankly, I have too much time of watching Intel(temperature wusses and prima donna's) processor temps under my belt. 3 years is more than enough. For me, anyway.

Yes sir. temps are the big issue. temp on this XP have been 48c
running F@H and at 1610 it's plenty fast for now there are
many ways to reach the high cpu speeds as you know. I just fit
in the low budget, low tech method. I believe you said that it is
stability that is the goal, not just raw speed. but it sure is good
to see you ( the seriously dedicated) out there breaking (the)
ground (rules) and shoving this technology forward keep it up!