AB9 Pro Problems

Hidden Hippo · 11 Aug 2006 at 16:04

I've just put together my new conroe rig (E6600, 2GB G. Skill NR PC2-6400, Tagan 530W modular, HIS IceQ3 Radeon X1900XT) but whenever I try to boot, I get the C1 post code. This is normally related to memory error or a failure to detect cache. However, the system sometimes boots but gives a CMOS Checksum Error which implies a dead battery. I tried clearing the CMOS, reseating the battery, used my borther's CMOS battery to see if that is the problem, but it all came up with the same error. I've also tried upping the voltage from 1.8V to 1.9 or 1.95V when I am able to get into the BIOS. Can anybody suggest a solution to this problem. Thanks in advance.

Papa Lazarou · 11 Aug 2006 at 18:57

I've just ordered this motherboard so interested in the outcome. Got it with one of the Geil PC6400 kits currently on offer from here. I really hope its going to work OK!! From reading briefly on here it seems these boards are very fussy about memory.

Note, on other boards I have had CMOS Checksum errors which was down to using memory which was incompatible.

Good luck and free bump.

PS do you have the 1.0 or 1.1 BIOS? Apparently some memory compatibility issues were fixed in the later bios, but theres still meant to be a lot of scope for improvement..

Papa Lazarou · 13 Aug 2006 at 15:13

Got mine working.

Well just for anyones info I can confirm the Abit AB9 Pro works with no problems with Geil PC6400 Ultra memory and Conroe E6300.

One thing is the Geil memory comes with very conservative SPD settings.. So when it first comes on it runs at DDR2-533 speeds. It is stable at this speed at 1.8v. A quick voltage increase to the recommended 2.1v allows you to run at full (DDR2-800) speed (it may be possible at lower voltage, haven't tried it)

It still think your issue may be along these lines...

I've had it running since yesterday and its very stable. I'm sure it will over clock very well, but have not really tried yet.

FC-PJA · 13 Aug 2006 at 16:53

Thanks Papa Lazarou

. I have ordered the Geil memory to go with my AB9 Pro and was getting a bit worried about having to faff around with cmos etc. My 6600 should be here Tuesday. Can't wait

Dougsnake · 17 Aug 2006 at 21:10

Having same problems as hippo on this board with ocz 6400 platinum edition XTC no matter if i give it 2.2v it still will not boot at its rated speeds only way it woks is at 533/4200 speeds :mad:

even put the newly released 1.3 bios on starting to think this board is carp,cpu is a e6300 memory worked fine in the old aw8 at 1.9v.
Just looked at abits faq and they say to increase voltages to 1.9v on certain 800 memorys which i dont know and it doesnt say but its obvious they know there is problems atm with this board

There goes me thinking im clever avoidiing the gigabyte problems ive read so much about..... from the frying pan into the fire seems to ring true for me atm.

Xeeozees · 18 Aug 2006 at 03:08

I've had a horrible experience with the AB9 pro and Geil 6400. When running at default speeds the board would boot okay, but Windows was incredibly choppy - so many memory errors that it was russian roulette getting drivers installed, and this was all at stock speeds!

After a lot of investigation and testing (no sleep for a couple of days) I found that dual channel on the AB9 Pro is so buggy it's not worth trying. I got some decent, stable results running the Geil memory in single channel mode (slots 1 & 2) and upping the DDR2 voltage to 2.1V.

The 1066 strap worked for me, as well as forcing DDR2533, but remember it took a lot of extra voltage and single channel mode to achieve this. I've since RMA'd the AB9 Pro for a P5W DH...

Pandobear · 18 Aug 2006 at 10:04

I had a similar problem with the AB9Pro refusing to boot with G.Skill 800 NR memory. It does boot fine with Kingmax value 667 memory. However I can not get it to load Windows. I keep getting blue screen hard drive faults. I have tried a couple of different drives on both PATA and SATA to the same effect. I am using the board in my Media PC and chose this board for the high number of SATA ports that it has. My intention was to increase from the 4 drive RAID 5 array to a 6 drive RAID 5 array, with a single drive Windows installation. I was migrating from the obard in my profile below and though 945 t0 965, how difficult can it be? Big mistake. The intel RAID controller will only support 3 or 4 drive RAID 5 arrays, so I will have to have 2 3 drive arrays, but that is after I solve the loading Windows issue. I will try just using one stick of RAM incase that has any bearing on it. So far each time ends with the blue screen saying run CHKDSK or check for viruses. Anyone else had similar problems

Papa Lazarou · 18 Aug 2006 at 12:26

Mines still running fine and I am using dual channel (memory in slot 1 & 3) with the Geil memory. I'm happy with the memory.

I am having some difficulties with overclocking the processor though as I posted in another thread. Can't get the FSB much over 300 without stability suffering but have a few ideas on things to try now. I've updated to version 1.3 of BIOS last night so will see if that makes a difference to anything.

It looks and feels like a quality board, although there are a few things I don't like much. The layout, particularly placement of the IDE/Floppy ports being the main one. I'm also really not keen on the lack of native PATA support, although this is the fault of the 965 chipset rather than the boards.

Phinor · 18 Aug 2006 at 22:40

Papa Lazarou said:
Mines still running fine and I am using dual channel (memory in slot 1 & 3) with the Geil memory. I'm happy with the memory.

I am having some difficulties with overclocking the processor though as I posted in another thread. Can't get the FSB much over 300 without stability suffering but have a few ideas on things to try now. I've updated to version 1.3 of BIOS last night so will see if that makes a difference to anything.

With memory set to either 533 or 667, you won't achieve much more than 300fsb. With memory set to 800 it should work pretty fine but your memory needs to do insane speeds to achieve even 350fsb. And it's all because of the current, very crappy and buggy bios which has a lot of other lesser bugs as well. Lots of people are waiting for Abit to deliver, have been for over a month. Others have turned to other boards already. The 1.3 bios was a joke with a total of one fix. Personally I'm waiting few more days before I order some other board.

Papa Lazarou · 19 Aug 2006 at 13:42

Phinor said:
With memory set to either 533 or 667, you won't achieve much more than 300fsb. With memory set to 800 it should work pretty fine but your memory needs to do insane speeds to achieve even 350fsb. And it's all because of the current, very crappy and buggy bios which has a lot of other lesser bugs as well.

Thanks for the info. My findings seem to concur with yours. Is this a well known problem?

Basically, I can achieve a higher FSB by keeping the memory set to 800 than the lower speed. By increasing the VDIMM to 2.2v I can get it running nicely at FSB of 320. This is an effective memory speed of 960mhz. Increasing it to 325 results in an instant hard lockup, but at 320 its run SuperPi for the last hour without an error. I'm guessing my memory at this voltage is probably near its limit. But if I switch the memory divider so that it runs at 667 speeds, it won't even reach FSB 320mhz reliably.

Frustrating :mad:

Dougsnake · 19 Aug 2006 at 14:43

More buggyness ive found since 1.3 bios randomly on reboot the bios screen is all garbled with multicoloured mush on screen.
Pci slot 2caused my audigy 4 to behave weirdly with crackly sound and messed up line outs :eek:

moved to the first pci slot problem solved but whilst i swapped the card over to other slot last night i turned the psu off at the mains like you should do

and then was greeted with a reset bios :mad:

and non loading profile.
Another annoying thing also the clear cmos jumper is in a stupid place if you have a big gfx card like i have its basically the same size as 7900gtx with the big heat pipe cooler on it and totally covers the cmos jumper so everytime i mess with bios etc,etc i have to take the gfx card out to reset it

Still wont run at any other setting for ram than the 533 option although have managaed to get it to run at 1.95v..all fun .....

Phinor · 19 Aug 2006 at 19:55

Papa Lazarou said:
Thanks for the info. My findings seem to concur with yours. Is this a well known problem?

Basically, I can achieve a higher FSB by keeping the memory set to 800 than the lower speed. By increasing the VDIMM to 2.2v I can get it running nicely at FSB of 320. This is an effective memory speed of 960mhz. Increasing it to 325 results in an instant hard lockup, but at 320 its run SuperPi for the last hour without an error. I'm guessing my memory at this voltage is probably near its limit. But if I switch the memory divider so that it runs at 667 speeds, it won't even reach FSB 320mhz reliably.

Frustrating

Yep 99,9% of the users suffer from this (one guy on other forum said he doesn't have problems like this, but check Abit forums etc. and you can see almost everyone has the same problem). Nothing we can do but wait for Abit to fix their current mobos rather than release new ones (which they already did..).

Rabtech · 20 Aug 2006 at 09:35

Hey gents,

Im also having fun with this board - I bought a 6300, 2 x 1GB Geil PC6400 and an Abit AB9 Pro - if I put the ram in slots 1 & 3 (dual channel) I get memory errors running test 5 in memtest86+ - however if I run single channel mode in slots 1 & 2 - the computer works fine, no errors in memtest or Orthos - tried it at 2.1v (currently back on 1.8v in single channel) and still the same.

Bios is version 1.3 - I have a Enermax 600W PSU and Scythe Ninja HSF, temps for the case and cpu are fine (Coolermaster Stacker Case).

I'm pointing at the board being the problem rather than the ram as it tests fine in single channel mode although at 2.1v the ram gets very hot.

ROfu · 20 Aug 2006 at 13:54

I thought id throw in my 2pence worth. From what ive gather from the tech support guys at Overclockers and Abit, is the abit board currently doesnt like the tight timeings. I too have tried running the system at 533 and 667 base speeds and its lucky if it gets to windows

, ironically like most of you seem to have discovered as well, if you overclock your ram it becomes more stable. I have no clue why this is (bad bios i guess) at first it was suggested that it was the memory timings which were looser when i overclocked.. but running this ram with these timings at any speed lower than about 810mhz.. and its hugely unstable.
So far with this board i have to overclock, just to get the damn system to boot properly - this isnt an issue as i intended to overclock anyway but again due to a bios limitation? FSBs over 300mhz are fragile at best.
Ram only runs at 2.1volts+
This is all kind of anoying considering i know this chip can fly past this speed. (i did have this chip running at 3.1ghz at one boot.. ran fine, 3dmark went through ok .. tried a few other benchmarks no problems.. restarted never got it to boot at this speed since)
Ah well guess ill be waiting for yet another bios update - hope Abit actually do something to the next one .. rather than just a digit 1 - 3 update

Small question to the guys who are running the memory in single channel.. how much of a speed difference does this loose? for general gaming - i guess the extra stability and overclock you can acheive using this method overshadows the memory speed running slower?

Cheers
ROfu

Rabtech · 20 Aug 2006 at 15:35

ROfu said:
Small question to the guys who are running the memory in single channel.. how much of a speed difference does this loose? for general gaming - i guess the extra stability and overclock you can acheive using this method overshadows the memory speed running slower?

ROfu

According to memtest86+ I lose 1000MB/s

raptor4216 · 25 Aug 2006 at 13:59

Thought i would give this a bump as i am having similar problems and was wondering if any of the people who posted in this thread have managed to solve the problems. I have just bought AB9 Pro (flashed BIOS to 13), E6600 and Geil 2GB PC6400 RAM and have tried virtually every combination of RAM configuration and timings. Dual channel isnt working at all (like Rabtech mentioned) no matter if i run it at 533, 667 or 800, at 1.8v or 2.1v. 2GB in single channel mode is more stable but still has memory errors in memtest so the only way i can get my system completely stable is to take out one of the RAM chips and run at 533!!

From what i have read a new BIOS from Abit will hopefully fix these problems but i am running out of patience and might RMA the board. In the mean time any suggestions on ways to fix this would be welcome.

ROfu · 25 Aug 2006 at 14:47

raptor are you overclocking at all?

and have you manually set the timmings?
to run at 800mhz.. i used 5,5,5,15 @2.1v
These work in Dual channel mode, although a little unstable. I found like mentioned before that overclocking the ram actually seems to help its stability. around the 900mhz mark with 5,5,5,15 @2.2v seems rock solid.
Sadly i would like to be able to run the ram lower, so i can overclock the FSB further. but running the ram at any settings other than overclocked makes my rig very unstable.

Cheers
ROfu

raptor4216 · 25 Aug 2006 at 16:12

I have tried it at default settings and 800mhz @2.1v with 5-5-5-15 timings as u mentioned. I did not boot into windows with these settings though as i was just using the POST memory check and trying out all sorts of combinations to try and get it to pass, so u reckon this works and is just a little unstable?

I did not plan on doing any overclocking but will try 900mhz @2.2v with 5-5-5-15 timings if u say that is stable. However i am not too sure how to do this, do i just need to up the FSB to make the RAM 900mhz?

ROfu · 25 Aug 2006 at 17:09

How comfortable are you with overclocking?
I only ask as if your not .. then i would advise a lot of caution when doing so.
the Settings i use currently are:

CPU strap set to 1066 - which will automatically set the ram to 533 settings.
i then set the FSB to 297 (the board doesnt like doing over 300 yet)
this should show your ram as running at around 900.
Set the Ram volts at 2.2v which is still within the manufacturers limits.
Your cpu should then run at about 2.7ghz and the ram at around 900mhz
use 5,5,5,15 timings.
With this my computer boots with no issues and has been running media center and games for the past week without any crashes.
Note you "May" have to higher the Cpu core voltages. If you dont post with these settings then its more than likely youll need more volts.. but then your moving into proper overclocking, i would do some research and understand what voltage settings do and why.

Cheers
ROfu

Papa Lazarou · 25 Aug 2006 at 17:16

Alternatively up the FSB to 300mhz, assuming its set to DDR2-800 at the moment.

Must say I think I've been comparatively lucky with this board and the Geil memory. Although I cannot overclock it seriously as it has crap stability at lower memory ratios than 2/3 at FSB's over 300, I've not had the serious problems with stability at stock speeds some have had.