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Iwill XP333 Motherboard
Originally posted on December
23rd, 2001
So far... Not so good...
A rep from IWill called me up
one day telling me about this new motherboard, the XP333. After
I looked around on the net I found a few reviews about it. Most
from Overclockers raving about the fact that you can really overclock
this baby. I asked my buddy Henry down at Central Computer in
SF about it and he told me to stay away from it. He said he sells
3 and 3 come back. He only stocks 1 in his display case next
to 30 or 40 of the Asus A7A266.
Here's what's offered on this
board:
AMD Athlon XP Support
ALiMaGiK 1 Chipset
ATA 133 hard drive spec.
DDR 333/266/200 SDRAM memory.
3X 184-pin DDR DIMM slots.
AGP 4X/2X
3-Phase Power Solution
6 Channel Sound
I like to give people a chance
at MikesHardware.com to prove what they got in quality, customer
service and responsibility.
I got this board in early December
2001 and wanted to use it for a home computer. Dana, the IWill
rep called me one day and talked me into it. Most of the items
I review here on MH are things I buy myself right off the shelf.
When Dana called I really thought I would get a eval unit at
no cost and was really surprised when she asked for money for
the board. She was nice enough to give me a discount of 10 or
20%.
So after doing the Christmas
shopping and getting all my presents wrapped and under the tree,
I thought I would put this XP333 together and see what it's got.
First thing I didn't like was
the positioning of the CPU. When you install the CPU, you have
to set the primary clip down and rock the secondary chip down
with a screwdriver to mount the CPU fan down onto the motherboard.
On the XP333, they positioned the secondary clip next to the
power supply making it very difficult to mount. Not much of a
problem, but odd I thought. Okay, I get the CPU mounted...
I get everything plugged in and
mounted and boot er up... I notice the XP333 telling me I have
a Athlon 1250+ CPU on the boot up. Hmmmm... I thought. What's
this? I go into the BIOs and everything is set right. I thought
I would plug in another CPU. I get a 1500+ and it still tells
me that I have a 1250+. Nice.
So I read through the manual
and discover that everything is okay. IWill says that the board
should automatically recognize the CPU I have. It doesn't.
Here's another little annoyance.
Dana, the rep from IWill, sent my one of the oldest boards, a
Rev. 1.0. According to the IWill website, Rev 2.1 is out and
Rev. 2.0 was available when Dana sent me the Rev. 1.0. I wonder
what Dana was thinking. That I do reviews on old motherboards?
I dunno.
So kids, so far, I have to say
that my very first experience with the IWill motherboard guys
is a DUD. I sent an email to Dana on Dec 23rd 2001 for the latest
board and for her to pay shipping back and forth. We'll see what
happens...
Rating so far for IWill and the
XP333 NO STARS! 
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