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

[OldGuy]

@ RaphaBoss - Still using the stock heat pipe assy? Pull it and replace the pads on north and south bridge with Arctic Alumina or AS5. Get yourself a 50mm fan like this one...



The supplied clip works perfectly with it instead of a 40mm. Has to be that body style to work though. For the PWM just be real careful with the supplied pad when removing. They usually tear holes through from the pressure on the chips. Wash your hands before handling it and just roll into a "string" and lay it back down across the chips. When you put the assy back on it will compress and completely cover the chips.

Your temps look fine but the one you can't monitor is the NB and it gets hot on these Nvidia boards and it really sounds like it is shutting down from heat. Even if that isn't the cure it's still worth doing.

[OKsoVRomoSkylo]

@Raphaboss: i would try a better psu to start with. please don't think a bigger "real power" psu is a luxury or a marketing thing.
these boards,cpus and graphics cards need juice.
your psu would probably rate as a real 420watt psu at real world conditions.
find a psu that is rated at 50 degsC, and has a nominal -not max- rating of at least 600w, the latter deriving mostly from the 12v rail(s).

[speedfreak86]

Well, my problems continue with the refurbished board. I finally got everything worked out, but it turns out that with any bios other than the shipping bios, I get CMOS checksum errors. So, I went back to the shipping bios and all was hunky dory until newegg had a deal on crucial ram(2X1 gig pc2 8000 for only $184 after rebates) and so I bought an extra 2 gig. Now, even with the shipping bios, I can only get it to boot in the failsafe defaults. It gets to the windows .... screen and then restarts. Anyway, does anyone know why I get the cmos checksum errors or what could be causing failed boots? I already changed the cmos battery and that made no difference.

[MikeMK]

I just installed the latest beta bios that fixes the quad multi and it works great!

Link to bios: http://www.lvcoyote.com/M622A_12.B03.zip

Anybody got any more to add on this bios? Just looking for something new to try on this board, as mine seems to be behaving rather erratically at higher overclocks. EG One min is rock solid (like 12hrs+ orthas stable) and then the next, same settings, it crashes the second it hits desktop.

Ive managed to get 4ghz on my CPU on this board, but i think ive got it stable, and then the next time i boot up - no go, back to square one.

Also, im after an inventive method for cooling the PWM's. Im running an MCW30 on the northbridge, and temporarily im using swiftech BGA sinks with an 80mm fan blowing accross them on the PWM's. This is fine for day to day stuff, but at higher Vcores, the temps go through the roof. I really dont fancy hacking my stock cooler to pieces due to the warranty implications, but i really need to sort this so i can count it out as a source of the instabilities described above.

[speedfreak86]

Well, mine is irratic much the same. This morning I couldn't get it to boot into windows with ANYTHING but stock settings(failsafe defaults), 1 stick of ram, 2, 3, 4; didn't matter. Now, I cleared the cmos again and, just out of curiosity, I tried my older 3.375 overclock I used to run and bam...it worked. It is 4 hours dual orthos stable right now and I am afraid to reboot.

[Slammin]

Well, my problems continue with the refurbished board. I finally got everything worked out, but it turns out that with any bios other than the shipping bios, I get CMOS checksum errors. So, I went back to the shipping bios and all was hunky dory until newegg had a deal on crucial ram(2X1 gig pc2 8000 for only $184 after rebates) and so I bought an extra 2 gig. Now, even with the shipping bios, I can only get it to boot in the failsafe defaults. It gets to the windows .... screen and then restarts. Anyway, does anyone know why I get the cmos checksum errors or what could be causing failed boots? I already changed the cmos battery and that made no difference.

Bump your vdimm up from the default would be my guess because I noticed when my ram started going bad, I would get the checksum errors at stock vdimm.

[Slammin]

Anybody got any more to add on this bios? Just looking for something new to try on this board, as mine seems to be behaving rather erratically at higher overclocks. EG One min is rock solid (like 12hrs+ orthas stable) and then the next, same settings, it crashes the second it hits desktop.

Ive managed to get 4ghz on my CPU on this board, but i think ive got it stable, and then the next time i boot up - no go, back to square one.

Also, im after an inventive method for cooling the PWM's. Im running an MCW30 on the northbridge, and temporarily im using swiftech BGA sinks with an 80mm fan blowing accross them on the PWM's. This is fine for day to day stuff, but at higher Vcores, the temps go through the roof. I really dont fancy hacking my stock cooler to pieces due to the warranty implications, but i really need to sort this so i can count it out as a source of the instabilities described above.

Search around, but there is a waterblock that fits it perfectly.

What I did though, is doubled the heat tape and that knocked it down about 25-30c for me. My PWM used to shut my system down, but now it never goes above 80c on a warm day, and that's with 3.5GHz 1.46 vcore. Still hot, but lately I've been just running 3.3GHz because things are just too warm overall these days.

[speedfreak86]

Eureka guys...the solution lies in Uguru in Windows. What I have to do to overclock is:
-Boot from standard settings and then set up Uguru on the desktop to monitor temperatures, voltages, and fan speeds.(the monitoring defaults off for everything in mine for some reason when cmos is cleared and usually shows a clock speed of 511mhz)
-Reboot
-Change settings to the overclocked settings I want, and presto. The board works.
This is a really screwed up procedure and took me all day to find, but I found it. Thanks for the support guys and I hope this helps some of the rest of you.

[MikeMK]

Thats weird... lol... so let me get this straight, all u had to to do was boot in stock speeds, load up Uguru, and then reboot? Man this board has some nice quirks

[Isaac MM]

Is it better than EVGA 680i boards for ocing???

[speedfreak86]

Yeah, I just reread my post and it is a bit confusing. I have to start Uguru and set it to monitor temperatures, voltages, and fan speeds and maybe change a voltage or two. Then, the next time I boot up, I can change settings in the bios and it will go straight in to windows with those overclocked settings. I am just as confused as you are, but that is what works.

Before I figured this out, it would not save any setting I changed in the bios(this is without keyboard and mouse being set to BIOS). Then when I set the keyboard and mouse to BIOS (tried this to get it to save settings) it refuses to boot. I could load failsafes and change the keyboard and mouse to BIOS and it would not boot.

Last note, this is on the bios 1.1, but from what I saw, this may be the same procedure for 1.0. I still cannot get anything but checksum errors on 1.2 beta 3.

[MikeMK]

Right ive given this beta bios a go this afternoon:

Link to bios: http://www.lvcoyote.com/M622A_12.B03.zip[/QUOTE]

No go for me im afraid. While from my brief encounter it seems to clock quite nicely, I get terrible crackling whenever I move my mouse weel or scroll through pages on IE. This happens in game menus too, so its just gotta go back to 1.1!

[thriller99]

Abit make a good board for Oc ! But a few of error still alive !!!! BUt with me, this board so cool ! FSB 540Mhz are no problem when i can handle everything !

[speedfreak86]

It may not be all that special, but I just tested out the newest drivers from Nvidia on 3d mark 03:
System listed in my sig
3.375Ghz (375X9) cpu
1000Mhz 4-4-4-12 2T on 4X1Gb Crucial(windows shows 3328MB)
8800GTS @640/1000(actually 2000 I think)
158.19 Drivers

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/re...=0&UID=8957079

Anyway, I can't wait to get another gts and try for the high scores

[DataVampire]

as the title says guys, i need help, i have formatted my computer about 22 times, now i cant even formatt it now.
here is the prob.

i purchased the board back last week, i created a raid setup , stripe, using two Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB . all went well, installed vista 64 bit on, restarted my computer, then bang, no syytem disk, i then thought ah well i will formatt again, i then started to formatt it using windows xp pro oem i have got, it went so far and restarted, i then turned off the raid tried it again, still no joy it gets to a paoint of this, it boots up fine, i can install the raid drivers via floppy, fine, it then loads up various drivers, then it hangs on windows is starting up.. thats it, it will stay there for ages, i have left it over an hour. i have tried to put the hds in raid, in single mode, connecting jsut one hard drive, and instaling from that, still the same, i ahve tried al sata ports still the same, i have managed to get windows installed a few times, but on a reboot it will crash, that is on raid, and on single.i have updated to beta 6 bios to see if its th ebios stil the same, it stotaly unuseable, what can i do please guys i need help asap. As it stands rite now i cannot install any os on my computer, it iether doesnt pick up the hds, or jsut hangs on bootup.

thanks for the help in advance

[JargonGR]

hmm that is really weird. All I can say is try to play with the boot settings and Hard Disk order/priority in the bios.

It sounds like while you can see an HD during the install the system somehow has an issue when trying to boot.

It could either be HD controller conflicting or even the system hangs because it tries to install a device conflicting (IRQ ),

Try to check your plug & play settings in the bios too as well. Is it set to ACPI? Have you set it to let the OS allocate resources? Check those things up.

I might be talking wrong here but I would check those things up first.

Then as a last resort I would only install only the basic hardware - 1 HD on the first primary controller, (check you SATA settings as well and set to compatibility mode).

SO 1HD, 1 VGA, disable onboard sound, unused ports etc and only use 1 DIMM of RAM if all fails and see if the problem is still there.

[1stormchaser]

If you still have time to RMA it, I would start to consider that possibility.
First, Try seeing how it reacts to the basics. (1 stick of ram; 1st slot) and run Memtest. Disconnect or remove everything else you don't need to run it.

Reflash your bios if you can back to 1.0 (if you can)
Floppy drive if needed. (Reflash your bios)
CD to load windows XP. (not vista)
1 hard drive. (you can do this on the first sata connections if you like)

Make sure your PSU is strong enough.

[DataVampire]

im 100% positive its not mem related its to do with the raid controler, yes i have tried jsut one hd, checked all bios entries still no joy,what bios are peeps using ?? i reckon its that.

Power supply is a enermax galaxy 850, so that is not a prob.

Btw what file procdeure do you do to reflash it back to the original bios please, wht flash tool do i need, how do i create the bootup floppy ect
tanks for the replies

[speedfreak86]

Mine did that type of thing when it wanted the sata drivers on a floppy.

[DataVampire]

how did you sort it ?

[1stormchaser]

I had asked some questions on bios flashing because I didn't like the incomplete instructions being given.

You may want to read this link.

http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=123184

I prefer to flash the bios the old way. Seems safer to me.

[speedfreak86]

I am not running raid, but I created the bootable floppy using another computer and then booted from cd,(have to have keyboard set to bios) and hit f6 in the windows setup screen, did the whole installing drivers from the floppy. I have no idea about the raid as I am only running one drive. This got mine to stop hanging at the windows setup/windows starting screen.

[DataVampire]

just a wee update........

Im not very happy with this board to be honest guys
the raid on this board is very very ropey, i have managed to get it up and running once, then after i rebooted, it woudl reach the xp animated screen , the one wiht the bar, then it would jsut restart my pc, no wqay no how, i suspect its a bios update prob, as in its needs a descent one, i expected a lot more form nvidia tbh. anyhow i have managed to get it up and running in single ide mode, not what i wanted, but better than nothing i supose.
They should of released a working bios beofre releasing the board, another case of rushed the board out. my other prob i had , ie not being able to install xp on, or vista for that matter was solved. by reading a post in another forum, it turned out to be a setting in the bios, i had my keyboard support for bios, it apears you have to have it set to os, that solved that prob, now all i need is raid sorted, and oh yea need to overclock it.
thx for all the help guys

[OldGuy]

For all the hell you've gone through just to get it barely usable I'd seriously consider returning the board in exchange for something else if possible...

just a wee update........

Im not very happy with this board to be honest guys
the raid on this board is very very ropey, i have managed to get it up and running once, then after i rebooted, it woudl reach the xp animated screen , the one wiht the bar, then it would jsut restart my pc, no wqay no how, i suspect its a bios update prob, as in its needs a descent one, i expected a lot more form nvidia tbh. anyhow i have managed to get it up and running in single ide mode, not what i wanted, but better than nothing i supose.
They should of released a working bios beofre releasing the board, another case of rushed the board out. my other prob i had , ie not being able to install xp on, or vista for that matter was solved. by reading a post in another forum, it turned out to be a setting in the bios, i had my keyboard support for bios, it apears you have to have it set to os, that solved that prob, now all i need is raid sorted, and oh yea need to overclock it.
thx for all the help guys

[DataVampire]

For all the hell you've gone through just to get it barely usable I'd seriously consider returning the board in exchange for something else if possible...

such as ?
lol same feature set, a little bit of future proof, im sur eit will get sorted in a bios update