*** Official ABIT IC7/G (875P) Thread ***

[JonnyBlaze]

just curious, do you have the ram in slots 1 & 3?


Matt

 

[KrAkPoT]

well i posted this a few poss ago but i need to figure this out by next week so here goes...


The DFI and Abit boards both got superbs ratings from abit and dfi reviews and more!!!! and im quit struck bc im not going to overclock my board anyway and the dfi ran a lil bit faster at default speeds and comes with more stuff so its between the Abit ic7-G or the DFI lanparty pro875 or the new Gigabyte 8KNXP non ultra... lol tufff choice

 

[JonnyBlaze]

well, iv never used a dfi board, and iv love the ic7-g so i would reccommend it.

are you going to overclock at all? im no expert at it but its very easy with this board. im running a 3.0ghz @ 3.5ghz

ill post some sisandra screenshots in a few minutes.

Matt

 

[KrAkPoT]

No more overclocking for me because last time i tried my PC was smokin (literally)

 

[KillerBob]

Yep, the RAM is in 1 and 3.

I "fixed" the AGP/PCI frequency, and was able to increase the FSB to 220, even leaving the DRAM Ratio at SPD. Everything is working fine, I just can't run the RAM at any lower settings than 2-5-3-3. BTW, why does some people wite it 2-2-2-5, when that's obviously not the order in the BIOS (the Act to Precharge delay can only go as low as 5)?

Also, I have neer heard from anyone that has set PS2-PWR1 jumper to 2/3, enabling wake-up function support at keyboard/mouse port. I can't get this to work, and I'd like to know if it is just me?

 

[Grit]

Originally posted by: KrAkPoT
well i posted this a few poss ago but i need to figure this out by next week so here goes...


The DFI and Abit boards both got superbs ratings from abit and dfi reviews and more!!!! and im quit struck bc im not going to overclock my board anyway and the dfi ran a lil bit faster at default speeds and comes with more stuff so its between the Abit ic7-G or the DFI lanparty pro875 or the new Gigabyte 8KNXP non ultra... lol tufff choice

If yer not OC'ing, I'd go with the Intel board.

 

[Grit]

Originally posted by: rival

Originally posted by: Grit

Originally posted by: Intelligence3
Newegg has one of the better reseller ratiings out there. I actually liked their shipping. I got my rushed item just fine, and everything was packed well every time. Their RMA is supposed to be quite good.

I'll vouch for that. I had to RMA my first two IC7-G's (Abit's quality control is NOT what it use to be). NewEgg is great, esp for RMA.s

hey what was wrong with your first two boards? Mine isnt working right..

Mine wasn't working at all. The first board locked up before ever POSTing, nothing would fix it (P4 2.4b). The second board was fine until I flashed BIOS from 1.0 to 1.1 and back to 1.0 (all following Abit's directions for the Alt-F2 method). The board then locked up, just like the first.

The 3rd board I got locked up, just like the 1st. I went out, bought an Asus board and a P4 3.0c. Just for fun, I tried the P4 3.0c in the IC7-G and POOF! It worked.

Best guess: Abit has some BIOS problems that cause the boards to lock up depending on what CPU it detects.

There are also several flaws in the Intel SATA RAID BIOS that have been discussed in other threads.

 

[SnowBoarder9455]

Whats the highest overclock you've seen on air cooling? I can't get past 275 FSB.

 

[rival]

Originally posted by: Grit

Originally posted by: rival

Originally posted by: Grit

Originally posted by: Intelligence3
Newegg has one of the better reseller ratiings out there. I actually liked their shipping. I got my rushed item just fine, and everything was packed well every time. Their RMA is supposed to be quite good.

I'll vouch for that. I had to RMA my first two IC7-G's (Abit's quality control is NOT what it use to be). NewEgg is great, esp for RMA.s

hey what was wrong with your first two boards? Mine isnt working right..

Mine wasn't working at all. The first board locked up before ever POSTing, nothing would fix it (P4 2.4b). The second board was fine until I flashed BIOS from 1.0 to 1.1 and back to 1.0 (all following Abit's directions for the Alt-F2 method). The board then locked up, just like the first.

The 3rd board I got locked up, just like the 1st. I went out, bought an Asus board and a P4 3.0c. Just for fun, I tried the P4 3.0c in the IC7-G and POOF! It worked.

Best guess: Abit has some BIOS problems that cause the boards to lock up depending on what CPU it detects.

There are also several flaws in the Intel SATA RAID BIOS that have been discussed in other threads.

well im running a 3.0c in this ic7-g, should i rma it and try again? or get a diff chip

 

[mngisdood]

Any luck with bios 1.3?

If no, RMA board.

 

[KrAkPoT]

Originally posted by: Grit

Originally posted by: KrAkPoT
well i posted this a few poss ago but i need to figure this out by next week so here goes...


The DFI and Abit boards both got superbs ratings from abit and dfi reviews and more!!!! and im quit struck bc im not going to overclock my board anyway and the dfi ran a lil bit faster at default speeds and comes with more stuff so its between the Abit ic7-G or the DFI lanparty pro875 or the new Gigabyte 8KNXP non ultra... lol tufff choice

If yer not OC'ing, I'd go with the Intel board.

Yeaa but im a hardcore gamer..and i heard the DFI has higher clockspeeds as seen in the review but the Abit -i7g was rated top choice for speed....Between the 2 board the Abit or the DFI which one?

 

[Wurrmm]

I vote Abit. I love mine!!! System fully functional and rock stable.

 

[mngisdood]

Both boards are similar in specs and performance iirc.

The DFI board comes with some 'gimmicky' stuff (reactive dye, carrying strap, etc) whereas the Abit board has a proven lineage of good support and documentation (read: abit forums). As I'm not a huge lan-er, I'll take the Abit.

 

[Intelligence3]

Originally posted by: Wurrmm
HOLY FAST!!! Loving this thing......copying all my backup stuff over my network now......instaling the basics......

Now that Windows is fully up and running my CPU is idleing at ~30C. My HD is actually ~30C also.

Hey...has anyone here who owns this thing put the Abt sticker or the Intel Inside sticker on your case???

Where are you getting the idle temps? BIOS? Just curious. Glad you got it working, bummer that your Serillel2 didn't work either. Sounds familiar. Maybe I should complain to Abit.

EDIT-- besides the BIOS and my hardware temp monitor, are there other ays to monitor my CPU temp? In some reviews I see screenshots of temperature monitors, but I don't know where they come from.

 

[Wurrmm]

My Antec HD cooling kit has 2 sensors and the LCD display switches between the 2 every so often. Right, now my comp is idleing and is at ~30C CPU temp and ~30C HD temp.

I have a general question. What are some of these new bios functions in the new bios:
Refresh Cycle Time (Set to Aggrssive)
Read Delay (Auto)
read Delay Adjust (Auto)
Command Per Clock (Auto)
Performance mode (set to Ultra)

CPU THRM-Throttling (63.5%)

Side note:
When running memtest86:
No errors when "Performance Mode" is set to 'Fast" or "Disabled" and mem at [2-3-3-7, 2.7v] and [2-3-3-6, 2.7v].
It seems that when Perfromance mode is set to Turbo and Ultra and/or the memory settings are set to 2-2-2-6.

However I read that memtest86 don't like dual channel or hyperthreading.

Any comments???

 

[Grit]

 

[Grit]

Rival - I'd RMA the board. You shouldn't be having any problems other than BIOS reporting high temps and some minor problems with the Intel SATA controllers. I like Abit board a lot, but in the last year or two, their quality control has slipped, and they seem to put out a lot of boards that don't run well out of the box.

KrAkPoT - I doubt the speed differences between boards will ever amount to more than 1 frame / sec. I'm a gamer too, and I've found that when you turn all the eye candy on (AA, AF, trilinear, dynamic lighting, etc.), boards based on the same chipset don't really perform any different unless you overclock 'em. That being said, I'd pick the board based on stability, features, and design preference, if you have one. I've got a windowed case, and I LOVE the 'black' PCB boards. I've never had a DFI board, and I don't read too much about them. I can tell you Abit's always had stable boards (when they get the BIOS settled). Your best bet is to read the forums on each manufacture's website and see what the owners are complaining about.

 

[thatsright]

Not really sure if this is possible with the IC7-non g, so if anyone knows, Thanks;

1. Can I run IDE-RAID with 2 drives hooked up to the SATA connectors, via the IDE>SATA Adapters? Of course I wouldn't do this for a few months, if ever.

2. One last thing, are the SATA adaptors that ABIT makes for this board proprietary? Anyone know if anyone else out there is making SATA adaptors that wont cost like $20-35 just for one drive.

Thanks

 

[Wurrmm]

Abit's serilells are top notch. However in general, compatability is still not what it could be. Mine worked great until I installed SP1 and then I kept getting hard locks at boot with my WD1800JB. I went back to IDE. I think If I had a smaller drive I might not have had the problem, but it is too late now. I should have bought 2 80GB drives and another serilell2 adapter like alot of people do.

 

[KillerBob]

...or just cave in and get 2 SATA drives They are soo quiet and the Seagate Barracudas are definately easy to work with.

 

[SysRaider]

I got this board a few days ago and I tried to get the raid to work but I couldn't. Can someone give me a detailed step-by-step explanation of what I am suppose to do. Thanks!
EDIT
I have two WD's Raptors and I want them Onchip raid and raid 0.
Thanks Again!

 

[Wurrmm]

Don't know if this is just coincidence, but after getting a couple random BSODs as a result of a "device driver," I decided to run memtest86 (sort of talked about this earlier). I got a bunch of errors with Perfromance mode set to Turbo and Ultra and/or the memory settings are set to 2-2-2-6. But I read that memtest 86 did not like dual channel or hyperthreading, so I ignred it and kept my settings at Ultra and 2-2-2-6 2.7v. After my 4th random BSOD, I turned the mem down to 2-3-3-6 2.7v and Performance Mode to Fast and ran memtest86. For the past couple of days on the looser settings, no BSODS, my system seems faster also, and no errors in memtest86. I am thinking either, this is all coincidence like I said, or my mem is just not good enough allow me to go faster. I am also not Overclocking and my mem even though is PC3500C2 is set to 400MHz.

I am gona get Prime95 and ScienceMark (If I can, never done this before) and try those on my aggessive settings.

Anybody else here get BSODS with aggressive timings??? Oh, I also had Refresh Cycle Time set to aggrssive which for some reason when set to aggressive and Performance Mode is set to anything but Ultra, doesn't get past Verifying DPMI Pool. Only when set to Auto will I get past there when Perfomance mode is set to Fast.

COMMENTS????

 

[Grit]

My memory timings are 2-3-3-6, but the memory I'm using (Corsiar XMS 512MBx2) supports that speed. I have read that LOTS of people are reporting that problems "go away" with the IC7-G when they ease up on the memory timing.

SysRaider, I'm sure this isn't as detailed as you want, but the short version is

1) Hook the drives up. I'd make an image of the data via Drive Image or Ghost too.
2) Go into BIOS, set the Intel SATA controller to "enhanced" mode and switch it from IDE to RAID. Save BIOS & reboot.
3) When the computer boots up, you'll see the Intel RAID BIOS load and tell you to press a key sequence to enter RAID BIOS (I think it's Ctrl-I, but I'm not sure).
4) Go into BIOS and define your RAID array with the two disks on the intel controller.
5) Install Windows XP and press F6 during install so you can provide the Intel RAID driver via floppy disk. Then proceed as normal.

I've never tried, but in theory, you should be able to skip step 5 if you skip step 4 first, boot into an existing Windows XP OS, install the Intel RAID driver, reboot, and then use the driver to create the RAID array. I've never tried this, so I don't know for sure how this works. Can someone else comment?

Now for the bad news: There are reported problems with Intel RAID, some in this thread. I'd suggest using the SI controller for RAID until the Intel problems are resolved.

 

[Wurrmm]

I was wondering if people could post some of their Bios settings like the ones in the Advanced Chipset Features??

 

[oldfart]

My IC7 + 2.6C here I use 2-2-2-5 mem timings. I can almost get "fast" performance mode working. It will cause a Prime95 error after an Hr or two if enabled.