/long_rant_on
1st mobo Abit IP35 - I lived with the annoying double boot issue which was eventually fixed by a bios update about 6 months after I bought the board.
Then however, with the advent of winter I discovered the board would refuse to even post when the room was colder than 60f. Fine, I lived with that for a while as well as I didnt want to be without my computer for rma or have to pay for advance rma (and have them sit on my deposit for 5 months as seemed to be the norm).
Eventually the board decided to not boot half the time regardless. Bought mobo #2, rma'd the abit (planning to sell the refurb board I would get back) which was replaced by a refurb board that was warped badly enough that it wouldnt sit flat on the standoffs w/out significant force. Gave it away to a friend with the caveat that it could stop functioning at any time.
2nd mobo Gigabyte EP35-DS3L- Everything seemed fine at 1st, no kooky dual boot issue, didn't require a space heater nearby to boot on a cold day. For the 1st couple months I had the board I was only playing age of conan which runs so poorly half the time for most people I wouldnt have attributed any performance problems to the board.
After I quit conan I started to notice some odd stuttering in the cutscenes of the next couple games I played. A little research led me to some threads about dpc latency with the EP35 series boards. Downladed the checker, sure enough it was bouncing around into the red regularly and when the stuttering was happening in the games, latency would be going through the roof as high as 300000 milliseconds.
Tried disabling different devices, updating drivers, 4 different beta bios, nada. My system dual boots either xp pro 32bit and vista ultimate 64bit. Both had the same latency issue. Did the problem make my computer unusable, no. Did it significantly reduce my enjoyment of playing games, yes. So since game are one of the main things I do on this computer I decided to try once again.
Everything I read suggested the DPC issues were resolved with the p45 chipset so. . .
3rd mobo Gigabyte EP45-DS3L- I cheated and swapped my system over without reinstalling. I knew that this could cause some issues but wanted to try it to avoid yet another full reinstall if possible. Everything seemed fine, the drivers were actually almost all the same.
But. . .launch the latency checker in vista 64 and there go red bars again at idle. Lauch my saved game right before a cutscene in quake 4, same crappy stuttering accompanied by dpc spikes. Streaming video and audio online, similar problems. Updated the bios to the latest, no change. Made sure I had the latest drivers, still no change. Tried xp pro, the problem seems much reduced, but I hardly use xp any more so that doesnt solve the problem.
Test time. Rather than wipe the vista drive right off and start over, I tried installing a spare 80 gig drive and putting a clean install of vista on it.
My other 2 drives arent even in the computer now.
There's no additional software installed.
I unplugged my usb hub, Canon all-in-one, unplugged my logitech G15 and gaming mouse hooked up a basic keyboard and mouse.
and. . .
DPC is still spiking like a mad dog
I'm at a loss. I can return this board to newegg but I don't know what to buy instead. ASUS P5Q (I've seen reports that people are having problems with those too though)? A non-gigabyte X38, X48 (although I really dont want to have to pay the premium just to get a board that works). After the crappy build quality and support from Abit, I don't feel too inclined to buy another of their boards. Nforce? Ugh, Ive had bad experiences with them in the past.
Let me say that while I make no claims to be a genius with computers I do have a pretty good idea what I'm doing. I've built 20-30 systems over the past 10 years and I do 1st and 2nd level computer support for a living.
I state this because it seems like in threads like this inevitably someone feels the need to say "hur u sux @ cumputerz
1st mobo Abit IP35 - I lived with the annoying double boot issue which was eventually fixed by a bios update about 6 months after I bought the board.
Then however, with the advent of winter I discovered the board would refuse to even post when the room was colder than 60f. Fine, I lived with that for a while as well as I didnt want to be without my computer for rma or have to pay for advance rma (and have them sit on my deposit for 5 months as seemed to be the norm).
Eventually the board decided to not boot half the time regardless. Bought mobo #2, rma'd the abit (planning to sell the refurb board I would get back) which was replaced by a refurb board that was warped badly enough that it wouldnt sit flat on the standoffs w/out significant force. Gave it away to a friend with the caveat that it could stop functioning at any time.
2nd mobo Gigabyte EP35-DS3L- Everything seemed fine at 1st, no kooky dual boot issue, didn't require a space heater nearby to boot on a cold day. For the 1st couple months I had the board I was only playing age of conan which runs so poorly half the time for most people I wouldnt have attributed any performance problems to the board.
After I quit conan I started to notice some odd stuttering in the cutscenes of the next couple games I played. A little research led me to some threads about dpc latency with the EP35 series boards. Downladed the checker, sure enough it was bouncing around into the red regularly and when the stuttering was happening in the games, latency would be going through the roof as high as 300000 milliseconds.
Tried disabling different devices, updating drivers, 4 different beta bios, nada. My system dual boots either xp pro 32bit and vista ultimate 64bit. Both had the same latency issue. Did the problem make my computer unusable, no. Did it significantly reduce my enjoyment of playing games, yes. So since game are one of the main things I do on this computer I decided to try once again.
Everything I read suggested the DPC issues were resolved with the p45 chipset so. . .
3rd mobo Gigabyte EP45-DS3L- I cheated and swapped my system over without reinstalling. I knew that this could cause some issues but wanted to try it to avoid yet another full reinstall if possible. Everything seemed fine, the drivers were actually almost all the same.
But. . .launch the latency checker in vista 64 and there go red bars again at idle. Lauch my saved game right before a cutscene in quake 4, same crappy stuttering accompanied by dpc spikes. Streaming video and audio online, similar problems. Updated the bios to the latest, no change. Made sure I had the latest drivers, still no change. Tried xp pro, the problem seems much reduced, but I hardly use xp any more so that doesnt solve the problem.
Test time. Rather than wipe the vista drive right off and start over, I tried installing a spare 80 gig drive and putting a clean install of vista on it.
My other 2 drives arent even in the computer now.
There's no additional software installed.
I unplugged my usb hub, Canon all-in-one, unplugged my logitech G15 and gaming mouse hooked up a basic keyboard and mouse.
and. . .
DPC is still spiking like a mad dog
I'm at a loss. I can return this board to newegg but I don't know what to buy instead. ASUS P5Q (I've seen reports that people are having problems with those too though)? A non-gigabyte X38, X48 (although I really dont want to have to pay the premium just to get a board that works). After the crappy build quality and support from Abit, I don't feel too inclined to buy another of their boards. Nforce? Ugh, Ive had bad experiences with them in the past.
Let me say that while I make no claims to be a genius with computers I do have a pretty good idea what I'm doing. I've built 20-30 systems over the past 10 years and I do 1st and 2nd level computer support for a living.
I state this because it seems like in threads like this inevitably someone feels the need to say "hur u sux @ cumputerz
Gonna buy an ASUS if/when mine dies and have virtually no problems. The small premium is well worth it imo.
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