My Abit AV8 is Crap... Switch too.....?

R

RoyLuv

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 20, 2004
Messages
361
So I get this Abit mobo for my 3500+ I've dorked with it so much, I can't take it anymore and I'm sending it back to newegg for a different brand/chipset. There are so many issues with this board and high end memory I could puke. Just check the abit forums, they are riddled with known issues. Incorrect temp readings, unstable running at ddr400, agp/pci lock are broken. Sheesh. Get a grip Abit!

Anyways, I called newegg and even though this particular item is exchange for exact item only, I called and they are gonna let me slide and get another board, I just have to purchase it and call them to have a manager override their computer. So.......

I'm thinking about the new MSI board with the nforce chipset. My asus a7n8x with the nforce2 chipset has been rock solid and it has been moved to 2 or 3 different cases. I love the board. Anyways.....

Some questions for you people. Does the agp/pci lock work on these things? Are there any KNOWN issues that most of the people with these boards are having? (see abit board). I don't want to get another crapper. I'm so sick of working on this damn thing, I just want it to work correctly so I can get my game on.

Thanks in advance for the input :D
 
There are major problems with the first revision of VIA 939 boards. It's related to VIA not having a good working lock and IMHO major stablilty problems (I have the Asus A8V Deluxe and think it sucks).

The REV2 VIA boards seem to be very good. I am waiting for Asus to start shipping the REV2 boards and I'm going to ask for a RMA from Asus. You might want to do the same thing with Abit.

One the NF3 front, they seem to have a working lock but all of the boards are using different implimitations of the chipset and make it very confusing.
 
Makes it confusing? What do you mean? I just want it to work. When are the rev 2 boards coming out?

I just through down too much cash to deal with a crappy board until they release a better one. Until then I'm playing games for 10 minutes and then getting booted out to the desktop.
 
The best boards out right now are the ASUS A8V rev2.0 and the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum. The ASUS uses the VIA chipset and the MSI uses the nForce 3 Ultra.
 
How do you like your MSI? I have my eye on that one. With all the problems I've had. I can't help but wonder if the proc is part of the problem too. I have till thursday to take it back to Frys for a refund, I'm afraid I'm gonna get another mobo and find out that the proc is fubar. But at the same time. I ran prim95 on this thing for 8 and a half hours the other night with 0 errors.

But I get kicked out of doom to the desktop and can't run 3d marks 4 out of 5 attempts. What do you all think? This a symptom of a FUBAR agp/pci lock on the mobo? I really don't want to play the RMA game on the chip if it comes to it. I'm actually thinking of going down to the 3400+ or to the prescott 3.4E.

Once bitten, twice shy ya know? What are your opinions on this? The [H]ard forums are pretty much the only resource I have on this one. I will take the suggestions I Get here :)

What do you think?
 
Eww, don't go to the Prescot :eek:

If you pass Prime95 over 8 hours your RAM and CPU are 100% A-OK. Alot of people experience crashing to the desktop with the AV8. Go into the BIOS and change the AGP speed to 6:2:1 instead of Fixed. If you keep your CPU at stock speeds your AGP and PCI speeds will stay at 66mhz and 33mhz with the 6:2:1 divider. That has worked for a few people.

My BH-5 memory is not very compatable with the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, same with my AV8. I have some crucial Ballistix coming in on Tuesday so I can do some testing with it then. Other than that I know it has a working AGP/PCI lock so if I can get it to do 10x250mhz 1:1 I would definitely reccomend it.
 
I have it set at 6:2:1 - I've tried everything in the book on this bastage. The only way I've been able to stabalize this thing is to clock down the memory to 333... Not an option for me. That's a noticeable hit to my performance. I have the corsair 3200xl xms twinx memory, I'm kind of wondering if it's too much of a performer for the board, but at the same time alot of people are playing hell with this baord. Anyways, I'm ordering me the MSI right now.

Frys says I can just bring the chip in for an exchange, I don't have to wait for them to RMA the chip if it happened to turn out bad.

So might as well give this a shot since newegg is being cool about it. I'd like to till have an upgrade path for a new chip in a year anyways.
 
RoyLuv said:
I have it set at 6:2:1 - I've tried everything in the book on this bastage. The only way I've been able to stabalize this thing is to clock down the memory to 333... Not an option for me. That's a noticeable hit to my performance. I have the corsair 3200xl xms twinx memory, I'm kind of wondering if it's too much of a performer for the board, but at the same time alot of people are playing hell with this baord. Anyways, I'm ordering me the MSI right now.

Frys says I can just bring the chip in for an exchange, I don't have to wait for them to RMA the chip if it happened to turn out bad.

So might as well give this a shot since newegg is being cool about it. I'd like to till have an upgrade path for a new chip in a year anyways.
Click to expand...

You mean your memory runs at 400 by default? I have a gig of the same memory, and mine defaults to 333. I see no way to change it, either. Sure, I can flip between DDR200, DDR266, DDR333 & DDR400 in the bios, but no matter which I choose, it always goes to 333. I'm lossing Some serious bandwidth there. Is there a ratio setting I'm missing somewhere?
 
Dunno about your problem. The common problem with these bastages is that if you're set at ddr400 (mine was running at that speed - checked cpuz) - But the system is very unstable and kicks you out to the desktop or reboots when any games are running. Seems like farcry has minimal problems, but doom and any 3dmark i run have serious problems.

Oh well, not for much longer. My MSI nforce3 board will hopefully be here in a few days.
 
I guess I lucked out and got the REv2 Asus A8V from zipzoomfly. Now if they'll just send me my freaking 3500+, I can test it out.

god I hate backorders.
 
Alot of people are having issues with Corsair memory and Athlon64s. The Samsung memory chip must not like the socket 939s...

I set my memory to 2-3-3-10 and even though I pass Prime95 for 5+ hours I get a CTD when playing games.

I'd reccomend getting some memory with Mircron chips... either Crucial Ballistix or OCZ 3700EB.
 
chaosan said:
I guess I lucked out and got the REv2 Asus A8V from zipzoomfly. Now if they'll just send me my freaking 3500+, I can test it out.

god I hate backorders.
Click to expand...

I ordered my AV8 & 3500 from ZZF on a Thursday afternoon. They had the motherboard in stock, but not the cpu. They got the cpu in on Monday, and without me calling them or anything, they shipped the cpu out Fed Ex P-1 so I would get the mobo and cpu on the same day. That's what I call customer service.
 
Bop said:
Alot of people are having issues with Corsair memory and Athlon64s. The Samsung memory chip must not like the socket 939s...

I set my memory to 2-3-3-10 and even though I pass Prime95 for 5+ hours I get a CTD when playing games.

I'd reccomend getting some memory with Mircron chips... either Crucial Ballistix or OCZ 3700EB.
Click to expand...

Hmm. Never heard of that. Where can I get more info on this? I have till Thursday to return this memory.
 
I had an Abit AV8 and hated it, it was a piece of sh*t board. I returned it and bought a Neo2 Platnium and its great so far.
 
Read this,

http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2145&p=19

With my MSI K8N Neo2 I can't run 200mhz 2-2-2-10 with my BH-5 memory, it fails Prime95 is about 15 seconds. With the same memory on the ABIT AV8 I cannot go above 200.1mhz with 2-2-2-10 timings. Right when I hit about 200.4mhz it fails Prime95 in an hour or two. I had my memory up to 3.2v and it would still fail in seconds on the K8N Neo2. On the AV8 I tried 220mhz with BH-5 which it could easily hit with 3.2v, I couldn't even last 30 seconds in windows!

With my 256MB BH-5 sticks they last about about 2 hours in the K8N Neo2 with 2-2-2-10, while on my NF7-S I am running them at 2-2-2-10 @ 230mhz with 3.2v no problem.

The Athlon64 seems to only like Micron memory, which is used in Crucial Ballistix and OCZ EB memory.
 
OMG, this observation is making my headache worse. So is doesn't like the higher voltage stuff or what? I was able to get my athlon xp barton 2500+ to be stable with this memory. You're telling me that this "high end" setup can't handle the memory? This sux. I'm sure glad I forked out all of this money for this headache. Would have been easier to knock myself in the head with a brick and save 1500 bucks. WTF to do? Anyone out there with an athlon 64 3500+ and 3200XL corsair memory that actually LIKES their system? Should I just take all of this crap back and tell AMD to stick it where it counts? I can't deal with this headache much longer. I'm almost tempted to drop this whole thing and go with a pentium.

SOMEBODY PLEASE GIVE ME SOME ADVICE. I CAN'T DEAL WITH THIS HEADACHE ANYMORE!
 
Works fine with my corsair XL Pro series ram.

10x245 using an Athlon 64 3400+ on an MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum
 
Howd you get that 3400+ in there? Magically create an extra 185 pins?
 
I have an Asus A8V rev 1.02 with a 3500+ and 2x512MB Apacer DDR400 CL3. The trick here is to set the memory to CL3, even if your memory supports CL2. Athlon64 can cause a lot of stress for your poor memory chips and makes them work very hard so give them some more relaxed timings. The performance difference between CL2 and CL3 is only a few percents at max. I know that's not why you bought expensive CL2 memory but I heard about this problem elsewhere so it must be true ;).

You should test the memory with memtest86 (download the .iso an make a bootable cd-r out of it). Let it run for 24 hours or until it gives errors.

If you already tried this, then /me = :confused:
 
I actually returned another pair of XL memory a couple days after purchasing it becuase after an 8hr run of memtest it had alot of errors.

I ran Memtest overnight on this one and had no errors.
I also ran prime 95 on this sucker for 9 straight hours and it didn't skip a beat. It's unpredicatable. For example... I played doom all night last night and I was never kicked out to the desktop. Very confusing. But the Abit I've seen, of all of the 939 pin boards is the worst. Running my memory at speeds that are not stock is not acceptable to me. Might have to just exchange it.

Anyone know if Frys carries the OCZ 3700 EB or the Balistix 3200 RAM? That's where I bought this stuff and it would be alot more painless to just exchange it than return it and turn around and have to order it online. Looks like the board will be here tomorrow or Thursday, so I will have a day or two to test the stuff before my return period is up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top