*** Official ABIT IC7/G (875P) Thread ***

[acemcmac]

Whoops... too late. I just had a spaz attack... The CC just leaped out of my wallet and onto my keyboard... it was horrible... when I looked up, the Newegg order confirmation was in the printer tray!

IC7 (non-G) with free t-shirt (its all about the free threads) comin in the mail now...

 

[Spicedaddy]

Finally got my IC7 and 2x256MB HyperX PC3500 this morning. Running nicely, but I'm only using a 1.6A until I can get a 2.4C.


Only bad thing: the 4 bottom DIMM clips were broken because of the packaging. I was a little mad, but I PMed the ABIT rep on their forums, and he replied within 30 minutes that he would have someone send me 4 DIMM clips today. Now that's good service! (much better than having to RMA the whole thing and wait another week)

 

[BOBDN]

Originally posted by: KillerBob
Perhaps something that has been explained before, but I may be a bit daft:

1) Which HD performs better on the IC7-G, 120G SATA Seagate Barracuda or 120G Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9?

2) What SATA controller performs best for Raid0?

3) Can I connect an old PATA Raid0 disk array set to any of the SATA controllers on the MoBo (through adapters)?

I am obviously struggling with the final choises before I am my purchase, so thanks in advance.

1) The true SATA drive should perform better.

2) The onboard ICH5R RAID should perform better since it is independent of the PCI bus.

3) You can connect your PATA RAID disk array on the SATA controllers. You need ABIT SERILLEL 2 adapters to connect PATA to SATA RAID on the ICH5R SATA channels. The IC7-G comes with one Abit Serillel 2 converter. You must purchase a second.

There is a compatability issue with other converters wherein the second drive in the RAID array isn't recognized. From what I have read from users of the IC7-G you can use other parallel to SATA converters with the onboard Silicon Image chip but NOT WITH THE ICH5R SATA channels.

 

[Fallen Kell]

OH MY GOD! That is all I can say. I FINALLY got my 3.0 GHz CPU and Zalman CNPS 7000-CuAl heatsink, so I was finally able to set just about everything up last night (I'm still waiting on my video card, but I popped in an old GeForce DDR I had laying around). UNBELIEVABLE!

I'm still using the 10 BIOS because I have my hard drives setup using the Serielle 2 SATA adaptor. As a result I can't tell you how well my RAM will work, but its 2x512 Mushkin 3500 DIMMs. I don't know why everyone is saying it costs too much, I picked up both sticks for $260 (a certain website *cough cough* ANAND *cough cough* has a partnership with them and you get 10% off for using their name as written as a coupon).

This thing blows away what I had before. I mean completely blows away.

 

[jdogg707]

Ok, I've got a few questions. I got this board a few weeks ago and love it (My 2.53GHZ SL6S2 sits @ 3.44GHZ), but am experiencing two problems, and have one question.

Problems:

1. Upon boot if anything is connected to the USB/Firewire bracket the BIOS will not finish loading, but if I unplug what I have there it boots just fine. Is this a problem for anyone else? Or is there a way to fix it? When I get into Windows the device hooked up to it works just fine!

2. My Radeon AIW 9700 Pro has a tendency everyone once in a while to crash to the 4 bit color (using cat 3.2's) and a message come up with a hardware failure has occured on it. I have tried disabling fast writes but still experience the problem, it's happened twice since I got the board, once with a 9500 Pro and again with my AIW. I thought this issue was fixed with these 875P boards! Any fixes other than faster 66/33 clock, because moving that up at all disables my SATA. The default AGP voltage on this board is 1.55V, should I go 1.6 or back down to 1.5?

Question:

1. I have my Western Digital Special Edition hooked up through a Highpoint PATA to Serial ATA converter on the ICH5R, connection 1. If I install the new BIOS will it kill this drive, or will it allow me to run it, just nothing on the second connector? I was hopeing to update the BIOS so maybe some of my problems will be fixed by it.

Thanks a lot...

 

[NicColt]

Fallen Kell any problems setting up your zalman ???

jdogg707 I keep reading that there's a problem with the cats 3.2's so just go back to 3.1 or 3.3's

 

[Fallen Kell]

Originally posted by: NicColt
Fallen Kell any problems setting up your zalman ???

jdogg707 I keep reading that there's a problem with the cats 3.2's so just go back to 3.1 or 3.3's

Yeah, I had some trouble with the Zalman, but not too much. Basically it was a little hard to initially start threading the screws into the bracket bars that is uses. Other then that, I had no problems at all. It would be nice if the scres they used were about 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch longer as they would then be able to reach the holes in the brackets without a lot of trouble. You just need to be careful not to put too much pressure on on the CPU at any given point. You can fairly easily wind up putting a lot of pressure on it if you "angle" the heatsink to get one screw in on one side and then try to get the other one in on the other side. The P4's a pretty sturdy and can handle some of the pressure, so you don't need to be as scared as you would be with an AMD chip... (I would have destroyed and AMD chip completely with the amount of pressure I had to put on the CPU in the install)...

 

[O1dieburg]

Jdog,
I had the same problem with the USB/Firewire headers. I have one of those USB 2.0 internal 6-in-1 readers, and if it was connected during boot it wouldn't get past post. After upgrading the bios, problem went away.

I also had 2 Seagate 120g SATA drives in RAID 0 and didn't have a problem with them after upgrading the bios. Of course they are not using the adapters, obviously, but native drives have no problem (at least mine didn't) with the bios upgrade.

I have to say that after the bios upgrade this is a great MB. I did replace the northbridge fan with a heatsink, and have a zalman 6500-cu cooler for the CPU. All I need to do now is get the ZM80A-HP on my 9700 pro and we should be silent as possible...

Oldie

 

[oldfart]

O1dieburg, I've done the ZM80A-HP on my 9700P, but not the NB yet. What did you use? I have a Zalman NB HS here ready to go. The reason I haven't done it yet is the NB fan (on mine anyway) is actually very quiet. At full speed, its a little noisy, but I run it @ 5600 RPM using Speedfan. I have it set that when CPU temp goes up 5C, the NB fan goes back to full peed.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Originally posted by: oldfart
O1dieburg, I've done the ZM80A-HP on my 9700P, but not the NB yet. What did you use? I have a Zalman NB HS here ready to go. The reason I haven't done it yet is the NB fan (on mine anyway) is actually very quiet. At full speed, its a little noisy, but I run it @ 5600 RPM using Speedfan. I have it set that when CPU temp goes up 5C, the NB fan goes back to full peed.

I agree with the NB fan. Mine is very quiet. The sound of the air being pushed through the case is louder then that fan. At first I thought I would have to replace it myself, until I actually heard it (or in my case, "didn't" hear it)...

 

[jdogg707]

Thanks for the help, it looks like the USB question is answered, and I will try the Cat. 3.1's or just try and hold out for the 3.4's sometime soon.

Still looking for an answer on the Hard Drive thing, just want to make sure before I update and mess something up.

Thanks.

 

[SnowBoarder9455]

Hey, I'm about to order the IC7, but one quick question. Should I be ordering a floppy drive and cable too? Is it needed to set up the motherboard or are all the drivers on the CD? When your upgrading the BIOS will I need a floppy drive?

Kevin

 

[jdogg707]

you will need a floppy

 

[EvilllBilll]

I'm planning to buy the IC7-G but I need to know whats the best memory for that board ?

Kingston Hyper-X 433 2x512
or
Corsair Twin 1024-3200LL

I want the most stable and the fastest at stock speed (I'm planning to overclock in the future but I want a fast stock speed computer for now :clock: )

 

[jaeger66]

Originally posted by: SnowBoarder9455
Hey, I'm about to order the IC7, but one quick question. Should I be ordering a floppy drive and cable too? Is it needed to set up the motherboard or are all the drivers on the CD? When your upgrading the BIOS will I need a floppy drive?

Kevin

You don't need a floppy to flash the BIOS. You can use a CDRW disc or the Windows flash utility.

 

[eastvillager]

I had to load the drivers from floppy to keep WinXP install from bluescreening. I didn't have my install target on SATA, but the cd-rom I was installing from *was*.

Might be able to get around this by putting cdrom on ata instead, don't know, didn't try.

 

[O1dieburg]

Oldfart,
I used the same zalman NB Heatsink that you have, and I used the thermal adhesive, since there are no holes, only clips, for the other methood. I know it's a permanent solution now, and I'm willing to live with that. I was also using speedfan before to lower the RPM's, but now I don't need to bother.

I also replaced the 92mm fan that came with the 6500-cu with a 120mm one, and it blows air on both the CPU HS and the NB HS, so I'm pretty sure I'm covered there. I did check temps before and after, and my temps are a about 5 degrees lower now then before. I only have one intake fan (A Silencer from pcpowerandcooling.com) and my Zalman PSU.

Mu computer sits on the hardwood floor next to my desk, next to a file cabinet, so there is nothing to dampen any of the sound. I'm probably going to get a small carpet to put under it along with some type of shelf to go between the desk and cabinet (low 2-drawer type) to block some more sound.

Jaeger and eastvillager:
You must load the driver during install if you will be using the SATA ports either for your install target or the source media. There are ways to add the driver to a WinXP source without having to load via floppy, usually involving using the unattend.txt file and automating the install. It's beyond the scope here, but the resource kit has some good info on it if you are interested.

 

[Grit]

Originally posted by: BOBDN

Originally posted by: KillerBob
There is a compatability issue with other converters wherein the second drive in the RAID array isn't recognized. From what I have read from users of the IC7-G you can use other parallel to SATA converters with the onboard Silicon Image chip but NOT WITH THE ICH5R SATA channels.

Is this confirmed? That would mean you can't use ANY SATA to pata converter on any ICH5 SATA?

I was under the impression Abit's PATA -> SATA new converter was able to handle ATAPI devices, and that was the only difference.

Maxtor better get those SATA drives out soon

 

[SnowBoarder9455]

So I can flash the bios from a cd if I don't have SATA converter on the DVD drive? Since I'm not using any SATA drives in the initial setup, I'm thinking I don't need one. I ordered an IC7 from Newegg, now I need a cpu and ram. I'm going with Geil PC3500 Ultra Platinum, and a 2.4C. Googlegear doesn't have any 2.4C's left, and a few stores on Pricewatch, all around $230 with shipping. Are there any other stores with them? Any idea when newegg will get 2.4c's?

 

[snidy1]

$245 at monarch
Link

 

[jaeger66]

Originally posted by: SnowBoarder9455
Any idea when newegg will get 2.4c's?

Probably when Intel actually releases them. Like, next week for $178.

 

[vassili]

is the new 1.1 bios for the IC7 as well? or is it just for the IC7-G? also i need some pointers on ram timings and advice on oc'ing with this IC7 mobo. for the love of me i cannot post past 150 fsb.


relevant system specs:

IC7
p4 2.4b 533 fsb
ocz 2x 512mb pc3200 (ddr400) cas2
sapphire radeon 9700 oem
450w ps


here are the problems i'm having. whenver i try to push the fsb past 150 (2.7ghz@1.55v) i would get a series of long beeps when i reboot my machine. will not post, screen's blank and all i hear are the long beeps. i cannot even enter cmos since everytime i turn on i get the beeps and nothing else. i can take care of this problem by removing the cpu fromt he socket and re inserting it. after that i can enter cmos and do whatever. i'm running the original bios that came with the board. will flashing to the 1.1 help? and is the 1.1 IC7-G only? or can IC7 use it as well? tried to call tech support but can't get through.

another issue is ram timings. what is the optimal timings for my 2.4b? does the 533 fsb need special ram timings? i've got it on 2,6,2,2 (cas latency, time to precharge, dram to cas delay, dram precharge. respectively) should i change these settings? i've also read on this forum that changing dram timings doesn't really do anything with the 1.0 bios and that 1.1 fixes this. does IC7 have the same problem or just the "G"? and a quick explanation of optimal cpu ratio/dram ratio would be greatly appreciated.

i'm kind of a newb at this so thanks for putting up with me.

 

[Spicedaddy]

IC7 & IC7-G use the same BIOS.

To overclock a 533FSB CPU, use these settings: North Bridge Strap: 533, Memory ratio: 1:1, Lock your AGP/PCI to 66/33.

For memory timings, the best would be 2-2-2-5, which should run fine with your ram since you're well below its 200MHz rated speed.

 

[emjem]

Originally posted by: vassili
is the new 1.1 bios for the IC7 as well? or is it just for the IC7-G? also i need some pointers on ram timings and advice on oc'ing with this IC7 mobo. for the love of me i cannot post past 150 fsb.


here are the problems i'm having. whenver i try to push the fsb past 150 (2.7ghz@1.55v) i would get a series of long beeps when i reboot my machine. will not post, screen's blank and all i hear are the long beeps. i cannot even enter cmos since everytime i turn on i get the beeps and nothing else. i can take care of this problem by removing the cpu fromt he socket and re inserting it. after that i can enter cmos and do whatever. i'm running the original bios that came with the board. will flashing to the 1.1 help? and is the 1.1 IC7-G only? or can IC7 use it as well? tried to call tech support but can't get through.

Man, you don't remove the cpu to reset the bios. There's a reset jumper on the mobo. Look in your manual to find it. Or you can just remove the battery for a few minutes. What have you done with the thermal paste/pad everytime you remounted the cpu? Is it possible that you've got that all messed up now?

Anyway, 150 may be all that your particular cpu can handle. It may go higher with an increase in voltage -- but I ain't telling you to try that. You really need to know what your doing before you muck around with voltages.

 

[vassili]

the "5" in the ram timing is the "time to precharge" correct? i'm gonna flash the mobo tomorrow and see how it goes. thanks for the help. oh and does anyone know what all the beep codes to this mobo mean? i don't see it in the manual and tech support is always busy. thanks again.