**Official ABIT IX38 QuadGT Review/Overclock/Guide Thread**

[Ace-a-Rue]

I've got it stripped to 1 stick of RAM, and the RAID card isn't in. When I get home I'm going to try pulling the CMOS battery for a few minutes and reseat the CPU. I'll try with no vid card too.

The water loop was already filled, nothing out of the ordinary hooking things up. The case is a U2-UFO so I had plenty of room to mount things without tearing apart the loop. I'm using a scythe backplate for mounting the Fuzion so I don't bend the mobo.

do you have a rpm sensing fan attached to the CPU fan header?

[AMDfreak]

No, but I didn't need one on the first board. I'll give that a try too though.

[Ace-a-Rue]

No, but I didn't need one on the first board. I'll give that a try too though.

the only reason that i mention it is because my IP35 Pro board, for the first time, had a siren screaming at me with no fan attached to the CPU fan header...that was a first for me with this board...i had not used that fan header except in the first days that i bought this board about 5-6 months ago...it didn't shut down but it certinly let me know there wasn't something right!

[jcool]

Man, something is definitely wrong with bios 12.09
Just changed my VGA card to a 8800 GT (I'll do some Vmods to my G80 GTS) and the mobo just went crazy. Didn't boot, restarted itself a few times, then let me into bios, loaded my settings and it went down again, showing 75 or 8E or whatever it felt like, argh.
Made a few CMOS clears, got into bios again and bootet with bios defaults, just enabled raid. I raised the FSB in windows via guru and now I'm at 333x9 running stable
However I'm afraid of rebooting.. oO

[Humble]

Strange to see all the problem u guys got. I myself didn't encounter any single problem since I started to use this board from the first time, except the errornous "Load OC Profile" in BIOS . I think may be it's just because I only do a mild OC on this board so far...
Anyhow, I just also flashed my BIOS to version 12 final that I downloaded from abit site. It's still showing 12.B09 in BIOS screen, but so far still no issue, no double boot at all. Hope it stays this way forever. I'm using an 8800GT too with Q6600.
IMHO, this board's BIOS only has problems with Penryn. May be because it's a new technology, so they haven't implemented it well.

Btw, I just get good news today from abit representative in my country, that they have just received the missing retention clips from abit Taiwan, and they're sending it to me now. My long wait is finally over.

[ante_ante]

Flashed the official bios today. Also having alot of trouble with booting. Getting error 38 then it´s just shutting down. After that i have to remove powercable and then on again. Maybe will flash back to b08 or something, but i want a bios that likes 45nm cpus

[Supershanks]

but i want a bios that likes 45nm cpus

from what i've seen that ain't 12 then Official Bios 12 (beta 09) is the worst ever! well from a 45nm perspective certainly.

[AMDfreak]

I've resigned myself to the fact that I need yet another RMA.

Pulled all connections other than power using the new PSU, and OMG it posted! I figure ok, cool, maybe I had a pin off on a usb header or something. I hook up the "old" PSU, power on and get infinite 90 to 99 loop again. DOH! I pulled the battery, got some dinner, put the battery back in, same problem. Hooked the new PSU back up, OMG it posted! So, I'm wondering if it's a bad BIOS or the old PSU at this point. I had my DOS usb stick at the ready and flashed to b09. Flash ended at C1, but it did post again. I set things up in a default config, save and exit BIOS, and it again goes into the 90 to 99 loop. AAARRRGGGHHHH!

I'm going to see if Newegg will take pity on me and let me get a different board.

[R*r]

@amdfreak

what psu do you use for the test?

i use fsp 1000w and have the 90 but can recover by take out the psu supply cable to mobo,never try with other psu though

[AMDfreak]

PCP&C Silencer 750. I'm done with this board, and possibly done with Abit. There is no reason anyone should have these kinds of problems. If I have to get another IX38, I may just sell it and get an Asus.

[JPxM0Dz]

PCP&C Silencer 750. I'm done with this board, and possibly done with Abit. There is no reason anyone should have these kinds of problems. If I have to get another IX38, I may just sell it and get an Asus.

Sorry to here about all your troubles with the IX38, but you may not escape these issues by jumpin to Asus. In fact I had as many problems as your experiencing, only with the Asus Maximus Formula SE, went through a pair of them before I jumped to Abit.
Zero issues on my IX38 so far and running Bios 11, hope things work out for you as I know how frustrating this can be, so much that I will probably not lay eyes on another Asus mobo for quite awhile, if ever again.

[Ace-a-Rue]

PCP&C Silencer 750. I'm done with this board, and possibly done with Abit. There is no reason anyone should have these kinds of problems. If I have to get another IX38, I may just sell it and get an Asus.

let me suggest DFI's LT X38 T2R board...i have it and switched back to the IP35 Pro board...DFI made a good board but FAR WAY to many hassles to get it working to optimum...it has warm re-boot problems but it is solved by increasing NB voltage higher than what i thought was needed...the bios provides a gazillion settings for memory and that makes it far to complicated to conquer for the average user....abit approaches memory settings via a simplified method, which i LIKE!...that all said, i think Abit is taking the right approach...every mobo maker have duds, QC wise....it is just a bit*ch getting stuck with the dud!

[shaithis]

Whats the consensus about a cooler for the PWMs?

Does it make a difference at high FSBs? What have people found that can be attached?

[Humble]

BIOS: m704d12.zip

Bios Issue Date:2008/01/02
Mirror Site: ASIA Europe US
BIOS ID:12

1. Fixed Command rate function abnormality.
2. Fixed DRAM Timing abnormal.
3. Update JMB363 ROM version.
4. Fixed twice boot issue.
5. Enhanced Intel 45nm CPU compatibility.
6. BIOS compiled date: 01/10/2008.

I had tried this BIOS downloaded from abit official site and everything was great, no problem at all, until I tried to burn my files to DVD media...

I'm using PATA internal DVDRW drive which surely have to be attached to JMB363 as it doesn't have another option.
Well... using this official version 12 BIOS (as also known as 12.B09 BIOS), it gives me very high error rate when burning DVD media. From 6 DVD burned, 3 DVD are failed immediately! The chronology is when the first time I start to burn, it will be successful. But at the second burning, I always failed! And it will keep failing if you dare to try again and again until you restart your system, like there is something stuck in the IDE channel after the first successful burning. After you restart, this scheme repeats. So, in brief, one burn, one restart if you want to evade the failure!
I would say that was a 50% (in fact, more!) fail ratio. What a mess!

If you read the point I bold above, it was very suspicious for me from the first time. I did have the same problem when using the previous AB9 QuadGT.
And I thought it highly possible that this problem was caused by the upgraded JMB363 ROM version in the newest BIOS. I never got this problem when I was using 12.B06 BIOS.
So I flash back and downgrade my BIOS to 12.B08 and hope it doesn't upgrade my JMB363 ROM too as 12.B09 BIOS does.
And you guess it right. 12.B08 BIOS rocks. My problem above is story of the past now. I try to burn 5 DVDs and no failure at all with this BIOS.

Really... BIOS 12.B09 or final is a crap for me too. Although it fixes the 1.125 multi, but it's useless to me as I never touch the 1.125 multi.
I just wonder WHY abit engineers might do such mistakes? They fixed one issue, but readded another issue.
First they forgot to restamp the BIOS name in BIOS screen, and now..., IMHO the upgraded JMB363 ROM they provide ruins this new BIOS at all!

Still have a lot to learn for them I guess...

[Supershanks]

Whats the consensus about a cooler for the PWMs?

yep it hellps. Whatever can be wedged or fitted over it.


humble - sorry to see your making coasters m8. Usually when there is a rom upgrade there is an upgrade of drivers to support the new rom. It's possible you need the updated driver, the last driver on abit's site is v1.17.19.02 D.2007/04/07 so either they've not got it up yet or it looks like 12.B08 is best bet for now, as you say.

[Johnny Bravo]

I had tried this BIOS downloaded from abit official site and everything was great, no problem at all, until I tried to burn my files to DVD media...

I'm using PATA internal DVDRW drive which surely have to be attached to JMB363 as it doesn't have another option.
Well... using this official version 12 BIOS (as also known as 12.B09 BIOS), it gives me very high error rate when burning DVD media. From 6 DVD burned, 3 DVD are failed immediately! The chronology is when the first time I start to burn, it will be successful. But at the second burning, I always failed! And it will keep failing if you dare to try again and again until you restart your system, like there is something stuck in the IDE channel after the first successful burning. After you restart, this scheme repeats. So, in brief, one burn, one restart if you want to evade the failure!
I would say that was a 50% (in fact, more!) fail ratio. What a mess!

If you read the point I bold above, it was very suspicious for me from the first time. I did have the same problem when using the previous AB9 QuadGT.
And I thought it highly possible that this problem was caused by the upgraded JMB363 ROM version in the newest BIOS. I never got this problem when I was using 12.B06 BIOS.
So I flash back and downgrade my BIOS to 12.B08 and hope it doesn't upgrade my JMB363 ROM too as 12.B09 BIOS does.
And you guess it right. 12.B08 BIOS rocks. My problem above is story of the past now. I try to burn 5 DVDs and no failure at all with this BIOS.

Really... BIOS 12.B09 or final is a crap for me too. Although it fixes the 1.125 multi, but it's useless to me as I never touch the 1.125 multi.
I just wonder WHY abit engineers might do such mistakes? They fixed one issue, but readded another issue.
First they forgot to restamp the BIOS name in BIOS screen, and now..., IMHO the upgraded JMB363 ROM they provide ruins this new BIOS at all!

Still have a lot to learn for them I guess...

JMicron are not the best controller in the world, the sooner the motherboard industry takes that on board the better, I've lost count of the number of times these have causes people problems on a number of different platforms.

It may be worthwhile going to their (JMicron) site and seeing about updating the driver for the controller, this may help somewhat. Also just for clarification the abit BIOS engineers did not forget to change that stamp on that BIOS - the BIOS on their website is 12 the BIOS I sent out was basically the same but because it was not official they could not change the date stamp, in order to avoid two different BIOSes with the same date stamp appearing.

[Beastage]

I had tried this BIOS downloaded from abit official site and everything was great, no problem at all, until I tried to burn my files to DVD media...

I'm using PATA internal DVDRW drive which surely have to be attached to JMB363 as it doesn't have another option.
Well... using this official version 12 BIOS (as also known as 12.B09 BIOS), it gives me very high error rate when burning DVD media. From 6 DVD burned, 3 DVD are failed immediately! The chronology is when the first time I start to burn, it will be successful. But at the second burning, I always failed! And it will keep failing if you dare to try again and again until you restart your system, like there is something stuck in the IDE channel after the first successful burning. After you restart, this scheme repeats. So, in brief, one burn, one restart if you want to evade the failure!
I would say that was a 50% (in fact, more!) fail ratio. What a mess!

If you read the point I bold above, it was very suspicious for me from the first time. I did have the same problem when using the previous AB9 QuadGT.
And I thought it highly possible that this problem was caused by the upgraded JMB363 ROM version in the newest BIOS. I never got this problem when I was using 12.B06 BIOS.
So I flash back and downgrade my BIOS to 12.B08 and hope it doesn't upgrade my JMB363 ROM too as 12.B09 BIOS does.
And you guess it right. 12.B08 BIOS rocks. My problem above is story of the past now. I try to burn 5 DVDs and no failure at all with this BIOS.

Really... BIOS 12.B09 or final is a crap for me too. Although it fixes the 1.125 multi, but it's useless to me as I never touch the 1.125 multi.
I just wonder WHY abit engineers might do such mistakes? They fixed one issue, but readded another issue.
First they forgot to restamp the BIOS name in BIOS screen, and now..., IMHO the upgraded JMB363 ROM they provide ruins this new BIOS at all!

Still have a lot to learn for them I guess...

Hello m8's, I'm new

Thats why I fitted an ide to sata adapter on my ide dvdrw so I can avoid the jmicron controller all together.

This thread is kinda depressing me I spent alot of money to get this new rig, the DFI X38 TR2 was in stock but I choose the abit over it, now I'm not sure I did the right choice...

[jcool]

Went back to 12.B08 and no problems so far. 1.25 divider didn't work over 1100 anyways so there would be no benefit in 12.09 for me, only issues and problems.

[Ace-a-Rue]

Humble

Abit's IP35 Pro board works very well!

i noticed on DFI's LT X38 T2R that it had a problem with the Jmicron controller dropping the SATA DVD drive offline about 30-40% of the time if i had Intel's Raid enabled...it's the same DVD drive that i have in my Pro system right now working flawlessly on the Intel controller.

i would recommend getting the latest Jmicron driver to see if that helps your situation

[Humble]

humble - sorry to see your making coasters m8. Usually when there is a rom upgrade there is an upgrade of drivers to support the new rom. It's possible you need the updated driver, the last driver on abit's site is v1.17.19.02 D.2007/04/07 so either they've not got it up yet or it looks like 12.B08 is best bet for now, as you say.

My... I think I forgot that new driver option. But, I'm using JMB363 driver version exactly as you mention above since the first time.

But telling you the truth... My previous experience with AB9 QuadGT gives me big nerves to retry that 12.B09 or final BIOS. Back then, I had tried sooo many different attemps on that AB9 QuadGT board to persuade my JMB363 work properly, but all failed at that time:
- Update to newest BIOS version 15
- Download the newest JMB driver version 1.17.21 WHQL (have tried SCSI mode and native IDE mode)
- Use native M$ Windows built in IDE driver
- And even reinstal my Windows!
Everything was in vain at that moment. I then had no other choice, except to sell the board.

Thanks for your input anyway brother, but I think I'll best stick with this 12.B08 BIOS for now, as it give me minimum error. But it's a bit slow if compared to 12.B06 BIOS in Everest benchmark.
Btw, have you also find this issue on your system brother? IX38 BIOS 12.B09 with IDE DVDRW drives?

JMicron are not the best controller in the world, the sooner the motherboard industry takes that on board the better, I've lost count of the number of times these have causes people problems on a number of different platforms.

It may be worthwhile going to their (JMicron) site and seeing about updating the driver for the controller, this may help somewhat. Also just for clarification the abit BIOS engineers did not forget to change that stamp on that BIOS - the BIOS on their website is 12 the BIOS I sent out was basically the same but because it was not official they could not change the date stamp, in order to avoid two different BIOSes with the same date stamp appearing.

Thank you Brother Johnny for your information about the BIOS. It's all clear now. But still, I do hope that abit engineers make a more good, stable BIOSes soon without readding previous BIOS errors in the future.

About the J-Micron, I still can remember the time when Intel started to remove IDE drive support on their new chipset. A very brave and controversial step, as there were still so many IDE drives on the market and SATA drives hadn't become common at that time. Even nowadays, SATA interfaces is just widely used on HDD and still implemented very few on CD/DVD drives. SATA CD/DVD drives itself still also have so many bug compared to IDE CD/DVD drives.
The motherboard manufacturers then didn't have the other choice except to integrate this JMB363 on their board to support IDE drives which are still widely used at that time. Abit AB9 QuadGT was one of the board, and the new implemented JMB363 really gave me hard time at that time. My other friends also had the same problem with this board as I did.
But, the one to praise is Gigabyte. Their restamped J-Micron controller, as known as Gigabyte SATA2 chip, worked flawlessly on the very first P965 board, 965P-DS3P that I used! Not even single issue come up. Great job really!

Hello m8's, I'm new

Thats why I fitted an ide to sata adapter on my ide dvdrw so I can avoid the jmicron controller all together.

This thread is kinda depressing me I spent alot of money to get this new rig, the DFI X38 TR2 was in stock but I choose the abit over it, now I'm not sure I did the right choice...

Great idea there to use the adapter, brother!

Don't regret what you have decide. Abit IX38 is a great board but with more simple BIOS (not as complex as DFI; which keeps me away from using it) and it will show it's full capability after a few BIOS updates just like what happened to IP35 PRO. You just have to pray that moment will come soon.

Humble

Abit's IP35 Pro board works very well!

i noticed on DFI's LT X38 T2R that it had a problem with the Jmicron controller dropping the SATA DVD drive offline about 30-40% of the time if i had Intel's Raid enabled...it's the same DVD drive that i have in my Pro system right now working flawlessly on the Intel controller.

i would recommend getting the latest Jmicron driver to see if that helps your situation

Then I feel happy for you too brother. I think it's because of the maturity of IP35 PRO bios.

Right now, if I don't miss remember, the newest version of J-Micron JMB363 driver on it's official site is version 1.17.31 WHQL, but I don't sure it'll help me out of the problem if I'm still using 12.B09 BIOS.
Well, I think I'm happy enough with this 12.B08 now, and will stick with it for a moment till abit release a new, proven good BIOS. Thanks for your input too.

[Beastage]

Ok, I decided to have a go at 400x8, on stock voltages... why is it stable?

I running a Q6600 G0 cooled by ultra-120

I did it to see how long before it crashes... but its stable on full load for a few hours now.

Does that make sense?

On the topic of the JMicron driver , it was last updated on December 17th , 2007, so no new driver.

[wilson]

Hello im another new boy on here so HI ALL!!!
Just one question as i have just built my system about 5 days ago so any advice would be great.
I have raid0 on my two drives and am using intel`s matrix manager but not the J-Micron driver as everything works with only the intel installed. I even have my dvd drive in a sata port and so far have had no prob`s with it .
I have the new bios from abits site and am wondering if i need this J-Micron driver or not? I have raid enabled in my bios onchip SATA Device and in onboard PCI Device..
Do i make sence so far

[jcool]

Oh I just don't believe it. I just refuse to believe it.
Looks like my second IX38 just crapped out just like the first one. Ran 1 week folding, just stopped the program and all of a sudden got these buzzing sounds again
And sure enough, µguru showa 100A in idle (!) and 162A under load just like it did last time. Unstable Vcore, too. I feel like history repeating itself
Wasn't even on high voltages (1,33V CPU 1,4V MCH and so on) and the mobo is watercooled, after all. So wtf - can't this thing take even a week of continuous load? Have I had enough bad luck to get two boards from the same bad charge?
What else could it be? Maybe the PSU, but why now... I've had my Liberty 500 for over a year now and it ran fine with the old QuadGT.
I think the board is to blame.

[Johnny Bravo]

Oh I just don't believe it. I just refuse to believe it.
Looks like my second IX38 just crapped out just like the first one. Ran 1 week folding, just stopped the program and all of a sudden got these buzzing sounds again
And sure enough, µguru showa 100A in idle (!) and 162A under load just like it did last time. Unstable Vcore, too. I feel like history repeating itself
Wasn't even on high voltages (1,33V CPU 1,4V MCH and so on) and the mobo is watercooled, after all. So wtf - can't this thing take even a week of continuous load? Have I had enough bad luck to get two boards from the same bad charge?
What else could it be? Maybe the PSU, but why now... I've had my Liberty 500 for over a year now and it ran fine with the old QuadGT.
I think the board is to blame.

jcool have you tried running it outside the case those currents are WAY too big and this is more than coincidence!

[jcool]

How can it be related to the case, if it runs 2-3 weeks w/o problems and then, suddenly, it dies?
It's kinda dead now btw, I made the mistake of shutting it down. It won't start now, shutting itself of after a few seconds, then staying with postcode 90. Tried other gfx card, removing ram, clear cmos, remove battery but I guess it's done for.
I just don't get it... it can't be the PWM freezer, cause the freezer doesn't make contact with anything else apart from the mosfets. And if it did, why would it run for a few weeks then die without me even touching the case?
Another reason could be my PSU, maybe these digital PWMs are very sensitive to spikes. Against this argument stands the fact that I have used my trusty Enermax Liberty 500 for nearly a year with my old QuadGT already (which has essentially the same digital phase unit), also running 24/7 folding.

So I'm gonna give it one last try... will test my third board without the PWM freezer with fan attached and see what happens.
The only explanation I have is that the pulse chip is getting too warm without airflow and that it just burns out when running high load 24/7.
We'll see.