Abit IX38 Quad GT - Living Review II

[supershanks]

As some of you know I've been keen to try one of these boards for a while. It's about 6 weeks since I started this X38 - Abit IX38 QuadGT .

Today, the waiting is finally over, the board's here and I can join up with Clunk's Abit IX38 Quad GT - Living Review.

We're both fresh from exploring 2 other X38 boards:-
Clunk Asus Maximus Formula SE X38
myself the Gigabyte GA X38 DQ6

So it'll be interesting to see how the Abit shapes up and compares.
Feel free to join up & join in

So let's get on
(See post#2)


Other Links:
Ace-a-Rue Bios Flashing Procedure + USB Flash Guide
Abit Post Codes Descriptions
Abit Bios Downloads
Manuals
Guru Latest version at bottom Thanks Ademcg & glowball for link
For more pictures of the board see Post#1~6 Abit IX38 Quad GT - Living Review

BTA Bios
1) BTA M704B_12.B02
2) BTA M704B_12.B03
3) BTA M704B_12.B05
3) BTA M704B_12.B06
4) Johnny Bravo's BTA M704B_12.B08
5) BTA M704B_12.B09
6) Kiefer's BTA M704B_13.B01
7) Kiefer's 13 Final

Key Posts
Summary of Issues - See Post#2
1) Multimeter Voltage Measurement & Vdroop
2) Q6600 GO Vcore Issues
3) PWM Lifted
4) Heatpipes Lifted
5) Enermax Issues with 8800GT
6)Fix For General Instability & No post/Boot Issues
7)Scope for Improvement
8)Overview

Overclocking, Bios Settings & Benches
1) 9x356, PWM Temps & the search for lower Vcore
2) GAME ON Nailed the bugger - 9x400 @ 1.4125VCore
3) Prime Stable 12Hr 9x400 Vcore =1.4135v
4) Gigabyte X38 DQ6 FSB record beaten
5) 8x491 Benches
6) Finding Optimum GTLRef
7) 8x450 21Hrs Prime Stable
8) 4K Shots
9) 8x465 15Hr Prime Stable
10) 3,760 470x8 @1:1.20 1128 24hr Prime Stable Benches

[supershanks]

Note: updated from Very Disappointed, state to The Good & The Bad 23/11/2007 due to Ocing Performance.

Good Points
Guru - Overclocking panel - Very effective being able to tweak GTLREF & VCC Voltages in XP, saved a lot of time rebooting. Guru Changes in XP iupdate bios.
Ocing - Has a max FSB so far of 491, has beeten the Gigabyte X38 DQ6 on all comparisons so far tried. See Key points index in post#1 for more info

Issues
In no particular order
1) Poor Packaging - box too big for the mobo. Note the white marks where the board has slid and left marks in the cardboard (see top) There's about 0.5" movement.


2) USB - No Bracket, only 4 sockets in the rear panel.
Already picked up by Clunk and reported here Hexus Abit Support - Abit IX38 Quad GT

3) The one that bugs me most - Fans & Mounting Wires
Apologies for the quality of this pic, taken of page 1-9 of the manual.


This shows two optional 40mm fans ,

Enclosed in the motherboard package you can find a pair of retention clips. This bundled accessory is used tro hold the fan itself.

Well I've hunted and found nothing

This gives me two issues:-
1) Frankly, I would expect to find the fans included in the package.
2) Where are the clips for the PWM?

4) Guru
Relatively minor niggle - Guru CPU temp -10C to Coretemp, expected this from Asus, was suprised at Abit, I thought Guru was a fairly developed programme
Status Update :
Fixed By Bta bios But upodate lost & Official is still showing dodgy temps .
Use CoreTemp for accurate CPU temps.

5) Driver installation. I was somewhat suprised when The Abit CD kicked off automatically updating virtually every driver. This was particularly suprising as my installation was already X38. It was particularly frustrating to see my install totally screwed , to the point that I reloaded my Acronis backup image, something I've done several times in the course of the last two days.

Use the latest Intel Drivers
Intel® Desktop Board DX38BT

6) I can confirm the keyboard freeze, it happens regularly & at random.
1) It often freezes at post going straight through to loading the OS.
2) As found by Clunk, "enter bios" key press is detected, only for it to freeze when the bios screen opens.
3) Is not fixed by BTA Bios 12.02
Update BTA Bios 12.05 Fixes it but has it's own isue with default Vcore being set on entering bios. Fixed By - 12.06 has no issues.

7) RAID is very flaky Probably linked to 8) Drive Detection
I'd originally planned to run with a single drive, but have connected all my drives at times attempting to get a stable OS. Normally I run matrix RAID with 4x80gb RAID0, which has worked faultlessly with the Gigabyte X38, It doesn't now, even after breaking it , rebuilding and restoring the partition images.
Fixed By Again was sorterd using the latest Raid Drivers Intel® Matrix Storage Manager

8) Drive Detection
In order to prove the raid issue tonight I thought I'd test if it was having 6 drives + an e-SATA drive connected. So I broke the RAID unplugged 3x80gb drives. I then went to restore my main OS image onto the 80gb. Couldn't find it. Was visible in BIOS not in XP. I had to plug it into the jmicron to perform the task.
See Also the DRive Detection revisited

9) PCi-E bandwidth
This might be my ignorance but i thought we had 2 x16 slots for Graphics.
But in 1-13 the Manual states:-

Do not install only one pci-e card on slot [PCIEXP2], for such an act will pull it's speed down to x4 only

Now i'm glad to say i'm actually seing x16 using my 2nd slot, guess they just started with the IP35-Pro Mnaual and didn't do a good job on proof reading

10) Vcore & PWM temps - NOW SORTED 18/11/2007
Have already been covered by Clunk. I can confirm I optimistically dropped my gigabyte vcore of 1.40v for 3.6k in to see it fail. Sadly i've been trying to sort out the os & those good old BSODs to go much further. By playing around with VTT & GTLREF vcore issue has been solved, though it took a lot of tweaking & certainly isn't newbie friendly. Really should have some better Auto settings in bios for quads.

11) Cas Select Screen in BTA Bios 12

Having looked forward to this mobo after the previous Abit successes, I must admit to being totally underwhelmed. Some of the issues above aren't huge but it's the cumulative impact together with the instability, high voltage VC and heat issues. Perhaps in a month or so's time something will have been sorted, but it certainly doesn't pay to be an early adopter of Abit.

I expected a few issues with an early BIOS, to some extent, I had braced myself for the usual delay in it's arrival.
Though, in fact the BIOS is virtually unchanged in features from the Ip35- Pro The only addition being the CPU Core Voltage Offset.

I have run at stock throughout the last 2 days, with the exception of my memory voltage which i put up to 2.2v

I feel more like a beta tester at the minute and will collect issues in this post.

Key components have been running 24/7 stable and higher in my Gigabyte x38.

Other Equipment:
Silverstone Zeus 560W 12v = 38A
8500Gt Gfx Card
Thermalright Ultima90

[glowball]

Thanks for publishing your findings, I'm sure it will help prospective buyers.

I bought this board (yeah, I know - early adopter) to run my first quad as my IN9 isn't exactly the bee's knees with quad cores, my theory being that I would never buy a top of the range Abit board again. Having spent £100 less on it than I did for the IN9, Abit had better get some descent BIOS's out pretty quickly to save their reputation.

On a more positive note: How many people out there have this board and are satisfied with it's performance?

Edit: Can someone explain in detail the steps taken to change the RAM working voltage from the default to 2.1v.
Every time I make the changes in the BIOS, save, turn-off and swap my 1.8v spec memory for the 2.1v sticks on booting it reverts back to Auto settings, changes are lost and I get the C1 error. My RAM won't boot at 1.8 volts to start.

[Clunk]

Edit: Can someone explain in detail the steps taken to change the RAM working voltage from the default to 2.1v.
Every time I make the changes in the BIOS, save, turn-off and swap my 1.8v spec memory for the 2.1v sticks on booting it reverts back to Auto settings, changes are lost and I get the C1 error. My RAM won't boot at 1.8 volts to start.

I don't think that you can do that on this board, at least with this current BIOS as, like you say, it resets after each boot.

Have you tried with one stick of the 2.1v RAM?

[glowball]

Thanks Clunk, yes I've tried one stick & in different slots.
I have a thread going at Corsair but at the moment I feel I'm beating my head against a wall...
TWIN2X2048-9136C5D needing more voltage? - The Corsair Support Forums

IX-38 sort of on hold for now as only other RAM (1GB) I have is in this machine.

[Clunk]

Sorry I can't be of more help, mines packed up ready to go back for a refund.

[D.M]

Thanks Clunk, yes I've tried one stick & in different slots.
I have a thread going at Corsair but at the moment I feel I'm beating my head against a wall...
TWIN2X2048-9136C5D needing more voltage? - The Corsair Support Forums

IX-38 sort of on hold for now as only other RAM (1GB) I have is in this machine.

Hi Glowball,

I've just read your forum thread at Corsair and as you have now tried 2 different mobo's you should get them RMA'd, The 'Ram Guy' basically was waiting for you to try your new mobo and then RMA if still faulty.

Best not to waste your time, send em back

Hope this helps?

Peace

[supershanks]

Hi glowball,
This may sound a daft question but what hapens when you boot from default settings(1.8v) with your 2.1v sticks Do they not post??

Clunk & myself are both using 2.2v rated Crucial 8500 and it has posted fine,

[supershanks]

PWM Removed - Looks to fit faoirly tight, better than the IP35-Pro



Naked PWM

[supershanks]

Compared to the competitiojn these heatpipes are fairly odd.
It is in effect 2 seperate heatpipes:-
1) SB to NB (left Side)
2) NB to A Radiator (right side)





Naked Mobo


NorthBridge


SouthBridge


Not sure if poor thermal paste coverage is just an Asus thing, or the manufacturers have found a better spreading method but both this board and the Gigabyte X38 Have good thermal paste coverage.