Abit IP35-E Review (500MHz FSB board)...$90 @ NewEgg + $6.61 ship

[hokiealumnus]

Originally posted by: hrbngr
hokiealumnus,

thanks for the detailed reply. Ok, so I want to shoot for about 3.6ghz on a E6750 (saving about $85 over a E6850), and I would be targeting a FSB of 450mhz to match the 1:1 FSB to Memory ratio, correct? Now, the one factor I need to consider is if the more expensive memory would make this an easier target to reach if I want to run 4x2gb modules to get to 8gb total system memory--or if I want to go for a higher memory ratio of say 1:1.2, does the more expensive memory make sense then?

For the Big Typhoon, are there any panaflo/Scythe/Pabst fans that generate sufficient airflow to reach 3.6+? Honestly, I dont mind paying good money for a better fan as I have dropped $30+ in the past on the Pabst ones.

PS. Oh, one last thing, you mentioned staying away from E8400s in a previous post, is that more to do w/the chip itself, or how it works w/this motherboard? I am curious as I have read about some ppl attaining >4ghz on air w/that chip.

A lot of DDR2-800 RAM will run @ 450 no problem (mine will just fine). With 4x2G it could be a bit more of a challenge. If you do consider running @ 1:1.2 @ 450, you'd be better off with the DDR2-1000 linked to earlier. Basically it'll make it easier on you whichever direction you decide to go.

FYI, a couple of things to keep in mind when running four sticks of RAM: From the get-go it'll require a bump in MCH voltage. Most likely just a couple notches, probably 1.33v. It can occasionally require an additional .05-.10Vdimm as well.

I don't think you need to spend $30 on a fan for it. This is a nice strong 120x38 panaflo similar to the fan I use for $15. If you really did want to spend the money and wanted to either keep your PC flat or rig something to hold it up, here's a (rather insane) super high speed delta. It'll probably sound like a freight train though.

There's nothing wrong with the E8400s per se, it just seems no one wants to trust their temperatures. Coretemp is the best thing going right now and it's all over the board not only with various MB manufacturers but I've seen conflicting temps even within the same MBs running the same BIOS. Very odd. For clockers, they're great chips. 4.0GHz on air easy, and they're (relatively) cheap to boot. There are spotty reports of them degrading but that's just hearsay I've seen around and unsubstantiated AFAIK. What I can tell you is that abit hasn't released a BIOS with what they would call full 45nm support. They work and will OC quite well, but temp & Vcore readings may (or may not) be off.

 

[mindless1]

Originally posted by: hokiealumnus
I wasn't trying to make an excuse for a port falling off. The ones I've seen before were along the lines of "I pulled <too hard> on my SATA cable trying to disconnect it and the port came off with it." That's user error, not a manufacturing problem. If you pull hard on something with small solder joints, yes, it will come with the cable.

Take some epoxy and put it around the port plastic frame.
This probably isn't a solder issue at all, in that having the plastic loose wiggles the pins back and forth, or they slip out.

 

[Tullphan]

I sent an e-mail to Abit's customer service about this. I hope Abit's customer service is better than Asus. I just got the thing in October.
In the meantime, I picked up an MSI P35 Neo2-FR.
I guess i'll see which one I like better.

 

[MadScientist]

Originally posted by: hokiealumnus
I wasn't trying to make an excuse for a port falling off. The ones I've seen before were along the lines of "I pulled <too hard> on my SATA cable trying to disconnect it and the port came off with it." That's user error, not a manufacturing problem. If you pull hard on something with small solder joints, yes, it will come with the cable.

The SATA port on my MB was loose out of the box before I connected any cable to it. This is clearly a QC problem.

 

[MadScientist]

Originally posted by: Heidfirst

Originally posted by: MadScientist
Yes, removing standby power. Isn't that what "completely" means.

Just confirming, no need to get shirty about it ...
Anyway in that case afaik all P35s (with exception of IP35 Pro as noted) will double boot initially.

This is no excuse for SATA ports falling off. Don't other MB manufacturers have to use the same solder. I've never had problems with loose SATA ports on the Asus, Gigabyte, or Epox MBs I've owned.

But how old were those mobos?
Lead free solder has only relatively recently been required due to European RoHS legislation (China also implemented something similar I believe).

Just clarifying. My intent was not to get shirty. The Gigabyte is a brand new P35 MB I just purchased.

 

[Heidfirst]

Remember these mobos are produced in millions - it's inevitable that a very small % of substandard will slip through QC or suffer transit damage.

The internet is a great thing but 1 thing that it can do that isn't so good is to make problems appear way out of proportion simply because more people will post with a problem than to say it's all working fine.
Because you & a few others have had a problem doesn't mean that the other 99.9% of people will or because you got a perfect Gigabyte doen't mean that another person won't get a damaged 1.

Imo at the end of the day there really isn't a big difference in production or support from any of the major manufacturers (& like you I've used them all plus a good chunk of the smaller fry).

 

[WEW]

Is BIOS 15 the most stable? I am getting this problem where sometimes when I boot - the lights on the monitor go dim and the Windows XP logo goes dim - it freezes there - not sure what is causing the problme - i did a fresh install of XP -- it just happens sometimes

 

[hokiealumnus]

IMO v.12 is the most stable. If you can tolerate the double-boot and don't have an E8400, I'd use it. I test all of the new ones but always end up going back to v.12 in the end.

 

[blahsome]

I got an IP35-E from newegg last week and just bought an E8400 from Micro Center. I don't know what BIOS version came with the board. Hopefully it will allow me to at least POST with the E8400 so that I can update the BIOS to v. 15.

Can't wait to install everything.

 

[JaYp146]

Does anyone know if the Thermalright HR-05 SLI is compatible with this board? Thermalright's compatibility page isn't loading, and their customer support email staff doesn't communicate well, so..

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: blahsome
I got an IP35-E from newegg last week and just bought an E8400 from Micro Center. I don't know what BIOS version came with the board. Hopefully it will allow me to at least POST with the E8400 so that I can update the BIOS to v. 15.

Can't wait to install everything.

You should be fine. I got my IP35-E from newegg a few weeks ago and it shipped with bios 13, board booted up just fine with an e8400 in it.

My issue is still the vcore since no matter how high I bump it the board continues to read 1.12v so I don't trust it at all. I am mostly memtest stable (did 3 complete passes with no errors but had one on pass 4) but still not orthos stable at 3.7. I can play games without problems (except bioshock but that is a vista 64 issue mainly) so I'm not really complaining. I am going to do more overclocking and attempt to get the board orthos stable if/when abit releases a BIOS that fully supports the e8400.

Good luck!

 

[amheck]

Hey guys,

I've had the system running in my sig for about a month, maybe a little more. Last week I downloaded BIOS15 and installed it with the FlashMenu program. Everything was ok for a few days, but now I'm getting a strange msg at POST.

"CPU is unworkable for has been changed - Please recheck - CPU Soft Menu"

I'm given the option to press F1 to continue, at which time I do and the PC boots normally. I haven't gone into BIOS too much yet, but I'm assuming there's a setting that v15 didn't like? Any idea which one it might be offhand? I don't know that I'm experienced enough in BIOS and with the C2D's in general to spot it at first glance.

Thanks!
Aaron

 

[MadScientist]

Originally posted by: Heidfirst
Remember these mobos are produced in millions - it's inevitable that a very small % of substandard will slip through QC or suffer transit damage.

The internet is a great thing but 1 thing that it can do that isn't so good is to make problems appear way out of proportion simply because more people will post with a problem than to say it's all working fine.
Because you & a few others have had a problem doesn't mean that the other 99.9% of people will or because you got a perfect Gigabyte doen't mean that another person won't get a damaged 1.

Imo at the end of the day there really isn't a big difference in production or support from any of the major manufacturers (& like you I've used them all plus a good chunk of the smaller fry).

Heidi,
I agree with you. I may have been a little hasty in calling the loose SATA ports a QC problem. These may or may not be isolated incidents. We will never know. All manufacturers should strive to produce products with zero defects, but this is probably impossible.
I have emailed Abit and informed them of the loose SATA port on my MB. I will post their reply if I receive one. I have no intention of RMA'ing the MB. Other than the loose port the board is working flawlessly.

MS

 

[GundamF91]

I would say reflash your BIOs again. May be something in there is corrupted. I've never had that message after using the C2D for 3mo now. Everything's working out for me with BIOS15.

 

[MadScientist]

Originally posted by: amheck
Hey guys,

I've had the system running in my sig for about a month, maybe a little more. Last week I downloaded BIOS15 and installed it with the FlashMenu program. Everything was ok for a few days, but now I'm getting a strange msg at POST.

"CPU is unworkable for has been changed - Please recheck - CPU Soft Menu"

I'm given the option to press F1 to continue, at which time I do and the PC boots normally. I haven't gone into BIOS too much yet, but I'm assuming there's a setting that v15 didn't like? Any idea which one it might be offhand? I don't know that I'm experienced enough in BIOS and with the C2D's in general to spot it at first glance.

Thanks!
Aaron

I've seen this after flashing to a new bios. You can first try going into the bios and "Load Optimized Defaults", F10 (Save & Exit), Y. If this doen't work then clear the CMOS, see page 75 in your manual on how to.


Canterwood:
"If it aint broke, I'll fix it till it is."

 

[BlueWeasel]

Has anyone noticed a decrease in the voltage offset and Vdroop when C1E and EIST are enabled?

With my overclocked E8400 and C1E/EIST both disabled, the voltage offset between the BIOS and CPU-z was around 0.08v (1.36v idle CPU-z) and further Vdroop at load increased it to 0.11v (1.44v set in BIOS, 1.33v CPU-z).

To see if I could get the power saving features to work and still be stable, I enabled both C1E and EIST. Now, CPU-z reports the idle voltage to be 1.40v with additional Vdroop of only 0.01v (1.39v at full load).

I know the large Vdroop and voltage offsets on the IP-35 series is well documented. However, with C1E and EIST enabled, the differences in voltage are less. Would the CPU-z voltages be considered accurate, or is C1E/EIST resulting in inaccurate voltage readings.

I apologize if this has been answered before or is common knowledge. This is the first Intel system I've had since the P3 days, so I'm still learning about specific features.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Originally posted by: amheck
Hey guys,

I've had the system running in my sig for about a month, maybe a little more. Last week I downloaded BIOS15 and installed it with the FlashMenu program. Everything was ok for a few days, but now I'm getting a strange msg at POST.

"CPU is unworkable for has been changed - Please recheck - CPU Soft Menu"

I'm given the option to press F1 to continue, at which time I do and the PC boots normally. I haven't gone into BIOS too much yet, but I'm assuming there's a setting that v15 didn't like? Any idea which one it might be offhand? I don't know that I'm experienced enough in BIOS and with the C2D's in general to spot it at first glance.

Thanks!
Aaron

If you haven't done so already, clear CMOS & load optimized defaults like so:

Remove power from the system.
Hit the power button to discharge the capacitors.
Move the CCMOS jumper (or switch) to the clear position.
Wait ~30 seconds.
Place the jumper (or switch) back in the normal position.
Restore power and boot up immediately into BIOS.
Select "Load Optimized Defaults" and set the recommended voltage for your RAM.
Save & exit.
On reboot, go directly into BIOS and set any other settings you wish, such as timings for your RAM, boot order, etc.

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: amheck
but now I'm getting a strange msg at POST.

"CPU is unworkable for has been changed - Please recheck - CPU Soft Menu"

that's a normal message on an abit on a new install or after clearing CMOS/flashing BIOS.
When it offers you to press F1 to continue it also offers Del to enter the BIOS.
Do so & set optimised defaults (if you have DDR2 that needs more than JEDEC 1.8V you'll then need to set that) save & exit, it should go away.

Originally posted by: MadScientist
I have emailed Abit and informed them of the loose SATA port on my MB. I will post their reply if I receive one. I have no intention of RMA'ing the MB. Other than the loose port the board is working flawlessly.

If you get a reply I suspect that it will be along the lines of offering RMA.

 

[hrbngr]

hokiealumnus,

thanks again for the reply. so, the e8400 is fast, but even w/it at 4.0ghz, how much faster is it than a similar E6750 at 3.6ghz--w/the same 8800GT vid card for most games?

basically, if it's only a few percent faster, and since most games are graphics card limited, not cpu bound, then the E6750 is still a better option--especially since there is no certainty that abit will offer a bios upgrade that resolves the variable temp issues w/the e8400s, right?

 

[hokiealumnus]

Originally posted by: hrbngr
hokiealumnus,

thanks again for the reply. so, the e8400 is fast, but even w/it at 4.0ghz, how much faster is it than a similar E6750 at 3.6ghz--w/the same 8800GT vid card for most games?

basically, if it's only a few percent faster, and since most games are graphics card limited, not cpu bound, then the E6750 is still a better option--especially since there is no certainty that abit will offer a bios upgrade that resolves the variable temp issues w/the e8400s, right?

It will be a little faster than an E6750; larger L2 cache and 400MHz will make a difference. Whether it will be noticeable is another question altogether. I'd go with not much, if any noticeable difference.

I would think abit will certainly release a BIOS that will fully support those chips; P35 chipsets aren't that old, so it would be a bad move not to IMO. If you want some conjecture, I have a feeling the chips themselves are part of the issue. There are numerous boards out there, not just abit, that are having issues with these chips, both Vcore and temps. Something is up. If it were a simple 'make BIOS that works with this chip', it would have been done already. I have a feeling even the engineers are having a hard time figuring this one out, which explains the lack of a fully-compatible BIOS. Again, pure conjecture; just my conclusion at this particular moment.

That said, if you want to definitely know your temps and what you're doing to your chip without any guesswork whatsoever, you're right, go with the E6750.

As a side note, whichever chip you decide on, you'd be well served with the DDR2-1000 RAM; both of them will be well into the 400s before they're done. I'm not mandating that G.Skill by any means, it's just been recommended by several people over at abit. If you can find better, go for it. I just trust the guys that are running it and recommending it over there.

 

[blahsome]

Interesting.... Took me a while connecting an old floppy to the new PC I'm building, just to discover that the IP35-E I got from newegg a couple of weeks ago already came with BIOS v. 15. Recognized my E8400 CPU and OCZ Ram without incidence. Nice.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Sweet. I saw one at abit today shipped w/ v.15 as well. Yay for abit updating shipping BIOS quickly. A benefit of them being so popular and selling out so quickly I suppose!

 

[Tullphan]

Originally posted by: Heidfirst

Originally posted by: MadScientist
I have emailed Abit and informed them of the loose SATA port on my MB. I will post their reply if I receive one. I have no intention of RMA'ing the MB. Other than the loose port the board is working flawlessly.

If you get a reply I suspect that it will be along the lines of offering RMA.

IF you get a reply?
That doesn't sound good.
I've never had to RMA a motherboard before & have no idea how long it takes them to respond to a problem submitted on their website. Should I call instead? Are they good for taking care of their customers or no?

 

[hokiealumnus]

They are usually good about it. There are a few that report time issues. We have an email address to a very nice and seemingly influential abit employee to pass on if it becomes a problem. Once he becomes involved, things move very quickly. Again, not usually a problem, but can be addressed if it becomes one.

 

[Iger]

Hey all,

sharing my experience just in case.
For me bios v.15 was plagued with problems. PC wouldn't even try boot with FSB set to 400 and would be crashing in OCCT even with no OC at all (prime95 and SuperPi were ok, though)

Once I went to v.14 - everything is great

I must say that if I knew I'd have to spend so much time tinkering with bios to make the board work well I'd think twice before buying it (on the second thought, I actually liked tinkering, so I'd probably buy it anyway ). A ton of reflashing and thousand topics read on forums is a bit too much to recommend it at least.

To BlueWeasel: with EIST and C1E turned on and 1.45v set in BIOS my cpu-z shows 1.400-1.408v under load.

rig: IP35, E6750@3200, 2x1GB Corsair XMS2 800, Sparkle 8800GT 512, FSP BlueStorm II.