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

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JonnyBlaze

Diamond Member
May 24, 2001
3,114
1
0
Originally posted by: legendma
Running into a issue with my Abit IC7 and was wondering if anyone has simliar problems. I've got a P4/2.4C that will do 283 FSB all night long prime95 stable. This is the problem. I've gone through 4 different brands of 512MB PC3500 DDR, ie Buffalo, Kingston HyperX, Mushkin Black Label and now Corsair XMS.. No matter what I did, couldn't get any of them to run prime95 stable at 270 FSB w/ a 5:4 ratio which puts the ram at 434DDR specs.. Prime95 crashed right away.. If I try 1:1, ie 217 FSB for 434DDR, no problems.. I even tried underclocking the ram, ie 270FSB w/ a 3:2 ratio for 360DDR and still not prime95 stable..

Here's the kicker, I've also got two Corsair 256MB PC3500C2.. These have no problem running at 270 FSB at 5:4 or 3:2 under prime95.. Seems the Abit has a problem with 512MB modules at beyond certain FSB.. Highest I believe I was able to get stable was 250FSb w/5:4 ratio for 400DDR.. Anything above 250+ and it would fail prime95..

I've read elsewhere that others were having FSB problem with two 512MB modules and trying to get above 250+ FSB.. So anyone here successful with two 512MB PC3500 modules with a FSB above 270+?? Thanks..

i have 2-512meg sticks of corsair xmw 3500. that must be why i cant get above 235fsb.

Matt
 

thatsright

Diamond Member
May 1, 2001
3,004
3
81
Originally posted by: legendma
Running into a issue with my Abit IC7 and was wondering if anyone has simliar problems. I've got a P4/2.4C that will do 283 FSB all night long prime95 stable. This is the problem. I've gone through 4 different brands of 512MB PC3500 DDR, ie Buffalo, Kingston HyperX, Mushkin Black Label and now Corsair XMS.. No matter what I did, couldn't get any of them to run prime95 stable at 270 FSB w/ a 5:4 ratio which puts the ram at 434DDR specs.. Prime95 crashed right away.. If I try 1:1, ie 217 FSB for 434DDR, no problems.. I even tried underclocking the ram, ie 270FSB w/ a 3:2 ratio for 360DDR and still not prime95 stable..

Here's the kicker, I've also got two Corsair 256MB PC3500C2.. These have no problem running at 270 FSB at 5:4 or 3:2 under prime95.. Seems the Abit has a problem with 512MB modules at beyond certain FSB.. Highest I believe I was able to get stable was 250FSb w/5:4 ratio for 400DDR.. Anything above 250+ and it would fail prime95..

I've read elsewhere that others were having FSB problem with two 512MB modules and trying to get above 250+ FSB.. So anyone here successful with two 512MB PC3500 modules with a FSB above 270+?? Thanks..


Seems like I'm having the same prob. I have the same setup and use Kingston HyperX PC3500 512MB X2. I can get Prime95 & 3DMark2001SE Demo Loop to run for maybe a hour max, before it crashes and this is @ FSB268. But I was running it at Vcore 1.525, Vdimm 2.8V, 5:4 Divider, CAS by SPD, PSB800.

Did you run your setup with the same settings? If not, what where your SoftMenu settings?
 

thatsright

Diamond Member
May 1, 2001
3,004
3
81
For anyone who has sucessfully O'Ced their IC7, I have 1 question.

Did you set your 'IDE Bus Master' to enabled, or disabled? I have mine to enabled, and I am wondering if this causing problems with my O'Cing attempt.

Thanks
 

mngisdood

Senior member
Sep 15, 2002
844
0
0
Originally posted by: thatsright
For anyone who has sucessfully O'Ced their IC7, I have 1 question.

Did you set your 'IDE Bus Master' to enabled, or disabled? I have mine to enabled, and I am wondering if this causing problems with my O'Cing attempt.

Thanks

I played around with this setting on the IS7, and it made no difference, in terms of overclocking ability. I"m assuming that this woudl be the case for the IC7 too, as they are pretty much the same board...

 

roystarman

Member
Jun 5, 2003
36
0
0
dwb22 I would run all the test it takes about 25 minutes per cycle. The last few are really long. If it runs for several hours okay then your memory is in good shape. Another program called Prime 95 is good but you need XP up long enough for it to work. Memtest86 runs standalone outside of windows so it doesn't put the XP load to a test. If none of this works I don't have any other ideas tapped out. Perhaps load XP again if isn't a pain in the XXX. I've loaded Office and virus scan so it would be a pain to reload it again. Yes I actually use this computer for work!

I was able to use the game accelerator if I only use 2 sticks of RAM. The speed gains were about 150 to 200 in Bandwidth for street racer. Didn't try F1. So now I'm deciding wether to live with a little less bandwidth or more memory or with less and more bandwidth. I sent these results to A-BIT tech support maybe they will look at fixing this someday with a new BIOS Update. Since I do work with office applications a lot, I'll probably leave the extra memory in for now.

All of my memory passes multiple hours of Prime95 and MEMTEST 86 longest so far is been over 12 hours on each and it was still tunning. Last night with aggressive settings of 2,5,2,2 I got 6 hours of prime 95 before it died. Went back to 2,6,2,2 and will leave it at that. With 2,6,2,2 memory bandwidth with all 4 sticks and 1.4 BIOS is about 4800.
 

dwb122

Member
May 30, 2003
76
0
0
I made the bootup disk for memtest86, brought up the computer with it, hit enter, and it just scrolled through or listed a bunch of stuff for several minutes and wouldn't stop. Is it supposed to do that?

Also, would using Prime95 instead of memtest be sufficient? The computer usually won't restart on its own as long as I'm not interacting with it.
 

legendma

Senior member
Jan 27, 2000
975
0
76
Originally posted by: thatsright
Originally posted by: legendma
Running into a issue with my Abit IC7 and was wondering if anyone has simliar problems. I've got a P4/2.4C that will do 283 FSB all night long prime95 stable. This is the problem. I've gone through 4 different brands of 512MB PC3500 DDR, ie Buffalo, Kingston HyperX, Mushkin Black Label and now Corsair XMS.. No matter what I did, couldn't get any of them to run prime95 stable at 270 FSB w/ a 5:4 ratio which puts the ram at 434DDR specs.. Prime95 crashed right away.. If I try 1:1, ie 217 FSB for 434DDR, no problems.. I even tried underclocking the ram, ie 270FSB w/ a 3:2 ratio for 360DDR and still not prime95 stable..

Here's the kicker, I've also got two Corsair 256MB PC3500C2.. These have no problem running at 270 FSB at 5:4 or 3:2 under prime95.. Seems the Abit has a problem with 512MB modules at beyond certain FSB.. Highest I believe I was able to get stable was 250FSb w/5:4 ratio for 400DDR.. Anything above 250+ and it would fail prime95..

I've read elsewhere that others were having FSB problem with two 512MB modules and trying to get above 250+ FSB.. So anyone here successful with two 512MB PC3500 modules with a FSB above 270+?? Thanks..


Seems like I'm having the same prob. I have the same setup and use Kingston HyperX PC3500 512MB X2. I can get Prime95 & 3DMark2001SE Demo Loop to run for maybe a hour max, before it crashes and this is @ FSB268. But I was running it at Vcore 1.525, Vdimm 2.8V, 5:4 Divider, CAS by SPD, PSB800.

Did you run your setup with the same settings? If not, what where your SoftMenu settings?

I ran at 270, 275, 283 FSB all using 5:4 ratio and vCore of 1.65 and VDimm at 2.8.. All 4 brands of ram failed Prime95 at this setting.. Using two 256MB Corsair PC3500C2 with the same setting, had no problem.. Prime95 ran all night long.. Looks like a Abit issue to me as I can't believe I got bad sticks of ram from all 4 brands, ie Buffalo Tech, Kingston HyperX, Mushkin Black Label, and Corsair XMS..


 

Wurrmm

Senior member
Feb 18, 2003
428
0
0
I just got my replacement stick of 512Mb XMS PC3500C2 and it individually tested out great with memtest and Prime95 at 400Mhz, 2-6-2-2, 2.7v Game Accelerator set to Turbo. Both chips idividually tested excellent. When I put both 512s in and tried running at 400Mhz 2-6-2-2 Game Accelerator set to Turbo I got a BSOD in XP after logon even though Memtest showed no errors with both. When turned down to 400Mhz, 2-6-3-3, 2.7v Game Accelerator set to Turbo Every works super fast and stable. Although 400Mhz, 2-6-3-2, 2.7v did not have a BSOD right away, when I was puting a serious load doing things, I got a BSOD. Memtest showed no errors at faster times and I am wondering what the deal is. With bios 1.3, and my old bad stick of ram (individually it had all kinds of erros at stock settings), I could run at 400Mhz, 2-6-2-2, 2.7v Perfromance Mode set to turbo and Ultra (Streetracer and F1 Modes I believe) and get memtest errors, Prime95 failure after 7-9 hours but no instant BSOD after logon and it seemed pretty stable also.

Right now, I am running 400Mhz, 2-6-3-3, 2.7v Game Accelerator set to Turbo and Prime95 has been going for 12 hours so far and I have gotten no BSODs. I am thinking I might test my new stick and even my old one for alot longer with the memtest.
 

Tom

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
13,293
1
76
Would anyone with an IC7 be interested in running the new version of CPU-Z and post here whether it says PAT is enabled or not at various combinations of bootstrap settings, FSB speeds, memory ratios, etc ? To see if PAT is enabled look under the memory tab of CPU-Z.

I'm particularly interested if CPU-Z reports PAT enabled on an IC7 when the 3:2 and/or 5:4 memory ratios are used ? And if PAT is still reported as being turned on at higher FSB speeds ?

TIA

Link to cpu-z 1.18c download
 

legendma

Senior member
Jan 27, 2000
975
0
76
Originally posted by: Dead Parrot Sketch
Would anyone with an IC7 be interested in running the new version of CPU-Z and post here whether it says PAT is enabled or not at various combinations of bootstrap settings, FSB speeds, memory ratios, etc ? To see if PAT is enabled look under the memory tab of CPU-Z.

I'm particularly interested if CPU-Z reports PAT enabled on an IC7 when the 3:2 and/or 5:4 memory ratios are used ? And if PAT is still reported as being turned on at higher FSB speeds ?

TIA

Link to cpu-z 1.18c download

Well I'm at 283 FSB with a 5:4 ratio. Bootstrap is set at FSB800 and CPUZ 1.18c said Perfromance Mode was Enabled.. Guess it is enabled even on ratios??
 

jdogg707

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2002
6,098
0
76
I just got a 2.8C chip and did some Sandra memory benches and I'm concerned that they are really low...At Default settings with DCDDR400 (2-3-3-7) I am getting 4358/4376 and when I OC to 3.0GHZ (220FSB) I get practically the same score even though it's running in DCDDR350 (2-3-3-7) with a 5:4 Memory Divider! What's going on here? I just put my Kingston PC3500 in there, which replaced my Geil Ultra Platinum, and at the same DCDDR400, but at 2.6GHZ I would get in the 4800's! What do I need to enable to get my memory score back up? I am using the new 1.4BIOS but had the same problem with the 1.3 BIOS. Thanks.
 

KillerBob

Member
May 3, 2003
145
0
76
jdogg707,

Disconnect all your USB devices. I was having the identical problem, until I left my cardreader out of the startup cycle. Without it connected I am getting 5K MB/s, with it 3.3K MB/s!
 

jdogg707

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2002
6,098
0
76
I'll do that, thanks for the tip...how can you tell how much mem. bandwidth a device is taking up?
 

kevinlsw

Junior Member
May 26, 2003
3
0
66
Hi all,

I am not sure whether this has been mentioned here before, but seems like the IC7/IS7 series have a serious mic and sound problem on the onboard sound. There is a loud popping and cracking sound when the volume is high and when the MIC is plugged in, the sound will go all bizarre and stuff (even worse if mic boost is enabled).

There are LOTS of angry customers out there who experienced this problem (see the link below and prepare for a long read). Someone is even gathering people for a CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT against ABIT because Abit hasn't been addressing this issue at all.

Abit USA Forums IC7 Sound/Mic Problem

See the problem is somebody suggested it's a PCI interference problem in the motherboard so even though you are not using the onboard sound, it could still fug up your video card or your standalone PCI soundcard as well!!!! The only way to fix it is to RMA the board.

I could easily reproduce the problem when the mic is plugged in or when playing GTA3 (at first I thought it was a problem of my speakers). There's always this loud popping noise when I navigate through the menu. And although I am not a big sound fan or anything, the idea that it will screw up my video card and other PCI cards scares me.

What do you guys think? I hate to RMA things.


 

KillerBob

Member
May 3, 2003
145
0
76
Originally posted by: jdogg707
I'll do that, thanks for the tip...how can you tell how much mem. bandwidth a device is taking up?

It's a long and tedious trial-by-error. I disconnected everything, rebooted, and connected one at a time, rebooting after every connect. If I just connect my cardreader, it's OK, but if I reboot with the cardreader connected my RAM gets slower??? It hasn't helped at all to change drivers etc. However, my cardreader is one of the devices I usually only use when my camera is full of pictures, so I'll live with it not permanently connected.

I have the follwoing USB devices, and only the cardreader was the guilty one: Hub, ADSL modem, Webcam, PDA, MP3 Player, Printer, and Scanner. I have my mouse and keyboard on the PS2s.:confused:
 

Tom

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
13,293
1
76
"Well I'm at 283 FSB with a 5:4 ratio. Bootstrap is set at FSB800 and CPUZ 1.18c said Perfromance Mode was Enabled.. Guess it is enabled even on ratios??"

Thanks for the reply. I'm just trying to find out if this function of CPU-Z actually seems to work. Any chance you would want to see if it still shows at enabled if you change to a 3:2 ratio ?

 

jdogg707

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2002
6,098
0
76
Originally posted by: KillerBob
Originally posted by: jdogg707
I'll do that, thanks for the tip...how can you tell how much mem. bandwidth a device is taking up?

It's a long and tedious trial-by-error. I disconnected everything, rebooted, and connected one at a time, rebooting after every connect. If I just connect my cardreader, it's OK, but if I reboot with the cardreader connected my RAM gets slower??? It hasn't helped at all to change drivers etc. However, my cardreader is one of the devices I usually only use when my camera is full of pictures, so I'll live with it not permanently connected.

I have the follwoing USB devices, and only the cardreader was the guilty one: Hub, ADSL modem, Webcam, PDA, MP3 Player, Printer, and Scanner. I have my mouse and keyboard on the PS2s.:confused:

Tried it with only my mouse hooked up and am still getting the same scores, didn't have this issue before with my system...all I did was take out my AIW 9700 Pro, pop in a 9800 Pro...take out my Geil Ultra Platinum PC3500 and replaced it with Kingston HyperX PC3500...popped in a Leadtek WinFast 200XP Deluxe TV Tuner Card...I cleared CMOS, started machine and started getting lower scores, updated to BIOS 1.4...scores a little better but nowhere near what I had before! Here's my complete system run down:

Intel Pentium 4 2.8C @ 3.22GHZ (Default Vcore) (Thermalright SLK-900U w/ Thermaltake SmartFan II)
Abit IC7 (Bios 1.4)
1GB Kingston HyperX PC3500 DDR RAM (2.7V and 2-3-3-7)
2 x WD Raptor in RAID 0 on Intel ICH5R
1 x WD 120GB Special Edition
Lite-On 52x24x52 CD-RW
Lite-On 16x DVD-ROM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB Video Card
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Sound Card (PCI 2)
Leadtek Winfast TV2000XP Deluxe TV Tuner Card (PCI 3)
Netgear MA311 Wireless PCI Card (PCI 4)
Logitech MX700 Cordless Mouse (USB)
Logitech Elite Internet Keyboard (PS2)
Logitech QuickCam 4000 Pro (USB)
Dell Axim PC Cradle (USB)
Hewlett-Packard PSC 2210 All-In-One (USB)
Antec SX1040B w/ 5 Case Fans and Antec TrueBlue 480W Power Supply
Microsoft Windows XP Professional w/ Service Pack 1

What could I have possibly changed, I had the low memory scores before, but when I completely cleared the CMOS and set everything to Optimal settings and then changed them to my personal settings I got great memory scores...but now, after trying the same things I am not getting anywhere...any other tricks? Thanks.
 

roystarman

Member
Jun 5, 2003
36
0
0
Originally posted by: dwb122
I made the bootup disk for memtest86, brought up the computer with it, hit enter, and it just scrolled through or listed a bunch of stuff for several minutes and wouldn't stop. Is it supposed to do that?

Also, would using Prime95 instead of memtest be sufficient? The computer usually won't restart on its own as long as I'm not interacting with it.

Yes memtest86 will display a screen that shows in one corner the status of the cycle running and the percent of the test in progress. It also give you sme idea of what it is doing. At the bottom is a list o number of cycles and number of errors. It is very good checking memory but it doesn't work through XP so if you ave a problem there. It will not find it. As for prime 95 it is very CPU and memory intensive and if it fails after a short itme then you most likley have either a memory problem or a timing latency problem. You should be able to get eoither of them to run all night with no errors. If XP dies while you are interfacing with it, and you are sure that is the case, try reloading or upgrading your drivers for video, and whatver USB devivesw you maybe using. Intermittents are a real pain the XXX to find you may want to check and see what your CPU temp is perhaps youa re getting to high.
 

dartworth

Lifer
Jul 29, 2001
15,200
10
81
Originally posted by: Steeldragonnyc
its come down to abit ic7-g or the SY-P4I875P DRAGON 2 (Platinum Edition) . your thoughts please :confused:




abit or asus...stay away from soyo

just my opinion:)
 

roystarman

Member
Jun 5, 2003
36
0
0
Well even though I said I nver planned on OC' ing, I gave it a try last night. I didn't go radical and try to 3.6 M out of a 2.4 or even a 2.8, instead I bumped my 2.8 to 3.0, I had to relax the timings a little to run at 1:1 I'm at 215MHz FSB which is an data rate of 430 if I calculate correctly. I don't want to go much higher since it is already approachin the PC3500 range and I only have PC3200 ram. Currently I'm at 2.5,7,3,3 It ran prime 95 allnight. The only negative is that the CPU runs 2degrees C warmer than before. The WInbond Hardware monitor reprots about 49 vs 47 and when running prime 95 it shoots up to 61 and an occasional 62, vs the 59 to 60 it normally ran at stock. These higher than expected temps scare me and I know that ABIT claims they are accurate and reflect the temperature inside the chip vs on the case but it is scary none the less. the Spark 7 heat sink with the automatic fan adjustmment pushes to 5200 rpm on occasion during these tests. At idle it is in the 3500 rpm range. I consistenly get memory bandwidth ofoover 5000 now with the whole 2 gig installed.

Oh BTW there is another IC7 Beta BIOS out (1.5). Anyone a BETA user yet try it out?
 

KillerBob

Member
May 3, 2003
145
0
76
Yep, I installed it yesterday, and it is running smoothly. I finally broke 20K in 3DMark2001 with a small OC (200-225), at DRAM 1:1, N/B Strap at PSB800, and my Corsair XMS3500 RAM at 2-3-3-6. Thus far, to increse FSB > 215MHz, I have had to decrease the DRAM ration to 5:4.

I don't know why, but I feel better leaving the DRAM at 1:1, but with a lower FSB, than increasing the FSB on account of the decreased DRAM speed.

I can't find anything wrong with the latest two BIOSes (14 and Beta 15). They both increased the 3D scores by about 2.5%, and have allowed me greater stability at higher FSBs. GO FOR IT.
 

Wurrmm

Senior member
Feb 18, 2003
428
0
0
Finally got all my bios settings set to one that I am happy with: I let Prime95 go 25 hours before turing it off. 0 errors or warnings.

Mem 2x512 XMS PC3500C2 @ 400Mhz, 2-6-3-3, 2.7v
CPU and Bus @ Default (2.8Ghz and 800Mhz)
Game Accelerator mode set to Turbo

All I need now is to upgrade my GPU and I will be set.
 

JonnyBlaze

Diamond Member
May 24, 2001
3,114
1
0
Originally posted by: KillerBob
Yep, I installed it yesterday, and it is running smoothly. I finally broke 20K in 3DMark2001 with a small OC (200-225), at DRAM 1:1, N/B Strap at PSB800, and my Corsair XMS3500 RAM at 2-3-3-6. Thus far, to increse FSB > 215MHz, I have had to decrease the DRAM ration to 5:4.

I don't know why, but I feel better leaving the DRAM at 1:1, but with a lower FSB, than increasing the FSB on account of the decreased DRAM speed.

I can't find anything wrong with the latest two BIOSes (14 and Beta 15). They both increased the 3D scores by about 2.5%, and have allowed me greater stability at higher FSBs. GO FOR IT.

its much better to have a higher fsb and lower the ram a little.

i ran alot of tests on my own system too see what i liked better. i can hit 220fsb with my ram 1:1, but i run at 230fsb and the ram at 5:4 and the system is alot faster overall.

JBLaze
 

Courtney

Junior Member
Jun 21, 2003
1
0
0
IC7-G MAX3!!

Here's the anouncement......on a french website:

http://www.clubic.com/n/n9147.html


I translated that french site at a translation URL:

"Abit exposed of exclusiveness in Russia its next mother chart Pentium 4: Ic7-g max 3. This chart like the other models IC7 and Ic7-g, is based on the chipset i875 and thus supports the frequency of buses of 800 MHz and memory DDR400 doubles channels using 4 sites report. In addition to that this chart will propose: - 1 port AGP 8x - 2 ports Serial ATA 150 RAID + 2 another ports Serial ATA - 5 ports NCV - 8 ports USB 2.0 - audio Solution 6 channels (Realtek) - Network Gigabit (INTEL) - 2 FireWire ports But the large innovation is at the level of the cooling OTES which was placed on certain condensers & MOSFET (on the flat rim of the chart) to improve the stability of the system in particular at the time of the overclocking. Here some photographs of this chart published by our fellow-member ixbt, for the moment no price, nor date of availability was announced."


My current board is an Abit BX6 rev 2 and so I'm anxious to get a new board.. The site listed specs of this new board seem less than the current IC7-G, like only one RAID system, I think.

Can anyone tell from the pictures any details? I did notice the upgraded N.B. cooling which is probably more efficient and quieter. Also the cooling shroud in the MOSFET area. Was this a problem area? I don't recall any forum(s) comments of this area being a problem.

I would appreciate any comments from you guys.

Is this MAX3 worth waiting for? Thanks for any knowledge/comments you can share................Courtney