*** Official ABIT IS7/G/E (865PE) Thread ***

[orion7144]

It's pretty low profile. IDE RAID is a waste of bandwidth. If you want to use RAID you should use an add in PCI RAID card. The performance gains are well worth it. I went from a built in (Gigabyte 8PE667 Ultra) raid to a Highpoint raid controller and the gains were well worth the extra $80 I paid for the card.

Originally posted by: Auric
How tall is the chipset HSF (from board surface to top)? It is very close to the AGP slot and I wonder if it would block the use of large heatsinks on the backside of graphics cards, such as the Zalman ZM80A-HP? I would of course want to use a passive HS and notice some boards come like that and in any case know they are available but if it is going to cost extra to have to modify then the equivalent Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro looks good as it has plenty of room however does not include the SATA RAID nor the "bonus" Gigabit LAN chip. It seems weird that it does have IDE RAID though. I mean, for future use I would much rather have SATA RAID available combined with PATA non-RAID.

 

[virtuamike]

That makes absolutely no sense. Built-in RAID on motherboards (until the 865/875) is simply integrated chips that run off the PCI bus. In other words, they have the exact same bandwidth as an external add-on card because they run off the same bus. 865/875 is different in the ICH5 has an integrated SATA RAID controller that runs off a dedicated bus, meaning it's removed from PCI.

The only way you could've noticed a difference is if the RAID card you added in was a hardware solution (where the controller instead of the CPU actually does all the I/O operations), and to my knowledge only Adaptec, Promise, and another company (can't remember the name) make full hardware IDE RAID controllers.

The difference you noticed by going to your Highpoint was most likely due to a different default stripe size, has nothing to do with physically adding in a card.

 

[cmdrdredd]

BAD NEWS! My IS7 just died...

It froze like any other freeze and it wasn't even overclocked at the time. I was typing an email. Anyway, I restarted it and got the long beeep! I reset cmos removed battery etc. Still long beep and no post. Yikes! Got my RMA number from newegg and will see if another would do better for me. I'm not sure what could have happened. I didn't hear a zap or notice any errors or anything like that. Just quit. Looks like I got a bad one with a weak part or something.

My CPU is fine because I tested it in another system. The other parts are fine. Strange indeed.

 

[orion7144]

All I can say is that it was very noticable. Not a different stripe size. The gigabyte had the Highpoint controller so when I put the PCI highpoint controller in there my boot times and transferer rates all were better. I removed the cables from the motherbaord and placed them on the PCI card and rebooted. The only difference is that the Gigabyte board had the "Lite" version.

Originally posted by: virtuamike
That makes absolutely no sense. Built-in RAID on motherboards (until the 865/875) is simply integrated chips that run off the PCI bus. In other words, they have the exact same bandwidth as an external add-on card because they run off the same bus. 865/875 is different in the ICH5 has an integrated SATA RAID controller that runs off a dedicated bus, meaning it's removed from PCI.

The only way you could've noticed a difference is if the RAID card you added in was a hardware solution (where the controller instead of the CPU actually does all the I/O operations), and to my knowledge only Adaptec, Promise, and another company (can't remember the name) make full hardware IDE RAID controllers.

The difference you noticed by going to your Highpoint was most likely due to a different default stripe size, has nothing to do with physically adding in a card.

 

[orion7144]

Did you unplug the PWR supply? When I was attempting to OC with the PC2700 and frequently had the long beep and no post. Ended up I had to remove pwr for a min or two. and it would post. Another thing you can try is to hold the "Insert" key and presse the pwr on button after you plug in the pwr supply.

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
BAD NEWS! My IS7 just died...

It froze like any other freeze and it wasn't even overclocked at the time. I was typing an email. Anyway, I restarted it and got the long beeep! I reset cmos removed battery etc. Still long beep and no post. Yikes! Got my RMA number from newegg and will see if another would do better for me. I'm not sure what could have happened. I didn't hear a zap or notice any errors or anything like that. Just quit. Looks like I got a bad one with a weak part or something.

My CPU is fine because I tested it in another system. The other parts are fine. Strange indeed.

 

[cmdrdredd]

well, I'll try it outside the case and see what happens.

 

[cmdrdredd]

well, after trying it again it didn't boot no matter what I try. Tested my CPU and memory in another board and they're fine. So I looked closely around the mobo and noticed a spot that looks like some sort of short near the NB HSF. I believe that there was a weak part and it went out after some extensive use. I got unlucky.

 

[orion7144]

Can you take a pic or describe what part?

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
well, after trying it again it didn't boot no matter what I try. Tested my CPU and memory in another board and they're fine. So I looked closely around the mobo and noticed a spot that looks like some sort of short near the NB HSF. I believe that there was a weak part and it went out after some extensive use. I got unlucky.

 

[cmdrdredd]

It's a small resistor near the HSF on the NB that has a small trace near it that looks burnt. I am no electrician, but I can tell when something looks funny. I looked at every possible thing before I found this. What could have caused that I wonder...my PSU is not a problem because it is giving me stable readings right now in my other system and my memory CPU and HDs all work fine.

The thing is I wasn't overclocking or doing anything even remotely taxing on the system at the time. I decided that I needed better memory to run faster than stock and was typing an email when it just froze. No warning.

 

[vetteguy]

I'm currently building my IS7-G system, but haven't gotten it all put together yet. Here's what I'm using:

IS7-G
2x512MB Kingston HyperX PC3200
Radeon 9700 Pro w/Zalman heatpipe
P4 2.8C w/Swiftech MCX4000 and 92mm stealth fan
2 WD Raptors in RAID 0
1 Seagate SATA 7200.7 120GB

I do have a question...in order to mount the MCX4000 it required me to remove the intel heatsink mounting bracket on the motherboard. I had to pull the plastic pins out with a pair of pliers. Will this affect my ability to RMA this board should there be a problem?

 

[kumarakn]

Newbie Here! Please help!

Question:
Just bought the IS-7 Mother Board. (It is on its way). This MB specification says that it can take upto 4 gig of PC2100/2700/3200 RAM. I also bought the P4 3.06 @ 533Mhz FSB. I just came across a website which says, if use a 533 FSB cpu on this motherboard and if I use PC3200 ram, my max limit is 2 gig. I can have 4 gig only if I use PC 2100/2700 Ram. I can have 4 gig of PC 3200 ram only if I use a 800 Mhz FSB cpu they say. How correct is this?

Also, if the above is true, I have to either return my PC3200 Ram and get PC2700 ram or return my 533 Mhz CPU and get a 800 MHz cpu. If it were you, what would you do?

Thanks!

kumarakn!

 

[Tom]

I don't see any reference to this in the manual. What website did you get this info at ?

 

[kumarakn]

--Sorry--

 

[orion7144]

Originally posted by: vetteguy
I'm currently building my IS7-G system, but haven't gotten it all put together yet. Here's what I'm using:

IS7-G
2x512MB Kingston HyperX PC3200
Radeon 9700 Pro w/Zalman heatpipe
P4 2.8C w/Swiftech MCX4000 and 92mm stealth fan
2 WD Raptors in RAID 0
1 Seagate SATA 7200.7 120GB

I do have a question...in order to mount the MCX4000 it required me to remove the intel heatsink mounting bracket on the motherboard. I had to pull the plastic pins out with a pair of pliers. Will this affect my ability to RMA this board should there be a problem?

It shouldn't but keep the holder just incase. They sell those plastic inserts so you can reinstall it.

 

[orion7144]

I will be updating the Main message as new BIOS's and drivers get released. There is a new SATA driver available now.

 

[vetteguy]

Well so far this board has turned out to be nothing but crap. It has taken me 3 hours just to get it to the point where the board will actually get all the way through the boot process to allow me to attempt to install Windows. There, more troubles arise.

I have 2 Raptors on the ICH5 controller, and one Seagate on the Silicon Image. The Raptors are set up to be in RAID 0. When I launch the Windows install, I do the F6 thing and install the RAID drivers. When it asks me where I want to install windows, it sees the Raptors as one ~68GB partition. I make a partition and attempt to format it. However, it "formats" very quickly, then comes up with a message that says Windows cannot be installed on the drive because it could be damaged or not configured properly. I tried this 20 times and it failed 19. One time it actually started copying files but then failed at about 10%. I thought one of the Raptors might be bad, so I pulled them out and am now attempting to install XP just to the Seagate. However, when I disconnected the Raptors, the SATA connector on one of them broke off when I pulled off the cable. Nice. I'm glad an "enterprise-class" drive is so robust that the connector breaks when you REMOVE a cable. I've already gone onto WD's site to do an RMA, but they don't do online RMA's for Raptors. Nice again.

 

[orion7144]

Did you use the new drivers?

Originally posted by: vetteguy
Well so far this board has turned out to be nothing but crap. It has taken me 3 hours just to get it to the point where the board will actually get all the way through the boot process to allow me to attempt to install Windows. There, more troubles arise.

I have 2 Raptors on the ICH5 controller, and one Seagate on the Silicon Image. The Raptors are set up to be in RAID 0. When I launch the Windows install, I do the F6 thing and install the RAID drivers. When it asks me where I want to install windows, it sees the Raptors as one ~68GB partition. I make a partition and attempt to format it. However, it "formats" very quickly, then comes up with a message that says Windows cannot be installed on the drive because it could be damaged or not configured properly. I tried this 20 times and it failed 19. One time it actually started copying files but then failed at about 10%. I thought one of the Raptors might be bad, so I pulled them out and am now attempting to install XP just to the Seagate. However, when I disconnected the Raptors, the SATA connector on one of them broke off when I pulled off the cable. Nice. I'm glad an "enterprise-class" drive is so robust that the connector breaks when you REMOVE a cable. I've already gone onto WD's site to do an RMA, but they don't do online RMA's for Raptors. Nice again.

 

[vetteguy]

Originally posted by: orion7144
Did you use the new drivers?

The new drivers are for the Silicon Image, not the integrated Intel controller. I did not try the Raptors on that controller because I want them to be on the ICH5.

 

[vetteguy]

Well I tried to install XP to just one drive, the 120GB Seagate. I plugged it into the Intel SATA controller. It formatted ok (although it took over an hour) but as soon as it started copying files I got a blue screen (stop error in ntfs.sys). I unplugged that drive and plugged in one of the Raptors (the non-broken one) and attempted the same thing. It allowed me to format, but as soon as the install began I got another blue screen. This is leading me to believe it's something to do with the SATA controller. I plugged the 120GB into the secondary S.I. controller, but the Windows setup program saw it as something like 410000000000000MB. So, is my board just bad, or is this board crappy in general when using SATA?

 

[Ketchup]

If you haven't already, have you tried putting the Seagate on the Primary IDE controller?

 

[vetteguy]

Originally posted by: ketchup79
If you haven't already, have you tried putting the Seagate on the Primary IDE controller?

I can't...this is the SATA 7200.7...it's SATA only.

 

[orion7144]

Have you tried relaxing any of the timings for the ram? I'd give it a shot. I think I would even try and run them at PC2100 just to see what happens. Also have you had a look at the Abit forums at their site?

Originally posted by: vetteguy

Originally posted by: ketchup79
If you haven't already, have you tried putting the Seagate on the Primary IDE controller?

I can't...this is the SATA 7200.7...it's SATA only.

 

[vetteguy]

I had to back off on the timings to get it to boot, until I found on their forums a note that you need to bump the voltage to 2.65V to run the RAM at 2-2-2-5. I can try to back it off and try tomorrow. I've posted a thread on their forums about this but it hasn't gotten any responses.

 

[orion7144]

Let us know what happens. BTW where did you get the board from?

 

[Ketchup]

Have you tried the 5:4 memory ratio? What bios are you using? You may be having trouble running the right memory timings if you are using the original bios. Whenever setting up windows, use the slowest memory speed and timings possible. I mean, it's not like it will matter how fast your system is when you are installing Windows. I don't think I have ever installed Windows while overclocked or running my memory with aggressive settings. I mean, I can't even remember the last time my old BO stepping 2.4B crashed while running 2.85 GHz, but I still don't feel comfortable installing Windows with the system overclocked.

Do you have an old IDE drive lying around? I would see if Windows would install on it. If it did, at least you would have narrowed down your problem. From what you have posted, I think it could be either memory or motherboard related. It is really hard to tell which.