845pe Albatron $89 on pricewatch - Update **Official Info/OC Thread**

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Foamfoot

Member
Sep 29, 2002
50
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0
dredd (or anyone else running a radeon 9700) did you have any issues with your 9700 and this board. ive spent 3 days trying to get mine running on this albatron. ive tried all possible fixes listed @ Rage3d - bumped my agp volt to 1.6 - and even emailed powercolor about it. they of course mentioned the power supply and motherboard as possible issues.

the only way i can get my 9700 not to immediately freeze in any games or with 3dmark is to underclock the core and mem of the 9700 substantially to 260ish. i have the antec true 480W PS so i dont think thats an issue. did you have any issues or have to make any changes to get your 9700 running with the Alb board.
 
cmdrdredd

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
Originally posted by: Foamfoot
dredd (or anyone else running a radeon 9700) did you have any issues with your 9700 and this board. ive spent 3 days trying to get mine running on this albatron. ive tried all possible fixes listed @ Rage3d - bumped my agp volt to 1.6 - and even emailed powercolor about it. they of course mentioned the power supply and motherboard as possible issues.

the only way i can get my 9700 not to immediately freeze in any games or with 3dmark is to underclock the core and mem of the 9700 substantially to 260ish. i have the antec true 480W PS so i dont think thats an issue. did you have any issues or have to make any changes to get your 9700 running with the Alb board.
Click to expand...

nope...I have an Enermax 430Watt PSu running this thing. DId you try the new drivers on ATI's site? I use v6193 and everything is cool even stable at serious overclocked speeds. No trouble for me.
 
cmdrdredd

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
It could be your RAILS. I've heard of some PSUs having instable rails making the 9700 not properly function. Antec is a good brand though...check the rating on the rails and monitor them while running something like Prine95 and see if they jump around
 
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Siegfried

Member
Feb 6, 2000
38
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Did anyone manage to get any information from Albatron concerning a possible BIOS update for the memory timings at high frequency?

Thanks
 
F

Foamfoot

Member
Sep 29, 2002
50
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ive tried every driver out there all after fresh installs of Winxp - good thing its not registered yet :). the problem is directly related to the clocking of my 9700. at 275 core 264 memory my system runs fine. as i approach 300 on each i get lockups, the closer to 300 the sooner the lockup in 3dmark. the general consensus is its one of two things (1) power supply (2) bad card/card is running too hot (apparently lots of 9700s left the shop with less then desirable cooling.


i didnt want to hijack this wonderful thread so i posted my power supply results in a new post under General Hardware. If someone would be kind enough to take a look and let me know if they see the power supply seems ok id appreciated it. im still a newb at this, only my second system. im good at following instructions - and im learning as i go - but most of the time i dont know what a lot of this stuff means :)

thanks again for all of your help and responses!

 
L

lookin4dlz

Senior member
May 19, 2001
688
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Anyone having reboot issues with this board? I'm running at 2.7GHz, DDR 400 2.5,3,3,7. I've run Prime95 fine for a 1.5 hour test, with no errors (I'll run it all night tonight). If I do a warm boot, it resets the bios to default. I've tried this at as low as 140fsb with the same result. If I do a cold boot, everything is fine!
 
cmdrdredd

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
Actually the Albatron is just as featured and just as overclockable for a cheaper price. You can't beat the deal you're getting with this one.
 
S

senior guy

Senior member
Dec 12, 1999
806
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Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
Actually the Albatron is just as featured and just as overclockable for a cheaper price. You can't beat the deal you're getting with this one.
Click to expand...
Not quite. For an additional $8 for the Epox, you get everything on the Pro II + Firewire!!!

 
S

senior guy

Senior member
Dec 12, 1999
806
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0
Originally posted by: Elminster
the epox doesn't have a 3:4 memory setting if you read the review, that puts it out in my opinion.
Click to expand...
As of now, we don't know that the Pro II does either (Evan?). Knowing Epox, I'm sure they will soon provide a BIOS upgrade that has it.

It would be nice to have Evan review the Pro II and compare it to the Epox he just reviewed.

 
cmdrdredd

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
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$8? heh check pricewatch

Oh and who really "needs" firewire...I don't and I'll add a card if I need. No doubt it's a great board (the epox), but Albatron has done a good job with the Px845PEv Pro and I expect the Pro II to follow suit
 
M

Mianoumi

Junior Member
Oct 17, 2002
9
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0
I also have a Radeon 9700 and it is NOT compatible with the PX845PEV. I called Albatron at 1-714-8938113 and talked to David (transfered 4 times before I got him and most could barely speak english). His response to the lockups was to say and I quote verbatim "You should buy a Gigabyte motherboard" I said "what?!?!?!". He went on to explain that the board does not work with 8x cards and that the ATI card was plauged with problems, I then told him it worked flawlessly with my old soyo board (except for Medieval Total War which was fixed with the latest beta drivers). He was kind enough to send me the beta bios (v1.2) but it did not solve the problem.

Specs
PX845PEV New
Intel 2.26b New
3200 Corsair Extreme DDR New
Fresh Install of XP Pro
ATI Radeon 9700 2 weeks old Vesion: 6.13.10.6193 Drivers (worked flawlessly on my old Soyo Dragon +)
All the Intel Chipset drivers that came with the Motherboard
Creative SB Live (default XP drivers, tried different pci slots also to make sure this wasnt the problem)
Hardware manager shows everthing as a-ok
All default settings although once lockups started I did try higher voltage on the agp port to no avail. Tried defaul mb settings and performance, messed with the apature size.

All 3d games and benchmarks lock within the first 4 seconds.

I will never buy another Albatron product, sell them in my store or recommend them to anyone and not because of the problem but because of the response to the problem. RMA has been issued. Buy an Nvidia card or Gigabyte motherboard, what the fu#k kind of reply is that?!?! We are aware of the problem and are going to fix it or something to that effect would have been acceptable not go buy something else but I guess I will take that advice after all.

Mianoumi

PS I just took out the Live card and enabled the onboard audio to no avail, lock within 2 seconds. Dredd if I am correct you have the pro version which would make you different then me and this other guy correct? If so what is the difference? Doesnt really matter I guess as I am completly turned off by this company and the rma has already been issued.

Hey EVAN, any chance you could test with a 9700, I mean after all it is the premier video card on the market right now (at least for the next couple months).
 
H

HFC

Senior member
Apr 8, 2001
245
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0
Oh, please, please, please...
At least let us know if it is as stable for overclock as the plain 845PE or may be even the 845E. I have heard bits of under-voltage surfacing on the 845PEV(?).
 
K

Kovie

Member
Sep 18, 2002
138
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Albatron was created by former Gigabyte employees. That might be why they (albeit strangely) mention gigabyte.
 
First

First

Lifer
Jun 3, 2002
10,518
271
136
No Mianoumi, what the Albatron tech support guy was probably trying to say was buy Gigabyte's video board (their Radeon 9700 video card), not Gigabyte's motherboards.

Basically all Taiwanese motherboard makers (meaning all motherboard makers in the world except Intel) have tech support personal that don't speak English natively, so it's most definitely not regulated to just Albatron. It's an unfortunate reality.
 
M

MadTom

Senior member
Sep 4, 2002
208
0
0
Regarding the 9700 problem with 3DMark, as well with rebooting the system - probably your memory is not compatible with the mainboard (have had same issue with an 8IGX and Kingmaxes... - changed to Samsung and no problems anymore - both PC2700). Try to put your system to DDR333, or even DDR266 settings - just to see how it will behave there, and then OC your 9700.

It's just an idea, so don't kill me for that.
 
M

Mianoumi

Junior Member
Oct 17, 2002
9
0
0
No Evan, David spoke very good english albiet with an accent. He DID say buy a Gigabyte motherboard NOT video card. He specificly mentioned that 8x cards worked with the Gigabyte board. Don't forget also that he specificly said that 8x cards do not work in this board. Honestly though I think this guy just doesnt know whats going on and said some stupid things instead of just saying he didnt know. The fact is that my $350 video card does not work in it as well as others and they do not have an answer for the problem other then to say they just dont work. Interestingly enough he did say that they hadnt tested the card in the board which should automatically keep him from saying it doesnt work, I also have a hard time believing the engineers havent popped a 9700 into their own motherboard. I just want a cpmpany who says "Yes there is a problem and we are working on fixing it", now a days however it is all to common for companies to try and hide things and then fix them quietly. I will give David some credit, he did say he would find out whats going on and let me know, how much you wanna bet I never hear from him again (unless he gets to read this).

As for memory being the problem I'm afraid not, I put my Radeon 8500 in and the system is smoking, got all the way to 165 fsb and the meory was well over 400 and everything was rock solid stable for 3 3dmark runs and a couple sandra turns with the same corsair memory, I havent even reach instabilty yet and am not going to because I dont want to know how high it will go now that I have an rma. :)

Mianoumi
 
S

Scoobyman

Junior Member
Oct 18, 2002
12
0
0
I also thought about getting a 9700 Pro for my 845 PEV Pro too. But now I´m not so sure anymore...
1. I could buy one anyway and change the board if it`s not working.
2. I could buy a cheap MX card and wait for the NV30
3. I could stick with my old rig and wait till the probs are solved somehow
Could I use my old GF256 DDR on this board ? Don`t know `bout the Voltage.

 
Y

Ynog

Golden Member
Oct 9, 2002
1,782
1
0
I find this graphic card problem very disconcerting.

I am like a click away from getting this board.
But if the motherboard cannot support 8X AGP card.

Has anyone else had problems with the 9700?

Or any other type of graphics card for that matter?
 
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