Initial impressions of the AX4C-Max

[WizardNJ]

I received my AOPEN AX4C-Max today and decided to put together the machine even though Intel has admitted a bug in the new P4 3.0 GHz cpu (800 fsb).

I assembled the machine with the following components:
AX4C-Max (had 1.00 bios initially)
P4 3.0 GHz - 800 MHz quad pumped cpu
2x twinx Corsair XMS3200LL memory
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
SB Audigy 2
2x Maxtor ATA133 7200 rpm 8 MB buffer 80 gig drives.
Sony DRU500a DVD+-RW
TDK 24x cdrw
Toshiba DVD-Rom

Assembly went smooth. THe manual did not state which memory slots were in pairs for dual channel memory operation. A call to AOPEN tech support was useless. Easy enough to figure out the two blue slots are the first dual channel bank (dimms 1 & 3). The two black dimm slots are the second bank (dimms 2 & 4)

I mounted the cpu using the stock Intel heatsink and fan even though I have an MCX4000 Swiftec. Theheatsink/fan for the new 3 GHz looked beefy enough.

The hard drives were connected master/slave to the parallel ATA slot for installation of the OS (Win XP Pro). I'm glad I did this as I had BIG problems with the on chip SATA controller (see below).

I booted the machine and had cmos checksum errors. I cleared the memory and the bios reverted to 100 MHz fsb and memory. Upon going into the bios I loaded the setup defaults. Each time I rebooted I got corrupted cmos. After hours of frustration and useless calls to AOPEN I found if I bumped the memory voltage from stock 2.5 volts to 2.7 volts it is stable. I went back into the bios and set the fsb to 200 MHz and memory to DDR 400 MHz. The memory is detected as dual channel on boot.

I loaded Win XP Pro, installed all the drivers and then decided to try and get the on chip serial ATA working. I had picked up two parallel ATA to SATA adapters. I instaleld the driver in XP before shutting down. Then reconfigured the drives for SATA operation. No post on boot. Tried several times, still no post.

I then moved the SATA setup to the Promise 378 SATA connections (SATA 3 and 4). I had already loaded the Promise SATA driver in XP. Rebooted and now running each driver as a raid 0 (single drive in each array). Drive performance is good for single drive. Getting 32450 in Sandra 2003 drive test.

Bottom line,
stock configuration will not work with memory at default 2.5 volts, needed to adjust to 2.7 volts.
On chip serial ATA (part of ICH5 Northbridge) does not work, no post, no boot.
Tech support was clueless with these issues.

Other than the above issues the board is running nice and fast now. Just took 11 hours to do a 2 hour job.

Please if anyone is reading this who will be reviewing the AOPEN board please test the issues I had. I have two more AX4C-Max boards arriving tomorrow. I am going to swap out one to see if the on chip serial ATA works.

Dave

 

[oldfart]

Is there a way to run the memory asynchronously? Some sites report 875 boards as having an option to run 800 MHz FSB and DDR320. This would be great for overclockers since overclocking an 800 MHz FSB CPU @ DDR400 to start will run into memory limitations very quickly.

 

[logo20heli]

I loaded Win XP Pro, installed all the drivers and then decided to try and get the on chip serial ATA working. I had picked up two parallel ATA to SATA adapters. I instaleld the driver in XP before shutting down. Then reconfigured the drives for SATA operation. No post on boot. Tried several times, still no post.

I'm getting my AOpen AX4C Max tommorrow.

While reading over the specs at the AOpen site, I noticed that they had a new BIOS released (R1.02) and the comment says: "Fixed SATA HDD detecting issue." Perhaps that BIOS would allow you to use the ICH5R SATA connections.

BIOS is available HERE

 

[WizardNJ]

I did try the new bios and had the same results with not being able to use the ICH5 SATA. Using the Promise 378 raid SATA now. Board still has a problem where if it is off for more than 5 monutes at a time I get corrupted cmos. AOPEN techs seem to think it is a defective board and they have sent a replacement that will be here this afternoon. I also have a second board arriving today for another 875 machine I am building.

This board has two ATA100 parallel ATA connectors (4 IDE devices), 1 Promise parallel Raid connector (2 ide devices), 2 Promise serial ATA raid connectors (2 SATA devices), and 2 ICH5 SATA connectors (2 SATA devices). So there is plenty of connections for hard drives. I.m running the drives as stand alone drives on the Promise SATA connectors. I set up two raid 0 arrays with one drive in each. I've found they are quicker than using the parallel ATA133 connecotrs (when tested on the Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Ultra)

And to answer Oldfart's question - yes, the ram can run async. You can enter the cpu FSB in 1 meg increments and then set the mem multiplier to 1.00, 1.33, 1.6, or 2.00
So a fsb of 200 MHz and ram multiplier of 2.00 is 400 DDR. 200 FBS x 1.6 ram multiplier is 320 (it does not do 333). I've tested running the board at 200 fsb and ram @ 266, 320, and 400. Only at 400 DDR did I ahve to increase ram voltage to 2.7 volts. This is with Corsair XMS3200LL matched pair 256 meg modules.

The machine is VERY fast. All benchmarks show a very nice improvement over my P4 2.4 running on the Gigabyte 8PE-667 Ultra (I845PE).

Dave

 

[Wesley Fink]

I had the same problems with ICH5 SATA on an evaluation Springdale board supplied by Intel several weeks ago. SATA and drives were recognized in BIOS, but the drives would not initialize in boot no matter what I did. None of the review sites are paying attention to SATA which is VERY surprising since the inchip ICH5 SATA should be blazingly fast. Are they not paying attention because no one can get it working? If that's the case then the additional SATA controller will be welcome on those boards that have it, like the AOpen.

One other thing to consider. We have had horrible problems with the overly aggressive SPD programming of Corsair LL on the SiS655 Dual-Channel boards. Many boards wouldn't even boot with the SPD on Auto. We found you had to get into BIOS somehow (often required cheap memory with a relaxed SPD) and set manual memory timings in BIOS. I wonder if you get off AUTO and set your mem to 2,6,2,2 or 2,7,2,2 if the Corsair would work properly and your system would now be stable. Worth a try.

Please let us know how your replacement and new boards work in on-chip SATA.

 

[jpetermann]

I am very interested in the ICH5 sata. That is what I wanted to run my drives on. I have not really cared for Promise controllers in the past, though I will give this a shot if the ICH raid is not working properly.

PJ

 

[Fallen Kell]

Please keep us informed about the progress. Since there are so few reviews still out there, a first hand experience if VERY welcome, especially concerning the SATA issues. I would agree though, with the tech support that the board sounds very defective. Hopefully this just happened to be a poor sample of their overall quality, and that all their boards are not having these same problems....

 

[oldfart]

Have you tried any overclocking yet? I'm curious to see how the 800 MHz FSB CPU's do.

 

[jpetermann]

I WANT SOME SCREEN SHOTS!!!

hehe...

PJ

 

[jpetermann]

By the way Wizard... you said you have an mcx4000... would you check and make sure it will fit on the board. THat is what I have, and I don't want any surprises. THat NB hsf has me a littel worried...

 

[Spicedaddy]

And to answer Oldfart's question - yes, the ram can run async. You can enter the cpu FSB in 1 meg increments and then set the mem multiplier to 1.00, 1.33, 1.6, or 2.00

Nice, it looks like the 800FSB CPUs will be a good option for overclockers after all. I want a 2.4C...

 

[Fallen Kell]

In other news...Intel to begin shipping 3.0 chips again sometime next week (or so they say)...

 

[Thor86]

Heh, you'd think they would automatically set the vdimm to 2.7 for 200fsb.

 

[WizardNJ]

I just got in from work (that 4 letter word!) and have two new AX4C-Max boards. When I went to boot the machine (which was shut down but power still applied to the board) it came up with corrupted cmos. A reboot loaded in defaults and I was able to go into the bios and make the changes and it booted. Once booted it runs very stable with fsb 200, mem ddr 400, 2, 2, 6, which is auto timing of the spd.

As far as the MCX4000, it will fit but hits the power connector for the Northbridge fan. You can bend the power plug slightly or just reconnect the Northbridge fan elsewhere. The MCX4000 does clear the Northbridge fan and capacitors. I opted for the stock heatsink/fan that came with the new 3.0GHz 800 fsb cpu since it has a copper inlay and finned cooling. Nice design.

I have to grub a digital camera if anyone wants pics of the board installed. I can post whatever screenshots of benchmarks within the OS. Normally I have 3dMark 2003, Sandra 2003, Quake3, and Unreal 2003 installed. Let me know if there are any other benchmarks availabel for download and I'll be happy to run them on this board.

Off to swap the motherboard and test again.

Dave

 

[cbuchach]

Since I am planning on picking up the AOpen board you have, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, a nice high resolution photo of the board would be great! And I am very interested to hear any more reports of issues you have with the board, since I too was planning on using the same Corsair RAM you purchased and also use the SATA RAID available on the ICH5R.

 

[P4spooky]

Dave:

Good job. The CMOS corruption issues may be because of Corsair LL modules NOT Recommended for Canterwood?

Thanks, Sri

 

[WizardNJ]

well I did the motherboard transplant. Still corrupted cmos errors when the memory is running at 400 MHz. Won't even boot at 400 unless I pump the memory voltage up to 2.7 volts. Motherboard still will not post with hard drives connected to SATA 1 & 2 (ICH5 on chip SATA). Will boot and run from Promise SATA (SATA 3 & 4).

Going to bring it over to the dealer tomorrow and test with Corsair XMS3500C2 as was recommended in a link someone else has posted.

AOPEN tech non-support asked me to send an email detailing my machine layout so they can email their engineers. In other words, don't hold my breath.

Dave

 

[cbuchach]

Regarding the use of the Parallel to Serial ATA adapters, I just read recently on Intel's website that these are not supported with the new ICH5R southbridge. It didn't specifically say that it won't work, rather that Intel does not support that configuration. I know I found this in one of the FAQ's. Maybe someone can help out with a link??

But this might also be a reason that you are having trouble booting your SATA devices off the Intel SATA adapter.

 

[WizardNJ]

Good point. I can live with the drives on the Promise SATA or even the Promise parallel ATA if that is the issue. But the memory problem bothers me.

Hopefully a pair of XMS3500C2 modules will fix that.

Dave

 

[brinjin]

Wizard did you read this http://www.dwpg.com/content.php?contid=24&artid=252 on the Corsair memory issues yet? It specifically talks about the modules your using as being problematic.

 

[WizardNJ]

Yes, that is why I am bringing the machine over to the dealer tomorrow to test with the XMS3500C2 modules. If they run at 400 MHz and 2.5 volts then I will pay the $15 more for them.

Thanks for the linky

Dave

 

[althes]

WEll thanks for the heads up. Will be on the lookup for those screenshots

 

[Megatomic]

I was reading THIS THREAD over at the Abit forums. You should check it out WizardNJ. An Abit rep. is posting about his experiences with an Abit Canterwood motherboard. He had to raise his Vdimm up to 2.8V to get his memory to run properly. I don't think this is a "problem" and it's certainly not limited to just Aopen's boards.

Hope this helps.

 

[WizardNJ]

Thanks, he was running @ 2.8 volts @ 480 mem.

I think the XMS3200LL dual ddr matched pair isn't a good match for the Canterwood chipsets. Others have sent links showing some of the reviewers found problems with my memory (HardOCP for one). I'm going to the dealer tomorrow to swap out the memory for the XMS3500C2 modules and they can test it on while I am there.

FYI, I am playing around with overclocking and have the cpu 2 225 fsb = 3.375 GHz with memory multiplier @ 1.6x = 360 MHz. Solid. Sandra 2003 mem scores went up from 4636/4646 to 4915/4918.

Another thing I've found is the AGP/PCI divider readjusted itself when I raised to FSB to 225 to keep the AGP at 66 and PCI at 33 MHz.

How can I post screenshots or does anyone know a free website I can up some screenshots to?

Dave

 

[Wesley Fink]

I'll try again. Posted this yesterday based on my reviewing experience with Dual-Channel DDR boards and Corsair LL:

"One other thing to consider. We have had horrible problems with the overly aggressive SPD programming of Corsair LL on the SiS655 Dual-Channel boards. Many boards wouldn't even boot with the SPD on Auto. We found you had to get into BIOS somehow (often required cheap memory with a relaxed SPD) and set manual memory timings in BIOS. I wonder if you get off AUTO and set your mem manually to 2,6,2,2,1 or 2,7,2,2,1 if the Corsair would work properly and your system would now be stable. It seems to fix the Corsair LL instability problems on the SiS655 and is worth a try."