F-i90HD Many problems

[japster]

Hopefully it is memory related so I don't have to take it all to bits to get the mobo out.

Keyboard not working in Bios or Windows had to plug my old faithful PS2 keyboard in.

The USB keyboard only worked for a day prior to the system failure.

[ABIT Sean]

Are other USB devices working?

[konman43]

Hopefully it is memory related so I don't have to take it all to bits to get the mobo out.

Keyboard not working in Bios or Windows had to plug my old faithful PS2 keyboard in.

The USB keyboard only worked for a day prior to the system failure.

i had the same problem in 3 of the boards that i got. i couldn't use my saitek eclipse keyboard. i had installed a fresh copy of windows on a partition for the f-i90hd, but it was showing as the second one, so i had to select it with my keyboard in order to boot from it. after post screen, the keyboard doesn't turn on (no lights). it works fine before bios, but turns off right after the post screen. the only way i could get windows to boot was to use a ps2 keyboard. when i get into windows the drivers load up and the usb keyboard works fine (in windows that is). i finally decided to do another fresh install on an older hdd and it did the same thing. so i just figured it was because the board didnt like usb keyboards between post, and windows.
even though i'm havin trouble with these boards, i've jumped in yet again. i couldn't resist the temptation when i went to fry's today, and i bought another of these boards. this time, i've got a trusty set of buffalo firestix at my disposal, along with a new 320gb 7200.10 hdd. i'm a little afraid to set up the system right now, as i don't want this to be my 4th unsuccessful try. i only had 1 board "die" on me, as the other 2 just had problems i couldn't deal with (flickering onboard video, and instant restarts when OS finishes loading up). so i'll be crossing my fingers flipping the switch tomorrow... i hope.

[Typhoon]

Just like to say many thanks to sean, sent my board on the 8th. It arrived on the 9th and a new board despatched on the 10th. Board arrived via citylink on the 11th. Thats one quick RMA so big thumbs up . Got my E4300 sitting at 3Ghz now so im happy.

[Adam]

I have just received my board and will have it up and runnign tomorrow hopefullly.

Fingers crossed!

[obvious]

Been having a few stability problems but haven't had time to check everything out yet. Been through 4 reinstalls using XP MCE and Vista32 Premium. RAM tests fine on memtest overnight and processor will happily run Intel TAT tool but I'm getting odd bluescreens, lockups and slowdowns at stock speeds/voltages. Nothing of interest in the event log. All MS and vendor updates and virus/malware free. The Hard drive isn't spitting out any SMART events and chkdsk /f is fine.

Difficult to check the PSU as all the voltages remain exactly the same no matter what software I'm using to read the sensors. This seems like a potential BIOS issue along with the lack of a "memory hole remapping" function for people with 4GB of RAM. Yes I know about 32bit addressing and how system + PCI address space gets pushed up towards the top of the 4GB range leaving less available RAM but the common 'memory hole remap' feature would be nice to have. That's a feature request for the BIOS gurus.

@Sean - I've heard tell there's a Beta 13 bios that fixes the temp reporting but it's not on the ftp. I wonder if that could be worth a try?

[PhilS]

I recieved my F-i90HD board on Thursday, got it up and running on Friday in a completely new system with all new components, was working well (although if I set it 512mb video ram the desktop appeared in some crazy pattern). On Saturday I installed speedfan to watch the CPU temps whilst playing 1080p movies (the latest AbitEQ wouldn't always start up in Vista). All temps and voltages were fine so I shut down to play in the bios with the Smart Fan control thingy, the PC shut down perfectly but when I turned it back on a second later it wouldn't even post. No beeps, nothing. Tried a new PSU, CPU, Heatsink, RAM etc etc and nothing.

A friend also purchased one on Saturday morning (after seeing mine working) froma different retailler who use a different supplier (so it should be a different batch) and again with all new components his died within a couple of hours. It would only boot up with if you used one stick of RAM and then soon after it died altogether in the same way as mine.

Mine is with my supplier now so lets hope the next one lasts a bit longer! It seems to be the only motherboard that fits my bill for the Media Center so I hope I can get one that lasts...

[Adam]

ok to report back on my board

All seems fine to be honest! Its happily running my e4300 at a conservative 2.4ghz.

No blue screens, no crashes.

My only criticism would be to say the vga output isnt that sharp compared to my old graphics card.

[Adam]

hmmm - i have significant interference on my monitor - which i didnt get before. Will try a new cable and report back.

[yahui168]

Hey PhilS,

Using the onboard video, I also get some crazy pattern in Vista when I set my UMA Frame Buffer to 512mb. Vista works ok when I tried setting the UMA Frame Buffer to 256mb but my logitech dinovo keyboard stopped working in the bios. I lowed it to 128mb and everything seems ok (for now), vista works and my keyboard works in the bios. I hope bios 13 fixes these problems.

[Thebatfink]

I recieved my F-i90HD board on Thursday, got it up and running on Friday in a completely new system with all new components, was working well (although if I set it 512mb video ram the desktop appeared in some crazy pattern). On Saturday I installed speedfan to watch the CPU temps whilst playing 1080p movies (the latest AbitEQ wouldn't always start up in Vista). All temps and voltages were fine so I shut down to play in the bios with the Smart Fan control thingy, the PC shut down perfectly but when I turned it back on a second later it wouldn't even post. No beeps, nothing. Tried a new PSU, CPU, Heatsink, RAM etc etc and nothing.

A friend also purchased one on Saturday morning (after seeing mine working) froma different retailler who use a different supplier (so it should be a different batch) and again with all new components his died within a couple of hours. It would only boot up with if you used one stick of RAM and then soon after it died altogether in the same way as mine.

Mine is with my supplier now so lets hope the next one lasts a bit longer! It seems to be the only motherboard that fits my bill for the Media Center so I hope I can get one that lasts...

I have today build an Abit F-I90HD E4400 HTPC - It was working fine, I also was using ABITEQ to few temps to make sure everything was ok, shut it down, and when I came to restart it, I have no video whatsoever, monitor sees no signal?!
I have 2GB Geil DDR2800 (set to the 2,1volt the manufacturer instructions said to do) SATA DVD and HDD and thats it. All brand spanking today, worked for an XP install, a few reboots and thats it?? What gives? Got everything from overclockers, except the E4400 which I got from scan. I've requested an RMA but I'm having to ask them what they want back?!? The Antec Fusion (Maybe its the PSU?) the memory? or the motherboard..

What a nightmare.

[matx2007]

I have a very similar problem. Board worked flawlessly for two days (except for the same Abit EQ issue and not working fan controls). I noticed that the board undervolts both the CPU and RAM, so I was running the RAM at +0.1 to make up for it - just to make sure...
I flashed to latest bios beta using the windows util. and it reported that all went fine. Rebooted. The bios reported check sum errors. Turned it off. Cleared cmos. Waited and then powered it up and since then no video what so ever. I have tried everything (I posted a seperate thread about it, not to bore people here with a long description). Everything else spins up but the video remains blank. My old computer use AGP, so I can't check with a seperate video card. I somehow doubt that it is the video itself, though.

I read about the problems reported both here, at hardforum and in other forums. At Hardforum the idea seems to be that the issues are RAM socket/voltage related but I suspect that at least some of the issues are caused by a flawed bios/bad bios chip. Granted my problem started after flashing the bios but it sounds so close to what Thebatfink write, that I think it is the same thing. I have flashed bios many times before on other boards both using Windows and dos and I never had problems before. Never had a dead board either before, nor ever had an Abit board ...

I'm quite sure it is not related to neither the RAM nor the psu or other parts.

If somebody can help or have good ideas, please feel free....

[Thebatfink]

Yep, I'll the posts I see seem to point to simply the board stops posting for no apparent reason. What I have realised is its not just the VGA output thats broken (I tried the HDMI this weekend) its that the board simply refuses to post. I suppose the saving grace is most people I have seen complaining say it happens almost immediately, and not months down the line.

[obvious]

Edit the flash floppy bat files so they dont have any pauses or required keypresses and then just flash it blind back to M612A_12 (or back to 13.B03 which works fine for me). This will recover from the blank screen of death.

You might want to remove any PCI and PCI-e cards and do this with just one stick of ram in slot 1 after a long bios reset when no power was applied to the board. Remove the battery for the bios reset period as well.

In my experience you can shorten the required BIOS reset time by trying to switch the system on a few times when no power is connected. It'll drain the capacitors etc.

[matx2007]

Edit the flash floppy bat files so they dont have any pauses or required keypresses and then just flash it blind back to M612A_12 (or back to 13.B03 which works fine for me). This will recover from the blank screen of death.

You might want to remove any PCI and PCI-e cards and do this with just one stick of ram in slot 1 after a long bios reset when no power was applied to the board. Remove the battery for the bios reset period as well.

In my experience you can shorten the required BIOS reset time by trying to switch the system on a few times when no power is connected. It'll drain the capacitors etc.

I did exactly that yesterday. Disconnected all other drives than the floppy as well. I used the following line in the autoexec.bat: AWDFLASH.EXE M612A_12.BIN /CC /CD /CP /F /R /PY /SN
Does that look right?

[obvious]

I did exactly that yesterday. Disconnected all other drives than the floppy as well. I used the following line in the autoexec.bat: AWDFLASH.EXE M612A_12.BIN /CC /CD /CP /F /R /PY /SN
Does that look right?

I think /F might be the problem. Also double check that there are no 'pause' commands knocking around