Abit IP35-E Review (500MHz FSB board)...$90 @ NewEgg + $6.61 ship

[kel789]

how do you disable JMicron controller?

 

[Heidfirst]

Integrated peripherals>onboard PCI device>Storage controller

 

[WEW]

Hey Guys - I have a question - I want to make my Abit IP35-E computer into sort of a HTPC - and connect it to my Panny Plasma 42PX75U. I have a DVI to HDMI cable I can connect for the video which I think should work.

But what about for the audio? What can I do for the audio. I have a Panasonic SA-XR55S Home Theater Receiver as well - but not sure how I can get sound to work.

 

[Heidfirst]

what are you going to use for audio (onboard or discrete sound card)?
The mobo has optical SPDIF out & a SPDIF header on the PCB for connecting to a video card that supports it.

 

[mindless1]

Originally posted by: rizorith


But in the end my main problem is I can't make any bios changes and I figure that should supercede everything else.

You have E8400, is that on their supported CPU list? They have a v16 beta bios out now that's supposed to improve E8400 support, you might as well try it, what do you have to lose?


http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=122393

Also, leave only one memory module in for the time being till the issues are resolved and clear CMOS with AC power disconnected after flashing the bios. If flashing in dos, use the /wb switch to write a new boot block.

 

[rizorith]

Originally posted by: mindless1

Originally posted by: rizorith


But in the end my main problem is I can't make any bios changes and I figure that should supercede everything else.

You have E8400, is that on their supported CPU list? They have a v16 beta bios out now that's supposed to improve E8400 support, you might as well try it, what do you have to lose?


http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=122393

Also, leave only one memory module in for the time being till the issues are resolved and clear CMOS with AC power disconnected after flashing the bios. If flashing in dos, use the /wb switch to write a new boot block.

Considering nothing is saved on the bios i think it's reasonable that the bios flash will fail and i'll be left with a board i can't RMA. I would try the flash but no one has addressed this issue and I don't know much about it - just using some logic here.

Anyways, this board is pretty annoying in general. The double boot issue seems to be resolved for only some people with newer version. Even the latest bios has double boot issues for some people.

 

[mindless1]

Originally posted by: rizorith

Originally posted by: mindless1

Originally posted by: rizorith


But in the end my main problem is I can't make any bios changes and I figure that should supercede everything else.

You have E8400, is that on their supported CPU list? They have a v16 beta bios out now that's supposed to improve E8400 support, you might as well try it, what do you have to lose?


http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t=122393

Also, leave only one memory module in for the time being till the issues are resolved and clear CMOS with AC power disconnected after flashing the bios. If flashing in dos, use the /wb switch to write a new boot block.

Considering nothing is saved on the bios i think it's reasonable that the bios flash will fail and i'll be left with a board i can't RMA. I would try the flash but no one has addressed this issue and I don't know much about it - just using some logic here.

I don't think having nothing saved in the bios is a proof nor reasonable cause to assume a flash wouldn't work, BUT confirming it was stable first might be prudent, like running an Orthos test in windows and Memtest86+ for a while to check memory (if you haven't yet).

Regarding RMA, since it was never workable I'd have to think it not a big deal to try the bios, if it gets sent back to Abit after RMA'd the worst they'd have to do is swap in a different EERPM (it is socketed) which I'm sure they have to do for some other people's RMAs. I'm certainly not in a position to qualify an RMA so that's just a thought...

Anyways, this board is pretty annoying in general. The double boot issue seems to be resolved for only some people with newer version. Even the latest bios has double boot issues for some people.

I have double boot after AC power was disconnected or certain bios settings changed (then only one time right afterwards), my board came with bios 15. It's pretty annoying when setting the system up including overclocking but since it doesn't do it leaving the system static, just reaching down and turning it on with the front case button to use it, I can live with that. It is one of the more annoying boards though due to the bios issues but if you don't flash a newer bios how can a bios issue ever be resolved? I can't say it'll cure your problem but it's the best option ATM.

 

[kalster]

I got my board y'day, very impressed, easy overclock of my e660 to 3.2ghz, i had a couple of questions though

my board came with 11 firmware, i used flashmenu to flash to latest but it froze during the verifying stage. I restarted but it would not turn on, so i reset the cmos and it boots back up, the version shows 15, how can i ensure that it froze after it had done flashing the bios

why does the jmicron controller take so long to recognize my pata hdd and dvd drive, any way to shorten this duration, it takes at least 10 seconds to go past that screen

i still have the double posting issue, kinda annoying but I can live with it

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: kalster
I got my board y'day, very impressed, easy overclock of my e660 to 3.2ghz, i had a couple of questions though

my board came with 11 firmware, i used flashmenu to flash to latest but it froze during the verifying stage. I restarted but it would not turn on, so i reset the cmos and it boots back up, the version shows 15, how can i ensure that it froze after it had done flashing the bios

why does the jmicron controller take so long to recognize my pata hdd and dvd drive, any way to shorten this duration, it takes at least 10 seconds to go past that screen

i still have the double posting issue, kinda annoying but I can live with it

Update to bios 16 beta and the double boot issue should be resolved. Disable all overclocks and revert to default settings before running the windows flash utility. Be sure to close all open apps and if you have itunes or something like that kill the services and processes it keeps going.

 

[mindless1]

Originally posted by: kalster
I got my board y'day, very impressed, easy overclock of my e660 to 3.2ghz, i had a couple of questions though

my board came with 11 firmware, i used flashmenu to flash to latest but it froze during the verifying stage. I restarted but it would not turn on, so i reset the cmos and it boots back up, the version shows 15, how can i ensure that it froze after it had done flashing the bios

why does the jmicron controller take so long to recognize my pata hdd and dvd drive, any way to shorten this duration, it takes at least 10 seconds to go past that screen

i still have the double posting issue, kinda annoying but I can live with it

As you have seen, it is generally better not to ever use the Windows flasher unless it's truely required (which is rare). The board will boot a USB flash drive, to plain DOS, that is probably the safest way all around to do it. Yes Windows flashing can work a lot of the time but there isn't usually any good reason to do it, and increases the odds of failure by quite a lot vs doing so in plain DOS.

Since it initialized and POSTed without displaying a checksum error and waiting, every time, odds are very high you have the whole bios flashed, intact. All that really remains is whether you left the /wb switch enabled with the windows flasher so you flashed the boot block, and that when you cleared CMOS you did so with AC power disconnected. If you wanted to be doubly sure you could now boot plain dos and flash v15 again but it seems more like reassurance than necessity.

I was not aware that 16 beta bios did actually do anything more to resolve double-boot issues, can anyone who had ran v15 confirm that there is some new change related to it?

I suspect the lengthly detection for HDD and DVD is because of the DVD, I have a PATA HDD and it only pauses for roughly 3-4 seconds. Is it really a problem? The board does support and seems to function fine using hibernation and S3 suspend state if you need quicker boots, but then hibernation still pauses a little longer than it could due to the JMicron controller. Thank Intel for that, deciding to cut a tiny bit of southbridge cost for themselves and rob us of PATA support because it's not forward looking enough for the elite who throw out all their legacy hardware.

You could use a PCI or PCIe PATA controller card instead, non-RAID type or mode with it for use with ATAPI (DVD) drive, but it would also have a little bit of a hesitation during the boot process. The other solution is abandon PATA drives, it is not likely JMicron's bios module can be signficantly changed by them to shorten the process much so there's nothing Abit can do except allow you to disable the controller entirely.

 

[kalster]

Originally posted by: mindless1

Originally posted by: kalster
I got my board y'day, very impressed, easy overclock of my e660 to 3.2ghz, i had a couple of questions though

my board came with 11 firmware, i used flashmenu to flash to latest but it froze during the verifying stage. I restarted but it would not turn on, so i reset the cmos and it boots back up, the version shows 15, how can i ensure that it froze after it had done flashing the bios

why does the jmicron controller take so long to recognize my pata hdd and dvd drive, any way to shorten this duration, it takes at least 10 seconds to go past that screen

i still have the double posting issue, kinda annoying but I can live with it

As you have seen, it is generally better not to ever use the Windows flasher unless it's truely required (which is rare). The board will boot a USB flash drive, to plain DOS, that is probably the safest way all around to do it. Yes Windows flashing can work a lot of the time but there isn't usually any good reason to do it, and increases the odds of failure by quite a lot vs doing so in plain DOS.

Since it initialized and POSTed without displaying a checksum error and waiting, every time, odds are very high you have the whole bios flashed, intact. All that really remains is whether you left the /wb switch enabled with the windows flasher so you flashed the boot block, and that when you cleared CMOS you did so with AC power disconnected. If you wanted to be doubly sure you could now boot plain dos and flash v15 again but it seems more like reassurance than necessity.

I was not aware that 16 beta bios did actually do anything more to resolve double-boot issues, can anyone who had ran v15 confirm that there is some new change related to it?

I suspect the lengthly detection for HDD and DVD is because of the DVD, I have a PATA HDD and it only pauses for roughly 3-4 seconds. Is it really a problem? The board does support and seems to function fine using hibernation and S3 suspend state if you need quicker boots, but then hibernation still pauses a little longer than it could due to the JMicron controller. Thank Intel for that, deciding to cut a tiny bit of southbridge cost for themselves and rob us of PATA support because it's not forward looking enough for the elite who throw out all their legacy hardware.

You could use a PCI or PCIe PATA controller card instead, non-RAID type or mode with it for use with ATAPI (DVD) drive, but it would also have a little bit of a hesitation during the boot process. The other solution is abandon PATA drives, it is not likely JMicron's bios module can be signficantly changed by them to shorten the process much so there's nothing Abit can do except allow you to disable the controller entirely.

thanks for the detailed reply

I should not have used the windows flash, I was praying the whole time that I would not freeze during the flash but it did just that, I did clear the cmos with ac power disconnected, so think it should be good, i ran orthos and it seems stable, so i am going to leave it for now.

is there a way to acess the jmicron bios,i wonder if i can disable auto detection and select the 2 drives, (dont know if such a thing is possible)

 

[WEW]

I want to use the onboard - but how would i connect it to the tv or my home theater panasonic receiver.

Originally posted by: Heidfirst
what are you going to use for audio (onboard or discrete sound card)?
The mobo has optical SPDIF out & a SPDIF header on the PCB for connecting to a video card that supports it.

 

[lightfoot3b]

Ok, first post for a problem with my new IP35-e. When I push the power button everything goes on for about 3-4 seconds and then it just shuts off, and 3 seconds later turns back on and repeats this cycle. I have let it do this 4 times before killing it (thought maybe this was double boot, but since I never saw bios I didn't think so).

Notes-
have some cheap 667 memory in slot #4 (cause my gemen II is huge, and that took enough effort to install too!)
have video card out completely (to test of course)
if I pull the extra power spot up by the cpu socket it does not appear to do the reboot thing (but it also won't show video even with a video card in because I assume this plug is neccesary. I have tried the extra plug with both 8 and 4 pin configs and two different power supplies. Same story 4 second on 3-4 off and repeat.

Im down to dead mb and ready to get mad because this is the first time one of my builds has failed:

Setup: E2160, IP35-e, 667 buffalo 512mb, ide HD (13gb), ide cd/dvd rom, ultra 600watt or some other working 420watt psu I had for testing other computers.

What do you professionals here think? (prior to 3 hours ago I thought I was a professional!) Thank You.

 

[lightfoot3b]

update, took mb out of the case to a piece of wood after reseating the cpu. Now it starts, stops and then starts and stays running. I never get video (on either video card I have, two different x800's) and I NEVER get bios beeps, even with the v-card out. Bad mb?

 

[Heidfirst]

do you have a speaker connected (the board doesn't have 1 & not all cases do these days either)?
full system spec.?

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: WEW
I want to use the onboard - but how would i connect it to the tv or my home theater panasonic receiver.

Originally posted by: Heidfirst
what are you going to use for audio (onboard or discrete sound card)?
The mobo has optical SPDIF out & a SPDIF header on the PCB for connecting to a video card that supports it.

is your gfx card capable of using the SPDIF header?

 

[lightfoot3b]

Yes I have a bios beeping speaker connected

I gave you all the specs you need. I don't even have the ide plugged in and nothing works. If I don't get bios beeps without memory or video when cpu/memory/v-card are plugged nothing else matters.

Im RMA'ing it Monday if no one figures anything out (not mad, just saying no one seems to know online about this issues besides rma'ing it) Abit also says support is 9-6 pst and they never answered all day. The phone message said they were closed. Real nice.

 

[Heidfirst]

can you try some other memory & other PSU (I sure wouldn't trust the Ultra & the other could be anything)?

 

[lightfoot3b]

I don't know if you missed my first post but I've tried two tested and working power supplies, one ultra (which works great in the other system I've had it in) and an antec (also worked great in another system) and I DON'T have memory in it since I don't get bios beeps but yes, I did try my crucial ballistix and OCZ stuff too. No change. I'm going to try my e2160 in a friends (also new) abit ip35-e this weekend with his psu and v-card and see if it goes. If it does rma'ing the mb. I was hoping someone would have some idea on the starting-stopping-starting and then just sitting there. Thanks for the tips.

 

[blahsome]

Originally posted by: lightfoot3b
I don't know if you missed my first post but I've tried two tested and working power supplies, one ultra (which works great in the other system I've had it in) and an antec (also worked great in another system) and I DON'T have memory in it since I don't get bios beeps but yes, I did try my crucial ballistix and OCZ stuff too. No change. I'm going to try my e2160 in a friends (also new) abit ip35-e this weekend with his psu and v-card and see if it goes. If it does rma'ing the mb. I was hoping someone would have some idea on the starting-stopping-starting and then just sitting there. Thanks for the tips.

Does your video card need a separate power connector?

 

[lightfoot3b]

X800xl does not x800 pro does, neither work with their respective power (I also have the 12v plugged in above the pci-e slot, also tried without it, didn't matter) no post/video, no bios beeps.

 

[lightfoot3b]

****Fixed**** Took it to a friends to try the cpu in their mb. Worked great. So I decided to try in my mb again and it worked! I think I had a monitor that didnt like the signal over a kvm. Something dumb anyway! Anyway thanks all and here are some numbers from a 15GB hard drive (old quantum fireball!)

E2160 + IP35-e = Great
66.99 + 72.19 = Great

1.8GHz Stock
2.25 Stock voltage
2.70 (I think 1 bump up in voltage)
3.15 (I think ~5 bumps 1.42~ volts bios and lower in cpu-z and speedfan)
3.402 Failed (only did this all over 30min, had voltage to like 1.46 and + one notch on NB)

Other hardware:
OCZ Platinum ddr2-800 4-4-4-15 @2V ($43 AR)
X800xl $35 shipped ebay (also an x800pro $35 ebay)
Gemin II Heatsink (FAR)
600W Ultra (with lifetime warranty) 7.85$ (AR)

 

[mib200]

see guys.. I hav ver15 bios and never had dual boot problems once I changed the option of rimary display from PCI to PCI-e.

I don't find any problems with this mobo and also as I previously described this is a monster overclocking board and had my E6750 OC to 3.5 GHz without ANY voltage increments.

As to make boot process faster, I used IDE to SATA controller card for my DVD drive and then disabled both FLOPPY and IDE controllers in BIOS. By this POST doesn't show up as it doesn't wait for IDE devices and directly shows up the GRUB loader menu on my HDD.

Believe me, BUY this mobo who has not and still reading this thread for any confusions regarding this mobo.

 

[agent2099]

Guys would this be a good budget overclockable setup?

ABIT IP35-E LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Intel Pentium E2160 Allendale 1.8GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: agent2099
Guys would this be a good budget overclockable setup?

ABIT IP35-E LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Intel Pentium E2160 Allendale 1.8GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

I'd say yes, but I'd hesitate on recommending the Crucial since so many people have had issues with them recently. You also want to get memory that is default 1.8v on this board. It has posed problematic for people trying to fire it up with 2.2v ram. I'm running 2x2GB G.Skill DDR2-800 1.8v and it runs like a TOP, I tell you.

The CPU choice is good. I got the E2180 for the 10x multi. 320 fsb x 10 = easy 3.2 ghz with only a small nudge in vcore.

If you plan on overclocking, I strongly recommend an aftermarket CPU cooler. The stock one that comes with the E2xxx series is pretty wimpy and doesn't have heatpipes or copper. I'm using a Tuniq Tower 120 on my board and there is plenty of clearance and room and load temps are at about 50C, which is quite good.

This is a fantastic board and one of the best I've ever owned. I think you'd be happy to join the community of IP35-E users.