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

[Lvcoyote]

I have no idea either......LOL. I get them, I post them ....

[maxwedge]

Thanks....

Maybe one day they can get this crap fixed!

[gigimow]

there's a new 13B1 on the abit-USA forum for you IN9 32X users but I haven't a clue what it's supposed to fix.
http://www.lvcoyote.com/M622A_13.B01.zip

Well one thing that I see new is the "C1E bios support", which has something to do with dynamic voltage. One other thing is that no matter what I do, I can't seem to go beyond 400fsb. On the older bios, even if it won't boot to windows all the way, I still can set 400+. Oh well...

[fearthisneo]

raid is messed up in this bios big time. as soon as i enable it all my HDD's disappear

[maxwedge]

1332~1333 FSB max overclock. Anything higher and uGuru reverts to spd.
uGuru in XP shows 0 for all temps and displays warning. I disabled it.

Enable NVraid and only my array shows up in the raid bios. My sata data drive is no where to be seen in the bios, but it's shown in XP. No prob with IDE drives.

Occasional delay in detecting the array. I know from experience I have to Ctrl+Alt+Delete or else it will come up as array failed. When it reboots most of the time it will be ok.

Good news???: This is the 1st time I've verified EIST and C1E work on this board.

I don't know about my raid issues in XP yet. I've checked my drives and cables many times and if the errors continue I guess I'll dump the raid!

[DataVampire]

1332~1333 FSB max overclock. Anything higher and uGuru reverts to spd.
uGuru in XP shows 0 for all temps and displays warning. I disabled it.

Enable NVraid and only my array shows up in the raid bios. My sata data drive is no where to be seen in the bios, but it's shown in XP. No prob with IDE drives.

Occasional delay in detecting the array. I know from experience I have to Ctrl+Alt+Delete or else it will come up as array failed. When it reboots most of the time it will be ok.

Good news???: This is the 1st time I've verified EIST and C1E work on this board.

I don't know about my raid issues in XP yet. I've checked my drives and cables many times and if the errors continue I guess I'll dump the raid!

lol i dumped raid long ago, way to buggy, they need lessons off intel about how to setup and apply raids, every intel raid i have set up lasts never get any isues, nv raid on this board is a no go not worht the hassle of currupt disks, and fialed raid, wich is a shame as i have got a nice pair of 150gb raptors to put in this machine, for which i aint going to unless they finaly fix the raid problems, although nvidia did a bios update that fixed these very isuses, conserning raid, why hasnt abit also done this ?

[JargonGR]

lol i dumped raid long ago, way to buggy, they need lessons off intel about how to setup and apply raids, every intel raid i have set up lasts never get any isues, nv raid on this board is a no go not worht the hassle of currupt disks, and fialed raid, wich is a shame as i have got a nice pair of 150gb raptors to put in this machine, for which i aint going to unless they finaly fix the raid problems, although nvidia did a bios update that fixed these very isuses, conserning raid, why hasnt abit also done this ?

Ermm what RAID problems? I have been using 2x WD Raptors in RAID since this mobo's release even with BIOS v1.0 and it is still running 100% trouble free.

It seems that the RAID/HD issues are mostly random and you were unlucky.

[DataVampire]

Ermm what RAID problems? I have been using 2x WD Raptors in RAID since this mobo's release even with BIOS v1.0 and it is still running 100% trouble free.

It seems that the RAID/HD issues are mostly random and you were unlucky.

erm well documented ones, thats in a lot of forums, and i got rid of mine by uninstalling the damned nv raid program, not the driver, the program that ataches to the controle program, and it also happens to be the same problem that effected evga bpards to for which nvidia released a bios update for.

EDIT:MediaShield is what it is called

[silmetal]

Beta Bios 12B06 - no Changelog yet:
http://rapidshare.com/files/32324549/M622A_12.B06.bin

With 12B06 my sata disks worked in pio mode.

And MY WINDOWS VISTA 64 is remained in PIO MODE
also when I have replaced the 12B03.

My ViISTA 64 is DIED.

[maxwedge]

I believe that 90% of the raid errors I was getting (see posted image above) were caused by 13 b01. I had random errors before but nothing like this before. I've flashed back to 12 b03 but before I did that I imaged back to a single sata drive and still had disk errors in event viewer, even with no overclock.

Edit: Actually my screen shot 8 posts up is with bios 12.b03, so I had some existing problem that I've been unable to figure out.

[silmetal]

I believe that 90% of the raid errors I was getting (see posted image above) were caused by 13 b01. I had random errors before but nothing like this before. I've flashed back to 12 b03 but before I did that I imaged back to a single sata drive and still had disk errors in event viewer, even with no overclock.

It can be that you have the low voltages in the plug of hds.

I have had your same problems.
I have uncovered that I had
in the plug of the hds 11 volt instead of 12 and 4 instead of 5.

One psu' cable for 2 hds to the maximum.


Excuse my english !

[Lvcoyote]

I've been running a dual raid0 array on the Nvidia controllers since the first day I've owned this board, never any issues at all.....Hmmm

[maxwedge]

It can be that you have the low voltages in the plug of hds.

I have had your same problems.
I have uncovered that I had
in the plug of the hds 11 volt instead of 12 and 4 instead of 5.

One psu' cable for 2 hds to the maximum.


Excuse my english !

Not with PC Power & Cooling but I guess I could check, but I doubt thats the cause. I have no problems now.

[maxwedge]

I've been running a dual raid0 array on the Nvidia controllers since the first day I've owned this board, never any issues at all.....Hmmm

Lucky you.

[shawn1998]

Lucky you.

Then lucky me, too. I have 3 150gig Raptors in raid 0 and have been running the newest 1.3 beta without issue. For that matter, I ran all of the other beta's as well without a single hickup.

[Slammin]

Then lucky me, too. I have 3 150gig Raptors in raid 0 and have been running the newest 1.3 beta without issue. For that matter, I ran all of the other beta's as well without a single hickup.

Unrelated to the RAID question, but are you overclocking? I had very strange results with the last two beta bios releases. I'm wondering if I was doing something wrong or what.

Thanks,
Slammin

[Lvcoyote]

Others are too, I think these last couple Beta's were just for a particular issue or for a particular person.

[DataVampire]

I've been running a dual raid0 array on the Nvidia controllers since the first day I've owned this board, never any issues at all.....Hmmm

Well like has been said you are very lucky, the raid problems currupt hds are not a hit or miss proplem, a lot of abit users are having the same isuses, it is clearly a nvivida problem, anyhow, im curious did you install/run the media shield ?? this i beleive cuases a lot of problems, when i had it installed i got a load of bsods, randam restarts, curupt hds, cuasing it to loose files, of the boot drive, ie ntdlr, bal hbalh, as soon as i stopped using media shield it went back to normal., and please remember this problem has been anounched by nvidia themselves, so it must be a combination of facters, ie hd make moddke ect and the install of the nvidia sata management software, i think its calle dmedia shield. have you checked the properties to see if there are errors there, are you using microsoft drivers or the proper nvidia drivers .
hope this helps

[Xevipiu]

:S 482fsb use 12B03 (1.35vnb)

[shawn1998]

Well like has been said you are very lucky, the raid problems currupt hds are not a hit or miss proplem, a lot of abit users are having the same isuses, it is clearly a nvivida problem, anyhow, im curious did you install/run the media shield ?? this i beleive cuases a lot of problems, when i had it installed i got a load of bsods, randam restarts, curupt hds, cuasing it to loose files, of the boot drive, ie ntdlr, bal hbalh, as soon as i stopped using media shield it went back to normal., and please remember this problem has been anounched by nvidia themselves, so it must be a combination of facters, ie hd make moddke ect and the install of the nvidia sata management software, i think its calle dmedia shield. have you checked the properties to see if there are errors there, are you using microsoft drivers or the proper nvidia drivers .
hope this helps

This announcement you speak of from nVidia is only refering to reference motherboards, ie XFX, EVGA, BFG and ECS. The Abit, MSI and Asus were not included in that announcement, as they are not the base reference boards made by Foxconn for nVidia. Also, I am not aware of all of "alot" of Abit users all having raid problems. I'd say it's more like "a few". I am on the Abit forums daily and do not see a whole lot of threads dedicated to raid and sata issues like I did over at the EVGA forums.

Edit - Here is the link to the "announcment" from nVidia that you referenced. Note what it actually says.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/680i_hotfix.html

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/n...i=&p_topview=1

[DataVampire]

This announcement you speak of from nVidia is only refering to reference motherboards, ie XFX, EVGA, BFG and ECS. The Abit, MSI and Asus were not included in that announcement, as they are not the base reference boards made by Foxconn for nVidia. Also, I am not aware of all of "alot" of Abit users all having raid problems. I'd say it's more like "a few". I am on the Abit forums daily and do not see a whole lot of threads dedicated to raid and sata issues like I did over at the EVGA forums.

Edit - Here is the link to the "announcment" from nVidia that you referenced. Note what it actually says.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/680i_hotfix.html

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/n...i=&p_topview=1

wem correct me if im wrong here, ref board or not, they still all contain the same raid chipset ie nvidia chipset, so woudl produce the same erros and problems reguardless of being a ref board or not

[shawn1998]

OK, I'll correct you as you are wrong. Please, just follow the link and read the actual statement made by nVidia, the one you referenced in error. NVidia never says that there are sata problems with any nVidia-based boards other than the reference boards. You are attempting to prove an issue by disseminating misinformation. You wrongly referenced their statement.

[DataVampire]

Funny that it must just be coincidence. for i for one have been expericancing the very problems described by nvidia themselves, wait a min, they al use the same chipsets, surley not..........

Details:
This update is related to SATA disk drives and system instability. System instability is observed in the following ways (not a complete list):

Random application shutdown
Corrupted boot drive
"Blue screen of death"
Corrupt data
This update will improve system stability and prevent future stability issues related to SATA disk drives on those systems requiring this hotfix.

strange that realy.....
hang on a min
http://www.nvidia.com/page/nforce_600i_tech_specs.html
doesnt the evga ect uuse the same specifications, surely not lol
but al jokes aside i do know what you are saying, but honestly they do share exactly the same chipsets ect, and they do have or rather did have until nvidia released a bios update for some boards, that are ref boards, ther same basic shipset is the same, thus stil have the same sata probs.

[Lvcoyote]

When I initially set my system up all I did was use the floppy disk to load the raid drivers and the mass storage drivers, thats all I loaded until Windows was installed. Then when I loaded the chipset drivers all I loaded was the chipset & LAN drivers, nothing else. No media shield, no Nvidia Networking stuff..... just drivers.

[shawn1998]

Funny that it must just be coincidence. for i for one have been expericancing the very problems described by nvidia themselves, wait a min, they al use the same chipsets, surley not..........

Details:
This update is related to SATA disk drives and system instability. System instability is observed in the following ways (not a complete list):

Random application shutdown
Corrupted boot drive
"Blue screen of death"
Corrupt data
This update will improve system stability and prevent future stability issues related to SATA disk drives on those systems requiring this hotfix.

strange that realy.....
hang on a min
http://www.nvidia.com/page/nforce_600i_tech_specs.html
doesnt the evga ect uuse the same specifications, surely not lol
but al jokes aside i do know what you are saying, but honestly they do share exactly the same chipsets ect, and they do have or rather did have until nvidia released a bios update for some boards, that are ref boards, ther same basic shipset is the same, thus stil have the same sata probs.

If you are going to quote the page to prove your point, then quote the entire thing. You strangely left out these specific paragraphs...

Motherboards affected:

EVGA nForce 680i SLI motherboard
BFG nForce 680i SLI motherboard
Biostar TF680i SLI Deluxe
ECS PN2-SLI2+

Description:
Some NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI "Designed by NVIDIA" motherboard customers have reported experiencing disconnect or write error issues with SATA disk drives. To address this, NVIDIA has released a BIOS update for the NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI "Designed by NVIDIA" motherboards that eliminates this bug.

Also, where are all of the rest of the multitude of Abit users with these sata issues? I am truly sorry if you are experiencing issues with sata and raid on your particular motherboard, but that doesn't mean that ALL users with that board have issues. Also, just because EVGA had/has issues, once again, does not prove that Abit has the same issues. You sure like to generalize, jump to conclusions and spread mis-info and provide proof that a different motherboard maker had issues, which somehow proves your (invalid) point.

Now, if you have finished reading the entire statement released by nVidia, you will now hopefully do a little more research into your issue and, again, hopefully provide some different type of "proof" of the alledged sata issues that are afflicting "alot" of Abit users, as you claim.