ABIT AV8 Problems...

M

Main Target

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 5, 2004
Messages
1,690
Wow, this motherboard (well i hope it is my motherboard) is driving me insane. Let me start with my specs

ABIT AV8
Athlon 3200+ 90nm s939
PDP Patriot Ram 2x512 Samsung TCCD chips :)
XFX 6800 Vanilla
Seagate 80gig SATA
Maxtor 250gig IDE
Zalman 7700cu w/as5
NV5 w/as5
Antec 350W Smart power

Okay anyways, here comes the problems.

1. On the motherboard, there is a digital readout of 2 digit codes, that usually tell you the status of the motherboard, mine just sits at 48, in the manual 48 has no meaning, sooo i dont know, ive also seen it at othr numbers like 69, ot cycling between 2 random numbers.

2. Not sure if this is a motherboard problem, but since i have nothing else to base my opinion on, i will assume so. On a fresh install of windows, that doesnt have any service packs installed, the staus bar on the start up screen passes 8+ times. Once i get SP2 installed (this is without any drivers loaded yet) it passes 13+ times. I have tried installations with both of my hard drives, to no avail. The only reason i feel this is alarming is cause with my P4 system it passed like 3 times, and now this? hmmm.

3. This is slightly related to the above problem, someone told me the above problem could be cause of ram, so i ran mem test 86+ for hours looping all the tests, and another day looping test 5, and no errors, heres the wierd part: ABIT specifies in the manual that either DIMM slots 1 and 2 OR 3 and 4 should be used for acheive a dual channel configuration. Good enough, when i initially built the computer i put them in slots 1 and 2, then ive been having all these problems so i decided let me try slots 3 and 4, the computer posts, BUT once its get a little ways into loading up windows, it just restarts, over and over again. I can however run the ram 1 piece at a time in slots 1 or slot 3 and windows will start up fine. Then i tried running the ram in slots 1 and 3 at the same time to see if i could get single channel mode, to no avail, the machine would not post.

4. i post this problem last because the above^^^ probably relate to this in some way shape and or form. My OCing results are less then average, i cant get anything past 210 HTT stable, in fact, 210 is rarely stable, only on some occasion, even if im running my CPU volts at 1.6 (spec 1.5) i cant get a stable OC.

Ahh someone please help me or i will be driven insane!
 
its more than likly ure board, u said when u put hte ram in slots one and two u had problesm, ex? you also need to post what kind of ram you have. that will help alot. I doubt ure problems are cause of ure ram, sounds like ure mobo got static shocked, but i cant say. Ure ocing problems however are most likly related to the ram so if u posted ure ram speed i could help you at there as im running my a664 3200 at 3400+, but tahts only cause i have s754 where its only a 200mhz jump :)
 
the ram is up there

PDP Patriot Ram 2x512 Samsung TCCD chips
Click to expand...

anyways, like i said, they work in slots 1 and 2, maybe you should re read what i posted again lol,

as for my ram holding my OC's back, i kinda doubt it, i set the divider to 8 instead of 10 and pumped my ram up to 260.

but then again it could, im leaning toward my motherboard though.
 
i want the speed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and like i said, ure probably the mobo cause memtest is usually correct


speed = 3200, 3500, 3700?????????????????
 
id call the mobo manufacturer, see what they say and then either return it to the store u bought it from (preferred) or send it back to manufacturer. You could go and pick up another mobo, and try a swap and see what happens, i prefer msi but thats jsut me
 
The Zalman 120mm? If So I Share Ure Pain :( But I Choose The Board Over The Fan And Bought A Thermaltake
 
as i should have, but i didnt, thinking the abit was a good choice, now im in shits creek
 
guys, its the psu......

$20 paypal riding on it if anyone wants to bet
Look at the symptoms....
 
new PSU didnt resolve anything.

i have replacements of the mobo and ram coming in.

the ram is coming in today, motherboard im guessing monday since saturday they dont ship :(:(:(
 
Main Target said:
new PSU didnt resolve anything.

i have replacements of the mobo and ram coming in.

the ram is coming in today, motherboard im guessing monday since saturday they dont ship :(:(:(
Click to expand...


What did you use for a new PSU instead of the Antec 350w? What you have is the cyclic reboot issue that several people have had.(myself included) First off I would try to use a PSU thats atleast 400w to 450w or larger. A64 and 6800 vid cards are power hogs. Be sure its not a cheap piece a garbage. 3rd dont use an Antec PSU on this board. The Abit AV8 has known compatibillity issues with most Antec PSU. Not that either is a bad product just somethings up between the two. Is the board flashed to do 90nm cpu? If not it wont boot until that happens either. Speaking only from experince as that I had the same board before going to the MSI Neo2. The AV8 is a good board just picky.
 
it was a 500w ultra... i thought my friend was going to bring his neopower but he did not, it could be that the ultra is a piece of crap, but i dunno

my friend is getting a forton in soon, ima see if i can mooch off him for a day, bring my computer over to his house, see if i can get shit working
 
computerpro3 said:
the ultra is a piece of shit. Get a real psu then come back. I will re-extend my $20 bet :p
Click to expand...

I will agree that the Ultra is a POS and I to am leaning towards PSU issue be it not enough PSU or an Incompatibillity. I would try using a GOOD brand Like the OCZ or PCpwr&Cooling or the Sparkle or a Fortron. I would recomend at least 30amps on the 12V line and no lower then 450w. Now It could be that the Bios on the board is not set to do 90nm cpu's and it needs to be flashed or just a fubar board. Now here is another question. Does the plug that you are using from the power supply still have its ground, and does what its plugged into still have its ground (ie powerstrip ect) and does what get plugged into the wall have a ground plug? it may be possible that the outlet itself may have a poor ground and that can cause the same issue like a bad PSU. may wanna try new cables and a different outletto just eliminate the possibllity.
 
im having a similar problem with my av8.... i have a great watercooling setup but i can only run stock speeds! :mad: Im not happy with av8 but im stuck with it for a while. I wish they would post what all the codes mean on this board! let me know if u find a work around. Ive tried lowering the LDT to 4x but still no luck... bout the most i can get out of her is 225mhz but it crashes in games :( and anything above is just plain useless
 
If you look closely, your code 48 is really 4.8. right? This means the uGuru chip is monitoring the bios, and should be displayed when the machine is running correctly, so you can stop worrying about that one. You should also see the 4.8. change when you run the uGuru software, depending on what you're doing. (Any code with periods in it means it's an Abit/uUguru function, and not a standard BIOS function)
 
yeah i was gunna say lower the LDT to 4or3, but i dunno, have u tried a different divider?
 
I also find my KV8 boots "slower" relative to my old Intel system - my Intel used to come up in 2 bars. However, I'd tweaked my precache settings on my old system - even though the bar would progress only 2 times, I would then go to a black screen for about the same time as another 5 or 6 bars, so it all evened out. Did you tweak your precache settings on your older system? I found SP2 increased my boot time too, so I wouldn't worry about that. I've also noticed SP2 adds a little bit of extra time about 10 seconds after the desktop appears, when I check the tasks it seems to be auto update initialising, whether you have it enabled or not. With regards to your RAM, there seems to be a problem with the KV8 (Pretty much the same as your AV8) being quite thin, and flexing when the dimms are installed and the HSF is over-tight, even though people swear they are seated right - have a look on the abit site forum for more info. With regards to your overclocking problem - try lowering your HTT from 5x bus to something lower, I believe some boards will actually run slower with 5x than 4x. The whole 1ghz thing seems to be more marketing hype than anything else, and the 5x setting is actually an overclock to begin with (Can't remember where I read it though) Anyway, it seems people have better luck with a lower HTT setting, and not losing any performance. It seems it's not as simple with an A64 as just raising the FSB - never tried it myself, my 3200+ is plenty fast for me (For the time being.... :) )
 
Krazy_Joe said:
im having a similar problem with my av8.... i have a great watercooling setup but i can only run stock speeds! :mad: Im not happy with av8 but im stuck with it for a while. I wish they would post what all the codes mean on this board! let me know if u find a work around. Ive tried lowering the LDT to 4x but still no luck... bout the most i can get out of her is 225mhz but it crashes in games :( and anything above is just plain useless
Click to expand...


Give us info on what you have in your system beside just and AV8
 
AV8 (of course :p )
3500+ its the 130nm core not the 90nm winchester or whateva'
1GB (2x 512mb) Corsair TWINX1024-3200LLPT ( 2-3-2-6 )
PSU OCZ 470watt has a 12v+ of 33 amps
Powercolor Radeon 9800 OEM
Soundblaster Live (not sharing IRQ with video card)
ATI TV card

Cooling:
Copper polarflo TT
BIX 120mm
Laing D4 pump

Its posting 6.9. when in windows... i think it has also said 2.7. and 9.9. those are the ones i have noticed when in windows.

with 5x LDT i can get a bus speed up to 224mhz with 11x multiplier with full stability in windows however when I play any game it crashes to windows with VPU recover. My vcore was set upped from 1.5 to 1.55 and 1.57 when experimenting. I also tried upping NBV from 1.5 to 1.55 and 1.60. SBV was left at 2.5. AGPV i left at 1.5 and tried 1.55. HTV i set to 1.30 and DDRV set to 2.60. Infact it will crash even with a 210mhz bus speed in games but in windows 100% stable. If i change to 4x it still is similar. Some people report 250mhz bus with 4x but i cant obtain it, i just get blue screen. Also i tried disabling VPU recover but that didnt help. I disabled fast writes and I tried slower timings on the ram of 2.5-3-3-10. I didnt want to lower the ram to 333mhz because that would cause a big performance hit. Any other ideas im open to if you guys have any.
 
Krazy_Joe said:
AV8 (of course :p )
3500+ its the 130nm core not the 90nm winchester or whateva'
1GB (2x 512mb) Corsair TWINX1024-3200LLPT ( 2-3-2-6 )
PSU OCZ 470watt has a 12v+ of 33 amps
Powercolor Radeon 9800 OEM
Soundblaster Live (not sharing IRQ with video card)
ATI TV card

Cooling:
Copper polarflo TT
BIX 120mm
Laing D4 pump

Its posting 6.9. when in windows... i think it has also said 2.7. and 9.9. those are the ones i have noticed when in windows.

with 5x LDT i can get a bus speed up to 224mhz with 11x multiplier with full stability in windows however when I play any game it crashes to windows with VPU recover. My vcore was set upped from 1.5 to 1.55 and 1.57 when experimenting. I also tried upping NBV from 1.5 to 1.55 and 1.60. SBV was left at 2.5. AGPV i left at 1.5 and tried 1.55. HTV i set to 1.30 and DDRV set to 2.60. Infact it will crash even with a 210mhz bus speed in games but in windows 100% stable. If i change to 4x it still is similar. Some people report 250mhz bus with 4x but i cant obtain it, i just get blue screen. Also i tried disabling VPU recover but that didnt help. I disabled fast writes and I tried slower timings on the ram of 2.5-3-3-10. I didnt want to lower the ram to 333mhz because that would cause a big performance hit. Any other ideas im open to if you guys have any.
Click to expand...

Your biggest hang up is the Corsair memory. It dosnt like to oc real well with A64 systems. The Gskill LE or the OCZ LE works much better. The next thing would beto lower you LDT from 5 to 4 or 3. Not really any perfomance hit by doing that. Keep the HTT under 1000. try running mem timings from 2.5-3-3-7 up to 2.5-4-4-8 and keep it at a 1T setting cause the performance hit @ 2T is big. That mem should be able to run @ 2.75v to 2.85v no prob. 2.6 is to low in voltage stock Corsair recomends 2.75. Keep mem @ 200 for the divider. disable fast writes run your Vcore @ 1.5. Start off with as low as a cpu multiplyer and increase the FSB little by little till it hangs or what ever. Then increase the voltage to cpu and memory to make it stable push the FSB up more until it causes issues again. Make sure to only add enough voltage to keep stabillity and not fry parts. Now you have found the Max FSB. (I still think the corasair mem will cause you to have issues and not get a very high fsb) Besure that while raising the FSB you are decresing the speed of the HTT/LDT to keep it under 1000. so if you have a 250 fsb then you can only run a 3x htt/ldt multi to keep it under 1000. after finding the max fsb then you can raise the cpu Multi and find somewhere in that range to get where you wanna be. You will have to experiment with ram timings in all this process its always best to start with really loose timings and then tighten them up as you go or after the FSB max is found.
 
Captin Insano said:
Your biggest hang up is the Corsair memory. It dosnt like to oc real well with A64 systems. The Gskill LE or the OCZ LE works much better.
Click to expand...

I didn't know this was an issue. My corsair ram is working perfect with my AV8.
 
Dont know about the rest of your issues, but theres no way the readout could switch to a temp display like the ones on EPoX boards do is there? 48 sounds like a sensible number for CPU temp.
 
foofighter06 said:
I didn't know this was an issue. My corsair ram is working perfect with my AV8.
Click to expand...

Are you running @ stock speeds or overclocking? If you are over clocking what kinda performance are you getting?(Timmings/FSB/divider/Volts/ DDRspeed?) and which model memory are you running?
 
well what do you guys think is a good overclock for the 130nm amd 3500+?
ive almost got it stable @ 2500mhz (10.5x 239mhz LDT set to 4x) Memory timings @ 2.5-3-3-10-1T(will try to tighten these up a bit) my v core is at 1.625 and ddr 2.5 HT 1.25 and NBV 1.55 SBV 2.55. Whoever said to lower the ddr v was right. It helped out alot in gaining stability. Weird huh! Still running some tests and ill get back to you all :D
 
foofighter06 said:
It's in my sig.

I can run @ 2500MHz.

1:1 FSB Ratio

3-3-3-10 timings.

I havent tried tighter timings at DDR 500 yet.

I have a screenshot in this thread.
AMD OC Data
Click to expand...


The problem with the Corsair memory (havent tried the ne Pc4400 yet) but atleast theXMS/XL/pro/platinum is that you have to run such laxed timings that kill perfromance and also decrease the max amount you could prolly oc the CPU. Like the Gskill LE memory should and does yeild more on the FSB. As well as with the settings that you have now you should be running timmings of 2.5-3-3-7 @worst case sceniaro.The Gskill is easilly able to reach DDR 550 @ 2.5-3-3-7 @ 2.65v 1:1 @ 1T and have seen it even past that up to DDR570 at those timings and have seen it run all the way to DDR600 speeds @ 2.5-4-4-8 1:1 @ 1T. So when comparing and understanding as to why I said Corsair is not happy on A64 systems this is why. I have seen many of people including my own experience use those versions of Corsair and not be able to hit anything at all and not nearly the potential that he have to be able to reach and then switch and boom their they go clockin like a mofo!. I couldnt get squat out of my corsair, Put in the Gskill and there it went I can hit 285fsb and well past DDR550 @ 2-5-3-3-7 @ 2.65v and With fine tunning I bet I can hit DDR600. I sent my memory to a buddie of mine that has an P4 and he slapped it in an it worked like a champ. He was gettin better then DDR500 @ 2.5-3-3-7 with my old corsair. I just know what my experinece and the tons of others I have seen say the same thing.

The Cpt.
 
That rebooting almost sounds like my problem. PC doesnt POST then reboots. But I can get it to POST usually with only one stick of RAM in it. I have mine in slots 1 & 3 right now (so no dual channel) and it is booting. Wonder if we both got bad av8's
 
I thought i'd update you guys on my progress.

Newegg was gracious enough to send me a new set of ram AND a new mobo and let me return the old stuff w/o restocking. so heres what has developed.

I put new motherboard in, load it up with my old ram in slots 1 and 2, works fine and perfect, i reformat do all that jazz, i still have that bullshit where the bar ias passing 13 times, thats cool. now, if i throw my ram in slots 3 and 4, its unstable, my computer will run for about 15 minutes then bam, it restarts. For the sake of trying i put in my old memory, slots 3 and 4 same thing. I called PDP tech support asking why is this? mem incompatibility? the guy said no, we have this board and it works fine.... okay thats cool.... he told me that this board is specifically designed to only use slots 1 and 2 and not 3 and 4 unless you got 4 sticks (hmmmmm) well fine i try that and it doesnt touch the windows screen, it would give me this bullshit error saying a windows file was corrupt bla bla bla, pull the ram out of slots 3 and 4. windows boots perfectly and thats what i have to tell so far. A load of crap really, no success story here.

So i called new egg told me what has beeen going on they said since this is the second time they will charge a restocking fee on the mobo. but they will let me get a different one, i was wondering what oyu guys think? i want to say MSI but the thing is my zalman is incompatible. i have the choice for like the a8v, the gigabyte, and the soltek.

Another idea too... maybe my CPU is bad, with its onboard mem controller you think that it is the causing of my problems? i dismissed this problem quickly when the PDP tech support guy told me cause my ram works fine in 1 and 2 but not 3 and 4.
 
computerpro3 said:
I think you should do what I originally told you to do and get the msi.
Click to expand...


I agree ! The AV8 is a good board but the MSI is better and Especially if you wanna oc. I would also recomend a diff cooler anyway. Run an SLK948U on my FX53 set up thats air cooled. It fits and it works great.
 
I have an av8, no problems. the msi is nice, but msi tech support kinda sucks now, and there gettin cheaper. I have it running great, overclocked a lot too

3000+ winchester 90nm
zalman CNPS7000b-Cu
this ram.......:( it sucks i know, but it runs great at ddr333, which doesnt effect performance at all. 2.5-2-2-6
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-150-617&depa=0
x800 pro
thermaltake polo12 410 watt psu.
audigy 2 zs

edit: the processor is at 2.25 Ghz, 1.525 volts, 4xHTT, and PCI lock on. FSB=250. prime95 runs forever. never get temps higher than 45c in games.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top