On Wed, 26 Oct 2005 08:26:33 -0500, Mike Hord wrote:
> If AMD is an option I can recommend an ABIT KT7.
>
> I've had one for ~4 years (maybe more, getting hard to
> remember) and it just keeps on trucking.  I replaced it
> once, because I cracked the PCB (!) on the old one, and
> rather than die completely, I just lost my ability to use
> an onboard peripheral.
>
> It's a pretty nice board.

Beware of any Abit KT7 series motherboard and the "exploding capcitor"
syndrome. I've built at least 50 systems over the years using these
particular motherboards and almost every one has suffered capacitor
failure sooner or later. 

The capacitors that fail are normally low e.s.r. types used as
switching PSU filter caps around the CPU socket and bulk filter caps
for the AGP slot and located just under the AGP connector. Sometimes
the bulk capacitor on the RAM DIMM slots also goes bad. 

The length of service time it takes for the capacitors to fail varies
with system temperature and type of CPU installed. An original 1GHz T-
bird CPU in a hot box is the worst as the 1GHz T-bird was one of the
highest power CPUs AMD ever made. I've seen this configuration fail
capacitors in less than 6 months of service. I've seen the same board
with good cooling and a much lower power Duron CPU last almost 2 years
before the capacitors failed. 

That said, they *are* excellent motherboards and I would also highly
recommend them with the caveat about the capacitors. 

I've resurrected dozens of KT7 system boards by replacing the low
e.s.r. capacitors that have failed. Symptoms are system lockup, failure
to start/reboot, spontaneous reboot, etc. Once replaced, I've never had
another problem with any of the the boards again. 

I still have many (4 or 5) KT7 boards in service here -- in fact my
main software workstation is a KT7E system. I also have bags of
Panasonic and Nichicon low e.s.r. replacement caps that I occasionally
use when someone has a KT7 board that need reviving.

Matt Pobursky
Maximum Performance Systems
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