IwillKK266 ver. 1.2

Son of a B*(@#!!!

I read all of the reviews, and checked all of the hardware sites and I decided to take the plunge and get the "famed" KK266. I've been trying to get that thing working right for close to a week now, I was almost at wits end when I read a thread posted talking about a missing transistor(or resistor) on the ver1.2 board. Sure enough, I have a ver1.2 board; the board works, but I get all kinds of problems, sometimes I have to install a program 2 or three time to get it to work. I ran all sorts of diagnostics on my harddrive and no errors were found, and the problem occurs with my CD-RW and my DVD drive, and I've switched cables. What options do I have as far as fixing this, I'm open to any suggestions, I'm stuck on my backup notebook right now, and I'm itching to have my desktop back and working right. Please help!

bruce (Apr 23, 2001 01:06 p.m.):
Son of a B*(@#!!!

I read all of the reviews, and checked all of the hardware sites and I decided to take the plunge and get the "famed" KK266. I've been trying to get that thing working right for close to a week now, I was almost at wits end when I read a thread posted talking about a missing transistor(or resistor) on the ver1.2 board. Sure enough, I have a ver1.2 board; the board works, but I get all kinds of problems, sometimes I have to install a program 2 or three time to get it to work. I ran all sorts of diagnostics on my harddrive and no errors were found, and the problem occurs with my CD-RW and my DVD drive, and I've switched cables. What options do I have as far as fixing this, I'm open to any suggestions, I'm stuck on my backup notebook right now, and I'm itching to have my desktop back and working right. Please help!

Click to expand...

You appear to have 2 choices. RMA it to IWill or get it replaced were you bought it. You didn't specify whether it's being overclocked or not...if the board works at stock CPU speed the place you bought it from may or may not take it back.

Could be the VIA 686B Bug. Update to the latest Bios.

bruce (Apr 23, 2001 01:06 p.m.):
Son of a B*(@#!!!

I read all of the reviews, and checked all of the hardware sites and I decided to take the plunge and get the "famed" KK266. I've been trying to get that thing working right for close to a week now, I was almost at wits end when I read a thread posted talking about a missing transistor(or resistor) on the ver1.2 board. Sure enough, I have a ver1.2 board; the board works, but I get all kinds of problems, sometimes I have to install a program 2 or three time to get it to work. I ran all sorts of diagnostics on my harddrive and no errors were found, and the problem occurs with my CD-RW and my DVD drive, and I've switched cables. What options do I have as far as fixing this, I'm open to any suggestions, I'm stuck on my backup notebook right now, and I'm itching to have my desktop back and working right. Please help!

Click to expand...

I hope you installed the VIA 4in1 drivers...

I don't think that the missing resistor caused installation issues or instabilities. It caused problems changing the multiplier and booting at 133FSB. So, first off verify that you in fact have a board with missing resistors. I think there is a picture on the IWill website.

Good luck

Yo

I also bought The Iwill kk266. I was gonna hold out for a KyroII video card. So I took my wifes PCI TNT2 M64 card out of her puter and put it in the Iwill. The system was so unstable that after much tweaking and playing with voltages and settings I got it to run for 10 min at a time between lock ups.

I as a last resort I right clicked on my computer, performance tab, graphics button, and set the slider to basic acceration. Now the system was stable but wouldn't play any 3D accelerated games. No matter what driver I used I couldn't get it stable with full accelerator functions.

So I decided not to wait on KyroII (wife wanted a puter she could play 3D games on) and I ordered a GeForce2 MX. Ripped the PCI card out and put the AGP MX2 card in and the thing is stable as a rock. Hasn't crashed or locked up once. been up about two weeks now and not one problem. Oh yeah MDK2 @ 122 fps!

Staz (Apr 23, 2001 04:40 p.m.):
I also bought The Iwill kk266. I was gonna hold out for a KyroII video card. So I took my wifes PCI TNT2 M64 card out of her puter and put it in the Iwill. The system was so unstable that after much tweaking and playing with voltages and settings I got it to run for 10 min at a time between lock ups.

I as a last resort I right clicked on my computer, performance tab, graphics button, and set the slider to basic acceration. Now the system was stable but wouldn't play any 3D accelerated games. No matter what driver I used I couldn't get it stable with full accelerator functions.

So I decided not to wait on KyroII (wife wanted a puter she could play 3D games on) and I ordered a GeForce2 MX. Ripped the PCI card out and put the AGP MX2 card in and the thing is stable as a rock. Hasn't crashed or locked up once. been up about two weeks now and not one problem. Oh yeah MDK2 @ 122 fps!

Click to expand...

_______________________________


I can't say I've had the same experience with STAZ. I've had 3 KK266 in my hands, both v1.1 and 1.2. I used the TNT-M64 32mb exclusively and had no problems what so ever pointing to the TNT. But I did download the latest VIA4-1 v4.28 updates and Iwill Bio updates 35103A Mar. 8,2001 .... which I think is important. My only complaint was the benchmarked performance. I'm not using anything fancy like Sandra or Gaming tests, only WinBench99 / H-E WinBench99. I could not get the system any higher than 6280/21000 respectfully. Both of the 1.2s were RMA'ed and sent back. Actually I had only one 1.2, and when I RMA'ed it, they sent another which was still BAD out of their RMA used pile of "shxxt" stash. Iwill did act fast and sent me a new Re-engineered board, which was fine and I was impressed with their Express RMA service and direct follow-up by Iwill product mgr for the KK series .... but not from my reseller, who kept me down for weeks. So actually you can say I had 4 KK266 mobos.

Configuration: 266T-Bird 1.0Ghz (AHVA), 384m 133 SDRAM, 2-DTLA 45G Deskstar, KK266 1.1/1.2. But also tested it with AVIA 266T-Bird 1.13.

I have since ordered: KA266R, 256 PC2100, Geoforce2 GTS going for the moon ! I'm targeting 1.5ghz as my goal.

Why am I staying with Iwill? ABIT doesn't do DDR, ASUS is inflexible on the multiplier, and the MSI K7T 266R is just a little too new for my blood. And the Iwill product mgr (Sherman) demonstrated that Iwill is interested in servicing and listening to his marketplace customers. That was worth $25 by itself.

bruce (Apr 23, 2001 01:06 p.m.):
Son of a B*(@#!!!

I read all of the reviews, and checked all of the hardware sites and I decided to take the plunge and get the "famed" KK266. I've been trying to get that thing working right for close to a week now, I was almost at wits end when I read a thread posted talking about a missing transistor(or resistor) on the ver1.2 board. Sure enough, I have a ver1.2 board; the board works, but I get all kinds of problems, sometimes I have to install a program 2 or three time to get it to work. I ran all sorts of diagnostics on my harddrive and no errors were found, and the problem occurs with my CD-RW and my DVD drive, and I've switched cables. What options do I have as far as fixing this, I'm open to any suggestions, I'm stuck on my backup notebook right now, and I'm itching to have my desktop back and working right. Please help!

Click to expand...

___________________________

I had lots of time with KK266. Used various Video, Memory, CD-RW, and CD player brands, 2 different AMD 266FSB T-Bird 1.0/1.13 ... but no DVDs. No complaints on operability, smooth install and setup. Everything pretty much works out of the box with strong compatibility. All of my issues are generally user inflicted, won't get in details.

Key Point is to download:
1) newest Iwill BIOs (35103A Mar, 8, 2001)
2) one of the latest VIA 4in1 driver updates, I used v4.28 ...
but anything later than v4.23 up to v4.29 fixes the Northbirdge
problems

Like hrmchan, most of the difficulties I have had are due to operator error. This board is rock solid, just get the latest bios, 4 in 1 and even the new detonator drivers helped dramatically.
Would swap this for any Intel system.

>> Vantec 62540D HSF (19 C idle, 42 C Load) <<

Hey DaWhip!

How on EARTH do you get 19C at idle with a Vantech?? That's in the 60'sF man! I'm running a Swiftech MC462 with an AXIA 1.2/266 @ 1470 and the best I can get is about 30C at idle with an abient of 22C. This is in a Chenbro Genie with 2 120 Panaflows in the front and a 120 and 92 Panaflow in the back. Unless you have Ambient room temps in the mid-teens, you really ought to write an article up how you did that and have it posted somewhere. We ALL would like to know that secret!!

Just really curious, that is awesome!!

LoudFan, if I could figure out how to get the Via hardware monitor in a reply post, I would gladl to post it. These temps also read within a degree or 2 of the 2 sensors I have, 1 on the cpu and the other in the middle of the case.
Anyone want to show me how to get that on a post??
Actually the temp in the basement is around 63F. Maybe that is helping.

I'm running out of ideas here guys. My board isn't overclocked (I just got it), I had WinMe running on it at first, but it was a little buggy, so I tried to reformat/reinstall, and now I'm havin a buttload of problems. Latest bios (4/15), installin an OS, so VIA 4-in-1's aren't an issue. Just tried a different harddrive, no luck, switched cables too, no luck with my CD-RW or DVD, gonna disconnect one then the other next to see if that helps. Using fail-safe defauls, still playin with the bios and bios settings, is there something I'm missing? Tried installing Win 2k, WinMe, Win98se, and Win98, problems with them all!!! I refuse to try Win 95, WinMe seems the least buggy, constantly get an error with a file "grpconv" HELP!!!

System:
Iwill KK266(ver. 1.2)
WD ata100 20Gig HD
Teac 4x4x32 CD-RW
Toshiba 8xDVD
LeadTek GeForce 256 DDR (VerB)
256M PC-133Ram
LT 56K/V.90 Modem
DVD Decoder card

Staz (Apr 23, 2001 04:40 p.m.):
I also bought The Iwill kk266. I was gonna hold out for a KyroII video card. So I took my wifes PCI TNT2 M64 card out of her puter and put it in the Iwill. The system was so unstable that after much tweaking and playing with voltages and settings I got it to run for 10 min at a time between lock ups.

I as a last resort I right clicked on my computer, performance tab, graphics button, and set the slider to basic acceration. Now the system was stable but wouldn't play any 3D accelerated games. No matter what driver I used I couldn't get it stable with full accelerator functions.

So I decided not to wait on KyroII (wife wanted a puter she could play 3D games on) and I ordered a GeForce2 MX. Ripped the PCI card out and put the AGP MX2 card in and the thing is stable as a rock. Hasn't crashed or locked up once. been up about two weeks now and not one problem. Oh yeah MDK2 @ 122 fps!

Click to expand...

It is possible that you had an IRQ conflict with the tnt2 as that is basically what happens when you overload an irq port. Then again it might not be but it is a possible explanation. It also could be a problem with the tnt2 driver perhaps.

Not sure if this is your problem Bruce but you might want to check your IRQ assignments as well. Make sure your os didn't put a busload of devices on 1 port. My kk266 and win98 decided to stick my video, network, and sound on the same port!!! Crash-city Works great now though and never crashes even at 334 ddr bus Good luck

Da Whip (Apr 24, 2001 04:32 p.m.):
LoudFan, if I could figure out how to get the Via hardware monitor in a reply post, I would gladl to post it. These temps also read within a degree or 2 of the 2 sensors I have, 1 on the cpu and the other in the middle of the case.
Anyone want to show me how to get that on a post??
Actually the temp in the basement is around 63F. Maybe that is helping.

Click to expand...

All I can say is I'm jealous. It's 70F in here right now and my case is at 71F and my CPU at 80F/27C.

LoudFan, All my IDE cables are round and out of the way. The PSU wires are tied and tucked away ( as much as possible ). My fan set up is as follows;
Supercase Full Tower
120mm Panaflo 69cfm in front (blowing in)
120mm " " " on side towards video card and MOBO
120mm " " " blowhole on top
92mm Panaflo 43cfm lower back (pulling air out)
2-80mm Panaflo 39.6cfm upper back (pulling air out)
I-Storm HDD cooler ofr hard drive
This took some time and thought (busted knuckles and cut fingers) but was lots of fun. Seemed to pay off.
Enermax 431 watt w/ 2 fans built in.

turned the hell off of everything and got WinMe on here without a hitch!! real stable now, thanks for the help! gonna play with the bios some more and hope I don't screw it all up again, too nervous to switch to Win2K, will stick with this a while and when I'm feelin brave will switch, again thanks for the help!