"tell why this approach... is wrong"
It's not. A stable machine that you can work on is miles ahead of a machine that has to be tweaked constantly and is always crashing. I use a dual p111 800 and an old PII 300 in my setup, both never crash and I can record anything I want to. the P11 does midi (with an old MXQ32 ISA card) and the dual machine will record 24 tracks at a time. I don't want to spend money on computers when there are still so many mics and pres to lust after. Take care Logan

Hey Lou
Curious to know what your issues are with the Iwill board? Is it the Via chipset? Wouldnt doubt it. I wouldnt reccomend a Via on my worst enemies!!! The track record for Via has not been too good at all.
ProRec guys are definately right about Athalons but not the motherboards. Why go with the underdogs? Just because they say it's a good motherboard doesnt mean much. Researching forums like this or Nuendo.com is the best places to go IMHO for building a DAW.
These forums are good since you actually get to ask questions and get feedback from several people before you do build it.
Let us know what issues you are having for archive purposes
Opus

Hey Opus
My motherboard is a via chip set and it's rock solid. But I'm using intel, and I don't have midi in that machine. Part of the problem i think is that folks just don't or won't use there audio machine for just audio. Add in modems and game hardware, and a SBlaster for game audio and a lot of virus stuff etc. and your asking for trouble.Take care Logan

Hmmm...maybe I'm missing something here?
"enlighten me as to why I have made a Humoungous mistake in building a DAW based on the Iwill kk266+ mobo."
"But I'm using intel"
In the same puter? Are you saying that you put a Pentium processor on that mobo??? Either I've interpreted something wrong, or indeed, you did make a Humoungous mistake...lol.
If I were you, I wouldn't make the broad assumption that people who have had trouble with VIA chipsets have screwed things up and then blamed it on the VIA chipsets. If you do your homework on the various DAW-related sites, you'll find that VIA problems run rampant. If your VIA-based DAW works fine, you're a lucky man. Congrats!

SOS....two different people you are talking about there...we still havent heard back from Lou..
so we dont know what Mobo Logan is using so we cant assume anything at this point. Yes, some people can get Via to work for them..they indeed are blessed with good luck..I had a friend who just recently noticed that his data was being corrupted from the data transfer but that the KT133 chipsets have!!
It's one of those things that makes me weary to even look at Via!! I was thinking of the Asus A7m266-D board..it has the AMD North and a Via south chipset...since it has that Via southbridge on it I've become a little hesitant to go for it!
Oh...I'm sooo confused on what to get!! So many friggen decisions to make
Opus

Opus has it right, your reading posts from two different people. I use the MSI 694D pro MOBO. When I went that way there weren't as many options as today, if you wanted a 133 bus speed. but this board has been rock solid running Nuendo with an RME Hammerfall sound card and a Matrox/maxtor (fuck I can never which is which)400 dual head. Many who have problems with the Via chip set have narrowed it down to their midi cards.
My main point was that I see alot of folks complaining about fucked up DAWS and find out that they have everything from soup to nuts running on them. Lean mean audio only machine is the way to go.
I've always use Intel because by in large they work where I read tons of posts from AMD users whom are having trouble. I'm not slagging AMD, I've never used one, but I don't want to trouble shoot all the time I want to record and intel seems to have the inside edge on reliablity.
Scsi is another area where there are endless debates about whether it's necessary or not, I've always had all Scsi 10,000 RPM audio machines and they fly and I never have pops and clicks and I can consistently get more tracks and plugs than guys I know using IDE machine with faster processors than I'm using.
I also always use Crucial CS2 Ram, 1024 meg and plugs are not a problem on this machine, which at dual P111 800's is not at the pinacle of processing power anymore.
Find a machine that works and stick with it, is my idea. I can't see needing to change this machine for quite some time, unless I decide that I want midi in the main machine to run something like The Grand, seeing as I lack any accoustic pianos in my studio. take care Logan

Thanx for the input folks, I was just trying to raise a little hell. I've seen so many posts from people crying about the via chipsets that I thought I might be in serious trouble. A little background is in order. I only discovered all the forums out here in digital recording land AFTER I had ordered the pieces/parts for my DAW. I built the machine I did for two specific reasons: Prorec had a step-by-step article (w/pictures!)on how to do it for non-geeks like me. Prorec also ran an article describing a recording/mixing event (Point-to-Point)in which they used the machine successfully. Now it seems to me that a machine that works for recording professionals is going to be more than adequate for my needs. I am one guitar player committing sound to posterity via the electronic recording medium at my disposal. I don't have a band. I won't be micing any drum kits. Hell I can't even spell MIDI!! My biggest task in the forseeable future is to get a handle on Cubase - Christ a'mighty I'm confused! But I must say - So far, so good. I have been assisted in the build process by a friend with some computer background and I am learning a whole poke load of new stuff. We had some issues at first crashing cubase on short length, multiple effect, multi-track replays but we believe that was a disc-read/memory thing. We resolved it by tweaking the mobo's Iwill smart settings in bios. We have 2X256 micron cl-2 ram running at 150 mhz. We set the multiplier to 10.5 so the 1.4 gig T-bird is slightly overclocked at 1.575. Temp is at 52c w/o the system fan (noisy bugger) 48c with the fan. The s.o.b. has not crashed since and I am starting to work it now. This is a dedicated audio-only box. No games, no internet, no nuthin! Full specs follow:

AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4 ghz
Iwill KK266+ motherboard
Enermax 430 watt whisper-quiet power supply
4u Rack-mount case
Matrox 450 dual-head video card
(1)20 gig Maxtor 7200 rpm HD IDE (system)
(2)60 gig Maxtor 7200 rpm HD IDE (audio + backups)
Yamaha CDRW
2 X 256 Micron cl2 (cas?) sdram PC 150
M-Audio Omnistudio (Delta 66 card w/breakout box?)
Cubase VST 5.0
Windows 98se
Yamaha mps5 Near-field monitors
(2) 17" Dell monitors

I hope I got it all. Pardon anything that don't sound right - I'm too lazy to go find the receipts so I'm working from memory here!!
At any rate I think I'm gonna be ok with this set-up. BTW-the whole thing came together for $2700 and took less than two weeks from order to recorder!
Thanx again
lou

Sorry 'bout the mix-up...I was pretty tired when I posted.
Lou, that AMD system sounds Sweet! I've been gradually collecting the pieces to build a new PC tower. My current PC is an old AMD K6-300, but I don't use it for audio at all, just internet. I use my G4 for audio, but I use it for internet, too. I now have most of the stuff for the new PC tower, but still need the CPU, cooler, mobo, and memory. I'm going with the iWill XP333-R and an AMD Athlon XP 1800. Expensive roadblocks keep delaying things, but it shouldn't be much longer. Then all I gotta do is get rid of Digi001!

i actually started to piece together that very daw on prorec.com. i printed the steps and priced everything. but once i did research on people actually using those chipsets i started to second guess. i stuck with amd though. finally i put together this last weekend a iwill xp333, xp1800, 20 and 60 maxtor 7200 "l" series, win 2k, antec 300w ps and case, 512meg kingston ddrram, matrox g450 dual head video. still need a sound card. looking at the us428.

good to hear the prorec.com advice worked. i wasnt brave enough to try it.

mine, well i have it dedicated to audio, so with no sound card i havnt been able to use it. when i fire her up, she's fast though.

peas.