Shuttle AK31A... Yes or no?

[jbell255]

Just wanted to know if any of you out there has had experience with the Shuttle AK31A KT266A motherboard, and what they thought of it. Im going to be building the following system:

AMD Athlon XP 1700+
Shuttle AK31A VIA KT266A *or* EPoX EP-8KAHL VIA KT266A
Kingston 256MB DDR PC2100
Lite On 52X IDE CD-Rom
Sony 1.44MB 3.5"
Western Digital 40Gb 7200rpm
Visiontek 32mb DDR GeForce2 GTS
speakers/mouse/keyboard ect.
Maxtop 350W ATX-Midtower w/4 fans
Thermaltake Volcano 6cu+ heatsink/fan
Enermax's Whispersys System Exhaust
Arctic Silver II

I've also heard that the AK31A needs a bios update or something like that... is this true? if so, how hard would it be to do this? Im buying from NewEgg.com and it says under the AK31A specs "new version VIA VT8366A/VT8233 Chipset". This mb a good choice or not?

Thanks.

[shifty54]

Been running this board for about 2 weeks now with a Tbird 1GHZ...rock solid and set-up was trouble free. You will need a bios update to run an XP processor but follow the instructions and you won't have a problem (make sure you clear the CMOS before you flash). Overclocking thru the bios is great. The onboard sound isn't half bad either. This particular board has been recommended by many sources...and I've been real happy with it...on the other hand Epox makes a great board too.

[Seggybop]

We have been using this motherboard for about a week now with no problems. We got it bundled with an Athlon XP 1600+ which immediately worked fine without a bios update. Maybe they already updated it before we got it, or maybe the motherboards they are now are selling are already prepared for XP and updating is no longer necessary.

[jbell255]

NewEgg says in its description that the mb supports AMDk7... thats XP right?

"SHUTTLE AK31A AMD K7 VIA APOLLO KT266A SOCKET A ATX MOTHERBOARD - RETAIL New Ver.. VIA VT8366A/VT8233 Chipset. Supports AMD K7 Athlon/Duron FSB 200/266 Processors. Four 184 Pin Up to 4GB DDR SDRAM DIMM. Onboard AC97 Audio 1 4XAGP, 6XPCI, 1XCNR. Supports ATA 33/66/100 MB/s IDE Interface. "

[jrb420]

AmdK7 encompasses a lot of processors. I think all Athlon (original, thunderbird, MP, and XP) and Duron processors are considered K7. If a motherboard supports XP processors, it will say so. Otherwise, if it only says K7, it may only support Athlon T-Birds up to 1.4Ghz.