The Biostar TPower I45 SCANDLE.

[Ket]

Unfortunately, this is something many users feel who have bought and tried the TPower I45 for a multitude of reasons. General feeling is that they (the owners of TPower) overpaid for a budget board, and simply have not enjoyed their time with the TPower I45. Heres a quote from myself neo mike asked me about the TPower I45, it goes into a little more detail.

Its a good board, but the Biostar has problems which I'm rounding the troops up for to try and do something about.

Good stuff

- Stonkingly good OCer, easily capable of some WRs.

Bad stuff

- All voltage granularity options are piss-poor (CPU, memory, chipset, etc)
- PSB800 is bugged, board will not POST with this setting (oddly, when using a 800 CPU such as a E4400 and the setting is left on auto, it works fine)
- Memory compatibility sucks
- Very few fan headers on the board (3, and that includes the CPU fan header!)
- Many reports of crap memory OCs on sticks other boards take into space

Thats just what I can think of off the top of my head. General feeling from a lot of users is that they overpaid for a budget board. To really add insult to injury Biostar have not released any updated BIOS for the board, despite the fact they made A LOT of money with the TPower. I know of some people who tried asking Biostar about updated BIOS code and listed various issues. Biostars responce was basically "Don't like it? We don't care.".

This thread is to bring awareness about all of the above mentioned issues, Biostars apparently very questionable customer and product support ethics, any BIOS problems I may have missed, and to generally try and help out TPower owners left high and dry by Biostar.

Just in case some representative from Biostar should haplessly wonder into this thread, let it be known now, neither I nor any of the other users here on XS are idiots. We are all extremely competent OCers and will not accept any rediculous excuses.

Now, with that said and done, by all means guys start posting your problems with the board, fixes you may of found, links to other forums threads, and of course don't be shy to add the link for this thread to your sig on any forums you visit and \ or add the link for the petition I have just started HERE. I will also email this to Biostar, just to give them a lil kick up the bum so their aware of things.


MODS: If you feel there is a better sub-forum to move this thread to by all means do so

ED - Link for petition is now working.

[mattkosem]

My only beefs with this board are the poor granularity on voltages, and the fact that the bios becomes corrupted if you fail on two OC attempts in a row. It's been wonderful for me otherwise. It ran my q9450 at 3.92 for months, and has been running my e8600 at 4.5+ for over 2 months. I'll admit that it takes a bit more tweaking to get a 24/7 stable OC, but not THAT much. For the $159 that I spent on it, it was the best available for me at the time. It was much better than I was expecting from Biostar. They've not exactly been a stellar OC mobo manufacturer over the years. You get what you pay for, and I think I got a bargain on this board. I'd barely call it scandalous.

--Matt

[Glow9]

support with Biostar I have never found to be a problem especially in reguards to any questions

[VOID WARRANTY]

i dont know if it was scandal...no one would of bought the board up like hot cakes if young pro and others weren't breaking world records with it...i dont agree with the shady bios thats why i never bought one...you should change the title of your thread to....Biostar TPower I45 UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS....or biostar fails to fix bios....

[gillbot]

General feeling is that they (the owners of TPower) overpaid for a budget board, and simply have not enjoyed their time with the TPower I45.

I was pretty stoked when I grabbed a Tpower i45 off of here, sadly my MSI P45 Neo3-FR was cheaper, clocks just as well, far more easily and is much less picky.

[jasonelmore]

The I45 was built for the E8400.. It's known to overclock a few more models such as the E8500 and E8600 but Trying this board with any other CPU is just stupid when you can get something else. My biggest complaint is the support for this board. There has'nt been a bios update since July and like everyone else said, the voltage options suck.

[gillbot]

The I45 was built for the E8400.. It's known to overclock a few more models such as the E8500 and E8600 but Trying this board with any other CPU is just stupid when you can get something else. My biggest complaint is the support for this board. There has'nt been a bios update since July and like everyone else said, the voltage options suck.

If that is the case, they need to remove all other CPUs from the compatibility list.

[jasonelmore]

If that is the case, they need to remove all other CPUs from the compatibility list.

you know what i mean

the rest just don't overclock well on it.

[DonNiger]

Couldn't test mine for long before it died. But worked perfectly with E8500 and E8600.

But....

Cooling paste under the mosfet cooler is peace of s...t (that pink one). I used original one with QX6700 and all 4 primary ones started to sail around the board (solder melted). One of them exploded.
Provided special cooler with fan - pointless. Very, very, very pure heat transfer.

Clear CMOS jumper location - impossible to use if NV9800 etc high end huge VGA is used.
There was something else but I do not have it in front of me at this moment.

[gillbot]

you know what i mean

the rest just don't overclock well on it.

I know, but the board was only designed to work at stock speeds. If you fell for the marketing that it pushes xxx FSB then that's the buyers fault. I'm disappointed in the board but i'm not blaming Biostar because it works 100% fine with every CPU I put on it AT STOCK SPEED and that's all they guarantee, it works at stock speeds.

[Viss]

All boards have users that dont like it/cant work with it. Never owned one but from what i have read a good and cheap board. You cant call this a "scandle" by any means, title is wrong.

[PolRoger]

I wouldn't say the TPower I45 is a scandal either but I do feel Biostar has dropped the ball with support for this board via BIOS updates. They are after all marketing the entire TPower line as an enthusiast brand/product.

You can't do much about board design layout decisions...like the amount of fan headers or the location of the CMOS reset.

I do however feel that improvements could be made with memory compatibilty and it sure would be nice to have those missing voltage step settings.

What the heck were they thinking on cpu vcore... how about at least a +0.175v and +0.225v... Of course incremental voltage steps of 1/8 would even be better.

Come on Biostar... Bring It On!!!

[VOID WARRANTY]

wasnt ket saying he was going to fix the bios

[Ket]

Theres only so much I can fix, and with a bunch of other projects still going this is the next best thing until I can free up some time. Of course, if nobody really cares enough to even sign the petition, then this project will fall further on the list and more important ones will takes its place. First come first served folks.

[gillbot]

WOW, i'm whopping signature #2.

[politenessman]

i had this board, good oc with 45nm duallies, couldnt get any ram over about 960mhz, voltage options sux. dont like it? buy new board, push on. dont buy anymore biostar boards. vote with your feetz. gfl on forcing biostar to come up with solutions.


scandal.

[Dualist]

The only scandal I saw with this board is when a load of guys chipped in to buy you one and you just released bios files that you didn't even test yourself

I've had two of these boards and the first one was awesome, 5.7ghz with an E8500 isn't too shoddy with a budget board. But I do admit the voltage regulation is a bit crap on my second board leading to poor overclocking but as the board works it's not RMA material.

[jasonelmore]

The only scandal I saw with this board is when a load of guys chipped in to buy you one and you just released bios files that you didn't even test yourself

Did he do that? omg

How many boards were ruined?

[BababooeyHTJ]

I sold my board. Lost a few bucks on it, but at least I got to play with a new board for a couple of weeks. I wont be buying any Biostar products anytime soon.

[gillbot]

I sold my board. Lost a few bucks on it, but at least I got to play with a new board for a couple of weeks. I wont be buying any Biostar products anytime soon.

Sold mine as well. I think it was an ok board but I was a bit disappointed by it, especially for the price. I think my MSI P45 Neo3-FR was a better buy.

[breakfromyou]

I also sold mine, and regret it. Honestly, the only thing I didn't like about the I45 was that it wasn't cheap compared to other manufacturers, and that it doesn't have the voltage options I expected...

It clocked RAM just fine...I got a better overclock on some 8FE5 Ballistix on my I45 than I could do on my DFI LP UT P35-T2R....single sided ballistix stable at 1150 no problems. My best set of 16FD5 ballistix did max out at about the same, while it does 1200+ easy on the DFI and I even managed some 1200Mhz runs on a gigabyte G31MX-S2....heh.

I think it's a pretty good board, but definitely could be a lot better with some bios tweaks.

Most definitely designed for overclocking 45nm Intel greatness.

[DoObs]

I would like to see a new bios for the voltage increments...

Coz im not buying another board soon...If my DFI P35 LP didnt get hit by lightning i wouldnt be in this thread but running stock on my DFI like i was for the last couple months since doing 600FSB on it.

Ket see what u can do bud...i want to see at least 630fsb from this board on my E8400 with dry ice.

[OC4/3]

T Power is a 45nm dual core board so that probably explain why quad core won't clock that good on t power

[chuck4456]

Needs better voltage increments.
Doesn't OC RAM very well. At least none of the RAM that I have used.
BIOS definitely needs some work.
Lack of fan headers doesn't bother me that much and the overall construction of the board is very good. Slot klips and all of that good stuff are sturdy and slots have a good snug fit. No play at all in the CPU socket unlike many other boards. Good and tight.

[Grnfinger]

Theres only so much I can fix, and with a bunch of other projects still going this is the next best thing until I can free up some time. Of course, if nobody really cares enough to even sign the petition, then this project will fall further on the list and more important ones will takes its place. First come first served folks.

Umm were you not the one who perpetuated this project, convinced others it was the board of boards, started a thread to get yourself a free board courtesy of XS members.
The issues you discribe were the issues you claim you were going to fix, all were going to be resolved by you if the community would be so kind as to buy you this board.
Now because you cant deliver on your promises you blame Biostar?
When Dinos22 ask'd you what exactly you were going to "fix" you became beligerant, avoiding his question and responding with a childish "this is my thread" "I dont have to answer"

Dont blame Biostar because you cant deliver on your promises

The only scandal I saw with this board is when a load of guys chipped in to buy you one and you just released bios files that you didn't even test yourself

QFT