Help, I get my KT7A mobo today..... :(

[Michael_Myers]

I downloaded the pdf manual for that board off of abit's site, and read the whole thing the past few days. Unfortuneately, I didn't see anything about "where" to plug in the Sound card. Sblive. Which slot is best?

Also, can you guys give me the link to that abit FAQ page? It's not abit. It's live via-something or other???

And a few more questions. Does the HD HAVE TO be formatted and a fresh install of the OS?? I just did that crap a month ago, and would love to just plug the HD in and have it work. I got some stuff I can't lose on there.

Do I need to worry about any of the settings in the BIOS at first?? Or can I just plug everythign in a fire it up? The manual made it sound like everything was set to default and it would try to set up everything on it's own....

HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Thanks.

 

[asmodean]

The FAQ page you were asking for is propably this one:

http://www.viahardware.com/faq/kt7/kt7faq.htm

If I remember correctly, it was PCI slot 5 you should avoid putting a card into, but this might only be relevant to the Raid version I'm using.

If your old box is still functional, uninstall ALL the drivers from windows before sticking it in to the new box. Otherwise, start it in safemode and do the uninstallation from there. That should save you some trouble, but it COULD get complicated, as usual.

As to the BIOS settings, http://www.lostcircuits.com/advice/bios2/1.shtml is a very extensive BIOS guide, but the "guide" in the Paul's Unofficial ABIT KT7 FAQ is good also, as you've got the mobo.

 

[Ridenow]

You should avoid slot 5 and slot 1 with the Live!

Yes, is possible get it to run without a reinstall of Windows, but it is not recommended. If you are running Windows you should be familiar with this process anyway.

Yes, it should run with the default BIOS settings. You should know that the default FSB is 100 so your processor might be underclocked until you change it, depending on what processor you have.

 

[GotCow]

jack (May 29, 2001 11:46 a.m.):
I downloaded the pdf manual for that board off of abit's site, and read the whole thing the past few days. Unfortuneately, I didn't see anything about "where" to plug in the Sound card. Sblive. Which slot is best?

Also, can you guys give me the link to that abit FAQ page? It's not abit. It's live via-something or other???

And a few more questions. Does the HD HAVE TO be formatted and a fresh install of the OS?? I just did that crap a month ago, and would love to just plug the HD in and have it work. I got some stuff I can't lose on there.

Do I need to worry about any of the settings in the BIOS at first?? Or can I just plug everythign in a fire it up? The manual made it sound like everything was set to default and it would try to set up everything on it's own....

HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Thanks.

In my experience with the KT7a-raid, you need to do a fresh install to avoid problems. Set all the bios settings to default except for the processor clock and set the HD type to auto. Install windows. Before installing ANY drivers for ANYTHING, install the latest Via 4-in-1 drivers. After everything else is installed, then start tweaking the bios. Oh yeah, install the LIVE card in slot 3 as it doesn't share any IRQ's.

 

[Shep]

Also set the IRQ manually to 5 for the SBlive that works the best for me anyway. Depending on which bios the board shipped with you may also need to set all the HD controllers to auto, only primary master was set to auto in some of the earlier bios.