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

[mindless1]

Originally posted by: trevor0323
Alas I just solved many of my OC'ing problems with this board, like many other posters who could not obtain a stable OC even with modest settings. After numerous failures I put my money on my PSU being the problem.

In the machine I have
Abit IP35-E, E2180, Adata DDR2 800 2x1gb, Thermaltake TR2 430w PSU

This is the PSU that has the most reviews on newegg and is a decent piece of a equipment for a modest system. The problem is that it is a single 12v rail and from some reading this board likes dual 12v rails better. The other more important problem is that it only has the 4 pin 12v plug for CPU power. As you know the IP35-E has the 8 pin for the CPU on the mobo although the manual states you can use the 4 pin however recommends the 8 pin. I plugged in my spare Neo power 500w PSU that I have been saving for my own rig as this PC is for my buddies. and sure enough I was able to OC to 3.0 Ghz with the 1:1:25 ram divider with memory timings of 4-4-4-12.

Since I didn't want to sell or give this PSU to my buddy I rolled the dice with the dynex case/psu combo at best buy posted in the hot deals. Luckily the PSU that came with had the 8 pin connector. The PSU claims to be 500w but is probably more like 350w, however this still will be more than enough for my buddies modest system. Anyways I am off to buddies to test this PSU and see if it will allow the same OC as the Neopower 500.


Cliffs for those having trouble OC'ing: MAKE SURE you use the 8 pin 12v cpu power connector on the mobo, and if your PSU does not have one replace it.

Just as a side note, I was wondering if they sell a 4 to 8 pin adapter for the 12v cpu power plug anywhere. This could have aslo solved my problems

Glad it's working for you, but I've no trouble at all o'c past 3.2GHz using a PSU with only 4 pin 12V connector.

When I did so, using voltmodded o'c 7600GT video card, total system power consumption was about 180W at the wall outlet, or roughly 180*0.75(% PSU efficiency) = 130W total system power consumption including a couple PCI cards, couple hard drives. That's an absolute max of under 11A on 12V rail, probably quite a bit lower as the other parts certainly used some 5V current as part of that total. That's almost peak load too, running Orthos and 3DMark it would go as high as 200W but that's only 20W more.

HOwever, you might easily have a more power hungry video card or more parts in your system, which carry their own power needs. Otherwise a dual rail PSU is not needed for this board. If you had some very power hungry part with very large current swings then maybe that part ought to be isolated on a separate power rail, but it's not a certainty either.

I'm thinking more than anything your PSU was simply overrated or wearing out, that the other differences between the old and new weren't relevant. You might keep it unplugged from AC for a few hours then pop the top off and see if any capacitors are failing.

 

[tornadog]

ok I have a problem...I set everything up last night but when I turned it on, I got a constant beep sequence like a fire engine alarm. But it booted up fine and showed the "cpu has been changed or unworkable " message, which I guess is normal. Just want to know what that boot sequence means before I pull everything out and put it all back again.

 

[Heidfirst]

the hi low siren is a fan rpm, temp or voltage value outside of set parameters.

 

[tornadog]

I am at work now but only thing I can think of is I connected the cpufan tot he sysfan instead of the cpufan as it was not reachable. could that be why?

 

[Heidfirst]

absolutely.
You can disable the low rpm fan warning on that header in the BIOS.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Hi folks! So I have now played with v.16final. Sorry for the delay since its release. Well, no more chit-chat, straight to the nitty-gritty:

The overclock used for all testing is as follows:

10x 300FSB (3.0GHz) @ 1.365Vcore
1:1.5 CPU : DRAM ratio (450MHz, or DDR2-900) with 5-5-4-15-2T timings @ 2.1Vdimm
(Why this OC? Because it's the one I tested the first BIOS I tested with...no sense in doing them ALL again. )

I ran five SuperPi 1M tests and a single test each of SuperPi 32M and WinRar's benchmark (time to crunch 100M, plus speed). Single tests were simply due to time constraints. Apologies for the formatting; the forum didn't like spaces.

SuperPi 1M test results:
BIOS----------1.-------2.-------3.-------4.-------5.--------Avg.
v.12----------19.125--19.093---19.078---19.078---19.078---19.088
v.13beta01--19.140--19.079---19.079---19.094---19.094---19.089
v.14beta04--19.172--19.141---19.140---19.157---19.140---19.146
v.14beta05--19.078--19.094---19.156---19.078---19.094---19.089
v.14----------19.094--19.110---19.125---19.094---19.109---19.104
v.15----------19.188--19.110---19.156---19.109---19.125---19.130
v.16beta01--19.047--19.032---19.031---19.047---19.047---19.042
v.16----------19.047--19.046---19.063---19.046---19.047---19.047
*Averages were obtained by throwing out the highest & lowest time, then averaging the remaining three times.

SuperPi 32M test results:
v.12-----------17min, 26.344sec
v.13beta01---17min, 26.594sec
V.14beta04 --17min, 21.391sec
v.14beta05 --17min, 29.859sec
v.14-----------17min, 26.875sec
v.15-----------17min, 32.922sec
V.16beta01 --17min, 26.844sec
v.16-----------17min, 30.766sec

WinRar benchmark:
--------Time to reach 100M------Speed
v.12-----------2:35--------------642KB/s
v.13beta01---2:35--------------643KB/s
v.14beta04---2:36--------------641KB/s
v.14beta05---2:36--------------641KB/s
v.14-----------2:35--------------642KB/s
v.15-----------2:36--------------638KB/s
v.16beta01---2:34--------------647KB/s
v.16-----------2.36--------------647KB/s

So, at least from my testing, v.13beta01 is very close in speed to v.12 and v.14beta04 is slightly slower than the other two. v.14beta05 seems to be on par with v.12 & v.13beta01, with v.14final coming in right in the middle. Bringing up the rear is v.15.

v.16beta01 still reign's supreme beating all the rest by leaps and bounds (relatively speaking of course). I actually had to open CPU-z to verify that I dialed in my OC correctly. I could have sworn I put in an incorrect (lower) memory timing or something. Nope; it was all identical. v.16final was very close in performance but ever so slightly slower than v.16beta01. As a bonus, they both give improved support for 45nm CPUs.

Additionally, the FSB reset issue when you remove power that presented itself with v.14 is still present in v.15. Shutting down & powering back on fixes it (restarting doesn't), but annoying nonetheless. Remarkably, whatever strange bug this was, I could NOT get it to reproduce itself with v.16beta01.

This one appears to be a win-win all around folks. For the first time since I began this testing, I can safely say v.12 will not be immediately re-flashed. Horray!!

Quick Disclaimer - If I had time to run more 32M tests, the obvious anomalies may work themselves out, but I don't.

In any case, all of these are too close to see any real world difference, but in case anyone was curious and/or you enjoy benchmarking or getting all you can out of your system for DC projects, this is how each of them perform. :biggrin:

NOTE - Had no time to test the FSB reset on power removal with v.16final. Will do it when I have a chance.

 

[Tweakin]

Nice work hokiealumnus!

 

[tornadog]

ok I dont know whats going on here. I finally got rid of the low fan rpm warning and cleared cmos and booted. everything came up fine and dandy, went into install XP and the system shutdown, tried again and system shutdown at a different point of the install. I then went into bios to check the cpu temperature and it was 102 degrees celsius, system temp was at 35 degrees celsius. Why is the cpu geting this hot. Today morning I turned on the machine from cold and saw the cpu temp going from 25 degrees celsius to 92 degrees in a metter of seconds and then I turned it off. I am using a decent aftermarket cooler and also AS5.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Sounds like you need to remount your cooler. Something is not making good contact. If you used too much AS5, that can turn into an insulator instead of an interface.

 

[Crusty]

So I just picked up an e8400 from Fry's and my IP35-E will be delivered in the morning. The guys at Fry's said I might have to flash the BIOS to get it to recognize the CPU.

From what I've read that's only if my board was made before sometime last September. The board is coming from Newegg, will I be able to run it right out of the box or will I have to do a BIOS flash first?

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

Originally posted by: Crusty
So I just picked up an e8400 from Fry's and my IP35-E will be delivered in the morning. The guys at Fry's said I might have to flash the BIOS to get it to recognize the CPU.

From what I've read that's only if my board was made before sometime last September. The board is coming from Newegg, will I be able to run it right out of the box or will I have to do a BIOS flash first?

I got my IP35-E from newegg like a month ago, and it was fine for my e8400, I think you'll be fine.

It would be worth it to upgrade to the latest rev 1.6 bios once you're all set up tho.

 

[Tweakin]

Originally posted by: Crusty
So I just picked up an e8400 from Fry's and my IP35-E will be delivered in the morning. The guys at Fry's said I might have to flash the BIOS to get it to recognize the CPU.

From what I've read that's only if my board was made before sometime last September. The board is coming from Newegg, will I be able to run it right out of the box or will I have to do a BIOS flash first?

Like Krakn3Dfx stated, most of the boards are shipping with v15 now, which is fine for your chip. I would also recommend that you flash to v16 as it adds some additional features and is slightly better for stability and oc.

 

[Crusty]

Yeah, I definitely was planning on upgrading to v16. The reason I asked was that if I had to flash the bios first I'd have to build this at work where I can get access to some older chips.

Is there any way to figure out what bios is on there without booting it up?

 

[Tweakin]

Originally posted by: Crusty
Yeah, I definitely was planning on upgrading to v16. The reason I asked was that if I had to flash the bios first I'd have to build this at work where I can get access to some older chips.

Is there any way to figure out what bios is on there without booting it up?

Nope. You will be fine, even if it comes with an older bios you can still boot and see what's going on.

 

[tornadog]

Originally posted by: hokiealumnus
Sounds like you need to remount your cooler. Something is not making good contact. If you used too much AS5, that can turn into an insulator instead of an interface.

I remounted the coller and its still giving the same issue. This time I made sure I only applied a line of AS5 like mentioned in the guide. I dont what to do. Also occasionally on reboots I am getting a unending series of long hipitched beeps, is that cpu or RAM....looks like something is going bad already???

 

[Heidfirst]

iirc continuous long beeps relates to RAM.

 

[tornadog]

but its pretty random and only happens when I boot up the pc and the cpu temp is already past the shutdown temperature set in bios which is 75 degrees celsius.

 

[Heidfirst]

maybe your idea of long then & abit/Award's is different?

when you are getting it if you open abitEq does anything show red?

 

[tornadog]

nothing shows red in abit eq. i have reseated the cooler in every possible way but temp is always 70 celsius at boot and then goes to 75 in 30 minutes which is my cutoff temp. So is my motherboard bad or has something gone wrong with the q6600?

 

[hvasishth]

Does anyone know if the memory listed here http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820145034 is compatible with this motherboard?

 

[Tweakin]

Originally posted by: hvasishth
Does anyone know if the memory listed here http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820145034 is compatible with this motherboard?

Wow...that's a great deal. I have heard that some of the higher vdimm chips (like this) require you to boot with one dimm or another ddr2 dimm to allow you to set the voltage in the bios...and after that it should be fine, but I'm not positive.

 

[hvasishth]

Originally posted by: Tweakin

Originally posted by: hvasishth
Does anyone know if the memory listed here http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820145034 is compatible with this motherboard?

Wow...that's a great deal. I have heard that some of the higher vdimm chips (like this) require you to boot with one dimm or another ddr2 dimm to allow you to set the voltage in the bios...and after that it should be fine, but I'm not positive.

I called consair support and they said that this motherboard is compatible with this memory

 

[Peav]

Originally posted by: hvasishth

Originally posted by: Tweakin

Originally posted by: hvasishth
Does anyone know if the memory listed here http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820145034 is compatible with this motherboard?

Wow...that's a great deal. I have heard that some of the higher vdimm chips (like this) require you to boot with one dimm or another ddr2 dimm to allow you to set the voltage in the bios...and after that it should be fine, but I'm not positive.

I called consair support and they said that this motherboard is compatible with this memory

It does indeed run fine with the IP35-e board. I use the exact same kit in my board.

Its default VDimm is 1.8V @ 5-5-5-18 timings. It however runs at 2.1V 4-4-4-12. This needs to be set once your booted. But it will boot at 1.8V Fine on default timings.

Overclocks easily to DDR 1000 @ 2.1V 5-5-5-12 timings.

 

[Winterpool]

Reassuring to hear that, as I've purchased the same memory for my Abit IP35-E. The reviews did suggest that, on initial POST, the memory would default to CL5 at standard 1.8V. Though I did pay the extra bucks for CL4 memory, I'm not sure if I'll really run it at 2.1V: would this be likely to shorten memory chip lifespan (akin to overvolting a cpu)? I'd rather have stability and longevity than the marginal gain of CL4 (so why did I pay more, heh?).

Have been collecting parts over the last two months and will at last commence my build tomorrow. Pray nothing is DOA.

 

[METALWORK]

Not sure where to post but I was inspired for my new build here so thought I would start here.

I have a problem. When I boot into windows, sometimes I get a stable system which passes Prime95 testing and has no apparent problems except multiplier stays at 6.0 even under full load (at default 9.0 in BIOS, change to 9.0 max on the fly with Crystal CPUID for now and it moves between 6.0 and 9.0 depending on load)

At other boots, system is basically dysfunctional. Vista games won't launch, Welcome Center doesn't open, can't access Control Panel etc., etc. I can either reboot maybe once or twice and get a stable OS or if that doesn't work shutdown and then get good Vista.

I haven't installed my floppy yet and haven't had luck with getting RAM testing to load on CD so I haven't exclusively tested RAM but blend in Prime95 ran for about 3 hours with no
problems.

I have updated drivers. I'm looking for advice, opinions on what I should do. I guess I could ignore the problem but I really would like to know what is up. Device Manager shows no problems. When I installed Vista on the second upgrade install the process stopped for and hour with no apparent activity and a faint Microsoft logo on the screen. I rebooted and
the install finished. I haven't connected online yet in case I need to wipe drive and do a fresh install.

I'm going shopping with my son for a game tomorrow and I'll let him check it out. Got a BenQ G2400W 24" and it looks really nice. I'm really sick about this, you know?

GO FLYERS!!