MicroStar International K7T266 Pro2-RU Review

Overall Rating

Ease of installation and price.

Does not support all that it claims.

The Microstar International K7T266 Pro2-RU Motherboard is a good buy for the price, however when using WindowsXP Professional, I find the board to be not capable of incorporating the parameters of the operating system. MSI claims that this board will accept PC2100 DDR memory up to 3GB, and will also accept AMD AthlonXP 1800+ processors. I find this not to be true. The AMD AthlonXP 1800+ 1.53GHz will not be allowed to stabilize with this board and the board will not accept any DDR PC2100 memory over 128MB 184 pin.

Members' Comments onmerlin2257.'s Review

• Dan. on 5th Oct 2002

  Once the bios is flashed all these problems go away. I am running an xp 1800 on this board with windows xp and had no problems after the bios was flashed.

• Majik. on 6th Oct 2002

  After flashing the bios and replacing the memory with Corsair memory, some of the best memory manufactured, I find that the MSI K7T266 Pro2-RU, when using Windows XP Professional and AMD AthlonXP 1800+, still to be a bust. No stability at 133MHz/266FSB whatsoever. Conclusion: defective board.

• Bsu155. on 29th Nov 2002

  Memory: 1) Do not use the max. performance memory setting in the Bios with today's memories. 2) You cannot buy CAS2 256MB DDR2100 with 2T, 5T, 2T setting per most overclocker reviews. This is just an overkill to destablize your system. In 2yrs at the system end of life there may be better memories but on todays market... Go figure. 3) With Crucial 256MB DDR2100 CAS 2.5 and memory setting at 2.5, 3T, 6T, 2T and 2-way interleave, the system is rock steady. Never encountered another crash or hangup. The Win98 OS and programs work faster with less conflicts. Someone should test this board with slightly conservative settings and MSI should be making those recommendations to provide customers with a rock steady performance setting. Who cares if an engine can hit 25,000 RPM for 2 second, I want to know how to build a Porsche that can run 24hrs at Le Man and still kick butt. Sleep Mode: 4) Better check the Power Management Setup. My system was hanging up after wakeup from standby. This continue to happen until I changed the following: IPCA Yes ACPI S1/POS (Do not use S3/STR with large graphic cards; the drivers do not load and the system hangs) Call VGA at S3 Resuming Disable USB Wakeup from S3 Disable bsu155

• elimin8or. on 26th Jan 2003

  I've had this board for over a year now and I had troubles to begin with. The biggest problem that most people have had with the board is that it sucks too much power. Make sure that you have a good power supply(above average) for this one. The RAM I have in mine is Corsair PC2400 running at 2-6-2. After I upgraded my power supply, the board has been absolutely perfect. With all the extra features it is worth the premium you pay for it. Recommended.

• merlin2257. on 27th Jan 2003

  After further review: I would like to thank Bsu155 for the technical direction. After following the steps outlined in your comment, I found this board to handle exactly what it was supposed to. However, I have a problem with the AMD XP1800+ running at 122F, and have encountered numerous online windows crashes. Do you have any suggestions. Also, I would like to apologize to MSI for doubting their craftsmanship. The board is a kickass board after you make the appropriate setting selections. New at this computer building thing anyways. Also, can you recommend a chipset cooler for this board? It seems as though it will handle one, but not sure. What do you think?

• Robio. on 31st Jul 2003

  This is a great motherboard. It has served me well for almost 2yrs. I have not been succesful with installing 3gigs of ram though...Most I can get in there is 2.5...for some reason it hangs if I have 3gigs...the D-LED shows "assign resources to all ISA" whatever that means.