*Abit IN9 32X-Max: Help me fix my pile O' crap!*
OK, I have had this board and this setup for a long time, ran it under Vista64 for months before I gave up and went back to XP SP2, and oddly enough that is when most of my major problems started hapenning.
I did a fresh install of XP SP2 in the interest of having a clean platform to run with my brand new and ultra pricey BFG 8800GTX OC2's, and that was a mistake. Problems, crashing, BSODs, and I am not even running anything OC'd yet! Ok, no problem, I decide I am finally going to flash the BIOS on the board, now moving to the 1.3 version (the official release, not the beta BIOS), and now my problems have multiplied. I was getting unknown devices in my device manager, random crashes, the system was haning in boot loops, and worst of all, Windows decided I haven't registered my CD key and locked me out.
Reformat #2: I wiped the HD, reinstalled the OS clean, patched up to SP2, and the SP2 installation crashed half way through. Now, I still can't register my CD key, windows still has a list of unknown devices, and I still can't install the drivers for the "mass storage controller". I am also, BTW, running the new chipset drivers from Nvidia (the 9.53 drivers), not that it really seems to be worth anything one way or another.
Now, I am stuck. I even went so far as to remove half my Dominator 6400C4D (now running 2x1GB sticks) and am only running with my one 800GTX OC2 card. Unfortunately, I cannot verify that both cards are working as, for some reson I CANNOT figure out, only one of the two cards wants to seat in the main PCIe slot. In the interest of not breaking it out of sheer frustration, I gave up getting the other card into the slot, and now I am contemplating reformatting ONCE AGAIN.
I NEED ADVICE!
I am at my whitts end. I have spent 8 months on an off trying to get this box running, I have spent litereally thousands of dollars on these "high end" parts specifically to build the most powerful gaming box on the planet. And it doesn't work...
Should I RMA the MoBo?
Is it time to get a new MoBo?
Should I drop 680i altogether?
Is it even worth it to bother, since the new stuff is coming out so soon and I haven't even gotten this junk to work yet? I mean, the x48 / 780i / 790i stuff is coming out soon, Penrynn, 1600MHZ FSB, DDR3, and a partidge in a pear tree to boot!
Is it just me, or are we being scammed into buying this crap that doesn't work just so they can make a buck? Then, when it doesn't work, they string us along with promises of driver updates and hotfixes reputed to make it work! Then, when it doesn't, they string us along again. After a long enough time period, they finally state that they have this new hardware, and it will make it all better..."Please deposite abother $350 for a MoBo...Thank you, have a nice day!"
I am sick of it, absolutely SICK of this crap! $5000 for a box, I expect my parts to all work, PERIOD. No "ifs", "ands", or "buts" about it. And I sincerely wish it did work, I really, really do, but the facts don't lie. This pile of crap doesn't even run at stock speeds!
So, I ask again: If you were me and you had a pile of soon to be outdated ultra expensive hardware that doesn't work through no fault of your own, WHAT NOW?
What would YOU do?
/rantoff
--Skrips