the Abit IN9 32X-MAX thread

revenant

revenant

[H]F Squad Captain
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ok party peeps.. new mobo in the house.. mine is in the mail.. I am sure some of you already have one and more should be showing up here soon.. let's try and make a good thread for help and info on this board. :)

I am hunting down some replacement NB and SB coolers for mine.. I will swap those first thing, after I can validate my board works.

I am thinking about this for the south bridge and maybe this for the north bridge. I have a TT extreme spirit II but I think it's too tall to play well with my Tuniq Tower..
 
I've been waiting for this board. Anyone know of any reviews for it yet?
 
I'm gonna skip this one.

It seemed like some of the folks at XS were experiencing some of the same issues as the earlier 680i boards. IIRC, a few guys reported SATA corruption and a few other things.
 
yes.... the xs thread here has some of those details.. I'm obviously hoping I don't experience any of those issues.. especially the SATA issues.. I will be running my primary disk off a rockraid controller..
 
revenant said:
yes.... the xs thread here has some of those details.. I'm obviously hoping I don't experience any of those issues.. especially the SATA issues.. I will be running my primary disk off a rockraid controller..
Click to expand...

I probably wouldn't worry about it. There were a lot of folks with the earlier 680is who didn't have any problems either.

The unhappy always have a louder voice then the content. lol
 
Arklight said:
I probably wouldn't worry about it. There were a lot of folks with the earlier 680is who didn't have any problems either.

The unhappy always have a louder voice then the content. lol
Click to expand...

You are right... the unhappy always make a big deal out of it..

thats why I ignore them
 
Does anyone know how this board compares the the eVGA 680i? Is it really worth the extra $100?
 
personally, I found Abit boards as the most stable.. no problems at all

that evga board came out at launch date of the i680

and this one is just coming out, which abit took time to design/engineer
 
Another great looking board from Abit but a little overpriced IMO.

Report back with results I am curious where it stacks up against 975 and other 680 chipsets. :D
 
Having owned a bunch of 680i motherboards, I'll share my thoughts.

I've owned the following:

eVGA 680i
ASUS Striker Extreme
ASUS P5N32-E SLI

eVGA 680i
Originally plagued by SATA corruption issues, and sound problems. The SATA and sound problems were corrected with BIOS P23 and P24. (Some users found their problems resolved in P23, and others in P24.) This board is very stable and is quite a capable overclocker, and is actually one of the cheapest 680i boards out right now. Typical FSB overclocking ceiling: 450-520MHz

ASUS Striker Extreme
Extremely stable, although somewhat tricky to work with depending on the memory used with the board. The board requires alot of massaging in the overclocking department. sound issues were possibly worse than those of the eVGA 680i and were only corrected with BIOS 0802 released a week ago or so. Typical FSB overclocking ceiling: 420-480MHz

ASUS P5N32-E SLI
Almost identical to the Striker Extreme. Typical overclock ceiling is roughly the same as the Striker Extreme. it's quality and issues seem to be roughly the same. Typical FSB overclocking ceiling: 420-480MHz.

I haven't worked with any other 680i boards, but I'd like to. Hopefully I'll be getting one to work on soon.
 
Dan_D said:
eVGA 680i
Originally plagued by SATA corruption issues, and sound problems. The SATA and sound problems were corrected with BIOS P23 and P24. (Some users found their problems resolved in P23, and others in P24.) This board is very stable and is quite a capable overclocker, and is actually one of the cheapest 680i boards out right now. Typical FSB overclocking ceiling: 450-520MHz
Click to expand...

Right now the Evga 680i motherboard cannot overclock Quad Core processors by increasing
the FSB. People at Evga are currently working on it though.
http://www.evga.com/community/messageboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=25339

Just something else that people should be aware of...
 
mentok1982 said:
Right now the Evga 680i motherboard cannot overclock Quad Core processors by increasing
the FSB. People at Evga are currently working on it though.
http://www.evga.com/community/messageboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=25339

Just something else that people should be aware of...
Click to expand...

I am glad that someone posted in here about that. I don't ever hang out at the XS forums. I just don't like it there.

Anyway, that's of particular interest as I'm sure there are going to be more and more people trying to use quad core CPUs on the eVGA 680i boards.
 
Thanks Revenant for starting this thread.. Although somewhat briefly, I've spoken to Revenant about my upcoming build that includes the IN9 32X-MAX.. I should receive this board, late tomorrow evening (friday 01-25-07).. That's all I'm waiting on.. I will be doing a fresh install of Win XP on a brand new Samsung 500gb 16mb cache sata hard drive.. I've tried to really stay with decent components..

I will be doing an SLi setup with my PNY 8800GTS's, so that will be a little bonus (for those who are wondering how SLi performs on this motherboard).

I've also talked briefly with Yellowbeard (Corsair guru on the Abit Forums) and he has been playing with this Abit motherboard.. Since I have Corsair Dominator 8500C5D, this hopefully will work in my advantage..

Rounding out my build, I will be installing the following:

Intel E6600 (week 28)
Vigor Gaming Monsoon II Thermal Electric Cooler
Enermax Galaxy 1000w Gamers Edition PSU
(6-7) 120mm Thermaltake / Masscool fans (with a fan controller)

I'll be installing it all in my Thermaltake Shark Case (modded for plenty of airflow). I'll be sure to include any encountered problems (or any problems that I found a resolution for). It will probably be mid Saturday before I can start posting any info on my progress.

I'm also eyeing those SB/NB cooling solutions!
 
That's going to be a sweet machine. :D

my mobo should be here Monday.. it's ok because I got invited to beta test LOTRO this weekend.. yay for that.. been looking forward to this game. :)

and check this out:

neweggshipping said:
Estimated delivery
01/29/2007


Destination
TIBURON, CA, US
Service type
GROUND
Weight
9.00 LBS
Click to expand...

9LBS?!?! lol.. I think they puts some rocks in my box. ;)


edit: I ended up ordering a Microcool NorthPole Whisper XE for my NB and a Vantec CCB-A1C for the SB... I know the NP XE is a lot of $ for a chipset cooler but it looked too slick to pass up. I wanted something silent, with no lights, and that was almost overkill for the application.. it really fit the bill well..
 
OK.. i got the motherboard today...



this board is just quality.. no trouble whatsoever

the back of the board has some blue flashing leds.. which look cool

the bios options are just big.. you can change alot of stuff..
and is easy to navigate..

the heat pipe solution looks kinda big in person
 
Good to see that the Zalman 9700 fits w/out any hassle, is what I was planning on getting with my IN9
 
Mine came in the mail today. Got everything together, booted, CMOS battery dead. Went to store, new battery. Boot again, start WinXp install, hangs up. CC post code (CMOS jumper in wrong position). Thinking maybe manual mislabeled CMOS jumper position, tried switching jumper... nope, wont even boot. Switch jumpers in 10,321 different positions. Nothing, still posting stupid CC postcode. Started taking things out of case one at a time. Nope. Got down to 1 stick ram and power connections hooked up sitting on cardboard box, still posting stupid CMOS jumper in wrong position code. I'm ready to smash this POS. No tech support till Monday, business hours.
 
you've checked the ClearCMOS switch as well as the jumper?

try the abit-usa forum if tech support is closed.
 
if you absolutely have to have the newest stuff, your going to be doing a lot of rma's. i probably know abit and asus rma address by heart (from the p2/p3 days) also epox (from the athlon/barton days)and dfi (a64/x2/opty) leadtek gainward and pny. also pqi (tccd rma'd about 6 times) msi (ive never had an msi board that worked. ever) and ocz.
i could be mistaken, but i think with new products the qa isnt totally in place, and the factory workers are having startup issues with the new products.
 
Got my board in late last night.. I woke this morning and I have been working methodically and patiently, trying my best to route cables, excess wires, etc.. I did run into an installation problem.

On this board, when I installed my Vigor Gaming Monsoon II Thermal Electric Cooler (TEC), I was unable to install my Corsair Dominator Ram in DIMM slot #1. Soooo.. I simply removed the actual fan off of the TEC and was able to install the RAM that way..

Now I have encountered another problem. Aside from running (2) 8800GTS's in SLi (which SEVERELY limits my space), I have NO way of installing the Dominator Cooling fans on top of the Dominator Memory as it interferes with the TEC's fan.

I've done a decent job of keeping the motherboard clutter-free of any wires, cables, etc. I don't have any room for a NB/SB fan so now I am left with fabricating some kind of bracket(s) to house some 80mm/92mm fans to keep my NB/SB/RAM nice and cool. I will post some pics very shortly.

Those are semi minor issues and aside from those little obsticles, this install is going rather well. This has to be one of (if not the most) cleanest motherboards to date that I've worked with! I'm pretty darn impressed with its general layout. I KNOW I have a lot of stuff to cram in my Thermaltake case and this board compliments my layout very well.

I need to upload my pictures to photobucket and as soon as I can, I will post my progress. I'll be back in a little while to keep tabs/update this thread.
 
officermartinez said:
Those are semi minor issues and aside from those little obsticles, this install is going rather well. This has to be one of (if not the most) cleanest motherboards to date that I've worked with! I'm pretty darn impressed with its general layout.
Click to expand...

couldnt have agreed more

the layout of the board is impressive.. makes things alot easier to setup..
I am very satisfied with going with this board
 
Scooter - wow that sucks.. well, yeah, try the Abit forum links above, as we have very little knowledge of this board right now... sounds like you did the right stuff tho.. run a minimal hardware config trying to sort out the issue.. did you try re-seating the cpu ? maybe you got a bad mount? just a thought... what bios version do you have? can you post enough to flash your bios to one of the new beta versions?

I hope my board is good.. it's out of stock now @ the egg.. gah! I will be keeping my p5w dh for sure as a backup... it's been such a great stable board for me.. I almost hate to give it up.. but no SLI support. double gah. oh well.. I'm going to try and remain positive about the IN9.. as stated above, with bleeding edge new stuff there are always problems.. and for those with problems, let's hope they get sorted out soon. :)

Office and Aztlan - yay for that. glad to her your like the board. Mine cometh monday. :D
 
Buff,
yes, I tried the EZ cmos in different positions as well as the jumper (4 possible combinations norm-norm, norm-short, short-norm, short-short). Reseting the cmos battery every time. the only position I could get a boot out of was norm-norm, but it wouldn't last long and the board would post the cmos jumper code. Twice I got far enough to start my OS install, but it crashed both times.

Officer Martinez,
the layout is great. the only connection i have difficulty with is the ATX12V1, since I have a TJ09, my PSU is bottom mounted and it is a stretch, not only that the plug is almost under my TT120.

Rev,
thanks for the support, I posted my problem on the Abit forum right away, but help has been slow coming, I think my problem is fairly unique, maybe no one has had it before. I didn't write down my bios version the two good boots i got, but it's whatever it shipped with. I did reseat cpu, visual inspection of mobo doesn't show any indication of a scratch or crack that may have caused a short. I wish I knew if I could bypass the ezcmos switch on the back of the board, cheap looking little switch seems like it could be the problem. thanks again guys.

-Scotty
 
I would love to see some stability testing done with this mobo. If it proves rock solid I will be buying it.
 
Well I'm back.. I just finished installing everything.. I took several pictures ..I've included this one.. I haven't even powered it up yet, so hopefully everything works..LOL!

_______

DSCN7876.jpg


_______

If ya wanna see more pics of the install, you can go here: http://s41.photobucket.com/albums/e255/officermmartinez/E6600 8800GTS SLi/

I will be back a little later with an update on the performance numbers..
 
officermartinez said:
Well I'm back.. I just finished installing everything.. I took several pictures ..I've included this one.. I haven't even powered it up yet, so hopefully everything works..LOL!

If ya wanna see more pics of the install, you can go here: http://s41.photobucket.com/albums/e255/officermmartinez/E6600 8800GTS SLi/

I will be back a little later with an update on the performance numbers..
Click to expand...

What case is that? Reason im asking is that it has 2 fans on the bottom and that looks like a good idea. Or is that a mod job?
 
so did it work Office?

by the way you made me do some wiring to my case

unfortunately since is a praetorian coolermaster case I am constrained by the length of the cables and space from the case
so this is the best I could do lol

Click for fullsize
Click for fullsize
 
Thanks y'all.. Those pics didn't turn out as well as I had hoped.. I didn't have my big flash on my camera so the finished product looks only "OK".. I will take more pictures soon.. I had (am having right now) a huge issue with my TEC.. It's causing all sorts of error codes on this motherboard. I am getting the 8.7. (CHECK CPU CORE VOLTAGE) error on the motherboard LED read out.. I am also getting the 8.E. (CHECK CPU FAN SPEED) error as well.. I must have reset the CMOS 50-70 times, removed the battery, switched the clear cmos switch on the back of the motherboard, etc.. Every error pointed to the CPU so I finally "unplugged" the TEC portion of the Vigor Gaming Monsoon II and VIOLA! No more errors.. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I'm not happy with that but atleast I am loading windows right now and I will go from there.. All I can do is talk with Vigor Gaming Tech to see what they say.. So until I can talk to them, I am left at "normal" speeds. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Aztlan - Awesome! Good job.. BTW, I own (3) coolermaster cases myself (Centurion 5's). I love em.. They breathe really well! I definately like the Praetorian!

Lazy_Moron - I am using the Thermaltake Shark Case. The fans on the bottom of the case is a mod job that I did. LMAO.. Got a new style cordless dremel and I make excuses to use it.. haha. My case has been chopped, re-inforced, re-worked, re-wired, parts fabricated and powder coated.. LOL! I am still debating on fab'ing some kind of bracket(s) to keep my NB/RAM cool.. I think my SB is fine because there is plenty of air from the 120mm fans hitting it.

$cooter - LOL.. I wish I had a job in the PC field.. I am stuck in law enforcement. I just like tinkering with computers.. hehe.

Revenant - Thanks bro!! Once I get my TEC on track, doing what it's supposed to do, I will start posting OC's on my E6600 & on my 8800GTS's.. Obviously, I have to run orthos / prime 95, 3dmark06, CPU-Z for validation, etc..

I'm kind of bummed out about this little hiccup but I'm sure it will get resolved one way or another.. I do have a question however.. Initially, when I was first able to boot up, I went into the bios.. I assumed the BIOS was similiar to the BIOS on my DFI Lanparty.. So I went to "Intergrated Periferals" to "enable" my USB Keyboard and USB mouse. The only options for a USB keyboard / USB mouse is: BIOS or OS.. Hmmmm.. Which one should I choose?
 
Try plugging the TEC right into the PSU via adapters... don't use the mobo headers.. TEC's draw a lot of power and will for sure overload a mobo header. Like plugging a laser printer into a small ups. :p anyways... then disable the cpu fan monitor in the bios.. that option has been around since watercooling got popular.. you often need to do that to fix such issues.. disable it so the mobo doesn't freak out about it.

LOL.. yeah, I hate waiting for format. gah! formatting my two 300gb seagates in raid0 took 2 hours I think.. I was going nutz waiting.. recently I formatting two 74gb raptors in raid0, took about 10 mins. maybe less. :)

EDIT: Aztlan - nice work! I am digging the red theme :)
 
have no clue as to your keyboard and mouse question

for me I just connected my usb mouse to the usb port and that was it.. the keyboard to the PS/2

since I am not an expert at overclocking.. I like alot how easy this board allows you to overclock

I just select Linked option in the cpu section and increase the FSB manually

have it a 1350 FSB and my E6600 hits 3.0 ghz

btw here is a little video I made of the lights I have lol
also shows the blinking blue lights from the motherboard..
PC Lights
 
Thanks for the info.. Yeah, that's how I have it hooked up.. My TEC is on its' own dedicated 12v line. Nothing else is connected to that line. The funny thing is.. I fell asleep this morning around 4am in the computer chair and woke up around 6am with a "crick" in my neck... LOL. Well I am up now and finalized the Windows installation. Now I am downloading all of the updates / re-registering, etc.. Funny, I have to connect to the internet before I am permitted to update the on board USB drivers to USB 2.0. No biggie.. I installed uGuru and it shows my CPU temp as 40c.. yuck. I guess that's because the TEC isn't working..

WOW.. talk about BLING BLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
WOW - light show extrodinair! So the leds on the underside of the IN9 pulse back and forth? or can you set them to be on/off/pulse ?
 
I am trying to find an answer to that question.. they pulse back and forth at the moment..
the manual doesnt say anything about changing the setting..
and I have to look into the bios patiently for anything about it...

by the way this board makes it alot easier to clear CMOS.. there is a switch on the back of the board for easy access..

no more opening the case in order to do that lol

btw... I just wanted my system to look more interesting :p
 
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