*The Official* Abit IP35-E (Ed. 2)

[lopri]

As you may know, Abit's latest budget offering has been enormously popular among our fellow forum members. To help exchange information among the users, this thread will be dedicated to this excellent board. Please use this thread to ask any questions or to share information you've found. Also kindly refrain from starting a new thread regarding this board before you post in this thread.

We already have a long discussion with incredible amount of information on this board, and the thread can be found by clicking the link below. It is a good idea to check out the thread (especially the first post) which contains all the basics about this board.

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

AnandTech Moderator lopri

 

[Winterpool]

I'm not sure why a new thread is necessary (though every time I looked at the size of the Abit IP35-E thread, I did wonder if we would bump up against software limits to discussion length). I suppose the rash of new IP35-E queries in the last day or so suggested many punters were unwilling or unable to work with the old thread.

Anyhow, I'll bite and inaugurate the 2.0 thread by importing an unresolved issue from the original:

Mustered the necessary pieces of kit and assembled my new computer system (see system rig profile below). It was my first time building a system round LGA775, so I had the privilege of enjoying all manner of novel experiences today (particularly frustrating were the plastic pins in the Intel heatsink mount). Somewhat to my surprise, the computer managed to POST on the first attempt (well, after a false start that may have been the notorious double POST of this board).

My monitor announced a 3.06 GHz Xeon, which the BIOS confirmed: despite the 'CPU Operating Speed' being set to factory default and listing '3000(333)', further details revealed

x - External Clock 340MHz
x - Multiplier Factor 9 x
x - Estimated New CPU Clock 3060MHz
x - DRAM Speed (CPURAM) Default (DDR2-816)

Ought I to be alarmed by this development? It seems a little disturbing that the default FSB should go to 340 when the default is listed as 333 (and I presume that's what the chipset would aim for). I am running BIOS ver 15 (how the board came from Newegg). The BIOS reported a 'CPU Core Voltage' of 1.11 volts, 'DDR2 Voltage' of 1.92 volts, and 'Core VTT Voltage' of 1.09 volts. All cpu settings are default (ie C1E, EIST, 'Vanderpool', etc).

The other disturbing bit is that, almost every time I cold boot the system after plugging AC power back into the mains, the computer will hang the first time I quit the AwardBIOS CMOS Setup Utility. I'd have to manually power off the machine, then power it back on. Usually after that the issue would disappear until the next time I unplugged everything and then plugged back in. All my CMOS settings would still be there after this failed restart (no checksum error, reset to factory defaults, etc).

Haven't installed an operating system yet, but I did give it a brief round with Memtest86+ 1.70 (five cycles, all passed). I was amused to see my cpu identified as a 'Pentium III 3060 MHz' with an unknown L2 cache, and a blank chipset: perhaps Memtest recognises the PIII ancestry of the 'Core' architecture. Going to try getting Memtest86+ 2.01 on a bootable Flash drive so I can get P35 and Penryn support.

I will of course update to BIOS 16, but I was wondering if any others had witnessed strange default FSBs, especially when using Penryn cpus.

 

[nOOky]

I posted this in another thread, but it got rightfully locked so I'll ask here. I got this excellent budget board, ordered it on 3/31/08. However when I went to print the rebate form, it was "updated" to say I needed to purchase the board between 4/1/08 and 4/15/08. I am sure when I ordered it that it came with a rebate, in fact it has been on sale at newegg with a rebate for weeks.
My question is, does anyone have a copy of the rebate form for last month so I can claim my rebate? Hopefully with the popularity of the board someone may have saved it...

 

[Winterpool]

Visit the Newegg Rebate Centre and search by type and date. If your official purchase date is 31 March (as opposed to 1 April -- when did the order go through?), then you'll need this rebate form for the Abit IP35-E.

 

[nOOky]

Thanks! I don't know how I missed that one. Must have been a blonde moment for me.

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: Winterpool

My monitor announced a 3.06 GHz Xeon, which the BIOS confirmed: despite the 'CPU Operating Speed' being set to factory default and listing '3000(333)', further details revealed

x - External Clock 340MHz
x - Multiplier Factor 9 x
x - Estimated New CPU Clock 3060MHz
x - DRAM Speed (CPURAM) Default (DDR2-816)

Ought I to be alarmed by this development? It seems a little disturbing that the default FSB should go to 340 when the default is listed as 333 (and I presume that's what the chipset would aim for)

No, most abits run a 2% factory overclock out of the box.

 

[Winterpool]

That's... bizarre. Why would Abit do this, and wouldn't this violate some industry or Intel standard to default to an atypical FSB? I doubt any decent piece of kit would be damaged by a 2 per cent overclock, but it would seem Abit might open themselves up to some liability issues if one's chip or memory blew up on first POST ('Your Honour, the motherboard manufacturer did not select true industry default frequency').

Just looked at the packaging and manual, and I didn't see any warning / bragging about the default overclock. I did note, however, that the sample screen in the 'SoftMenu Setup' section of the manual displays

CPU Operating Speed 2133(266)
x - External Clock 272MHz
x - Multiplier Factor 8x
x - Estimated New CPU Clock 2176MHz

which is also about 2 per cent beyond the intended default FSB.

I don't understand why Abit would list a correct default FSB setting and then overclock it anyhow. Shouldn't a board do what you (or the default standard) tell it to do? Some Google searching found that apparently ASUS similarly overclocks the default by a tiny amount.

I presume if I manually select an FSB speed, Abit will actually switch to that speed, and not N*1.02?

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: Winterpool
That's... bizarre. Why would Abit do this,

As for why I guess that it's so that unwitting reviewers/users see improved performance figures v the competition but as most of the competition (not just abit & Asus) do similar ...

Yes, if you set 266 you should get 266.

 

[poohbear]

jebus the original thread has 145 pages!;0

well, i was gonna ask if they managed to fix the reported problems w/ the corsair 520/620 psus? Which corsair psus were giving the problems, the lower end VX or higher end HX series? I can't imagine why the HX series would have a problem since they're top of the line seasonic psus? any word on that end before buying one of these mobos? lol my corsair 550 HX is more expensive then the mobo itself!


btw anyone know where i can find this mobo in canada? can only find the Abit IP35V and Pro versions.

 

[kashk]

I got mine today and the first thing I did was lapp 2 of the 3 heatsinks. The only one I didn't lapp was the tall northbridge sink, because it had a thin piece of foam surrounding the thermal pad which looked quite delicate and probably served to cushion the pressure of the heatsink on the fragile looking unprotected northbridge core.

I've heard that the northbridge on the IP35-E gets awfully hot, and since I can't lapp it, what do you all suggest? Should i remove the cushion layer and lapp it anyway? I did however remove the thermal pad with isopropyl and added a thin layer of AS5 in its place. Hopefully that will help.

Also, the plastic spring push thingies that snap into the motherboard don't seem that secure, they do hold the heatsinks onto their respective components, but could they be more effective with screws and washers?

I noticed that upon removal of the PWM heatsink, the thermal pad wasn't making contact on half of the components... so I lapped it to get it flat and put it back with 2 small screws and washers... am I going overboard with the screws? Will the change it temps cause them to loosen/tighten? Should I just put the spring plastic things back? it looks pretty snug now and I think the PWMs make better contact with the sink, but I can't really see except for 1.

I'm going to get a retail Q6600 tomorrow, lapp the heatsink, and see hope I didn't damage anything in the process of removing all the heatsinks

LAPP DANCE PHOTOS :

southbridge goop is crap: http://www.infinitydose.com/img/tech/chip.jpg
southbridge heatsink is not flat, as we can see: http://www.infinitydose.com/img/tech/hs1.jpg
getting better: http://www.infinitydose.com/img/tech/hs2.jpg
finally flat: http://www.infinitydose.com/img/tech/hs3.jpg

@Poohbear: I can't find any in Canada either, so I got mine new on e-bay for $70 + $20 shipping. I saw someone selling used IP35-es for $30-$50, but the shipping alone was $30 and his listings looked sketchy, i.e. not tested, not guaranteed to work, no warranty etc.

I was actually going to get the popular P35 budget Gigabyte one, but opted for this hoping the 8-pin 12v connectors would be better for o/cing.

Finally, does anyone have the Cooler Master Hyper TX X2 on their IP35-e? Since the Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro won't fit due to the heigh of the northbridge heatsink, I was hoping the equally good Hyper TX X2 would fit, but don't want to find out the hard way.

 

[Wolfcastle]

Memory Boots Up With Incorrect Speed:

My memory is set at 800MHz, but every once in a while, the clock will be booted as 644MHz after a reboot even though the memory has been tested stable after 2 hrs of DOS and Windows memtest and over 24 hours of Prime95 blend and 12 hours of OCCT RAM. This is with the 2/29/08 BIOS although I doubt it's limited to a particular version. Once it boots properly in Windows, the memory is fine.

I'm using the cheap, but decent quality 667 HP Ram which had been making its rounds the past couple of months on the Hot Deals forums.

Sound Card BSOD - Razer Barracuda:

I was originally using an ECS 945GCT/1333 which was fine with Razer Barracuda. But now when I play VLC with default audio output option on the IP35-E, I constantly get a cmudaxp.sys BSOD. When I change the VLC audio output to Win32, there are no crashes.

The onboard audio doesn't have the same crash problem even with VLC default settings.

Coolermaster Hyper TX Heatsink - To kashk:

I have this heatsink, and it fits just fine on the IP35-E. The only caveat is I don't know if my model is Hyper TX 2 or just Hyper TX Universal. I remember I got it September 2007 when there was a $15 rebate on it, so if you can reference that, you'll know the exact model.

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: poohbear
well, i was gonna ask if they managed to fix the reported problems w/ the corsair 520/620 psus? Which corsair psus were giving the problems, the lower end VX or higher end HX series? I can't imagine why the HX series would have a problem since they're top of the line seasonic psus?

It was HXs & some Seasonic branded.
It was never common with far more people having the combo work than not but for whatever reason the problem seems to rarely appear theses days.
Changing the PSU or the mobo both worked for people as a fix so you couldn't lay the blame definitively on either.
Afaik none of abit, Corsair or Seasonic ever managed to replicate it in their labs - I believe that Corsair even brought in a known offending pair from a user but when they got to them they worked together OK ...

 

[Winterpool]

I believe the Seasonic-manufactured power supplies that wouldn't play nice included some Antecs (TruePower? others?). I was quite worried about this because I purchased an Antec Neo HE, which is Seasonic-built. My friend got the Corsair 520HX, despite the issues some had experienced. Both of us POSTed (me with a Xeon E3110, my friend a Q6600).

The issue may have been with the single 12V rail on the Seasonic power units despite the claims of dual (or even triple) rails? As Heidfirst has said, no one ever seems to have got to the bottom of this. There may just have been a wonky run of PSUs or boards or both...

 

[kashk]

I need help

I installed my IP35-e today with a Q6600 / stock heatsink. But i'm getting 47-55 degrees on IDLE and my PWM is running at 41 degrees I know the stock heatsink is bad, so I removed the thermal compound that came pre-applied and put a line of AS5 across the IHS according to arctic silver's website instructions.

I'm using it right now to post this, but I'm not happy with my idle temps I even set my multiplier to 8x hoping that would lower the vcore more. In the bios, i can't get the vcore any lower than 1.25.

all temps and sensors via everest ultimate

can anyone suggest a good / affordable after market cooler that will fit on the IP35-e? I'm guessing Hyper TX2 would be a big step above this stock heatsink, and hopefully that will bring my idle temps to atleast low 40s / high 30s

What should I do about the PWM? Is 41 degrees acceptable? There's no way AS5 would work on the PWMs, so i just left the thermal pad on there. Hopefully my temps will come down a bit when all the TIMs cure

i guess I won't be doing any o/cing anytime soon :/

update: I ran Prime 95 torture test on each core, the temps spiked to 79 the PWM went up to 55.

I hope it's just this crappy stock fan

 

[Heidfirst]

what BIOS version?

41 on PWM is nothing.

 

[kashk]

cpu-z says the bios is 6.00 PG, i haven't updated it yet

edit: well, it says "1/11/2008" so i guess it must be new? i will flash anyways, since double posting is getting annoying.

Heidfirst: you're right, according to what i've read, 40 is okay, it went up to 55ish after a few minutes of prime 95 though.

i think i'm going to get that hyper TX 2 right now... before i install it i'll check to see if it'll clears the NB sink, incase i have to return it.

does anyone know a good way of checking the NB temp? Everest has no sensor readings for it.

edit: i got the hyper tx 2, it clears the heatsink, but i'm almost expecting to hear a "snap" at any moment from one of the pushpins popping out... i've never had such a hard time installing a heatsink...

temps with hyper TX 2: cpu idles at 31 O_O, PWM is 34.

the ambient temp in my room has probably also fallen by 5 degrees, since it's night and i have windows open, but still, those are impressive temps.

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: kashk
cpu-z says the bios is 6.00 PG, i haven't updated it yet

that's the base Award version not the abit BIOS version

does anyone know a good way of checking the NB temp? Everest has no sensor readings for it.

there's no sensor for anything to read.
all you could do would be some form of external sensor or an ir/laser thermometer.

 

[poohbear]

Originally posted by: Heidfirst
I believe that Corsair even brought in a known offending pair from a user but when they got to them they worked together OK ...

wow you gotta love corsair's customer support to do this. kuddos to them. I won't let that be a factor in my purchasing decision then. Now, anyone know where i can buy a IP35-E in canada?! i can't seem to find it anywhere.

 

[Idex]

Got my rebate today. Yeah!

 

[Winterpool]

Ah, rebates... How long did take to receive the cheque, from when you posted the rebate form? Was there any online status site?

Posted my rebate form to California a couple weeks ago... Don't really expect a cheque myself before summer.

Ran Memtest86+ 2.01 (finally figured out how to get it on a bootable USB Flash drive) for a couple of hours (5 cycles), and my cpu went to 49 C, my pwm to 47. Fan had spun up to 1750rpm. I presume Memtest was working the cpu 100 per cent? Does Memtest86+ utilise both cores?

Have now tightened my timings to 4-4-4-12, voltage to 2.1, and running Memtest again. I don't really intend to run my machine at these settings (the voltage makes me uncomfortable), but I like to know that I got what I paid for (Corsair PC2 6400 C4).

 

[Winterpool]

Oddness continues... After I learnt how to make a bootable USB Flash drive, I finally flashed the BIOS to v16. Upon clearing the CMOS and booting, I found that my multiplier had somehow gone from 9 to 9.5. Perhaps my Xeon is in fact an E8500, not an E8400 . Mind you, my settings were still supposedly default. Interestingly, after I manually reset the multiplier to 9, when I returned the settings to default, the multiplier stayed at 9. Still have the usual 340 MHz 'default' bus but accept that this is how they do things now. My cpu voltage went from 1.11 - 1.12 to 1.19 after the BIOS flash...

Installed Windows Vista Ultimate (x64) with SP1 on my system. Installed the Intel P35 chipset driver (though I wasn't exactly sure why), and Windows Explorer crashed on completion of the chipset driver installation. Simple to restart Explorer of course, but I still found it disturbing.

Seem to be running Memtest86+ at 4-4-4-12 timings without issue...

 

[kashk]

Anyone else notice that the double post is still present with v16 BIOS?

I'll try clearing cmos, but i don't think that will help.

 

[Tweakin]

The only time I get a double post is when I make changes to the FSB or voltge...and that's a one time deal and then it's gone. I have used v15 & 16.

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: Winterpool
Oddness continues... After I learnt how to make a bootable USB Flash drive, I finally flashed the BIOS to v16. Upon clearing the CMOS and booting, I found that my multiplier had somehow gone from 9 to 9.5. Perhaps my Xeon is in fact an E8500, not an E8400 . Mind you, my settings were still supposedly default. Interestingly, after I manually reset the multiplier to 9, when I returned the settings to default, the multiplier stayed at 9. Still have the usual 340 MHz 'default' bus but accept that this is how they do things now. My cpu voltage went from 1.11 - 1.12 to 1.19 after the BIOS flash...

Installed Windows Vista Ultimate (x64) with SP1 on my system. Installed the Intel P35 chipset driver (though I wasn't exactly sure why), and Windows Explorer crashed on completion of the chipset driver installation. Simple to restart Explorer of course, but I still found it disturbing.

Seem to be running Memtest86+ at 4-4-4-12 timings without issue...

Can you tell me what you had to do to get your bootable USB drive to boot? I tried using all 3 of the USB choices on the boot order menu, but it still doesn't boot the USB drive, it goes right to the hard drive.

It's not the USB drive, because it boots fine in another pc.

 

[Winterpool]

This seemed peculiar to me too, but the 'key setting is in the Hard Disk Boot Priority section'. That is, the Flash drive won't be employed as an external USB device; rather, it will show up amongst your internally installed hard drives. You then need to bump it up in precedence before your internal SATA / IDE / SCSI drives. Then make sure that in the overall boot order, your system will boot from hard drive before other devices (optical, etc).

Ran Memtest86+ overnight on my Corsair's advertised 4-4-4-12 timings at 2.1 V. Passed 20 cycles. However, when I rebooted, Windows would not start owing to the C:\WINDOWS\system32\Drivers\ABIT-IO.sys file. I tried just starting anyhow, but got the same failures. So I selected 'Last Known Good Config', and it booted, but the loss of 'abit-io.sys', however temporary, seems an ominous development. Is this a chipset file? It sounds rather... fundamental, which inclines me towards re-installing the P35 chipset driver, or even just reinstalling Windows. I'm only half a day into this particular installation, so it's no big loss to start over.

Also, is HWMonitor completely worthless? Well, some of the readings seem okay, but my +12 V shows up consistently as 6.69, and my +5 V as 3.72. My cpu core temps seem a little higher than what my BIOS tends to show, but they're consistent with Core Temp 0.97 (48C and 44C). My Tj.Max in Core Temp shows up as 105C, wha'?

Edited: as I see my current monitors likely won't measure temps very accurately. On the other hand, I'm still concerned about my voltage readings. Is there a better monitor for voltages?