- Joined
- Mar 5, 2001
- Location
- Dillsburg, PA, USA
First off, read all the problems I had been having with my previous KT7A motherboard at the following links...
Discussion On Overclockers.com Forum
Discussion On AMDMB.com Forum
IWill KD-266 Review
I have had this motherboard for a little over a month now, so I am doing my review of it. Please understand that these are my personal observations and if you have a problem with them, please feel free to contact me about them.
Overall, let me say, I give this motherboard a 10 out of 10 on ease of installation. I cannot stress this enough. It is simply the easiest motherboard install I have ever done.
I pulled my KT7A 'headache' motherboard out of the case and replaced it with this motherboard. As far as hooking everything up, it is all clearly marked, no confusion there. Hooking up the monster GlobalWin FOP-38 was no problem. It went on the socket as smooth as butter, in stern conflict with the KT7A which took a miracle to get it attached. So far as the rest of the connections, all was really simple. And not to mention the fact that it 'seemed' to give me more room to work which was strange. Overall, appearance-wise, I feel it is visually more appealing than the KT7A. The only thing I noticed it could use was possibly a fan on the north bridge (it only comes equipped with a heat sink). It fit beautifully into the case and all went well there.
Now, onto the boot up, it seems to take longer to POST than most motherboards...but that seems to be common with all the IWill motherboards and systems I have built. The BIOS/CMOS setting screen is simple and easy to use. I left everything alone and went straight to the boot up. I must say, it booted Windows ME faster than the KT7A (KT7A - 32 seconds ... KD266 - 15 seconds) and Windows 2K boot was about the same (KT7A - 33 seconds ... KD266 30 seconds). Overall performance is great...I have had it for close to a month now and did not want to write my review until I had used it for some time. I used my Athlon TB 850 at its stock settings for awhile, and never saw a temp higher than 45 degrees under full load. Then I boosted the FSB up from 8.5x100 to 8.5x106 (without unlocking the chip) and it runs like a champ. No problems whatsoever. The highest temperature I have seen is 49 degrees after playing 2 straight hours of Black & White.
I have been recommending this budget board to anyone who is looking for one. I must admit that after having all the problems with the KT7A that I had, I would not go back to using another ABIT motherboard if they paid me. I have built a couple of systems since and have only used IWill products because I have found less problems with them than I ever had with ABIT. Do not get me wrong, I loved ABIT for years, but with the support I got as well as the overall problems I have read about/seen on the message forums, I would never switch back. ABIT, if you should be listening (which I doubt), feel free to contact me and prove me wrong.
Thank You!
Keith O. McKeever, Jr.
System
Codegen Super Power Mid Tower Case
Sparkle 300W Power Supply w/ 2 High RPM case fans & 1 PCI card cooler
IWILL KD-266 MoBo
AMD T-Bird 850 MHz 200 FSB Processor w/ GlobalWIN FOP-38 Cooler
512 MB CAS 3 Crucial RAM (2x256 MB)
Maxtor DiamondMax 45.0 GB 7200 RPM UATA-100 Hard Drive
Samsung 52X CD-ROM Drive
Hewlett-Packard 9350i 10/8/32X CD-RW Drive
Jaton GeForce 2 MX 32 MB AGP Video Card w/ nVidia Detonator 3 12.41 Drivers
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Gamer 5.1 PCI Sound Card
DLink 10/100 PCI Ethernet Card w/ WOL
AOpen 56K v.90 K56Flex PCI Modem Card
Discussion On Overclockers.com Forum
Discussion On AMDMB.com Forum
IWill KD-266 Review
I have had this motherboard for a little over a month now, so I am doing my review of it. Please understand that these are my personal observations and if you have a problem with them, please feel free to contact me about them.
Overall, let me say, I give this motherboard a 10 out of 10 on ease of installation. I cannot stress this enough. It is simply the easiest motherboard install I have ever done.
I pulled my KT7A 'headache' motherboard out of the case and replaced it with this motherboard. As far as hooking everything up, it is all clearly marked, no confusion there. Hooking up the monster GlobalWin FOP-38 was no problem. It went on the socket as smooth as butter, in stern conflict with the KT7A which took a miracle to get it attached. So far as the rest of the connections, all was really simple. And not to mention the fact that it 'seemed' to give me more room to work which was strange. Overall, appearance-wise, I feel it is visually more appealing than the KT7A. The only thing I noticed it could use was possibly a fan on the north bridge (it only comes equipped with a heat sink). It fit beautifully into the case and all went well there.
Now, onto the boot up, it seems to take longer to POST than most motherboards...but that seems to be common with all the IWill motherboards and systems I have built. The BIOS/CMOS setting screen is simple and easy to use. I left everything alone and went straight to the boot up. I must say, it booted Windows ME faster than the KT7A (KT7A - 32 seconds ... KD266 - 15 seconds) and Windows 2K boot was about the same (KT7A - 33 seconds ... KD266 30 seconds). Overall performance is great...I have had it for close to a month now and did not want to write my review until I had used it for some time. I used my Athlon TB 850 at its stock settings for awhile, and never saw a temp higher than 45 degrees under full load. Then I boosted the FSB up from 8.5x100 to 8.5x106 (without unlocking the chip) and it runs like a champ. No problems whatsoever. The highest temperature I have seen is 49 degrees after playing 2 straight hours of Black & White.
I have been recommending this budget board to anyone who is looking for one. I must admit that after having all the problems with the KT7A that I had, I would not go back to using another ABIT motherboard if they paid me. I have built a couple of systems since and have only used IWill products because I have found less problems with them than I ever had with ABIT. Do not get me wrong, I loved ABIT for years, but with the support I got as well as the overall problems I have read about/seen on the message forums, I would never switch back. ABIT, if you should be listening (which I doubt), feel free to contact me and prove me wrong.
Thank You!
Keith O. McKeever, Jr.
System
Codegen Super Power Mid Tower Case
Sparkle 300W Power Supply w/ 2 High RPM case fans & 1 PCI card cooler
IWILL KD-266 MoBo
AMD T-Bird 850 MHz 200 FSB Processor w/ GlobalWIN FOP-38 Cooler
512 MB CAS 3 Crucial RAM (2x256 MB)
Maxtor DiamondMax 45.0 GB 7200 RPM UATA-100 Hard Drive
Samsung 52X CD-ROM Drive
Hewlett-Packard 9350i 10/8/32X CD-RW Drive
Jaton GeForce 2 MX 32 MB AGP Video Card w/ nVidia Detonator 3 12.41 Drivers
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Gamer 5.1 PCI Sound Card
DLink 10/100 PCI Ethernet Card w/ WOL
AOpen 56K v.90 K56Flex PCI Modem Card
