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

[manimal]

update:


Man this board rox!!! I need so much less voltage to get 3.4 on this Quad than I needed on any of my evga 680s. I have it 4 hour stable at 3.4 with less than 1.4 Volts. I may reseat the Tuniq but I am loving this board right now. I am hesitant to go any higher since PWM gets to about 80 right now. gonna mod a loon or point a antec spot cool onto it. The vista install issues have gone away and I am getting my dual boot setup going right now.

Anyone facing their Tuniq in a different direction so it pulls air off the NB? I did this accidentally and dont really see a benefit since my pwm temps are 80ish at OCCT load or mid 70s in orthos.


M

 

[SerpentRoyal]

I use the Big Typhoon modded with 120 x 38mm medium speed Panaflo. Plenty of un-heated air going to the PWM heat sink to keep MOSFETs under 50C. You'll need a down-draft CPU cooler to get the most out of these quads. You can also strap a small fan to the PWM and NB heat sinks.

 

[manimal]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
I use the Big Typhoon modded with 120 x 38mm medium speed Panaflo. Plenty of un-heated air going to the PWM heat sink to keep MOSFETs under 50C. You'll need a down-draft CPU cooler to get the most out of these quads. You can also strap a small fan to the PWM and NB heat sinks.

Ya I was thinking of a long term solution to move some air over the NB and the mosfets. Gotta look up the warranty on these things to see if its like DFI, where you void warranty if you remove the NB or SB heatsinks.


My TJ 09 has a ton of space directly to the right of the motherboard with screw mounts for different board sizes. I may try to use a series of fans to blow over the ram and toward the mosfets to move positive airflow out towards the rear of the case where I have a poopload of fans.


Cant say how much I love this board!


: It had me at hello :



Edit: Anyone use a HR-05 on these with a Tuniq? Wondering if it would all fit

 

[SerpentRoyal]

No one is going to void the warranty because you removed those heat sinks. Beside, there are no warranty seal attached to the push pin.

 

[milan03]

Just popped in my e2160 replacement E6750.... OMG !!!! Right off the bat, without increasing any vcore only dram to 2.1 i booted to 450 x 8 !!!! 3.6GHz without adding any cpu voltage! I've got crucial ballistix, and have a feeling that RAM will hold me back. Right now I'm testing 3.8Ghz at 1.40V... so far so good.
And the temps!!!! OMFG! they were 5C when i first installed it in CoreTemp... i know adding 15c its about 20 degrees!!!! At 3.6 they were the same! Now since Ive risen the voltage they limb up to 17C idle and about 32C full load in orthos after 10min of testing large file.
Serpent, how far can i push this ram?

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: milan03
Just popped in my e2160 replacement E6750.... OMG !!!! Right off the bat, without increasing any vcore only dram to 2.1 i booted to 450 x 8 !!!! 3.6GHz without adding any cpu voltage! I've got crucial ballistix, and have a feeling that RAM will hold me back. Right now I'm testing 3.8Ghz at 1.40V... so far so good.
And the temps!!!! OMFG! they were 5C when i first installed it in CoreTemp... i know adding 15c its about 20 degrees!!!! At 3.6 they were the same! Now since Ive risen the voltage they limb up to 17C idle and about 32C full load in orthos after 10min of testing large file.
Serpent, how far can i push this ram?

Like I said, probably a bum E2160 CPU. A good chip will normally hit 3.6 to 3.7GHz. Download Coretemp 0.95.4. Run Othos large mode for 10 minutes. Peak core temp may be low by 15C.

Run Memtest86, test #5 for 50 loops to check RAMs.

 

[milan03]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal

Originally posted by: milan03
Just popped in my e2160 replacement E6750.... OMG !!!! Right off the bat, without increasing any vcore only dram to 2.1 i booted to 450 x 8 !!!! 3.6GHz without adding any cpu voltage! I've got crucial ballistix, and have a feeling that RAM will hold me back. Right now I'm testing 3.8Ghz at 1.40V... so far so good.
And the temps!!!! OMFG! they were 5C when i first installed it in CoreTemp... i know adding 15c its about 20 degrees!!!! At 3.6 they were the same! Now since Ive risen the voltage they limb up to 17C idle and about 32C full load in orthos after 10min of testing large file.
Serpent, how far can i push this ram?

Like I said, probably a bum E2160 CPU. A good chip will normally hit 3.6 to 3.7GHz. Download Coretemp 0.95.4. Run Othos large mode for 10 minutes. Peak core temp may be low by 15C.

Run Memtest86, test #5 for 50 loops to check RAMs.

Ok. At 3.7Ghz 463 x 8 Temps never exceed 34C (add 15C to that) after 10mins. THats pretty amazing in my book. Vcore 1.384 in Windows. Havent ran memtest86 yet.

 

[TungFree]

The cooler was not seated properly now it reADS cpu TEMP AT BELOW 40c.
And now I am installing windows XP successfully, into 2 partitions WinXP formated for the Sata 500 gig drive.

I will install just the bare OS without drivers then, back it up on the 2nd partition, as well as on another backup. Then I will install the 3 drivers one by one and back that up too. Then I will return to get guidance for over clocking, after testing it with Orthos. I have to go reread your suggestions and print them out on paper as well.

 

[milan03]

Should I increase northbridge/soutbridge V?
At 475 x 8 seems to be perfectly stable with 1.51Vcore in Bios and 1.448V in Windows. memtest86 ran fine for about 25 loops. didnt have patience to go 50. How far can these ballistix go man?
Temps did raise t 37C + 15.

 

[milan03]

Ok. At 488 x 8 = 3.9Ghz I had to increase vcore to about 1.5 in Bios which is 1.464 in Windows. after about 5mins, Orthos Failed. Ram Voltage is at 2.2. I'm gonna run memtest86 now at 488x2Mhz Ram bus and see if i can get 50 loops this time

Serpent, should I up the North/Southbridge if the memory doesnt fail ?

 

[milan03]

ok. Raised the vcore to 1.56, northbridge up 2 notches and southbridge 1 notch, but orthos crashes after 2 minutes.
HEre is the screenie 4Ghz

Serpent, what should i change to make it stable?

 

[TungFree]

I do not see any Intel drivers for Abit IP35-e on the Motherboard CD just an abit driver insall withot saying what they are. Do I install those fist? are they the Intel drivers you suggested?

 

[manimal]

Definately install the Intel chipset drivers which are on the cd, those are the ones you are probably looking at. Id grab the latest off the abit site, not sure what version is on the cd. I grabbed the ones from the site and they worked fine. Hows the temps on that zerotherm, not alot of reviews on that cooler.


M

 

[TungFree]

yes I just did that downloaded from Abit the 3 drivers and labeled each as what it is.

backed up OS with Intel, Audio, and LAN drivers on it after I was able to go out with google on the internet.


I do have orthos but cannot find the what to do with it. From memory it was run orhos for 10 minutes with large image ( think) do I run orthos from DOS or windows? and after that you said work with Vcore but that is too general to me.

I am so happy to have a working computer Big grin.

 

[manimal]

orthos on a quad requires you to open 4 instances of the prog with affinities set for each core so each core is stressed. Small ffts stress both memory and cpu while large is more cpu driven if I remember correctly. I use OCCT or the prime 95 beta that stresses all the cores for me, I dont like the hassle of Orthos on multicore.


BTW 8 hour stable at 3.4 @ 1.375 volts with this Q6600 with 4 gigs of 4x1 ddr800 ram. I could go higher I think but will not till I can figure out better NB cooling that costs less than 20 bucks.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: milan03
Ok. At 488 x 8 = 3.9Ghz I had to increase vcore to about 1.5 in Bios which is 1.464 in Windows. after about 5mins, Orthos Failed. Ram Voltage is at 2.2. I'm gonna run memtest86 now at 488x2Mhz Ram bus and see if i can get 50 loops this time

Serpent, should I up the North/Southbridge if the memory doesnt fail ?

You may need to bump NB and SB up one or two notches. Get graph paper and plot Vcore vs CPU speed. Expect to see a gain of 90MHz CPU speed with each 0.04V increase in Vcore. As you approach the saturation point of the CPU, you will need to add a lot more Vcore to gain a few additional MHz of CPU speed.

These chips are generally good up to about 500MHz FSB. Also note that you may be pushing against the upper limit of your RAMs and MB.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: TungFree
I do not see any Intel drivers for Abit IP35-e on the Motherboard CD just an abit driver insall withot saying what they are. Do I install those fist? are they the Intel drivers you suggested?

http://downloadcenter.intel.co...ter.aspx?ProductID=816

 

[imported_Husky55]

@serpent,

I am the one with the cold boot problem, i.e. ambient temp less than 63F=no boot.

So I got the RMA. What a horror that has been. Anyway that's a story for another day. I am keeping the original defective one because the one sent to me was much worse than the one I already have. Anyway, cross ship and charges are listed below for those interested:

Cross Ship Charge for (IP35-E) : $157

Upgrade Shipment Charge for (IP35E) : $15

Anyway, I usually shut down my system for the evening and use my laptop . Because of the cold boot, I am thinking of leaving my desktop on 24/7. I realize a lot of people do that.

My question is what do you do? I am interested because you are a pretty savvy person. And frankly, I have been following this thread since you started it and which led me to buy the IP35-E.



@TungFree, I am also happy you finally got your gig working!! What a trip it has been for you.

 

[bigblockchevy]

just a few more bugs on ip35e #2

sent MB #1 back for RMA yesterday . MB #2 works fine for the most part . going to the latest 14 series bios and plugging in all the fan headers with sensor equiped fans seems to make the cold boot issue a non-problem for the moment .

so i got one last niggley issue with it . after about a week over-clocked the MB will sometimes on a cold boot up from power down state--it will re-set the fsb clock back to stock and the multi throttling thing won't disable . once this is solved it should be a pretty solid platform .

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: Husky55
@serpent,

I am the one with the cold boot problem, i.e. ambient temp less than 63F=no boot.

So I got the RMA. What a horror that has been. Anyway that's a story for another day. I am keeping the original defective one because the one sent to me was much worse than the one I already have. Anyway, cross ship and charges are listed below for those interested:

Cross Ship Charge for (IP35-E) : $157

Upgrade Shipment Charge for (IP35E) : $15

Anyway, I usually shut down my system for the evening and use my laptop . Because of the cold boot, I am thinking of leaving my desktop on 24/7. I realize a lot of people do that.

My question is what do you do? I am interested because you are a pretty savvy person. And frankly, I have been following this thread since you started it and which led me to buy the IP35-E.



@TungFree, I am also happy you finally got your gig working!! What a trip it has been for you.

What are the issues with the replacement board? I'd call Abit and ask them to send you another board on their dime until the problem is fixed. They should also pay for return shipping of this "bad" board. Be courteous but firm. Elevate to upper management if needed.

If the only problem with your current board is the cold boot, then ask Abit to fix this board.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: bigblockchevy
just a few more bugs on ip35e #2

sent MB #1 back for RMA yesterday . MB #2 works fine for the most part . going to the latest 14 series bios and plugging in all the fan headers with sensor equiped fans seems to make the cold boot issue a non-problem for the moment .

so i got one last niggley issue with it . after about a week over-clocked the MB will sometimes on a cold boot up from power down state--it will re-set the fsb clock back to stock and the multi throttling thing won't disable . once this is solved it should be a pretty solid platform .

Did you killed standby power to the MB by turning off the PSU? Did you zero filled the HDD and clean installed windows with the Intel chipset drivers? Did you enabled C1E and EIST in BIOS? Did you flashed with the WB switch? Did you load Optimized Default after flashing? Are you sure you have a stable overclock (RAMs and CPU)? The MB will default back to 200MHz FSB if the overclock is not stable.

Go into the BIOS and set the boot HDD as the 1st boot device. Disable booting all other devices. I would avoid leaving USB card readers, USB HDD, and other USB devices connected to the MB during boot. USB mouse and keyboard are okay.

What do you mean by "multi throttling thing won't disable".

If problem persists, then try 12 BIOS with the PC slightly overclocked...205MHz FSB. Again load Optimized Default. Go back to BIOS and set FSB to 205MHz.

 

[imported_Husky55]

@serpent,

I meant do you run your gig 24/7 or shut it down for the day.

Frankly, with Abit RMA I am not willing to deal with them anymore. The board came in with thermal paste all over the socket even some on the pins. I cleaned them off. Then, mounted my Tuniq 120 which is a bitch of a HSF. I have bleeding knuckles, scratched fingers on both hands to show for it. Then the MB would not boot with my Crucial DDR2 800. I finally get it to boot with one stick.

Tried various VDimm 1.8-2.2, 3 sets of Crucial and G. Skill black DDR2 PC 6400. No boot with 2 sticks. Tried all different mem slots 1,2,3,4 combinations, upped MCH, ICH, CPU VTT no boot with 2 stick of I GB RAM. Every single stick would boot in any slot. Bizarre. Look like the memory controller is defective.

My RAM tested memtest 5 hours no errors. JEDEC specs.

Anyway, I figured I can live with the cold boot issue through the winter, besides with computer on 24/7 there will not be any boot issues.

I am planning on a new system when Yorkfield ships anyway. So this will be just a back up system.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: Husky55
@serpent,

I meant do you run your gig 24/7 or shut it down for the day.

Frankly, with Abit RMA I am not willing to deal with them anymore. The board came in with thermal paste all over the socket even some on the pins. I cleaned them off. Then, mounted my Tuniq 120 which is a bitch of a HSF. I have bleeding knuckles, scratched fingers on both hands to show for it. Then the MB would not boot with my Crucial DDR2 800. I finally get it to boot with one stick.

Tried various VDimm 1.8-2.2, 3 sets of Crucial and G. Skill black DDR2 PC 6400. No boot with 2 sticks. Tried all different mem slots 1,2,3,4 combinations, upped MCH, ICH, CPU VTT no boot with 2 stick of I GB RAM. Every single stick would boot in any slot. Bizarre. Look like the memory controller is defective.

My RAM tested memtest 5 hours no errors. JEDEC specs.

Anyway, I figured I can live with the cold boot issue through the winter, besides with computer on 24/7 there will not be any boot issues.

I am planning on a new system when Yorkfield ships anyway. So this will be just a back up system.

Have five IP35-Es in the lab. No cold boot issue below 63F. I turn off the PC when it is not in use. Call Abit and speak to upper management. You shouldn't have thermal paste on the CPU socket.

Be persistent and you will get a new working board. Also tell them that you will dispute the charge on the CC if they will not fix this problem.

Did you purchased this board from NewEgg? Call them to see if they will swap a new board for you.

Have you tested this board in Standby and hibernate mode?

 

[milan03]

Serpent, I think I'll stick with stable 3.8Ghz 375x8 @ 1.49V (1.43 Win) as it is 24/7 orthos stable. The other voltages are all default, memory is 2.1V. Temps ar 39C full load orthos 10min read from COreTemp 0.95.4 .
Serpent, tell me one thing... What is the difference in "Priority" setting in orthos? I tested the system under priority 1 and never failed. However under priority 9 it failed after about 9minutes.
Whats the deal there?
Thanks so much.

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: Husky55 Anyway, cross ship and charges are listed below for those interested:

Cross Ship Charge for (IP35-E) : $157

Upgrade Shipment Charge for (IP35E) : $15

mmm, you do realise that you'll get $150 back when you return the mobo?