What precautions can I take when installing my m/b to prevent me from shorting out something on my m/b?
First
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2002
- 10,518
- 271
- 136
At minimum you need to touch a piece of exposed metal to get rid of all the stored static electricity in your body. However, it's very important that you make sure this piece of exposed metal is grounded, as in literally grounded into the earth. For example, ideally you would nail a large piece of copper (maybe 3 or 4 feet long, it's not too important) into the ground and you could touch it every now and then to release all the voltage you've stored up (you can easily build up voltage just by walking, especially on carpet). The copper approach is the best solution you could come up with.
However, that's not too practical, so I'd suggest you touch your power supply (assuming the power supply is made of exposed, and not painted-over, metal). Make sure the power supply is plugged into your power strip, and your power strip is plugged into an outlet (duh
). The power supply approach still isn't completely grounded though, you haven't really touched a grounded object, you've touched some called a "floating" ground. Still, the power supply approach is about 95% effective in my experience, and so if you don't handle hardware a lot, I'd actually suggest you go pick up an ESD strap. All you have to do is attach the ESD strap to your wrist and then attach the other end to a piece of exposed metal (power supply is fine) while handling silicon. This is a little bit safer than the "touch the power supply sometimes" approach, since you're constantly releasing your static electricity through the strap. Good luck.
I emailed Albatron's tech support guru about the 9700pro and this is what I recieved in an email tonight:
Dear customer:
Thank you for using our products.
Our products have gone through many compatability tests before selling them to consumers.
We have tested many different AGP cards including: ATI chipsets and nVidia chipsets. So far, we haven't found any problems. We haven't received any negative reports about running ATI chipset AGP cards with the Albatron PX845PE chipset.
I also asked them when Albatron would come out with a 9700pro video card. He relayed my msg to product developement. I think it's safe to say if I go with an Albatron 9700 video card, it will likely work fine with my board.
Dear customer:
Thank you for using our products.
Our products have gone through many compatability tests before selling them to consumers.
We have tested many different AGP cards including: ATI chipsets and nVidia chipsets. So far, we haven't found any problems. We haven't received any negative reports about running ATI chipset AGP cards with the Albatron PX845PE chipset.
I also asked them when Albatron would come out with a 9700pro video card. He relayed my msg to product developement. I think it's safe to say if I go with an Albatron 9700 video card, it will likely work fine with my board.
Does anyone know what the IRQ assignments are for the PX845PEV Pro? I did not see these in the manual and I am just curious if anyone knows.
Just to update everyone:
I had previously posted that I lose my bios information at 150fsb on a warm boot. That's incorrect, the bios information remains intact but the computer still doesn't reboot when I use the Windows XP restart option. Everything is fin when I completely turn the system off or when I install software that requires a reboot and executes the reboot itself. This isn't really a problem because my computer stays on 24/7.
Everything is stable w/ no errors in Prime95 @ 10 hours. I'm set for the next few months when I'll upgrade to a 3GHz+ hyperthread-enabled P4 chip on this board and see if I can get that up to 4-4.5GHz
I had previously posted that I lose my bios information at 150fsb on a warm boot. That's incorrect, the bios information remains intact but the computer still doesn't reboot when I use the Windows XP restart option. Everything is fin when I completely turn the system off or when I install software that requires a reboot and executes the reboot itself. This isn't really a problem because my computer stays on 24/7.
Everything is stable w/ no errors in Prime95 @ 10 hours. I'm set for the next few months when I'll upgrade to a 3GHz+ hyperthread-enabled P4 chip on this board and see if I can get that up to 4-4.5GHz
Heh, I have built 160+ computers in 4 years since opening my store and am VERY familiar with static electricity as everytime I get out of my recliner (yes I have a recliner at work
and ground myself I get a HUGE shock, especially during winter, good thing I don't have a pacemaker! No slight was meant to you Evan just wanted to clear up that statement. I think me and that other guy just got bad boards or something but still dont understand why it worked flawlessly with my 8500 if that was the case and worked in 2d with the 9700 but locking after a second or two in 3d. David still never wrote back and so I close the case with this company, permanently.
The good news is that the Abit BE7 Raid worked flawlessly with my Radeon 9700, havent tried to push it yet but here is my first benchmark. 160 fsb 2.26b at 2.73ghz with a 5% increase in vcore voltage (1.52-1.54), 2.6 voltage for the Corsair ram, 15441 3dmark and sandra memory scores of 3233/3235. Temp running at 38-40 Celsius idle and 45-47 loaded. Played rtcw last night for two hours straight and ran prime for about the same time and no crashes. Some things to note about this board, vcore can only be set to a maximum 15% above normal in 5% increments and there is no voltage setting for the agp port, I may be wrong and havent exactly read the manual cover to cover so if the settings are there I can't find them.
Got my new case and 2.4b, gonna test them tonight.
Mianoumi
Originally posted by: Evan Lieb
Originally posted by: ucfdoughboy
The PX845PE Pro II's are here!
http://www.googlegear.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=246208
Albatron's sending my their ProII, I may do a review, it depends on how different it is compared to the plain vanilla Pro version.
Evan, any updates on the ProII? I'm holding out to see the differences, price vs feature wise
Can anyone recommend a good hardware monitoring solution for this board? It has the Winbond W83627HF chip on it. Thanx.
I thought that I would throw in my 2 cents on this board. I bought it to use in a P4 system that I was putting together for someone. Since this wasn't for myself, I don't have any information to share on overclocking capabilities of this motherboard. My impression was that this is a rather compact motherboard that is being marketed as a "no-frills" motherboard. In some ways, it reminds me of a "white box" product or a video card from Jaton.
There were a couple of minor irritations with this motherboard related to this. The motherboard does not come with an I/O plate. If you are looking to upgrade an existing case, you may not have an I/O plate with a cut out for the onboard ethernet port. Actually, the Fong Kai 603 case that I bought to use with this motherboard didn't have an appropriate I/O plate either, though Directron eventually did scrounge one up for me when I whined about this. Also, the floppy connector is at the end of the board in the vicinity of where a 6th PCI slot would normally be; however, the motherboard comes with a rather short floppy cable (12"), which wouldn't reach to the floppy on the mid-size case mentioned above. As has been noted by others, there is no hardware monitoring software included.
Based on the little bit of playing around with the onboard sound (Realtek chip) that I've had a chance to do, I'm not sure how satisfactory this solution will be to anyone who plays games (which isn't an issue for the person I'm building this system for). I couldn't tell what was having compatability issues with what, but running the DroneZ benchmark to help break things in, I seemed to have some difficulties with some some sound settings. I don't want to make too much of this, since I don't enough experience with other 3D sound applications and this motherboard to say whether this is an isolataed issue or not.
On the plus side, they did answer an email within 24 hours, which I had sent to their tech support, asking about an I/O shield for this motherboard. While they didn't have one available, they seemed to be willing to try and provide further assistance if I couldn't find one locally, which was their suggestion. And the price seems very competitive, unless you take into account the possibility of needing to spend some extra running around time on your part to round out the package.
Space
There were a couple of minor irritations with this motherboard related to this. The motherboard does not come with an I/O plate. If you are looking to upgrade an existing case, you may not have an I/O plate with a cut out for the onboard ethernet port. Actually, the Fong Kai 603 case that I bought to use with this motherboard didn't have an appropriate I/O plate either, though Directron eventually did scrounge one up for me when I whined about this.
Also, the floppy connector is at the end of the board in the vicinity of where a 6th PCI slot would normally be; however, the motherboard comes with a rather short floppy cable (12"), which wouldn't reach to the floppy on the mid-size case mentioned above. As has been noted by others, there is no hardware monitoring software included.Based on the little bit of playing around with the onboard sound (Realtek chip) that I've had a chance to do, I'm not sure how satisfactory this solution will be to anyone who plays games (which isn't an issue for the person I'm building this system for). I couldn't tell what was having compatability issues with what, but running the DroneZ benchmark to help break things in, I seemed to have some difficulties with some some sound settings. I don't want to make too much of this, since I don't enough experience with other 3D sound applications and this motherboard to say whether this is an isolataed issue or not.
On the plus side, they did answer an email within 24 hours, which I had sent to their tech support, asking about an I/O shield for this motherboard. While they didn't have one available, they seemed to be willing to try and provide further assistance if I couldn't find one locally, which was their suggestion. And the price seems very competitive, unless you take into account the possibility of needing to spend some extra running around time on your part to round out the package.
Space
I just got the board and I like it a lot. Here are some of my issues - to compare and contrast with the above:
My system:
P4 2.4B (C1 stepping)
Albatron PEV Pro
512MB Corsair XMS 2700 DDR
Win XP Pro w/SP1
1) My voltages look good... very close to real. Base 1.525 is almost exactly right.
2) Sensor 2 says 69C... I'm not sure what it's measuring, or if there are just 2 sensors and it fools the software that shows 3 (1 and 3 look good... ~38C)
3) I can get up to 160 FSB (using 2.5x) and that's right about where I start to have problems... might be voltage. I have it now at 158.
4) Memory is at CAS 2, 2-2-2-6 settings, I think. When I try the lowest (2-2-2-5), it doesn't like 2.5x and 158+ FSB.
5) Voltage is bumped up to 1.575v (is this too low?)
Seems stable, and the performance is good. DDR near 400... CPU ~2.85GHz
Winjer
My system:
P4 2.4B (C1 stepping)
Albatron PEV Pro
512MB Corsair XMS 2700 DDR
Win XP Pro w/SP1
1) My voltages look good... very close to real. Base 1.525 is almost exactly right.
2) Sensor 2 says 69C... I'm not sure what it's measuring, or if there are just 2 sensors and it fools the software that shows 3 (1 and 3 look good... ~38C)
3) I can get up to 160 FSB (using 2.5x) and that's right about where I start to have problems... might be voltage. I have it now at 158.
4) Memory is at CAS 2, 2-2-2-6 settings, I think. When I try the lowest (2-2-2-5), it doesn't like 2.5x and 158+ FSB.
5) Voltage is bumped up to 1.575v (is this too low?)
Seems stable, and the performance is good. DDR near 400... CPU ~2.85GHz
Winjer
Just got this board, everything is working great. Just upgraded to this board from the original IT7, this board has more overclocking options than the IT7 also.
My 9700pro is working fine. I do have some minor undervolting (like .25V undervolt). This is fine however since the bios gives you the option to increase voltages a ton.
About the temperature readings, I'm in the same boat. In the bios, my Cpu temp is lower than the motherboard temp. In windows, using Sandra or MBM it shows my temps as: ~33C motherboard, 69C Cpu (No fluctuation except it raises to 72C at full load), ~33C Power/Aux Temp. I know my cpu isn't running at 69C, so I believe this sensor in windows is not working properly. Whatever the bios says is what I'll believe anyways.
My 9700pro is working fine. I do have some minor undervolting (like .25V undervolt). This is fine however since the bios gives you the option to increase voltages a ton.
About the temperature readings, I'm in the same boat. In the bios, my Cpu temp is lower than the motherboard temp. In windows, using Sandra or MBM it shows my temps as: ~33C motherboard, 69C Cpu (No fluctuation except it raises to 72C at full load), ~33C Power/Aux Temp. I know my cpu isn't running at 69C, so I believe this sensor in windows is not working properly. Whatever the bios says is what I'll believe anyways.
just got my PEV Pro yesterday, looking good so far. the hardware monitor in BIOS is reporting some funky temperatures (case temp higher than cpu temp? arrr?? ), but it appears that everyone here is getting the same, so i'm not too concerned. i flashed to the latest BIOS and the temps are still weird, but whatever, as long as it's working, i don't care too much.
gonna start some overclocking on this rig in a few minutes, will keep everyone updated.
), but it appears that everyone here is getting the same, so i'm not too concerned. i flashed to the latest BIOS and the temps are still weird, but whatever, as long as it's working, i don't care too much. gonna start some overclocking on this rig in a few minutes, will keep everyone updated.
So is Sensor 1 the cpu temp & Sensor 2 the system temp? Is there no setting for Sensor 3? If so, what?
I'm presently running my 1.6a @ 2128, however, according to the manual, there should be 4 settings for the ddr:cpu ratio when the fsb is set @ 133...auto, 2.0, 2.5 & 2.66. My only choices are auto, 1.5 (debug mode), and 2.5. Ideas?
What fsb are you guys & gals using on your Albatrons? What about memory settings? I'm running 1 stick of Samsung PC2700.
Thanks in advance.
I'm presently running my 1.6a @ 2128, however, according to the manual, there should be 4 settings for the ddr:cpu ratio when the fsb is set @ 133...auto, 2.0, 2.5 & 2.66. My only choices are auto, 1.5 (debug mode), and 2.5. Ideas?
What fsb are you guys & gals using on your Albatrons? What about memory settings? I'm running 1 stick of Samsung PC2700.
Thanks in advance.
That's a great question. I have the same problem. Both with MBM and memory ratios. All I have is Auto, 1.5 (Debug Mode) and 2.66.
cmdrdredd
Lifer
- Dec 12, 2001
- 27,052
- 357
- 126
your 1.6a is being recognised by the board as 100Mhz FSB so it won't give you the extra options. If you ran a CPU that supports 133Mhz FSB you'd get the other options.
As for the temps they seem to be the norm for this board. Seems like the sensors aren't entirely accurate. There are only 2 sensors. I'd recommend getting a temp sensor and use that instead for more accurate readings.
Overclocking is great on this board. I'm currently running my memory at DDR421 and my FSb at 158Mhz and my CPU being a 2.26 is running 2.68 I will try 160 today and see if it will go. maybe I'll go higher and try it.
As for the temps they seem to be the norm for this board. Seems like the sensors aren't entirely accurate. There are only 2 sensors. I'd recommend getting a temp sensor and use that instead for more accurate readings.
Overclocking is great on this board. I'm currently running my memory at DDR421 and my FSb at 158Mhz and my CPU being a 2.26 is running 2.68 I will try 160 today and see if it will go. maybe I'll go higher and try it.
My sensor 1 is showing 39c & sensor 2 is 31c. These temps are what I get in the bios as well. Are these temps ok for the 1.6a running @ 2128? (Lian Li PC61 case)
Is anyone using this motherboard in a Lian Li case?
If so, any issues with the SW/LED connector configuration?
If so, any issues with the SW/LED connector configuration?
i actually can't get my power led to hook up with my coolermaster case.. two prongs for the led to plug into.. but the actual connector has three.. *shrugz* gonna replace those leds anyway.
so far i've got my 2.53 to 3.15 (19x166) using the 2.66x memory divider.. pretty gdamn fast.
gets a lil toasty, but i'm working on that.
love this board.
so far i've got my 2.53 to 3.15 (19x166) using the 2.66x memory divider.. pretty gdamn fast.
gets a lil toasty, but i'm working on that.
love this board.
i have the albatron kt 400 pro... works great ecept for the power management ..it will lock up when the puter goes to sleep..so i disabled that..and it works find ...
albatron kt 400 pro
mushkin ddr 400 ..sett at 333
amd athlon 2400 xp
10500 3d mark stock
albatron kt 400 pro
mushkin ddr 400 ..sett at 333
amd athlon 2400 xp
10500 3d mark stock
Is anyone get high CPU temps with the newest bios? MBM is saying my temps are at 68 C when i'm at stock speed..
thanks
thanks
Originally posted by: SkuLLyRT
i actually can't get my power led to hook up with my coolermaster case.. two prongs for the led to plug into.. but the actual connector has three.. *shrugz* gonna replace those leds anyway.
so far i've got my 2.53 to 3.15 (19x166) using the 2.66x memory divider.. pretty gdamn fast.
gets a lil toasty, but i'm working on that.
love this board.
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