Hi Paul:
___Not to beat a dead horse but stability is not just that it can run for days, weeks, or months on end. Its that you can use
any sound card and that includes some of the best vs. any AC97 variant to date without any problems whatsoever. Here are just two pieces of information I pulled form a headlines as well as a KT266A review I ran across in the past two days of HW site perusing:
Posted over at OC Workbench’s
front page today: In fact, given that it supports DDR333 and is
comparatively more stable than the SiS735, the SiS745 has become the favorite of top-tier makers.
___What does this tell you about today’s SiS735 today?
Posted over at Anandtech on the second page of the
VIA KT266A Initial Roundup - October 2001 yesterday: We've been making a lot of comparisons to the i845 lately mainly because the chipset and motherboards were very mature upon their launch. These three boards are also doomed to that same comparison. Although they clearly outperform the i845/Pentium 4 solutions, the maturity level of these initial motherboards just isn't there yet.
___What does this tell you about the just released KT266A’s?
___I read this kind of thing on an almost daily basis! After using the AMD based HW
with professional level M-Audio cards in particular, how can you say the AMD inside is as stable or compatible? Your customer comes in and says I want an HTPC with the professional sound quality of an M-Audio AP2496 or soon to be released Delta Theater and you tell them what? My children are all using T-Birds on VIA and SiS based chipsets and have no problems with the std. gaming and general use they subject them too. Well, the burned up T-Bird(s) ticked me off so I RMA’ed that board … My parents general use PC is built around an extremely quiet and robust Intel PIII 750 at 1.0 GHz. My sister’s main HTPC is built around a BX chipset based PIII
[email protected] whereas her son’s brand new HTPC is based off the SiS 735 K7S5A w/ a 1.4 GHz T-Bird at 1.45. This is not about AMD or Intel bias, but is about professional level audio and visual quality experiences. Subjecting someone to an HTPC built from non-compatible or sub std. HW is a travesty at best and will more than likely force the new HTPC’er to search for other lesser quality solutions like a simple progressive scan STB and off the shelf Quad Scan scaler once they are subjected to their first incompatibility as you yourself have already found.
___In response to your second posting above: Many MS programmers regularly visit our forums as well and if you speak with them privately, you will find out all about the AMD inside problems also. Ask a MS USB programmer in particular

As for the SiS K7S5A, I did not have to disable the onboard sound to achieve stutter free compatibility with the M-Audio AP2496 in it but have seen the strangest behavior including the loss of the two CPU’s. As for HTPC compatibility from an Intel based HTPC, I routinely run two sound cards/two video cards now that I am hooked on the PCI based Radeon’s/M-Audio cards for HTPC uses and the GeForce’s/Creative Live Value’s for all my gaming needs. I unfortunately do not have enough slots to cover the 3Com/USR 56k PCI HW controller based modem, Intel 10/100 NIC, Hauppauge capture card, and the HiPix DTV-200 with the latest Radeon compatible drivers as well
___Good Luck
___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___
[email protected]