Gaming mATX board FINALLY!

fungu said:
The drivers I've been downloading for onboard video are from Abit's page. Do you think drivers from ATI is much better?
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Sure they are.. Abit cannot update their website everytime AMD-ATi release a new driver. Go read my post here. I don't use Control Center and all is fine.
 
Yup the Blue Ord 2 fits fine, although it sits a little far back on the board, as the socket on this board is more near the rear than on other M-atx core 2 boards, (ie: p5b-vm)

BTW its a good choice for a fan if you want to use the Thermaltake Lanbox, as it is low profile enough to clear the power supply,and still provide good cooling.

Thnx:
Flasha
 
the xp120 would be a better choice in a lanbox because it will fit with no mods and cool better than the orb type coolers
 
My F-I90HD died on me after roughly two weeks of operation, so I guess another board is joining the ranks of the dead ones. Moderate OC with the E4300 running at 329MHz Bus Freq. It didn't require any voltage upping to reach this speed and was running very cool on my watercooled setup.

Tried clearing the CMOS, took out all but one RAM stick, to no avail.

It will go back to RMA and I will probably install an ASUS P5B-VM DO for the time being, until another promising uATX board comes out.

Cheers,
 
Will have to do a quick survey : are all those with F-I90HD still running fine have their system running 24hrs a day? I always had every of my computer runs 24hrs a day.

Mine is always on, I only rebbot once in a while while required after installation or uninstall. I know many are reporting it looks dead the next day on power up...
 
Rhialto said:
Will have to do a quick survey : are all those with F-I90HD still running fine have their system running 24hrs a day? I always had every of my computer runs 24hrs a day.

Mine is always on, I only rebbot once in a while while required after installation or uninstall. I know many are reporting it looks dead the next day on power up...
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i ran mine for 24/7 for about a 2 weeks... but now its off cause i had to send my ram back

1 stick came dead so i was only running 1gb... but now ive sent i back so the computer is out of commision
 
Have had my e4300 clocked to 345 bus for about 2 weeks now, and no problems, running 24/7 vista 64 bit..no crashes (yet).

have Most people had there board just go with out warning, after several days of perfect operation, or was there some warning.?
 
Flasha said:
have Most people had there board just go with out warning, after several days of perfect operation, or was there some warning.?
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The entire spectrum between the two; there's no terribly apparent pattern to it.
 
Flasha said:
Have had my e4300 clocked to 345 bus for about 2 weeks now, and no problems, running 24/7 vista 64 bit..no crashes (yet).

have Most people had there board just go with out warning, after several days of perfect operation, or was there some warning.?
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ok. i've had 4 boards. the first one i thought it was just a dud. it worked with my e4300, and i installed windows with it. it refused to boot with my e6300, then refused to boot with my e4300 also.

so i exchanged it for an open box one (all fry's had left that day). the second time, i used it with the e4300. it seemed okay, but video was flaky (flickering on and off).it would go all the way to windows with my 7900gt installed though, and i was able to use it for a while. i decided to throw my e6300 (517x7 max) in there because it can clock better than my e4300 (340x9 max). lo and behold it stopped working. wouldn't boot up with either of them after that. so i exchanged it (mostly because of the onboard video acting up).

the third one, i decided not to oc at all and worked fine. then i decided to put on an aftermarket northbridge cooler because i read somewhere that it supposedly gets too hot under normal operation. while i was doing that i thought i might as well put on my noctua nh-u9 heatsink as well. i then proceeded to install it with a thermaltake tr2 430watt psu. booted up but would not get into windows at all. i was baffled because it'd finish loading windows then reboot. i tried installing windows xp again and it reboots after loading up drivers/program to install windows. so i returned it.

about 2 weeks later i was at frys buying an am2 setup for a friend, and got the urge to buy it. so i did. maybe the new shipments were better? afraid of "inadequate" "cheap" psu guilt, i resolved to use my seasonic m12 700 only. i just got some firestix so i threw those in there along with a new 320gb 7200.10 drive. at first it was doing the same thing as the third board. load, reboot. i did some research and realized that i had to disable "turn off if cpu fan is not on" option in bios. i was using the nh-u9 so there was no cpu fan plug in the header. i disabled that option, and it worked great. i then was preparing to sell my teamgroup ram, so i put them in to test. worked good. replaced them with firestix. no boot. no post. o_O after numerous attempts with different sticks in different slots i reset the cmos. no post. installed stock heatsink, no drives, no peripherals except monitor, keyboard, mouse. no post. so after a few more hours of resets and switching doodads i gave up. on my next trip south i took it to frys. the guy there tested it on his bench and said it wasn't working. so i got a refund. if it really doesnt work, i feel bad for the next guy because i'd brought in the am2 setup to exchange also (froze on boot), so someone else took care of the return. i saw them slap on an open item sell for cheaper sticker on the box.

i'm telling myself i'm finished with this board, but the temptation always comes back. i went in to buy an e6320 combo, and wanted to pick up another f-i90hd. had to pull myself away. my overclocked gaming/htpc matx sff setup dashed away once again... i'm really hoping someone finds out what's up with these boards. maybe it's just a user kind of thing, and i'm a bad user. i've treated it with the same respect as my other motherboards (i've gone through over a dozen these last 2 years), but this is the only one that has confounded me so. only other time was with an asus a8n premium that i had to rma.

i know that every motherboard has problems the first time it's released, but has there been another hardforum thread with 75 pages, nearly 1500 posts, and so many complaints? i remember the msi 975x platinum thread only had about 350 posts with 18 pages (nearly all complaints though ;p) i guess i'm just saying i kind of wish this thread had a list of super amazing overclocks! than my board is dead what did i do wrong posts.
 
Hm.. Thats really weird.

People seem to fall mostly into 2 categories:

1. Works fine and always has.
2. Works terrible and exchanges work terrible as well.

Its kind of weird.

At any rate mine is still working. I've had absolutely no problems thus far. If this dies I'll probably just pick up a gigabyte.
 
Rhialto said:
So it was running when you began to saw some problem or once you rebooted there was a problem?
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no it was dead from day 1... so i was running with just the 1 stick that worked... just so i could test the system and get everything installed
 
popgoestheweasel said:
Gaming? Hardly it looks more like it was made for the HTPC market. HDMI, SPDIF out/in, fanless design aren't marks of a gaming motherboard.
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Well, how isn't it a gaming board. What classifies a gaming board? The way it looks or the way it performs? Gaming boards need the following, Good stability and good overclockability. As well as alot of bios options for tweakers. This board has all of that. HDMI is a plus, whats the difference anyways, who is going to use the on board vga to game anyways, any gamer will be using a graphics card so whatever vga outputs it has is irrelevant. SPDIF is another plus, your not going to use it anyways so who cares, and alot of gaming motherboards have fanless designs. So thats another plus, less sound.
 
blazingrig said:
Well, how isn't it a gaming board. What classifies a gaming board? The way it looks or the way it performs? Gaming boards need the following, Good stability and good overclockability. As well as alot of bios options for tweakers. This board has all of that. HDMI is a plus, whats the difference anyways, who is going to use the on board vga to game anyways, any gamer will be using a graphics card so whatever vga outputs it has is irrelevant. SPDIF is another plus, your not going to use it anyways so who cares, and alot of gaming motherboards have fanless designs. So thats another plus, less sound.
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this board has it's ups and downs. considering it has the best onboard graphics at the moment (albeit still sucky) it can claim the title. heck an x1300 or 7300gs will best it at any game. i'm still wondering as to why they don't just throw a p965 chipset inside of an matx pcb. true gamers would like that. heck do a 650i if yah want. i've seen it done on shuttle's mobos... you know the one based on the 975x (SD39P2 ) heck go run crossfire on the SD37P2 . the cold hard truth is that according to tradition almost any matx motherboard produced kind of requires onboard graphics. chipsets with onboard graphics just can't oc as high as intel enthusiasts want. what about the 6100 and the 690g? sure a 400 fsb oc is nice for an amd setup, but that just doesn't hold up in the intel world as "1337". i'd like to see an x3200 (rd600) chipset in an matx intel setup. whooo.... yah... uhuh. be kinda like back in the day when people bought the evga matx boards just to do sli.
 
Neist said:
Hm.. Thats really weird.

People seem to fall mostly into 2 categories:

1. Works fine and always has.
2. Works terrible and exchanges work terrible as well.

Its kind of weird.

At any rate mine is still working. I've had absolutely no problems thus far. If this dies I'll probably just pick up a gigabyte.
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Or maybe it isn't so weird... to me this seems to imply that the death of the mobo's has a relation with the components used: the used components stay the same normally when RMAing a dead mobo... however, there still is no clear relation of used components and dying mobo's, but who knows, there are so many possibilities... maybe it is has to do with timing of the memory or something like that...
 
Okay, thats 12 or 13 dead F-I90HD mobos now. One from Fugger at XS. who did say his 1st was fried while OCing but last I heard his 2nd is doing fine. And one from Gary over at AT. That one died for a yet unknown reason at hour 186 of testing. The rest from people posting here at HF.

And thats just the ones that have died that we know about. There have been other problems with this mobo mentioned but all these Conroe mobos have some type of problem/quirk or another including the ATX versions. As mentioned above there doesnt seem to be a set pattern that anyone has been able to detect with the F-I90HD. Its all over the spectrum as Bob511 stated. :(
 
Has anybody been able to get a successful overclock in an OS with the GIGABYTE GA-965GM-S2????
 
Well...I can't really recommend the Swiftech MCX159-CU for this board, and less so with a cooler like the XP-120 that hangs over it (meaning can't use the fan that comes with the heatsink). You can make it fit, but it is a PITA:

heatsinks_above.jpg





I wonder if it's really that big of a deal to get aftermarket cooling on the northbridge? Does anyone happen to know what the working temps of the ATI northbridge chip are? (Like do they post operating temps like Intel and AMD do for CPU's?)
 
bob511 said:
pvhk reported someone else's EasyTune overclock to FSB=384MHz; no information as to how stable things were at that point, and which onboard components were still working at that speed, since he only posted a 1M SuperPi at 368MHz.
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He is fully stable @384 with easytune5! onboard sound works flawlessly.
But using bios settings with the last F5 bios, he can handle up to 310...
Upcoming test with its new ga-965qm-DS2 in my french thread...
 
pvhk said:
He is fully stable @384 with easytune5! onboard sound works flawlessly.
But using bios settings with the last F5 bios, he can handle up to 310...
Upcoming test with its new ga-965qm-DS2 in my french thread...
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384 stable? Thats really good for a mATX mobo.

Edit: Okay, I went and read that thread and just noticed he downclocked the multiplier to 6 so its not all that great IMO afterall. Although it does prove that it can be OCed some.
 
anyone using a quad core on this thing? Just bought a "used" and working mobo and was wondering.
 
Skott said:
384 stable? Thats really good for a mATX mobo.

Edit: Okay, I went and read that thread and just noticed he downclocked the multiplier to 6 so its not all that great IMO afterall. Although it does prove that it can be OCed some.
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No! he did not downclocked the ratio!!!
No ratio access on matx board (except core extreme)
the ratio 6x is displayed, due to speedstep! ;) (speedstep & c1e activated)
So [email protected]! max screen
fsb@364 max stable
 
ARGH! This is driving me nuts! I'm trying to hook up my monitor using an hdmi to dvi cable, but nothing appears. All I want is video for now. I don't even care about the audio part yet! I've tried changing the settings in the BIOS to no avail. I actually had it running to 2 monitors at once (one through hdmi and one through vga) when I was messing around trying to get it to work, but I'm not sure what I did. Now I can't even do that anymore. Any suggestions?:confused:
 
OK. This is kinda weird. I can output video through HDMI to a newer Hanns-G monitor, but not to an older 18" Dell LCD. Could the monitor have anything to do with it?
 
After some fiddling around, I got it to work. Now to get the audio to work...

I tried installing the HDMI audio drivers, but before it finishes installing, it says "No driver was supported in this driver package" and quits the installation process. I installed the Realtek HD drivers first, like the manual said to do, but still a no go. So I don't have the option for "HD audio rear output" in the Sounds and Audio Devices Properties. Maybe it wasn't meant for me to have HDMI :(
 
Ok, after spending 3days to read thru this lengthy post, I finially got all the parts gathered up for my new build...

F-I90HD
Q6700 (Quad Core)
4gb Corsair Dominator 800mhz
8800gts
500gb drive

Dual booting xp pro and vista ultimate64

TJ08 case

Cooling with ThermalRight XP-120 Ultra Extreme (big mofo, barely fits in case...)
Zalman passive NB cooler (or the ThermalRight won't fit)

So far it is running fine, No issues with OS loads, not using on board vid (didn't even test it)

With the quad core heat will be my limiting factor in my OC'in. I had this proc running 3.6ghz on my BadAxe2 under Maze5 waterblock, temps were upper 40s idel and mid 60s loaded.

On this mobo, I have it running 3Ghz right now stock voltage on everything and it get the same temps I was when I was watercooling it at 3.6ghz... so I don't think I will be pushing it much further on air.

This rig was ment to be my portable power house computer. For my cad work and as a nice Lan rig.

I will post up some pics of it later this evening, But I thought it was important to let peeps know that not every F-I90HD mobo is a bad one... ;)
 
Well I've asked this before and hopefully some one will actually respond this time.

Has anyone been able to fix the problem with the new BIOS that displays the incorrect CPU temp??? I'm getting 8c!

I'd certainly appreciate some help. Thanks.
 
She lives! :D

Still waiting for my case (hopefully tomorrow!) But just had to see if I could get this beast working, and if all the components were good to go:

superpi_350.jpg



Only played with trying overclock for a couple hours. I'm at 350MHZ with 1.4v set in BIOS and RAM set to "800" setting in BIOS. (According to setfsb, the PCI and PCI-E clocks appear to be locked to stock, so that's good)

-Now to just figure out what's up with my X-fi popping and crackling-:rolleyes:
 
i have 2 boards (bought a new one after the death of my 1st model & received today a new one from RMA)!
no bsod on both with bios m612a_11!
 
Hmm.... I wonder if there are problems with the power regulation? (I'm set at 1.4v in BIOS, but look at CPUZ and OCCT voltage readings for CPU Core...(Is this normal for board/core2duo?):

350_load_bench.jpg


(again, system is on an open air bench, so temps not "in case temps")
 
The Cisco Kid said:
Well I've asked this before and hopefully some one will actually respond this time.

Has anyone been able to fix the problem with the new BIOS that displays the incorrect CPU temp??? I'm getting 8c!

I'd certainly appreciate some help. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Perhaps get Everest and use it until a better BIOS becomes availble?

Alot of people use a combo of programs that monitor Conroe temps. BIOS, CoreTemp, SpeedFan, Everest, etc., I'd say get as many as you can and just see which one looks to be the most accurate. Everest is supposedly the best of the aftermarket programs. Although its not free.
 
Yikes...what a temp difference in case and out of case. Looks like I gotta work on getting that hot air outta the lanbox! (First picture temps outside of case slightly lower clock, but more volts, second picture in lanbox slightly higher clock, but less volts):

memtest_temps_outside_case.jpg

Memtest_temps_In_Case.jpg


I tried a dual prime95 with Small FFT torture test on each core, but nearly scared the &*$& outta myself the temps skyrocketed so fast! :eek:
 
Is anybody running with 4gb ram?

I'm getting random lockups and I think the ram is to blame.

My specs:

Thermaltake Lanbox
Gigabyte GA-965GM-S2
QX6700
4x 1GB Mushkin DII800
BFG OC2E 8800 GTX 768MB
Wester Digial Raptor 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150
Plextor 18X DVD Recorder
Corsair 620W Power Supply
 
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