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

[mark5]

I seem to have good luck with the IS7 and my "cheap" memory - ie, 1 stick of Crucial PC2100, 1 stick of Kingston ValueRam PC2100. I used SPD, but I think the 865 gives way better performance than the SIS655 that I tried before. The board is running dual channel with this combo @ 170 FSB (DDR340). I'm getting Sandra scores around 4300.
Questions though:
1) I don't know If I'm running PAT or not - I havent downloaded the new BIOS since I'm not sure if I can revert back if I dont like BIOS. Does anyone know how to tell if PAT is running - can it only run in N/B533? I guess a question to ask is if the new BIOS likes good memory or does it make cheap memory run faster too.
2) Is my memory score good? What is the score to be expected with non-overclocked PC3200 @ 200mhz? With say, like crucial CL3 memory sticks? If its only 700 or so more points, its not worth it probably.
3) Without overclocking, my 2.6C seems to be running at 62C full load - isnt that really high?

I'm kind of happy with the purchase, stepping up from an athlon C 1.4GHz, but disappointed that my new system still seems not able to do real time full screen windows media encoder V8 compression of a DV feed from my Digital 8 camcorder. Maybe I'm not choosing the right pixel format. I don't know if speeding up the memory will do anything for me there. Anybody else doing this sort of thing out there?

 

[NordicNINE]

Yeah, I was thinking on getting some Crucial PC3200 to replace the Corsair, but I think I'll spend the extra $25 or so and get two 512MB Kingston HyperX since I'm hearing great things about it.

My 2.4C runs at 45c under full load.

 

[jlarsson]

I just received my Abit is7 and 2.4 ghz p4c yesterday. Its running just at stock speed now, i'm waiting on some AS3 and a better cooler. (Although, I don't think i'll be getting it until after the holiday weekend.) Setup went almost flawlessly ...

Abit IS7
2.4ghz P4c
2x256mb Crucial PC3200
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
80GB Seagate SATA
some other stuff ....

Once I get my new CPU cooler, (ordered a Vantec AeroFlow). Once I get that installed and my case cleaned up, I'll see how far I can overclock.

 

[Zap]

Has anyone experienced a fsb 'wall' with the IS7 wherein it won't exceed a certain fsb. Our review unit won't post past 250fsb, no matter the voltage (up to 2.8), the bios, the game accelerator settings, nor with the multipliers 1:1, 3:2, 5:4?

Mine hits a wall around there. My 2.4C runs stable up to around 2.7, no matter what RAM multipliers. It will POST up to around 250 FSB, no higher, but won't get much farther than POSTing even with RAM set to 3:2.

I'm also having a problem with sound. Lots of background noise, most noticeable with good headphones. I've also heard that microphone input doesn't work well on these boards.

Ah well, I upgrade often anyways...

 

[StephenGP]

Ok, first of all let me say I am quite happy with this board... My set-up includes an IS7-E and a P4C 2600. I cool the cpu with a zalman 7000Al-Cu (AS3 was used also). I have high temperatures. I get 50 degrees Celcius when idle and up to 65 when under full load (Prime 95). The thing is I am 80% sure the reading is totally off. OK it's like 35 degrees over here but still the system temp is a "comfy" 32. If I touch the heatsink while under intense load it is not hot! Barely warm is how I would put it. Also their is no instability. I run the cpu at 3 Ghz (not a limit but a nice round number where I get 100% stability and 1.55VCore) with a 5/4 mem divider (Kingston Hyper-X running at 185Mhz with 2-2-2-5). The temps aren't much different wether O/Ced or notI would like to know what kind of temps you guys are getting. Thanx a lot.

 

[Voltaire]

StephenGP,

I'm running a 2.4c @ 3.06 GHz, 1.57vCore, on a stock cooler. Idle temp = 44-47'C; Full load = 65-67'C (Sandra Burn In Test); Sys temp = 32'C. At stock speed, it idles at around 42-45'C, and full load at around 58-62'C.
I'm surprised to see CPU temp like yours eventhough you have the Zalman HSF. But we all know that Abit should really post a fix on temp reporting real soon

 

[jhites]

StephenGP

It is a documented fact that the temp readings on these boards are off and read high. I just put one of these systems together using a IS7-E and 2.4C and get load temps of 63C using the stock heatsink and pad. I am going to change the heatsink to a Zalman 7000-cu when it comes in next week but I doubt that it will show a great improvement on this board, since the readings are high anyway.

I run one instance of seti together with one instance of Prime95 to get 100% cpu usage and the 63C load temps. This also gives me a good stability verification. I pretty much just ignore the temp readings on these boards. My P4C800 gives me about 50C full load, P4P800 shows 48C and P4G8X reads 56C full load. All of my systems are set up about the same for cooling and everyone gets a different reading. Maybe someday the board mfg's will get it right but I doubt it.

 

[Yourself]

ALthough I'm on watercooling my temps on my IS7 aren't nearly as bad as I though they would be.

2.6c@3575 1.62v

Idle:35
Load: 41-42

I was worried after reading the abit forums, but it's not too bad on my board.

Self

 

[joecool]

hey, guys, i started with an ic7 but got an is7 to do a little head-2-head comparison, they are so close i can't imagine why anyone would blow the extra ca$h for the more expensive, LAN-less ic7. if you want to see a fun flame war check out my post in the ic7 thread:

is7 beats ic7 booty!

i have only one complaint about the is7, & it's trivial, but maybe somebody will know how to fix it: i like to power my system on via the keyboard, in the bios there is an option to use "win 98 keyboard" which actually uses the "power" button on my keyboard. this worked like a champ with the ic7, even powered the system down, but with the is7 it doesn't work. any ideas?

 

[kumarakn]

Any Comments? Anybody there?

kumarakn

Originally posted by: kumarakn
I am using a IS7. I use 2 strips of 512 MB PC 2700 mb ram. My friend gave me a PC2100 256 mb ram. Will I get a better performance using that extra 256 MB strip or will the PC2100 strip degrade the overall performance (as my original ones are PC2700).

Thanks for your answers!

kumarakn

 

[Novaric]

Ok, i've got the ABIT IS7 with a 2.8c, Zalmann 7000CU cooler, a sapphire radeon 9700 pro and 1 gb of Geil 3200DDR Value ram. I can't seem to overclock at all. I've tried changing CPu voltage as high as 1.6, ram voltage as high as 2.8, and run FSBs at 215, 220, 250, and various speed in between at different CPU/DRAM settings...1/1, 3/2 and 5/4. I cannot figure out why i can't overclock this thing. I'm thinking its the RAM, how can i check on the RAM in windows...i can't find it under system info or in 3dmark!! Anyone have any tips/ideas to OC this or even just prove the RAM is working? It seems to me that windows is only showing the 128mb of GPU ram!

 

[NST6563]

Originally posted by: kumarakn
am using a IS7. I use 2 strips of 512 MB PC 2700 mb ram. My friend gave me a PC2100 256 mb ram. Will I get a better performance using that extra 256 MB strip or will the PC2100 strip degrade the overall performance (as my original ones are PC2700).

Thanks for your answers!

I would think it would degrade your performance since it is a slower grade of RAM. Unless of course you can run it at PC2700 speeds.
I have 2 sticks of 256Mb PC2100 that I'm running at PC2700 (at Cas 2, 5-2-2 timings no less. GAT = F1 DDRVoltage is 2.8v)

 

[jhites]

Originally posted by: Novaric
Ok, i've got the ABIT IS7 with a 2.8c, Zalmann 7000CU cooler, a sapphire radeon 9700 pro and 1 gb of Geil 3200DDR Value ram. I'm thinking its the RAM, how can i check on the RAM in windows...i can't find it under system info or in 3dmark!! Anyone have any tips/ideas to OC this or even just prove the RAM is working? It seems to me that windows is only showing the 128mb of GPU ram!

Download and run MemTest86. It will identify amount, speed and test for errors. I think that it is your ram that is causing problems. This board is very picky about memory modules and value ram usually just won't cut it.

 

[Kongzi]

I've been planning on getting the IS7 and and Corsair TwinX1024-3200LL RAM. Will this combo cause me any headaches? I'm not really worried about overclocking, I'd just like to be able to get it to the 2-2-2-5 latency or whatever was good. I see in the Anandtech article on memory they didn't have any problems with this but it seems like these chipsets are very touchy with memory.

 

[Entropy99]

Originally posted by: Kongzi
I've been planning on getting the IS7 and and Corsair TwinX1024-3200LL RAM. Will this combo cause me any headaches? I'm not really worried about overclocking, I'd just like to be able to get it to the 2-2-2-5 latency or whatever was good. I see in the Anandtech article on memory they didn't have any problems with this but it seems like these chipsets are very touchy with memory.

You should be able to get fairly tight timings on this board with the Corsair TwinX, especially if you don't want to OC. That said, you could still have trouble running some of the game accelerator technology settings (GAT) in the BIOS. The reason I say this is that my Corsair 1024-3200C2 could not post using any of the settings in the GAT section. It's my understanding that the only difference between the C2 and TwinX LL 3200 products is that the Twins are paired and tested for compatibility in dual channel but otherwise they are the same. I'm in the process of RMA'ing my memory for a couple sticks of Kingston HyperX 3500's. Good luck!

 

[Novaric]

Ok

1) Still having difficulties in OC'ing. I may just switch over to a higher quality ram. Think running 512 mb of tight timing RAM at OC speeds would be better than the current 1 GB of loose setting ram at not OC CPU?

2) Tonight, as i tried to use my windows iPod with this new rig, i can't seem to get windows to recognize it being plugged in. How can i verify that my firewire is working? Are there any known problems? Should i install SP1 or something?

Any help with these current problems would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Kongzi]

What exactly is GAT. Is it simply PAT under a different name?

 

[orion7144]

Originally posted by: Kongzi
What exactly is GAT. Is it simply PAT under a different name?

Yep

 

[Darren43]

I thought I posted it here, but apparently it got started as another thread. This is a copy of the note I wrote.

Just FYI, trying to keep it short...

Finished computer:

IS7 with bios 13
Two 256MB Corsair XMS3700 sticks
P4 2.6c with stock fan and thermal pad
Thermaltake 420 watt PSU
Radeon 8500 retail
Win2K SP4

Originally ordered only one stick of a 512 XMS3700 but got these two instead...forgot to RMA the 512, hope it's not too late...

At stock settings in the original bios, the board would not boot. Period. I was trying the timings much too loose, as I found out that the 3700s "require" 3,8,4,4 timings. I booted right up at 3,7,4,4 (7 supposed to be an 8 - I goofed) at 800 strapping

Played with the timings...got many no-boots...finally settled on the rated 3,8,4,4 and installed Win2K and the SP4 with no problems whatsoever.

Got the new bios and played some more with the timings, not really knowing what I was doing, so I got PCMark 2002 so I could track my progress.

First test on PCMark yielded a CPU score of 4700, 7332 for the RAM, and 1037 for the HDD. This is with a PSB800 with 3,7,4,4, timings. I played some more with tighter timings and GAT, but did not have a decent methodology for tracking all the results. Among them: 2.5,7,4,2 timings with F1 gave me a 4757 CPU, 6913 mem, and 1009 score with PCMark with a 3:2 ratio using PSB667...without GAT at 2,6,3,2 and PSB667 and 5:4 the scores were 4737, 7278, 1035.

Today I decided to try my n00b hand at O/Cing, and for sake of consistency and easier documentation I kept the timings at the rated 3,8,4,4. I kept the strapping at 800 and the ratio at 1:1 with a fixed AGP/PCI. DDR voltage was set to 2.65. After starting off slow, and with absolutely no errors I took it up to an FSB of 231 at a 1:1. Ran out of time and stopped after the PCMark and Sandra tests. The POST screens after the BIOS / CPU / RAM ID screen got kinda funky and blurred but it booted into windows fine.

Scores: PCMark 2002 CPU and Memory: 5461 and 8179
SandraMAX: Mem Int Buff: 5130 Float. Buff: 5114
CPU: Dhrystone ALU: 9242 MIPS Whetstone FPU: 2599 / 5544

I guess I'll play with the GAT tomorrow night. Sorry for my amateur presentation...I'm just posting this FYI so anyone who gets the XMS3700 might know what to expect.

Still, I was happy to take my 2.6c to 3.0! I've never O/Ced before and all the posts I have read over here, at the Abit boards, at the Cosair boards, and various overclocking boards have all blurred into one and left me dizzy.

I dialed the FSB back down to 200 for the night.

Suggestions anyone?

 

[orion7144]

Me personally, I would send those sticks of memory back and get some low latency one's. 3-8-4-4 is garbage. I thought the XMS were supposed to be 2.5-7-2-2?

Originally posted by: Darren43
I thought I posted it here, but apparently it got started as another thread. This is a copy of the note I wrote.

Just FYI, trying to keep it short...

Finished computer:

IS7 with bios 13
Two 256MB Corsair XMS3700 sticks
P4 2.6c with stock fan and thermal pad
Thermaltake 420 watt PSU
Radeon 8500 retail
Win2K SP4

Originally ordered only one stick of a 512 XMS3700 but got these two instead...forgot to RMA the 512, hope it's not too late...

At stock settings in the original bios, the board would not boot. Period. I was trying the timings much too loose, as I found out that the 3700s "require" 3,8,4,4 timings. I booted right up at 3,7,4,4 (7 supposed to be an 8 - I goofed) at 800 strapping

Played with the timings...got many no-boots...finally settled on the rated 3,8,4,4 and installed Win2K and the SP4 with no problems whatsoever.

Got the new bios and played some more with the timings, not really knowing what I was doing, so I got PCMark 2002 so I could track my progress.

First test on PCMark yielded a CPU score of 4700, 7332 for the RAM, and 1037 for the HDD. This is with a PSB800 with 3,7,4,4, timings. I played some more with tighter timings and GAT, but did not have a decent methodology for tracking all the results. Among them: 2.5,7,4,2 timings with F1 gave me a 4757 CPU, 6913 mem, and 1009 score with PCMark with a 3:2 ratio using PSB667...without GAT at 2,6,3,2 and PSB667 and 5:4 the scores were 4737, 7278, 1035.

Today I decided to try my n00b hand at O/Cing, and for sake of consistency and easier documentation I kept the timings at the rated 3,8,4,4. I kept the strapping at 800 and the ratio at 1:1 with a fixed AGP/PCI. DDR voltage was set to 2.65. After starting off slow, and with absolutely no errors I took it up to an FSB of 231 at a 1:1. Ran out of time and stopped after the PCMark and Sandra tests. The POST screens after the BIOS / CPU / RAM ID screen got kinda funky and blurred but it booted into windows fine.

Scores: PCMark 2002 CPU and Memory: 5461 and 8179
SandraMAX: Mem Int Buff: 5130 Float. Buff: 5114
CPU: Dhrystone ALU: 9242 MIPS Whetstone FPU: 2599 / 5544

I guess I'll play with the GAT tomorrow night. Sorry for my amateur presentation...I'm just posting this FYI so anyone who gets the XMS3700 might know what to expect.

Still, I was happy to take my 2.6c to 3.0! I've never O/Ced before and all the posts I have read over here, at the Abit boards, at the Cosair boards, and various overclocking boards have all blurred into one and left me dizzy.

I dialed the FSB back down to 200 for the night.

Suggestions anyone?

 

[Nucleas]

Hi,

I just got IS7E... can I mix DDram 333(512mb) and 266(512mb) on this MoBo? The vendor said i need to go for PC2700(333) type for stability.

BTW, is Dual Channel=double sided

Thanks

 

[mark5]

Guys can we start a short back and forth about Sandra memory scores.

Because, I'm using cheap 1 stick of Crucial PC2100, 1 stick of Kingston ValueRam PC2100. The board is running dual channel with this combo @ 170 FSB (DDR340). I'm getting Sandra scores around 4300. I've hit 4700 but got one crash with that FSB setup.

My big deal is that I'm seeing that a lot of review sites (hardocp etc) are getting around 4500, 4700 with all kinds of nice expensive fast memory.

What are you guys Memory scores in Sissoft SANDRA?
How about we format it like this so its short and sweet.

<Processor>
<FSB>
<Memory Type>
<Memory Speed>
<Sandra Score>
I think it would really be helpful to a lot of people out there playing with their RAM - what do you guys think?

Simple response like this..
*****

2.6C
FSB 230
1 Crucial 128, PC2100, 1 Kingston 128, PC2100.
Memory 170 - DDR 340
4300>

*****
I think this will help people see what their setup could do.

 

[jhites]

2.6C
FSB 261.3
2X512 Kingston HyperX-PC3500
Memory 209.4 - DDR 418.1 - (2-2-2-5)
5586/5604

 

[orion7144]

Not a good idea. DDDR stands for Dual DDR meaning you need two sticks. It increases your memory bandwidth. You do not have to use it in Dual DDR mode but it is faster.

Originally posted by: Nucleas
Hi,

I just got IS7E... can I mix DDram 333(512mb) and 266(512mb) on this MoBo? The vendor said i need to go for PC2700(333) type for stability.

BTW, is Dual Channel=double sided

Thanks

 

[orion7144]

I agree and I will post mine as soon as I get my new memory on Friday. I will post with my current memory on this board. I have 2 128meg Nanya sticks in my kids Asus P4P800-VM and with my new sticks on this machine on Friday.

Originally posted by: mark5
Guys can we start a short back and forth about Sandra memory scores.

Because, I'm using cheap 1 stick of Crucial PC2100, 1 stick of Kingston ValueRam PC2100. The board is running dual channel with this combo @ 170 FSB (DDR340). I'm getting Sandra scores around 4300. I've hit 4700 but got one crash with that FSB setup.

My big deal is that I'm seeing that a lot of review sites (hardocp etc) are getting around 4500, 4700 with all kinds of nice expensive fast memory.

What are you guys Memory scores in Sissoft SANDRA?
How about we format it like this so its short and sweet.

<Processor>
<FSB>
<Memory Type>
<Memory Speed>
<Sandra Score>
I think it would really be helpful to a lot of people out there playing with their RAM - what do you guys think?

Simple response like this..
*****

2.6C
FSB 230
1 Crucial 128, PC2100, 1 Kingston 128, PC2100.
Memory 170 - DDR 340
4300>

*****
I think this will help people see what their setup could do.