Retail Abit IN9 32X-MAX - Pictures, observations and testing...

[OKsoVRomoSkylo]

ok guys, i think i'm about to quit the abit boat...

after hundreds of installations, having seen all sorts of mb related problems ,i cant believe i'm getting this from abit. for the past 15 hours i'm just trying to setup windows on a freakin fp-in9 board. the issue is no keyboard or mouse after some point during the setup process.
i have tried almost anything i could think of.
i even cloned a clean windows disk from the 32x max.. will boot windows, but no keyboard no mouse... usb or ps2...
on single sata or raid or ide disks... with four different graphic card combis, four different memory pairs,two psu's...countless bios settings...
i'm just freaking angry right now..

don't ever think of wasting money or time on abit's joke boards.

[OldGuy]

ok guys, i think i'm about to quit the abit boat...

after hundreds of installations, having seen all sorts of mb related problems ,i cant believe i'm getting this from abit. for the past 15 hours i'm just trying to setup windows on a freakin fp-in9 board. the issue is no keyboard or mouse after some point during the setup process.
i have tried almost anything i could think of.
i even cloned a clean windows disk from the 32x max.. will boot windows, but no keyboard no mouse... usb or ps2...
on single sata or raid or ide disks... with four different graphic card combis, four different memory pairs,two psu's...countless bios settings...
i'm just freaking angry right now..

don't ever think of wasting money or time on abit's joke boards.

Aside from not being able to load an OS on a raid array and initially no SLI I'm up and running quite nicely at the moment with my FP. I spent several hours trying to get raid going but no dice. Using the drivers from the CD it always fails at some point copying files during install. I made a floppy going the DOS route then after giving up and going to a single drive I made a floppy from the OS and gave it another shot. No go again. Using my 32X max drivers get's through the install to the desktop then fails on the first reboot when complete. Correct drivers should clean this up...I hope

I'm just gonna get an orthos stable setup going for now and not worry about raid. I'm using a PS/2 KB and a USB mouse without issue OKso so I would box that board up and exchange or replace it...before you take a hammer to it

[maxwedge]

fair enough maxwedge, just figured since you help moderate their forums you might have more idea. Because either you or LVCoyote posted many times on the old forum, before they were torn down, that the "official" release was going to be soon, that was weeks ago.

If you have no clue either, then that is all I needed to know. I am just tired of the little quirks of this bios, and am ready to be done messing with my box, and just be able to use it without hickup.

I don't know if I've said it here but abit hasn't been communicating with the mods, or anyone for that mater, on the abit forums about a month now. I remember I asked about the availability of the heat pipes for you and they never replied. About a week after that we found out that our main administrator and webmaster had been fired. And now all the BS with the forums crashing last week and again this week end. And they still don't tell us anything. Their going to need to straighten up or they'll be looking for new mods, if they care at all.

About the bios...the last we heard was when beta 2 was out and they said 3 was unstable. Then beta 5 and 6 leaked. When we said 'soon' that is what they told us then.

Sorry your still having issues.

Nice clock also, I can't get my 30B stable at 3.6 at that voltage, need 1.425 bios for mine. Nice work.

Thanks.
Cold water helps but this is also a new board and my other E6600 I had in another system. I don't know if I'm doing better now because of the board or the cpu, ie change one thing at a time if you want good data!
I'm happy but want a new bios too....

[mark0326]

Are there any 680i specific guides available that explain the relationships between FSB & memory relating to overclocking & that you don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand?
I have been raisng my FSB this morning and have found that some FSB settings are good while others are quite bad on certain memory benchmarks. Today I tried keeping to FSBx4 figures that were divisable by both 9 (my multiplier) and 4 (quad pumped) but that was a waste of time, how can you tell what will have a fair chance of working and what won't? What's the secret formula guys?

Having done that, now when I boot my USB mouse doesn't work in Windows, I have to unplug and plug it in again!

For now I'm running 1:1 on the memory if that makes any difference.

[JargonGR]

Just to add an optimistic touch to this thread;

I am running stable (both XP and Vista Ultimate 64bit) @ 410FSB 3.7GhZ E6600. That is for the last 3 weeks. My keyboard is also set to BIOS and works fine! That is with the stock BIOS. I am also running 2x 8800GTX SLI, An Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro and I am on a RAID 0 Raptor array so I guess I am fully stressing the board. For the last 3 weeks I have played games a lot and not a single crash. My standard resolution is 2560x1600 since I am using a 30" LCD so I satisfied till now and with a new BIOS I think my CPU could even hit 3.9GHz since it even boots @ 4Ghz but it is not stable at all.

That's all so don't give up.

[FlyBoyGeo]

In regards to the mouse issue, I have been running a usb mouse through a KVM switch and a usb G5 gaming mouse hooked up directly to the mb with NO problems at all. I am using Beta 06 BIOS.

I dont have the pictures to post as of right now (Im in Japan) but before I left I was at 3960MHz Orthos stable for 8+ hrs. That was 440x9, memory at 1:1, vcore 1.55v. My goal is over 4.0Mhz with 500fsb stable as a rock.

Fact: I do believe that you need to cool your NB with a fan to get high overclocks. As soon as I unplugged the fan, it shot up to over 110C and I got a BSOD in windows XP. Slapped the fan on again and no problems.

That's all so don't give up.

I agree with JargonGR, this board can run great, and even greater with a new BIOS.

[OldGuy]

I agree with JargonGR, this board can run great, and even greater with a new BIOS.

That's my only real complaint right now. I went back to the shipping bios. The issue with that one now is it won't stay set at 1T where as it did originally before flashing to B06. The trick for not losng your FSB settings (with mine anyway) is to F10 out of the uguru menu...if you make some memory changes and F10 out of that menu she reverts to stock FSB everytime. Profiles don't retain all settings, only voltage and memory. B06 didn't work at all for me in that arena. EIST doesn't work on either bios.

The FP IN9 is keeping me entertained for now while we wait for an "official" bios that hopefully addresses what needs to be fixed. Thus far the FP is just about on par with my Infinity 975X/G. I had this puppy seemingly stable everywhere but large FFT's which which would run for a few minutes then reboot. Tried all manner of combinations running "unlinked"...Switched to linked and a 3:2 divider and typing from her right now at 4-3-3-12 DDR1066, 400 X 9. By this time she would have rebooted running unlinked so now I need to get back up to 415 X 9 and see if she still flys. Had all manner of grief trying to get raid running but failed. Aside form that I'm getting the hang of her and liking it better than the MAX...

[pepinorang]

Hi guys i'm about to by this board and there is a question who turn in loop in my head what is the higher QX6700 MAX FSB ever seen on a IN9 32X-MAX retail board ? And is there some mobo revisions better than others ?

Thanx for all,
Regards

[Lvcoyote]

Hi guys i'm about to by this board and there is a question who turn in loop in my head what is the higher QX6700 MAX FSB ever seen on a IN9 32X-MAX retail board ? And is there some mobo revisions better than others ?

Thanx for all,
Regards

Not sure on the highest FSB thing, but there is only one revision of the board.

[Chosen.]

Hi guys i'm about to by this board and there is a question who turn in loop in my head what is the higher QX6700 MAX FSB ever seen on a IN9 32X-MAX retail board ? And is there some mobo revisions better than others ?

Thanx for all,
Regards

QX6700 owners should stay away from Abit motherboards. The Abit engineering geniouses messed up the board and the multiplier adjustment does not affect all 4 cores, only 2.
Proven on all 965, 975 and 680 Abit boards, I bet my right arm that the 650's also suffer from this "feature".

[Lvcoyote]

And they are probably not even aware of it.... LOL

[Spazilton]

Well, Finally got the WC setup done.

Come to find out after working fine, the bios is corrupt now.

I go to Abit-USA site to download the beta 6 bios, and lo and behold, their forums have reverted back to the beginning of 2005.

2 years of posts gone.

I bought this motherboard, with the eventual idea of upgrading to quad core in the summer once the price drops hit. Guess I can only do that if I want to run it at stock.

A completly unstable shipping bios, beta after beta updates. No word of a stable bios revision. Multiple problems not fixed. Non existant support on thier website.

A proven history of not supporting motherboards after 6 months or so.

You know, My IC7-Max3 had at least 10 bios revisions.

I think I have finally decided that this motherboard is going up for sale.

I really wanted to try and give Abit another chance, since they were the best thing to ever happen to the S478 motherboards. (Hugs his IC7-Max3)

Enough is enough.

Anyone suggest a good 975x Motherboard?

[Lvcoyote]

The forum should be back tomorrow, but I'm sure the beta 6 can be had other places.

[Chosen.]

Anyone suggest a good 975x Motherboard?

Yeap, stick with an Intel XBX or Asus P5W board.
Stay away from the Abit AW9D, especially if you are planning to get a quad:

[Spazilton]

Yea I'm probally going to go with a BX2.

Should be able to get 280 or 290 for this motherboard.

[palese]

Yeap, stick with an Intel XBX or Asus P5W board.
Stay away from the Abit AW9D, especially if you are planning to get a quad:

The quad has not been that impressive on any board unless you freeze the darn thing

[hipro5]

The quad has not been that impressive on any board unless you freeze the darn thing

.....and why's that?.....

This is a QUAD on AIR with Tuniq heatsink.......









SINGLE VGA on air...








....off caurse this mobo IS moded......

A newer bios is going to show up this week to support ALL FOUR Cores of a QUAD when changing multi.........Let's hope it'll work.......Crossing my fingures......


.

[mark0326]

Email to Sean last night...
Hi Sean,
I notice you are sending out BIOS v11 for the above board, does that mean it's an official BIOS or another beta?
I am currently on beta 6 but would appreciate a newer BIOS if one exists, thanks.
---End Quote---

Im currently on holiday and don't have access to my files. The version that I am sending out is the final release of v1.1.

Please send a request to technical@abitcomputer.co.uk

Well, so much for that. My email to Abit UK was undeliverable !?!?!?!?!?
I'm beginning to regret buying this board now, come on Abit!

[OKsoVRomoSkylo]

I threw this: http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=101371
over at the hexus forum, hopefully somebody will reply..

edit: maybe you guys could drop a request in the above thread too.. more is always better than one..

[Chosen.]

The quad has not been that impressive on any board unless you freeze the darn thing

You didn't even see my screenshot, did you?
My Quad can do 3.8GHz in watercooling, this screenshot was to show that when you increase the multiplier of the QX on an Abit board, it affects only 2 of the 4 cores. Now, check your QX again and revise

I even met a guy in the Abit forums, that had his QX6700 running at 4.5GHz (17*266) on his un-modded prommy and when we proved to him that the reason his prommy can do this, is because only 2 cores run at 4.5GHz (17*266), while the other 2 run at 2.66GHz (10*266) and his response was "Well it's better like this, cause I wouldn't be able to oc to 4.5GHz if all 4 cores followed"...
Abit fanboys, go figure...

[Spazilton]

I threw this: http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=101371
over at the hexus forum, hopefully somebody will reply..

edit:maybe you guys could drop a request in the above thread too.. more is always better than one..

Get me a copy of it and I will gladly host it.

[OldGuy]

I threw this: http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=101371
over at the hexus forum, hopefully somebody will reply..

edit: maybe you guys could drop a request in the above thread too.. more is always better than one..

Done...

[palese]

Very nice but at what temps?

.....and why's that?.....

This is a QUAD on AIR with Tuniq heatsink.......









SINGLE VGA on air...








....off caurse this mobo IS moded......

A newer bios is going to show up this week to support ALL FOUR Cores of a QUAD when changing multi.........Let's hope it'll work.......Crossing my fingures......


.

[hipro5]

Very nice but at what temps?

20 - 22*C room temp.....A delta fan 12 x 12cm was also placed to force air through the heatsink....

[Spazilton]

Looking over at hexus, some people already have bios revision 11 which would indicate a full release.

Abit just did a ton of new bios files today, why in the hell did they not release this one.