the Abit IN9 32X-MAX thread

[BUFF]

On other abit mobos with LEDs e.g. AW9D-MAX you can adjust the light settings both in the BIOS & in the Windows uGuru GUI.
Have a look & see if the IN9 is the same.

 

[Iceman3545]

I just built my new rig with this mobo. and everytime I start my computer it give me a 8.E post code and then it turns the computer. That code is check cpu fan speed. I have my cpu watercooled so theres no fan of course, but I can't disable the cpu fan monitoring in the bios, unless I missed something. Is any one else having this problem.

 

[Aztlan]

On other abit mobos with LEDs e.g. AW9D-MAX you can adjust the light settings both in the BIOS & in the Windows uGuru GUI.
Have a look & see if the IN9 is the same.

thanks for the tip man.. I just went into the bios and it was in the uguru section

I set up the leds to be on all the time and it adds a good effect

 

[officermartinez]

I just built my new rig with this mobo. and everytime I start my computer it give me a 8.E post code and then it turns the computer. That code is check cpu fan speed. I have my cpu watercooled so theres no fan of course, but I can't disable the cpu fan monitoring in the bios, unless I missed something. Is any one else having this problem.

Im getting that error with my Vigor Gaming Monsoon II Thermal Electric Cooler. Seems we are in the same boat. I was able to hook up a small fan to the CPU fan connector on the motherboard "to trick it" into believing it was just a normal HSF. It worked. I was able to install Windows, etc.. But the moment I tried to connect my Monsoon II, BEEP BEEP BEEP.. 8.E. ...Damn!

While it was working, I was able to install 3dmark06 for a "test run" on factory defaults. NOTHING was overclocked. Here are my results:

3DMark06 Score: 10,656
SM 2.0 Score: 4933
HDR/SM 3.0 Score: 5439
CPU Score: 2121

 

[Aztlan]

I just built my new rig with this mobo. and everytime I start my computer it give me a 8.E post code and then it turns the computer. That code is check cpu fan speed. I have my cpu watercooled so theres no fan of course, but I can't disable the cpu fan monitoring in the bios, unless I missed something. Is any one else having this problem.

you can disable the fan monitoring in the bios

go into the cpu section (or guru section) cant remember
and once there press the right arrow key and it will take you to a different section

which has the monitor options

 

[BUFF]

connect an rpm signalling fan to the header to get you into the BIOS.
Once in BIOS disable shutdown on CPU fan fail, save & exit, shutdown.
Disconnect fan from CPUFan header.
Now when you reboot you should be OK.

 

[revenant]

Well - I got my board.. but I had no time to even pull it out of the shipping box last night.. so busy and tired. whew.. I'm going to wait until my NB and SB coolers get in until I start prepping it anyways... I'll be taking lots of pics when I do start work on it... Prolly Weds or Thursday night. Although I have heard a lot of complaints about issues with this board, the over-all sense seems to be that this mobo is the most problem free 680i offering to date.. but there is the sense that the bios is a little immature.. oh well. given the extra time they took with this board I think that's kind of bad, but oh well.. life goes on. and newer bioses should start rolling out soon.. I am sure Abit wants to make this as good a launch as possible and I still have very high hopes that this will be a great stable well performing board.. hope hope hope

 

[$cooter]

After a talk with Abit tech support and Thier RMA dept. I have decide to RMA the vendor. According to Abit they have no RMA stock right now. So at this point they don't have any repaired/refurbed boards. The vendor I bought mine from (eWiz.com) has agreed to send me a new board on my RMA provided that: 1. I have not damaged it and 2. it is actually malfunctioning. Keeping my fingers crossed and looking forward to using this Abit board.

BTW: the post LED is invaluable feature. I have been looking at cheaper backup boards to use just in case mine gets tied in up in the system, but it wasn't till i started looking that I realized what a rare feature this is. It helped immensely when I was trouble shooting my problem. My 2 cents.

-Scotty

 

[Dan_D]

After a talk with Abit tech support and Thier RMA dept. I have decide to RMA the vendor. According to Abit they have no RMA stock right now. So at this point they don't have any repaired/refurbed boards. The vendor I bought mine from (eWiz.com) has agreed to send me a new board on my RMA provided that: 1. I have not damaged it and 2. it is actually malfunctioning. Keeping my fingers crossed and looking forward to using this Abit board.

BTW: the post LED is invaluable feature. I have been looking at cheaper backup boards to use just in case mine gets tied in up in the system, but it wasn't till i started looking that I realized what a rare feature this is. It helped immensely when I was trouble shooting my problem. My 2 cents.

-Scotty

Really? I've only found those things marginally helpful.

 

[$cooter]

Dan,
Considering my previous 3 builds were completely problem free. This is the first time I've have to do any real trouble-shooting while getting a system up. Since my problem was intermittent I would know exactly when it happened. I would get a post code telling me that my cmos jumper was shorted and it didn't always happen at the same time in the boot up sequence, sometimes it happened at the very beginning and wouldn't boot, sometimes I would get all the way to installing my OS before it would crash and post the Cmos jumper error code. It wasn't a matter of wondering what the problem was, I could look at my post LED and immediately tell what the problem was when my system would lock up (of course I am making the assumption that the LED is posting the correct error msg ).

 

[Dan_D]

Dan,
Considering my previous 3 builds were completely problem free. This is the first time I've have to do any real trouble-shooting while getting a system up. Since my problem was intermittent I would know exactly when it happened. I would get a post code telling me that my cmos jumper was shorted and it didn't always happen at the same time in the boot up sequence, sometimes it happened at the very beginning and wouldn't boot, sometimes I would get all the way to installing my OS before it would crash and post the Cmos jumper error code. It wasn't a matter of wondering what the problem was, I could look at my post LED and immediately tell what the problem was when my system would lock up (of course I am making the assumption that the LED is posting the correct error msg ).

Right. I am not saying those LED diagnostic things aren't useful, I've just run into several situations where they might display a code and the problem be something completely different.

 

[revenant]

wow - good luck to you! So eWiz has a stock for RMAs? I hope you get a good board back in return.. The board before my p5w dh was an msi 975x power-up edition and it fried on first power on attempt.. one of the vregs by the memory slots let it's smoke out. I guess I got the up-in-smoke edition.. rather. gah! not wanting to wait for the RMA I went to fry's and got the p5w dh.. it had been a LONG time since I got a bad board, so I was due I guess.. So, I hope my no-bad mobo charma has some power left in it.. the p5w dh has been such a good board for me.. I hope hope hope my IN9 will be a good egg.

edit: I have disk with a full system image on it of my current windows install which I will put aside with the p5w dh just in case I need to revert back to that mobo...

 

[$cooter]

edit: I have disk with a full system image on it of my current windows install which I will put aside with the p5w dh just in case I need to revert back to that mobo...

Always a good idea. I am trying to make the switch to all SATA drives, I suppose for backup purposes I could utilize on of my old IDE's.

 

[Aztlan]

Well - I got my board.. but I had no time to even pull it out of the shipping box last night.. so busy and tired. whew.. I'm going to wait until my NB and SB coolers get in until I start prepping it anyways... I'll be taking lots of pics when I do start work on it... Prolly Weds or Thursday night. Although I have heard a lot of complaints about issues with this board, the over-all sense seems to be that this mobo is the most problem free 680i offering to date.. but there is the sense that the bios is a little immature.. oh well. given the extra time they took with this board I think that's kind of bad, but oh well.. life goes on. and newer bioses should start rolling out soon.. I am sure Abit wants to make this as good a launch as possible and I still have very high hopes that this will be a great stable well performing board.. hope hope hope

the only issue I first encountered when was setting up my system was of a Maxtor drive I have not being detected correctly or hanging the system on boot

the fix to that was changing the jumper in the maxtor from 1.5 to 3.0 settings

after that i havent even encountered one single problem...
the board has been rock solid.
probably I am one of the lucky few?

 

[revenant]

good to hear! I am going be hopeful that more of these are good than bad. my NB cooler won't be here until the 1st. gah.. oh well.

 

[k00lance]

the only issue I first encountered when was setting up my system was of a Maxtor drive I have not being detected correctly or hanging the system on boot

the fix to that was changing the jumper in the maxtor from 1.5 to 3.0 settings

after that i havent even encountered one single problem...
the board has been rock solid.
probably I am one of the lucky few?

Problem comes in the moment you raise something.
You need to specify what you're running.

 

[revenant]

True... do you have anything OC'd yet? I am shooting for 440*8 if I can on this board.. or 450*8 if my cpu will allow it. also going to try for 1T timings on my ballistix.. they should do it.. not at 3-3-3-9 tho.. maybe 4-4-4-12.

 

[Tnoggin]

I'm pretty sure I've seen other people with OS install hangups on Abit and Xtreme Systems forums with this board. If I remember correctly some people used PS2 keyboards and mice to get around it. And you can also try changing the keyboard detect to OS instead of Bios or vice versa.

 

[k00lance]

True... do you have anything OC'd yet? I am shooting for 440*8 if I can on this board.. or 450*8 if my cpu will allow it. also going to try for 1T timings on my ballistix.. they should do it.. not at 3-3-3-9 tho.. maybe 4-4-4-12.

Post some pics here once you're done testing.
I am interested in this board.

P.S.
I bought the evga board from Chiefvalue and it arrived overnight. Buy.com is still not refunding my money after a week.

 

[Aztlan]

Problem comes in the moment you raise something.
You need to specify what you're running.

I am running the following

E6600 @ 3.0 ghz
I am not an expert at overclocking so I used the easy settings of the board. I just selected Linked oC and increased the FSB to 1300 mhz.. well thats what the board says.. and no problems at all
just increasing the FSB it did the other things automatically

the rest of the system is Corsair Dominator 2 gig of ram 8500
X-fi Fatal1ty gamer edition
raptor x
maxtor 500 gigs
sapphire X1900 XTX

and I havent encountered any problems.. which keeps me wondering why all the complains.. are people picky or what

 

[k00lance]

I am running the following

E6600 @ 3.0 ghz
I am not an expert at overclocking so I used the easy settings of the board. I just selected Linked oC and increased the FSB to 1300 mhz.. well thats what the board says.. and no problems at all
just increasing the FSB it did the other things automatically

the rest of the system is Corsair Dominator 2 gig of ram 8500
X-fi Fatal1ty gamer edition
raptor x
maxtor 500 gigs
sapphire X1900 XTX

and I havent encountered any problems.. which keeps me wondering why all the complains.. are people picky or what

"It's never fast enough."
You have the gears. I think 3ghz is such a waste of talent for what you have.
Some people are getting a huge FSB hole and are unable to stabilize their mobo above 400mhz but able to boot at 500mhz.

 

[Aztlan]

I know I have the gears. but I have to read a little bet more about overclocking lol

 

[revenant]

I bet that fsb hole will clear up with a bios update.. I hear it's right around the 425 spot.. but around 440 it clears up.. I'll be happy to get my system dialed in like it is now on the p5w dh.. that's a measly 389*9 with memory at 1:1.. if I can get 3.6 stable out of my cpu with this board that would be great.. but I am not holding my breath.. I'd like to hit 440*8 if I can manage it.. we'll see. but for starters just getting back to where I am now stable, and maybe with 1T command rate (the p5w dh can only do 2t) would be good.. then I can play with alternate OC settings after I establish a good baseline.

I finally opened my shipping box this morning.. just to make sure I was shipped the right mobo.. yep. mmmmmmm.. it looks nice.

edit: when I think about how nice the p5w dh has been for me, I also like to remember I got it after it had been out for a long while, and I then think about it when it was released.. I read posts back to when it was a spring chicken and wow, there were TONS of problems.. more so than what I am reading about the IN9.. so again, I don't think it's great to wait for bios releases to stablize things which should work at release time, but that's just the way it goes with these new uber high performance boards.. essentially what was stated earlier in this thread.. I think by k00lance, we just need to be prepared to deal with these issues no matter what with these new boards.. anyways, for those who are having issues, I think it's just best to hope for better bioses to be released soon.

 

[Aztlan]

I finally opened my shipping box this morning.. just to make sure I was shipped the right mobo.. yep. mmmmmmm.. it looks nice.

lol.. until now you opened?

me wonders what your reaction will be like when you find out it was the wrong motherboard


even the packaging is top notch in my opinion... hehe

 

[revenant]

I know.. lol.. I know.. I was sooooooooo tired on Monday night.. I think I got a small relapse of the flu after beta testing LOTRO for 30 hours over the weekend.. gah.. it was still dragging me down last night also.. I was again too wiped to do anything other than eat and crash.. I just wanted to be in a better mood when I opened the box. if that makes sense.

edit: I just thought of something.. this is my first Abit board since the BH-6! wow. I loved my BH-6 so.. I had it for 4 years.. at least.. maybe 5. I was bummed when they stopped supporting slot 1 because I had to move on then.. oh well. Too funny tho.. the old celery 450 and BH-6 was the shiz back in the day.

 

[$cooter]

Dude,
I was thinking the exact same thing. The last Abit I ran was the BH6 as well. That thing was a rock, I think I still have it somewhere. Used it with my PII 400. I used that motherboard based on the Skinny Rig they built in the 1998 (or was it 1999?) maximum PC.

 

[Dan_D]

Dude,
I was thinking the exact same thing. The last Abit I ran was the BH6 as well. That thing was a rock, I think I still have it somewhere. Used it with my PII 400. I used that motherboard based on the Skinny Rig they built in the 1998 (or was it 1999?) maximum PC.

I've still got a BH6 as well. It's got some kind of CPU on it, just not sure which one off the top of my head.

 

[Deathspine]

Hey Dan_D my good man, when are you planning to post your review of this board? By the looks of this thread and several others in different forums on the web there appears to be much interest in this board but not reviews. As another long time Abit user who is now running the Abit AB9 Pro with enough success to make your discontinued Core 2 overclocking list at FSB 403 I too am looking to upgrade. As you well know abit's boards have not gotten good reviews of late. Your folks just tore up my AB9-Pro drilling it a new ......... I like the board but actually I especially like Abit's Guru. I have not seen another utility that comes close to the Guru, Nvida's Ntune by be the next best. I would like to run a 6800 motherboard with Guru therefore the IN9 32-Max is my first chose. After reading Abits reviews of late I do not plan to be an early adapter this time. In the past an Abit board name Max was just magic, now I do not know. I actualy wonder if this board is a dude will Abit survive.

I look forward to your review.

 

[revenant]

a few pics of my board..

fully electronic PWM.. pretty nice. let's hope it helps the cpu OC a little.

I love the side angled SATA ports.. really nice for slick cabling.

although I don't use them much, I like the addition of the power and reset sitches integrated on the board itself.. horrid placement for aux fan lead headers and 4pin molex.. gah!

yay for the CMOS reset switch..

just a cool shot.. dragons rule! but that looks like a dragon-dog hybrid.. a drogon? hrm..

two of the back lighting effect leds

big honkin resister on the back of the cpu socket area.. gah!

I'll start prepping the board tomorrow.. it needs a thorough cleaning (air blown then wiped down with q-tips) and then the sinks come off.. the NB and SB and PWM chips need to be cleaned then the new sinks go on.. I am thinking about putting Swiftech BGA sinks on the PWM chips.. we'll see if that happens or not.. I am not sure the thermal tape I have will hold them in place there.. anyways.

 

[Aztlan]

LOL.. until you mention the resistor at the back of the board around the CPU section

I would not have noticed .. Probably i was just eager to have the system up an running that I didnt see it..


good thing the zalman mounting kid has an open square are so that the resistor was not touched

 

[revenant]

Yeah - the Tuniq's back-plate has an open hole also.. whew. My board is really dirty.. there're debris (like dust and small specs of lint) all over it.. really will need to clean it will before installation.. trippy, it came with no anti-static bag (which I noticed on all of them, you can see the mobo through the clear parts of the box) and no padding on the back.. it was just laying on the cartboard. I checked and all of the little LEDs are present, plus the big honkin resister is seemingly un-scathed. I guess it doesn't need any padding? oh well.. plus my box looked like it has been opened and messed with.. one of the extras boxes was put back upside down, the wifi card was upside down and the cartboard around it was blocking the window, evidence of a possible rush job to get things back together.. plus the outside of the box was ripped like someone tried to force the inner box out. man, I hate that shit.. I doubt I can do much about it now, but I am going to call the egg and report that none the less.. I paid top dollar for a NEW item.. and it's clearly been opened.. anyways, as long as it works ok it will be all good.

edit: the egg offered to replace the board.. which was what I expected. I said, "not unless it doesn't work". yeah, like I am going to send it back and wait another week to install.. pshaw.

edit reloaded: this will be my first ever build with no IDE devices at all.. yay for SATA dvd drives!

 

[BUFF]

As another long time Abit user who is now running the Abit AB9 Pro with enough success to make your discontinued Core 2 overclocking list at FSB 403 I too am looking to upgrade. As you well know abit's boards have not gotten good reviews of late. Your folks just tore up my AB9-Pro drilling it a new ......... I like the board but actually I especially like Abit's Guru.

Thought about an AB9 QuadGT?
500fsb+ on the 1067 strap ...

 

[Deathspine]

The AB9-Quad certainly looks to be an improvement over the AB9-Pro but given I have my E6400 at 3.2 I have plenty of CPU power. The early results from the Nvidia 6800 boards that realy got my attension was how well they overclock with little or no increase on CPU voltage. My AB9-Pro is at 1.45 volts for the CPU. Initially that was higher then most on the HardOCP C3D database. I am hoping to get a stable overclock with less voltage, less heat and it would also be nice to have the extras feature i.e. SLI and still have my Guru.

 

[revenant]

I finally had energy last night to get my mobo prepped for install tonight.. well, hopefully tonight.. I still have to sort out the PWM cooler.. it's not easy to remove from the heat-pipes as I thought it might be.. well, hoped it might be... but more on that later.. on with the pics...


the coolers, one Microcool Northpole XE Whisper cooler and a Vantec CCB-A1C all copper chiset cooler.

the SB chip.. says nforce 590 on it.. I think this is a newer SB chip than was on the other 680i boards to date.. or maybe just newer than the Foxconn variants.. not sure.

mmmm.. so shiny!

wow that was easy.. just popped right into place.. the spring loaded pins which came with the Vantec worked perfect on the IN9.. Fortunaty the CCB has to sets of holes drilled, 54 and 59mm apart.. the IN9 uses 59mm apart mount holes. "LIKE A GLOVE" /Ace Ventura

Next up, the NB.. says 680 on it.. as it should. no surprizes here.

the finish on the bottom of the Northpole was not as nice as the CCB, but I rubbed it out as best I could.. no lapping was needed tho.. It cleaned up well.. it's one chunky little cooler!

and... we done! wow, pretty easy and straight forward.. one note: I had to offset the angle on the sink because turned flush with the NB chip pcb the corners would hit the mounting posts.. it's not problem tho.. the Northpole comes with tons of mounting brackets for just about every type of install.. pretty cool! I put a couple extra washers between the springs and the cap-screw to torque it down a bit.. it's got a puffy"chip saver spacer" I put on the bottom so it needed some good downward force to make solid contact with the NB top. AS5 used as a thermal conducter.

whew.. 1/3 of the way there!

OK, to the PWM cooling..

So here's my dilemma.. the oh-so very OEM cooler for this mobo has all three sinks held together with heatpipes, which are not easy to manipulate.. I thought I would be able to remove the PWM cooler from the pipes, but "negative on that Rampart".. I'd have to cut the lower pipe and then maybe I could spin the sink off as the upper pipe seems to just be pushed through holes in the fins.. I wish I had a pic.. later! anyways.. I don't want to destroy the original cooler.. so I'm trying to figure out what I can use now.. I have Swiftech BGA sinks which look like they'll fit.. three of them in a row cover all the PWM chips.. I would need to anchor them with mounting posts and a top bracket across all three, but they're kind of short.. so I am thinking about stacking them two high, so I'd have a 2x3 stack.. I have an old Zalman cv700cu bracket which will work for the top part.. the only thing is the bottoms of them come very close to resisters near by.. but they don't touch. it's a little too close for my comfort tho.. I am trying to think of alternative ideas... I might try and rob the PWM cooler from my P5W DH.. it looks to be about the same size and has only one heat-pipe through the fins, so I can spin it off I think...

I am open to ideas and suggestions tho.. lay them on me.

edit: looks like I am on the right track.. I might just use thermal tape rather than a bracket.. I gave some new/fresh stuff I can use which should hold the sinks well enough..

 

[$cooter]

Rev,
I can't wait to see how your setup turns out, especially if everything fits with your CPU cooler (you used the Tuniq right?).... It may be replicated!!

 

[revenant]

Yeah - I have a Tuniq also.. it's a great cooler! Aside from it's ginormous size, I think it's an ideal cpu air cooler...(this coming from a long time water cooling fan)... currently mine is mounted to the air goes in the right side and out the left side.. I am going to shift that so it goes in the bottom, then out the top, then have both my 120mm fans as exhaust and my rear 120mm as intake... it should blow right over the PWM and cpu area.. so I don't think I will need an extra fan. whew. I hope this all works.

lol, we're going to have twin systems.. or just about

 

[Dan_D]

Yeah - I have a Tuniq also.. it's a great cooler! Aside from it's ginormous size, I think it's an ideal cpu air cooler...(this coming from a long time water cooling fan)... currently mine is mounted to the air goes in the right side and out the left side.. I am going to shift that so it goes in the bottom, then out the top, then have both my 120mm fans as exhaust and my rear 120mm as intake... it should blow right over the PWM and cpu area.. so I don't think I will need an extra fan. whew. I hope this all works.

lol, we're going to have twin systems.. or just about

After using a decent off the shelf water cooling system I can't ever imagine going back to air cooling.

 

[revenant]

My eventual plan is to go back to watercooling.. I am on air now while I get my feet into this TJ09... adding an Exos II to this case would be easy as pie.. but I might go custom also.. we'll see.. still and all, I am impressed how well the Tuniq performs.. my idle temps are about 3c warmer and load temps about 5c (or so) warmer.. granted I only have 1.5v in my E6600 and I don't think it's a very hot running chip.. as they go..

anyways.. I was thinking last night maybe I am going through too much trouble to re-fit these after market coolers on the mobo.. I could have prolly just replaced the thermal pads under the NB and SB with AS5 and put a fan on the top of the NB sink.. that's what I did with the p5w dh and it's been very stable for me.. I guess it's my incessant need to tinker with things which has the best of be here.

edit: here's how the sinks should cover the PWM area chips.. the three in a row will be Swiftech and the other two are some surplus Zalman sinks I have.. or maybe I will put more Swifties on it.. we'll see. Obviously I want to be careful about the resistors in the area.. it's going to be a little tight.

 

[$cooter]

Rev,
Did I understand correctly that all three HSs had thermal pads? I was wondering if I decide to go with the stock chipset cooling system whether or not I should remove them, clean them up and apply some as5 before sticking them back on.

I also have my case pulling air in the rear and exhausting out the top. Tuniq pulling from bottom and exhausting out the top. I am wondering if I should have some type of exhaust near the 8800GTX. Seems like the air leaving it is kind of dead, unless it is going out through the PSU.

I write fluid flow simulation for a living so these are the kinds of things I think about! (most of the fluids I model are liquid phase though, some vapor phase in compositional simulation).

YAY for transport phenomenon!

 

[revenant]

hey - yeah, all three do.. but the PWM needs them, because there are bevels on the edges of it's sink which would prevent chip top contact with the sink bottom.. the other two are probably the ones which need the most thermal xfer anyways.. the heat-sink heat-pipe rollercoaster comes over VERY easy.. just pinch each of the white plastic push-through nylon "lock-pins" (at either end of one of the sinks, so 6 in all) with a pair of needle nose and they will spring back.. the springs Abit used are very strong.. so that was good to see.. the lock-pins pop back through the holes and the sink just falls off.. easy as pie.

Honestly I think that's all which really needs to be done.. I think I went a little overboard on this one.. oh well. hopefully it will pay off somehow.

Yes, I like using a blower below my 8800GTX, installed in the next slot down so the hot air from it's vented area gets sucked away and expelled out the back of the case... dropped my 8800 temps by 5c across the board.. that card does generate a lot of heat also, so it's good to try and get it out of the case. the air coming out of mine is VERY warm.. especially at load.. So far that's the only good use I have seen for one of those blowers... otherwise they don't appear to put any dent in ambient case temps.. .

edit: I am actually using this cooler in place of my old slot blower and it dropped my temps another (in addition to the 5c already dropped) 1c.. I have it smack up against the 8800.. seems to get the job done. it's a little noisy at 1/2 to full blast.. I run it at about 1/3 throttle.

hehe.. yeah, fluid and thermal dynamics are cool. I think about them also, but don't have any expertise at either.