IT7 xtremely unstable

[Maranello]

ive been running 256MB of ddr for some time now. i decided to install a second stick of samsung ddr333 (ctl) on the board to get me to 512MB since my IT7/2.26 is my gaming system. i have been running 1.6vcc, 2.6vmem at 166/166 (1:1 timing), 2.5, 7, 3, 3 for the last couple months no problems. stuck my other stick of sammy in and it booted fine but as i was loading nightfire it rebooted. i got into bios and upped the vmem to 2.7 and dropped the fsb to 160.... wouldnt boot into windows.... got the "system config corruption" error you get when OC'ing with XPpro.... booted into bios again and dropped the fsb to 133, vcore to 1.50 and left the vmem at 2.7..... rebooted opening IE. i moved the memory around.... had a stick in DIMM1 and DIMM2... moved the DIMM2 to DIMM3 but still not stable. shut down the system, put both sticks in on the 8K3A+ and played BF1942, nightfire and ran sandra mem bench no problem. im now back to 1 stick of sammy and running fine at 166fsb like before. the pic is my error codes..... before i RMA this board is there anything i might have been doing wrong or is this a board trait or something.

[Maranello]

try loading that pic again....

[Maranello]

well newegg has my RMA request.... this sucks. this was my second IT7!!! first one lost the sound and bottom usb ports and now the memory controller dies on this one ... wtf.

[sjohnson]

Looks like both of us are poor candidates for a trip to Vegas :(

[Maranello]

the KR7A was the retailers fault for sending me "refurb" boards so we wont count that..... gone thru 3 KX7's and now 2 IT7's. its an abit luck issue with me i swear... doesnt matter what psu or case or anything..... if the retailer has a §§§§ abit anywhere in the warehouse that will be the one they send.

owned an 8KHA+ with no problems, an 8K3A with no problems and the 8K3A+ thats not had a problem yet. if epox made an intel board i liked as much as the abit boards id own it but they dont. i love the IT7's when they are alive.

[GreenBeret]

if epox made an intel board i liked as much as the abit boards id own it but they dont.

Try 4PEA/+ or 4GEA/+ ;)

Sorry to hear about your bad luck with IT7 :/

[Fredrik]

Unstable IT7? First time I ever hear that..

[ronnie0738]

Originally posted by Fredrik
Unstable IT7? First time I ever hear that..

Uh, really? I went through 8 IT7 boards before I found one that was built well and stable at high fsb.

[chainbolt]

Originally posted by Fredrik
Unstable IT7? First time I ever hear that..

me 2, I have owned all 3 IT7 versions, I know many ppl which are using this board, I never heard ANY problems with stabilty. Just the opposite, ABIT was always using a 4 way power regulation (in contrast to some other makers like Epox) and has even improved the circuitry for Version 1 (845PE).

The only issue with Version 2 is obviously that a few samples were produced with a missing voltage transistor, or something. But even these boards are totally stable, and their DIMM voltage can be increased. They just don't allow you to utilize the hidden BIOS DIMM voltage option.

[sjohnson]

Guys, remember that we're pushing the envelope for speed on these boards. Even a slight difference in component spec can push the board into instability at xtreme speeds. The fact that so many ABIT boards *are* stable is testimony to their QA program.

That being said, if there's an ABIT board that is slightly "out-of-spec", I'm likely to get it. I've babied them, slammed them and I seem to get sour boards. Thank God for ABIT's excellent RMA policy! :)

[ronnie0738]

well I'm glad that you guys have better luck than I do. :) Personally, epox has been much better for me than abit since I've owned an 8k7a, 8k3a+, and 4g4a+ although I haven't tried the 4pea yet. It would just seem, IMHO, that the build of epox boards are better b/c they generally oc well, but for abit you can oc better but you need to find a good board.

[Creative]

Originally posted by ronnie0738
Uh, really? I went through 8 IT7 boards before I found one that was built well and stable at high fsb.
Ive been thru 6 of them and i still think the very first one was the best....the latest Rev2 I had could have been good if it wasnt missing the vdimm resistor...:(

[GreenBeret]

Originally posted by chainbolt
ABIT was always using a 4 way power regulation (in contrast to some other makers like Epox) and has even improved the circuitry for Version 1 (845PE).


Epox 4PEA/4GEA use 4 phase power.

Abit wasn't always using 4 phase power. BD7-II, BG7, BE7 only have 3 phase.

[twiztdskatr]

im using my 1st one, and its a damn fine board.

[Maranello]

this is the third one for me now. first one lost the bottom usb ports and onboard sound... a pci sound card still didnt work. the sound problem was really wierd, games movies or music the sound that was in the backgroud was over taking the forground sounds... example would be foot steps in hitman2 would be about 4 times as loud as voices or gun shots. the second IT7 was a dud right off the bat, performance sucked then i tried the 2 sticks of memory but we all know that story. hows the 3rd one? i dont know.... crappy PSU. i was using a turbo link PSU i got with the chieftech case. +5v was fine but the +12v was running 11.86 idle 11.67 load...... that was yesterday. today the +12 dropped to 11.80 idle and 11.56 load after a restart :( i was getting windows errors and big slowdowns using simple things like IE6 and AIM so i shut her down. i pulled the sparkle out of the AMD system just to make sure it wasnt a board issue, +5v rock solid @ 5.18v +12v was 12.11 idle 12.08 load.... what a difference a good PSU makes :D

i ordered a new sparkle today, had it shipped overnight so it would be here monday....err.... :rolleyes: like how that works out ...lol. monday she'll be up and running again. i love abit but i always tend to get the rejects. epox on the other hand i always get the good ones. back when the 8KHA+ had a gripe list a mile long i owned 4 with zero problems.

[Drozdov]

are u guys talkin about the IT7 Max2? or the IT7 Max?

[Maranello]

the 845E IT7... i wish it was a max2 845PE :D