Abit IX38 Quad GT - Living Review II - Page 83

Clunk · #**821** 24-10-2008, 16:36

Sorry to hear that mate. For what it's worth, you may as well go with a different brand because that board was cursed with all kinds of problems from the start and BIOS releases weren't coming fast enough with enough fixes for the board to be usable.

About the drives, you should be able to tell by the post codes I think, when the controller is initialised. Try the Abit forums for a list of post codes, I think if anyone will have one, it'll be them

It's strange about the memory problem. I found that on this board, if I had a dying stick, it would lock up hard until the CMOS was cleared and even then, it sometimes needed another clear, even if the sticks were swapped for good ones.

supershanks · #**822** 24-10-2008, 17:23

Daft question , you have enabled intel raid in bios ? after clearing cmos
Post codes are in link here :-
75 is hd detect & initialisation
At least Ben is happy

, probably piss down now with your luck

glowball · #**823** 24-10-2008, 20:52

Clunk, it appears hard disks are not being initialised until after problematic post codes.
Yep, sure is strange.

SS, Daft question? Yes!

Wish I had seen that link earlier: My problem codes are...
9.0. = Award BIOS initial stop processing 1. O/C too high 2.BIOS dead
C1 = 1. SPD value lost 2.graphic card error 3.DIMM slot damage 4. Over clocking issue
26 = BGA or Graphic card errors

I'm not over-clocking... so that narrows it down. Hmmm.

supershanks · #**824** 24-10-2008, 22:22

I'm not sure but your cmos still may be screwed, did you say you'd had the battery out ?
Might be worth disconnrcting everything & leaving it out overnight.
As you say, you've ruled out memory issues.
Not overclocked so any CPU degradation is removed.
I know I had occasional glitches with the board, when the cmos got corrupted.

glowball · #**825** 25-10-2008, 00:47

I have had the battery out several times, including overnight, removed PSU connections to the MB and done numerous cmos clears. The hard disks are error free.

Work this out. My previous post mentioned the 3 post codes where it hangs, two of them mentioned graphics. Because my system is watercooled and the pipes don't allow hardly any movement - so far I had only re-seated the graphics card not wanting to upset my waters.
Well, I just decided to unplug the graphics card and supported it (lots of copper on it) and put a different graphics card in the other PCIe slot - this made no difference.
I then unplugged my 2 sata/raid disks and it booted straight to the disk boot failure message, I booted again, and again, and again and every time it booted straight away with no double boots!
With the drives still not connected I reverted back to the original graphics card and it will no longer boot properly!
Now I really don't know what's to blame!

supershanks · #**826** 25-10-2008, 08:06

yep I nearly mentioned gfx card in last post, but seeing yours is w/cooled, thought it would be unusual for it to be an issue.
so the double boot is down to the drives, then. Have you tried using sata ports 4&5 as opposed to 0&1?
Will your normal gfx card fit in the other pci-e slot ?
Think throwing it out the window is sounding good

glowball · #**827** 25-10-2008, 21:51

Today's update...
To cut a long story short, I disconnected 'everything' from the MB, removed power cord & battery and shorted cmos jumper and had a cup of tea.
Coming back refreshed I connected only 8 & 24 pin power, an old graphics card and 1GB trusty RAM and it booted fine without long pauses - as far as it would without mouse, keyboard and hard disks.
One by one I attached things and it booted perfectly every time, I'm back into Windows now and even have 2GB of my Crucial's in.

Whether this will last remains to be seen but I'd say it was either the cup of tea or the fact that I cleared cmos without the graphics card in - and haven't replaced it since.

It would be interesting to see if my original graphics card would work in the slot where the present working card is, that would hopefully tell me if the card is at fault or the slot itself - hope it's the slot because I stand to lose an EVGA 8800 Ultra water-cooled.

As far as my Crucial 8500 Tracers go, the minimum I can get one stick to boot at is 1.9v, 2 sticks at the same voltage just won't go (C1 error) - so much for booting at 1.8v Clunk.

So tomorrow will be spent playing with water and electronics.
At least I feel like I'm getting somewhere now.

Clunk · #**828** 25-10-2008, 22:08

Quote:

As far as my Crucial 8500 Tracers go, the minimum I can get one stick to boot at is 1.9v, 2 sticks at the same voltage just won't go (C1 error) - so much for booting at 1.8v Clunk.

Then they are faulty and need to be RMAd

supershanks · #**829** 25-10-2008, 22:46

Quote:

and had a cup of tea.
Coming back refreshed

hope you took Ben out for a walk

Yep think clunk's right about the ram. Mine always boot at 1.8v.
They generally die slowly, maybe yours are on the start of the slippery slope with a slight denegration, which has raised minimum voltage requirement to >=1.9v ?

glowball · #**830** 26-10-2008, 01:50

Ben has had his walks today, he's a great companion but knows nothing about computers - only knows how to block the fan intakes with his hairs.
Looks like the graphics card is still under warranty so should be OK there except for paying shipping and I will have to get the RAM RMA'd to save me more troubles in the future.
Presently going through a RMA with eBuyer because of a HTPC case with wonky VFD display - not having much luck am I?