Installing AB9 Pro

[Supershanks]

Yep certainly agree re epp being a great feature (prefer it to the somewhat naff "SLI Memory" Nvidia speak) NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI Intel preview

4-4-4-12 @ DDR2-8000 still with a voltage of 2.1V. Sandra says that my memory bandwidth is now 6740 MB/s

is pretty awesome

Intel Core processors was the low wattage and low noise.

Is especially attracive to me, especially when it allows me to put the wattage back up giving a good overclock

luck

[Baddriver]

Guys

Don't forget that EPP values can be read by CPU-Z so you can (theoretically at least) boot your computer up using default setttings, look at the EPP values and program the BIOS manually. My particular catch with this is that I'm the frustrated owner of a AB9 Pro and managed to build an otherwise performance, Conroe system using half a gig of borrowed, el-cheapo memory. Now that I've removed the cheap memory and installed 2 gigs of Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4 (DDR2 800MHz, 4-4-4-12-2T) I've hit the same problem as many others in this forum.

On BIOS version 1.3, the computer simply won't boot if I tell BIOS that it's dealing with 800MHz memory, even after setting all available options appropriately (strobe timing 4-4-4-12, memory speed 800, memory voltage 2.1V). It'll run Windows up if I use defalt settings (DDR533 reported) but will blue-screen after 10 or 20 minutes.

ABit Sean

Like numerous others, I'm monitoring the ABit pages eagerly awaiting the release of BIOS v1.4, however, should you need a beta tester or simply more feedback then please let me know.

Stuart

[Baddriver]

Sean

I could have been more constructive and given feedback

* Inclusion of driver floppies is extremely helpful - nice touch
* Space round processor is generous - necessary since I've installed a Zalman CNPS9500-LED
* Board layout is unusual but not in any way detrimental to my case layout but then I'm not using any PATA devices
* The manual is of good quality but BIOS options are out of date. Is there any way to include more built in help in the BIOS? I'm a electronic engineer and computer enthusiast and don't know what all of the options mean.
* I personally don't find the uGuru software helpful as I prefer to statically overclock a system rather than dynamically turn it on for games
* In order to take advantage of Conroe's power saving features, I set the power profile to laptop and hit immediate lock-up problems. I didn't diagnose it any further and it may not be motherboard related (it's set to always-on now)
* Given the memory problems, I'm having to use the BIOS clear jumper (the one beside the battery) a lot and it's hidden underneath my graphics card
* Doesn't current support 6400DDR2 memory which is a real killer for me as I've built a fairly top-spec system (dual Raptors, Conroe 6600, 7900GTX etc) and bought this board as pretty much the best non-SLI offering
* No north/south bridge fan is wonderful for both reliability and noise
* Should the manual point out that this board doesn't use one of the standard ATX mounting posts? It's a potential short for anyone not being careful
* I like there being two PCI slots as a lot of high-end hardware (e.g. my XFi soundcard) still need these. At least one is uncluttered but I'm uncertain if it'll be easy to install a 2nd PCI card due to floppy cable

I hope this is helpful

Stuart

[Hidden Hippo]

You can get thinner cables can you not for floppy drives etc if you want to reduce the amount of clutter within the system. As an aside, are the X-Fi cards worth the money. The cheapest (Xtreme Music OEM) is still £60, so if I decided to get one would I show any improvement in frame rates in games etc?

[Baddriver]

The X-Fi card is a great buy but I went for the fatality version with 3.5" bay mounted connectors which is about £160 online. The best bit is the huge stability increase over c***py built in AC97 devices (that was what was on my last motherboard). The sound is really clean when played through decent headphones but it's great for positional audio.

When playing Quake 4 (or the vast majority of FPS games), the X-Fi card uses positional audio to slightly modify sound so that listening through headphones sounds like you're in a matrix of speakers. I'll post a link to the theory if you're interested but it works with all stereo headphones and relies on your head being of average shape. It genuinely helps me figure out who is where and perhaps has a bit of a positive impact on my game.

I've no idea if the card helps frame-rates but it certainly doesn't hurt to offload work from the processor

[Hidden Hippo]

At the moment I'm using my good old onboard Realtek HD audio (I think it's based on AC97 though). I might go for the nice Fatal1ty version since I think it would compliment my rig quite nicely.

[Baddriver]

Believe me when I say lots of people are working on this problem, and I hope we have a better response from our new conroe board. The AW9 series is being released soon.

Bump.

Sean, I'm raising this post back to the top as it has been three weeks since your reassuring words and I would greatly appreciate an update on the AB9/Conroe/DDR2 6400 situation. Even if there is no fix yet but a better understanding of what is broken (like a particular multiplier that I could avoid) then I'd still love to know.

thanks
Stuart

[Baddriver]

Some progress. I've found out that running at any memory speed other than 533MHz (a memory multiplier of 1) results in memtest86 spitting the dummy out. I can set memory latency to 4-4-4-12 correctly and use any banks I choose but am currently in 1 and 3. Stability at 2.1V is superb with several passes of memtest86 v3.2 running smoothly. However, I've yet to try overclocking the FSB and do want to run my memory at its full potential. As a workaround, it's fine though.

Stuart

[Hidden Hippo]

After re-reading the thread, I'd also like to say that th uGuru software really isn't helpful. I don't overclock, but when I put the RAM voltages up, the software would always say that overclocking was unsuccessful, even though it registered it and the BIOS said 1.95 volts. I couldn't find a way of getting rid of this so I deicded to just turn it off. I only use it now to check my CPU temp.