Asus A7A266 Motherboard

Strengths: DDR & SDRAM capable.

Weakness: Not stable with certain hardware configs

I have read more than my fair share of reviews on this board and it seems that you hate it or you love it. I, personally, love it. But that's because my experience has been enjoyable as I have not had any _major_ problems with this board. I have a Zip100, Ricoh CD/RW Burner, DVD, IBM Deskstar 40GB drive, SDRAM, GeForce 3 Ti 200 vid, and SB Xgamer audio, Netgear NIC, Firewire PCI. I haven't had probs with any of these devices at all. Vid capture runs smoothly with a Dazzle DVC capture device and the firewire board. The only software that has cause consistent probs is my 2 year old's Grandma and Me game! :-p

For me, it has been a plug-and-play experience that I simply cannot complain about.

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Asus A7A266 Motherboard

Strengths: Uprgadability, versatility

Weakness: Heat, works better with the cover off :P

Overall, the performance of this board is OK, but not GREAT! Main reason is due to the Cheap and nasty Ali chipset. I've mainly had irq problems due to SBlive/network and scsi cards. Keep upgrading bios rev as Asus releases them, and make sure you have a fast heat sink fan and at least 2 exhaust fans on ur case. Mine's running @117F constantly! IMPT: Install the latest ali agp drv's and disable every port/usb socket or whateva ur not using in bios! In XP Pro.. the irq's are not a problem but in ME or 98/98SE they are.

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Asus A7A266 Motherboard

Strengths: Stability, speed

Weakness: Heat, apparently requires new BIOS to allow Win XP installation.

I installed the A7A266 with an Athlon 1.2 GHz cpu, a 256MB Micron DDR memory card and a new power supply. (You should have at least 300W.) My Windows Me system has been running solid and fast from the first boot. It does run warm and I added an extra fan to my case. I've not tried overclocking yet, but voltage and multiplier settings are all done in BIOS setup. My only real beef is that when I try to upgrade to Win XP Home, I get a blue screen error message saying that my hard drive is corrupted and cannot be repaired. (My hard drive is fine.) After talking to Maxtor, Microsoft, and Asus, it appears that I will have to wait for a BIOS update before I will be able to install XP. The Microsoft Hardware Compatibility List shows that, as of 10/29/01, the board has not been tested with XP. To me, this seems to be a serious fault on the part of ASUS.

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Asus A7A266 Motherboard

Strengths: 3 SDRAM Slots - 2 DDR Slots

Weakness: Heat Issues - NEED TO UPDATE THE BIOS TO VERSION 1011

I give the board a good rating but there is a couple of things you have to be aware of. Make sure your case has a good cooling system - I built a machine with only one fan (for testing purposes) - My chip temp was always 125F. - once I added two more case fans - the chip temp dropped to around 90F.

Second - MAKE SURE YOU FLASH THE BIOS - I was having massive problems. OS (Windows XP) would suddenly reboot, AGP Card would lockup, Nic Card was not working properly. DDR Ram was not registering properly (512 MB Chip PC2100 - would show up in the BIOS as 256MB) Then I flash the BIOS to version 1011 - all my issues went away instantly. DDR was even registering properly.

Third --- I will admit - I had to hunt for the BIOS upgrade - ASUS's website did have it listed but the download link never worked. My advice - FTP to:

ftp://ftp.asuscom.de

This was the only place I was able to get the 1011 BIOS update. After Flashing the BIOS - the board has been ROCK SOLID ever since.

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Asus A7A266 Motherboard

Strengths: Great stability, no problems assembling, decent benchmarks

Weakness: Runs a bit warm, can't adjust frequency multiplier (AMD XP Problem)

Had the board for a few months now. Runs very stable with WinXP Pro. Some games are a bit funky, quitting at odd times etc. but it's all XP issues. Runs WinME perfectly, never had any problems with RAM, CPU or any other components. IRQ's were set up properly. ATI video card had a few issues here and there but a BIOS update solved that problem. Had to update BIOS to recognize the AMD 1500+XP processor but otherwise everything runs great.

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Asus A7A266 Motherboard

Strengths: Supports SDR and DDR RAM

Weakness: Slow chipset...

A decent board as it supports both SDR and DDR RAM. Good if you plan on upgrading in the future. The chipset is one of the slowest I've used...In benchmarks, the memory bandwidth hovers around 1500MB/sec, considerably lower than the 2100MB/sec theoretical limit.

The board I have has got some strange issues in the BIOS...for example, I am unable to control the Vcore voltage and the FSB in the BIOS. They both run higher than what I specify (1.75V "really" runs at 1.8V, and the 133MHz FSB "really" runs at 138MHz...)

Asus tech support has been helpful and quick to respond but was never able to resolve the above issue. Its not that big a deal though and it still runs stable.

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Asus A7A266 Motherboard

Strengths: Rock solid and fast

Weakness: you MUST use good RAM and have a good power supply

The installation was painful but it was somewhat self-induced. I didn’t upgrade my power supply and it I cause terrible things to happen. Dont make that mistake. Get at least a 300 watt PS (AMD rated) and make sure your memory is high quality. I suggest Crucial because it has worked perfect for me in the two boxes i have built with this board. I used a different but know manufacturer in one of the A7As I built and it crashed at some random point during the win install. With good power and good memory, this board is not good but great. The only other thing is the BIOS. Make sure you running at least 103.b. There are stability issues below that revision. See Asus’s page for details.

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Asus A7A266 Motherboard

Strengths: stability, software

Weakness: heat probs

I got this board running with a 1.2 Ghz Athlon CPU, and it never gets a freeze working in normal circumstances (you should see the kind of things I´ve tried to do to this poor system). The only thing that got me worried is the high temperature of the CPU (135º F!). I guess that will reduce the life of my CPU, so that's the reason why I`m gonna sell it sometime.

It worked for me.

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Asus A7A266 Motherboard

Strengths: Way faster than Intel boards. The HDD ALi HDD Caching Util. No capacitors near CPU socket. No IDE sockets that knock against ISA/PCI slots.

Weakness: Minor Heat problems. Really fussy with mixed RAM. Uninformative about maxed out RAM in documentation. Uninformative in manual about the SDRAM to DDR-SDRAM swich on the Motherboard.

For the most part, what this board lacks is proper documentation and information. Also, the board just gets too hot for my likes.
At one time, I upgraded my motherboard from 512MB of SDRAM to 512MB of DDR-SDRAM. The system definately ran faster, but there were system problems after the memory was installed. I couldn't find the DIP switch for changing the setting from DDR to SDRAM, and it wouldn't post. I later found that there is indeed a switch for DDR. BTW, DDR isn't true 266 FSB, just 133MHz with a 2x multiplier (really funky).
About the DIP switch, this wasn't in my manual, and I had to discover that switch on my own. I didn't buy 6 layer quality (DDR), but the system was incredibly unstable with DDR. I had to return the RAM and I now just have SDRAM (512MB).
My cousin tells me that AMD is the one to blame for this (for being sensitive to generic RAM). I, However, think that It would be the memory controller located in the North Bridge, that is if the DDR memory that I bought wasn't faulty.
My 1Ghz Athlon Thunderchicken cooks at higher temperatures than Intel counterparts. Even with the claimed best heat sink there is, which is the OCZ Gladiator (Pure Copper and best BTUs except Gold) found at www.overclockerz.com, I still run at 100 degrees Farenheit with the MB and 135 degrees Farenheit with the CPU. My cousin's Celeron 700 runs at 110 degrees Farenheit with
I didn't want to get Kryo or a water cooler because it's messy.

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Asus A7A266 Motherboard

I installed this mb in a new Ensoniq case, using a brand new Athlon 1GB processor. I installed my working videao card, NIC, and SCSI card, along with an IDE hard drive, CDR, and CD-RW.

The board would not complete the POST. I removed all the cards - the POST said no video card present. I added my video card - again no POST. I bought a new AGP card, again no POST.

After much fiddling, and many trials, I got the mb to work with all my cards, but the CD-audio didn't function. I then tried to change the cd-audio cable, and again, the board would not POST.

I have returned the board, but not yet received a replacement - more when I do.

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Asus A7A266 Motherboard

Strengths: -EXTREMELY fast when combined with the RIGHT components.

Weakness: -CUSTOMER SUPPORT.

I have purchased this board 3 months ago, in conjunction with AMD 1.4 266FSB CPU and 512MB DDR ram, and the board is extremely fast and stable. At a street price of CAN$200, it's one of the cheapest board around that offers high quality and stability. It gives u the versatility of either using DDR (2 slots) or SDR (3 slots), other features include ATA100, 2-4 USBs, AGP. I especially like the program ASUS PROBE that came with the board, it monitors the temperature of your sys.. things such as cpu temp. ram temp. cpu fan threshold, power fan threshold, chassis fan threshold, you can ENABLE / DISABLE software CPU cooling.. (always/ overheat detected).. of course you can always add an additional fan if you worry about it.. also.. consider using ASUS MB in conjunction with its Video card.. it gives quite impressive performance although I am not sure if this IS the best combination of Motherboard and Video Card or not.. but I am currently using ASUS V7700 64MB MX400 GF2 card.. and it's working perfectly. The kind of softwares I use include 3DS Viz 3, Acad 2002, Adobe PShp 6.

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Asus A7A266 Motherboard

Strengths: none

Weakness: intermittent freeze, printer port not recognized, power always on the mouse and keyboard eventhough it has been switched off (soft power off).

I have been trying to fix the printer port (which is not recognized by Windows) and to no avail, the problem still exists. Have gone to the NetQ to find a solution, none of it works. No without printer port working, system hangs up sometime, but not often. There have been numerous patches to the BIOS, but none of it helps.

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Asus A7A266 Motherboard

Weakness: when playing games,computer slows down alot

when i got the computer 1'st day it froze approx 7 times.
itook it back where i bought it. they upgraded the bios.
that made a big deference it does not freeze no more.but when i play games ,like emperor battle for dune,when you get into the game the computer slows down allot.
a7a266 (512ram) (60gig hard drive) (gforce 2).

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Asus A7A266 Motherboard

Strengths: you can install DDR or SDRAM, onboard audio sounds pretty good

Weakness: lock up frequently, the worst ASUS board among the 4 boards I have

I paid more money for ASUS because I had 3 ASUS board before I bought this one and I liked them alot. It was the worst ASUS board I ever had. It locks up frequently. I first installed an 1.4 Ghz Athlon OEM CPU and it got so much problems, mostly it froze after 20 mins or so. Finally the dealer rebuilt a completely new pc, this time I chose 1.3 boxed Athlon and it seems to run better so far. The dealer told me afterwards the problem was because the CPU temp threshold was set too low (default set by ASUS CMOS) and to raise it to 95 while default was 86. About Asus support, it is a joke; I dont know how they stay in business while ignoring their customers. I will not buy ASUS, it was a waste of money. Also this board A7A266 takes like 60-65 secs to boot up while the ASUS K7M took 40 secs, using same OS (win 98 2nd ed) and similar software installed.

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Asus A7A266 Motherboard

Weakness: This board locks up continuously...

This is the worst, most unstable board I have owned. You don't have to take my word for it. Go to NetQ, that is Asus's online user to user help forum. You will see nothing but bad reviews and problems. Access it from the Asus web site. And while you're there, check out their customer support. It's nonexistant. They refer you straight back to the point of purchase. I have been fiddling with this board for most of the three months I have owned it, trying to get it set up to where it will not freeze. And not a software freeze, I mean total lock up. Overall bad board.

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