Abit IB9 looking pretty sweet

[Zebo]

This is my kind of board. The PCB is almost identical to the $200 ABIT AB9 QuadGT but it's $107 and overclocks like crazy. It also ditches the Jmicron crappy controller for the ITE8211F thus has 4 PATA ports which is useful for those with PATA HDD's and DVD's.




-Vdimm to 2.5
-Vcore to 1.7
-NB to 1.45
- 100% Japanese Capacitors
- Solid State CPU Capacitors

http://www.unlimitpc.com/modules.php?name=UPC_Content&pa=showpage&pid=496&page=2

http://www.unlimitpc.com/modules.php?name=UPC_Content&pa=showpage&pid=496&page=3

 

[Gary Key]

So far the board we have will not go above 407. Abit is working on it but I think their target for the $100 board market was 400FSB, hitting about 525 on the Quad board but at the 1067 strap so it flies up top.

 

[Shimmishim]

geez... abit is releasing these boards silently huh?

first the quad and now the ib9... i wonder why there hasn't been much of a buzz around these boards

 

[Zebo]

hitting about 525 on the Quad board but at the 1067 strap so it flies up top

Thats amazing....ABIT may be back to old form. Can't wait for review.

Edit ...from reading Quad's manual it supports xfire... looks like RD600 killer too.

 

[Agent11]

It isn't dual x16 crossfire like the Ati/amd 580x or the nvidia 680.. One physical pci-e16x slot actually is x4. Does look like a sweet board though.

 

[deeznuts]

Sweet! Just ordered a QuadGT, $182 at ewiz (40 cheaper then newegg's 20 off sale). But now price is up to $187.

Gary, what ram are you using on the Quad? Budget ram I hope? Lol, I don't want to spend more then $250 on 2x1Gb sticks.

 

[Agent11]

Is there anything worth putting into a very overclockable motherboard but quality micron chips?

 

[Zebo]

Review is up of Quad big brother. Killer clocker but Jmicron problems of course:thumbsdown: Hopefully the cheaper IB9 get more OC coverage as it has a decent IDE controller on it. Where are the 650i ultras when you need them?

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2911

 

[Gary Key]

E6600 Results - Running Orthos now at 7x525.....

7x525


7x535


7x525 SP32M

 

[Gary Key]

We used the Geil Ultra, it is still expensive. I am going to do some testing with the new G.SKill budget 6400 that runs at 4-4-3-5 at 800 on 2.0V. We have a new BIOS that is suppose to be friendly with Promos and Elpida ICs.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Just ordered this from Amazon. Will have it and the rest of the parts for my new rig by Friday and should be able to report on preliminary OC results that evening.

Planning to pair it with an E4300 and some decent PC5300.

 

[tcG]

Does the QuadGT have independent memory overclocking or reverse dividers?

 

[Heidfirst]

it's a 965 so I would say no.

 

[BlingBlingArsch]

the IB9 has issues with the pata controller and the lan (RTL8110SC ) is connected over the pci bus, additionally it suffers from the on/off-bug like some other p965 boards too (gigabytes for example). if that and the lack of any features isnt much of problem to you then the IB9 is a nice and cheap board. nothing to get crazy about it since ds3 and p5b aint much more expensive but can be regarded as more mature, still IB9 is a ok board for under 100,-

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: BlingBlingArsch
the IB9 has issues with the pata controller

additionally it suffers from the on/off-bug like some other p965 boards

would you care to elucidate as I haven't seen anybody else mention pata problems & I'm not familiar with the on/off bug?

 

[BlingBlingArsch]

can do.
lot of Core 2 Duo mainboards have that bug. Whenever u do a coldboot or when u leave the bios the board will boot up just to turn itself off after some moments. then the normal boot begins. some techies said the board is reinitializing the bios or whatever..still a buggy phenomenon.
and regarding the pata problems i have read in another forum that there occured errors while trying to use certain bootable cd´s like MEMTEST or Ultimate Boot CD with IB9. The pata controller would shut down and the drives would be invisible. Didnt not happen with bootable WinXP Cds though so may be a minor problem.

 

[jf2112]

No offense to whomever wrote the title "IB9, looking pretty sweet", but I have it in my PC and looks is all it has - it does nothing but shut down upon startup. Supposedly, this P965 chipset that is on this likes 1.8V Memory, so I bought "Anandtech recommended" Wintech 675MHZ sticks (4X1GB) 1.8V RAM and this MB flickers upon startup and then quits. I went on a limb to buy this because of the info I have been reading that Abit is on the rebound, but after reading 2 of only 3 reviews on Newegg and one elsewhere, I wonder about the performance of Abit, and I am astounded at how awful this board is. I am the 4th person of 5 that is out there giving a review on this that has noted IDENTICAL problems with this board starting and shutting off rapidly.

I bought this board for I wanted a streamlined design in features while supporting 4 IDE devices (since MB Manufacturers suddenly forgot all of us with 4 or 5 120GB to 200GB hard drives loaded with important info). This IDE thing is ideal along with 4 SATA II - there is no on board firewire, but who needs firewire 400 when you can use a PCIe and get firewire 800 or use another PCIe for eSATA. So at this price and its features, this board seemed Ideal - NOT.

I have tried everything, guys. I tried different speeds on my RAM - I started with initiating at 1.8 Volts on my RAM, and graduating up - I tried everything in AUTO. NOTHING WORKS.

I will say this - the bios setup in this thing is INCREDIBLE - if only it worked!!!!! I bought and RMA'd an ASUS P5W DH DELUXE and it had a sticky MB, too much extra stuff in the box (USB and Firewire connectors, MP3 in which was really just your typical audio in but bypasses the noiser sections of the board) and it was not worth it. I don't know what is going on, but half the reviews I read on Newegg concerning MB's are all the same - DOA or Bios is sticky - what the ...bLEeP.... is going on out there - I have had my pc sitting here for 3 weeks waiting to be built and without a motherboard I cannot do anything.

I hate to burst your bubbles, but don't get hyped on this board, especially since none of you have tried it - to date it is a proven waste of silicon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jh

 

[BlingBlingArsch]

reports like this make me think abits best times are over and those upcoming and "hyped before launched" matx boards like ib90-hd may be crap aswell..r.i.p. abit? xD

 

[Heidfirst]

It's a new board, give it time. Anandtech have an IB9 so ley's say what they think as well.
Unfortunately 1 thing that the internet can do (especially with something new & with limited available info) is blow 1 or 2 bad reports about something way out of proportion because of speed of propagation. We all know that people rarely post saying I bought something & it worked as advertised.

abit's new boards are as good as or better than the competitions.

 

[jf2112]

I understand what you are saying, and what you are saying is true...However, Google this search - "IB9 problems" or even goto the abit website forum - THE BOOTUP PROBLEM IS A PLAGUE!!! - I assure you! My board just started on its own while I was researching flash updates last night on my other PC (that actually works - Intel board - may not overclock, but damn it starts and keeps going nonstop). I about had a heart attack. The biggest thing, and seems to be common, is that anyone who owns one has it it "double start" when doing a cold boot, and it does so harshly shutting down the hard drives (which is very critical to those components). This is not a small or even isolated problem - Newegg reported they are receiving tons of these things RMA.

I wish Abit would address this issue - I also wish other boards had the same options as this board and good layout - they are the ONLY boards (IB9) that have the the PATA connectors where they should be, and only one of 6 boards that offer 2 PATA connectors as it is. (w/ a 965 or 975 chipset) Additionally, the layout on this board is awesome along with support for 3 PCI devices. Really, it is the ideal board for being stuck in the change of 32 bit boards moving to 64 bit so that you can retain your old devices. As anandtech stated in their latest review of 965 motherboards..."it was a BONEHEADED decision to abandon IDE so quickly".

In all honesty, it is just a bad time alltogether to get a new board - even ASUS P5b/P5W and Gigabyte are really suffering quality issues - just look at the reviews out there - at best, there are too many errors in setting up RAID and combining SATA and IDE on the same board - Manufacturers should have backed down from having 6 to 8 SATA connections down to 4 and focus on quality and stability. Also, (I know I am going to get screamed at for this, but....) there is too much focus on overclocking and not enough on stability - for that reason I am leaning towards all intel boards by Intel or just going to MAC - I used to defend PC's - now I am starting to tuck my tail. PC's remind me of GM cars that always break down and are fun for those who like to fix things - I need to work on the "driving", not work under the hood if you know what I am saying. We customers of PC's need much better support and quality products than what we are getting. MB Manufacturers and Intel should have atleast waited a while to release all this to iron out the bugs - but NOPE they pushed it out there and "I took the Hook and swam" if you know what I mean.... My mistake - now I have open boxes and PC parts floating all over my room...........

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: jf2112
or even goto the abit website forum - THE BOOTUP PROBLEM IS A PLAGUE!!! - I assure you!

there's half a dozen (if that ) posts about it there & pretty much all in 1 thread.
Since when did 6 constitute a plague?

The biggest thing, and seems to be common, is that anyone who owns one has it it "double start" when doing a cold boot, and it does so harshly shutting down the hard drives (which is very critical to those components).

lots of C2D boards have done that in the past - the most obvious ones in my memory being Asus.

I wish Abit would address this issue

I'm sure that they will.

edit: btw what BIOS are you on?

 

[mjcutri]

from the abit forum:
http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=118735&page=2

maxwedge wrote:
Re: Abit IB9
Do you guys know that theres a beta bios for this board??
http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=119222
__________________

it looks like it works because:

bluemaverick wrote:
Re: Abit IB9
Without touch anything else....my max reach 298FSB, will play with the rest of the setting more. No more booting issue compare to 1.1BIOS...
__________________

i just got my system with an e6300 and ib9 put together friday ((1/23), but i haven't had time to set it up yet because I'm out of town for the weekend. I'll update when I get back on monday. i did notice when i fired it up for a few seconds that it did the on-off-on cycle with the original bios.
__________________

(2/1)
I tried both the 1.2 bios (available if you browse the FTP site at abit) and the 1.3 beta bios. Neither one fixed the on/off bug for me. I still like the board and am confident that abit will be able to fix the bug. It doesn't really bother me because I don't shutdown/restart all that often anyway.

BTW I am running at 333mhz fsb with 1:1 memory at 4-4-4-12 on stock cooling without any tweaking. I know it could go faster, but I haven't had any time to play with it and I just wanted a stable system for now.

 

[BlingBlingArsch]

Originally posted by: Heidfirst

Originally posted by: jf2112
The biggest thing, and seems to be common, is that anyone who owns one has it it "double start" when doing a cold boot, and it does so harshly shutting down the hard drives (which is very critical to those components).

lots of C2D boards have done that in the past - the most obvious ones in my memory being Asus.

thats the on/off bug alot of gigabyte boards are sufferung from afaik. didnt hear of any asus board showing that bug.

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: BlingBlingArsch
thats the on/off bug alot of gigabyte boards are sufferung from afaik. didnt hear of any asus board showing that bug.

I had never heard it called that before.
Both the P5B & P5W used to exhibit it, particularly when overclocked - they fixed it on the P5B first & the P5W owners used to moan like hell.

Strangely enough I've never noticed it being reported as prevalent on the Gigabytes (& I run 1 so would have expected to notice that ahead of the Asus)

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

I'm up and running with this board right now with my 4300 and PC5400 at stock. Will OC later today.

This was by far the hardest setup I've ever done, but a lot of that was my fault. You need to have the ITE drivers slipstreamed onto your XP install or use a floppy or you'll get a BSOD during XP setup. I was getting CPU unworkable until I manually went it and changed the ram speed to run at it's stock speed and made sure the ratio was correct....."Use optimized settings" may work for most people though. There's also nothing in the manual about running dual channel and I found using dimm slots 1 and 3 to work where 1 and 2 didn't. No USB devices would work after I installed the chipset drivers, so I deleted all the USB Root Hub entries in device manager and restarted with the USB mouse disconnected and it works now. This was my first P965 install though and more experienced users might have breezed past most of these issues.

I love the design of this board too. The passive chipset coolers, one PCI-E X16 slot, sexy color, solid caps, japanese caps, GBlan, optical out, etc. The sata connectors should be sideways though like the ide connectors are.....seems to me to offer less stress and is conducve to cleaner cabling. The front panel and USB connectors are also kind of awkwardly placed, but I'm using a monstrous X1950 Pro that makes working around there kinda cramped. Will do some more cable work later. I also agree that this is one of the best BIOS's I've ever seen except for a few display bugs in non-crucial places.

I learned a few things and will, hopefully, be rewarded with a decent OC and stable system. I'm using a Freezer Pro 7 with AS5 and am using the timeless SLK3700-BQE.

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CPU idle is 32°