Thinking about IC7-MAX3? Read this first!

I just put 1 stick of 512 pc2700 ram into my PC and set the voltage to 2.9, booted into windows perfect and it everything looked okay, until I opened Winbond Hardware Monitor. At 2.9 the voltage fluctuates between 2.7~3.02, does this mean anything to anyone? The last time I saw this was in a volt mod where the vDimm was raised above 3.0, then it just went crazy all over the place.

I mean 2.9 should read 2.8x? The way I see it, this is what I get at the different voltages

2.5 well lets not get crazy here! Why bother?
2.55 reads 2.44~2.57
2.7 reads 2.62-2.66
2.8 reads 2.74
2.9 reads 2.7x~3.02
3.0 haven't built up enough courage to put my buddy's pc2700 up there!
3.1 and 3.2? God only knows... maybe somewhere in the area of 2.5~4

Come on Max3 users, I know you're out there, let's here your vDimm numbers. I know I'm not the only one having this problem.

Wouldn't really suprise me. While I love my IC7, and it seems Abit has the best 865/875 offerings, they seem to have the worst bugs.

I just flashed the board with the 11 bios and the same problems in voltage.

I agree abit definite has good offerings, one of these days they're gonna have to put all those wonderful features on a motherboard that works. Sorry for being so angry, after all I only spent my whole pay check to buy the most expensive mb available!

I'm gonna go and have a long hard look at my wallet, no that's not money it's RMA slips.

In case I missed it, what is the brand and rating of your psu ?

Enermax EG465P-VE 460W

http://www.enermax.com.tw/eg365p-ve.htm

+3.3V on Winbond Hardware Monitor sits between 3.3~3.33

Where should it be sitting?

after reading this thread I tried 3.0 & 3.2 on the v-dimm and both booted into windows fine. actually I am typing this post on 3.2v on my pc4000. I wouldn't place alot of confidence in the Winbond Hardware Monitor...I check my rails with a volt meter and they are always higher than the mobo probe programs.

yup Abit has alot of bugs.....i agree to that.....but if its good you won't regret it

xcelerator said:

yup Abit has alot of bugs.....i agree to that.....but if its good you won't regret it

Click to expand...

I do have one bug to report. My IC7 had a cold boot problem. I had to reboot (hit power switch) about 3 to 4 times before I could boot into windows. I am sorry to say that I still have the same problem with my Max 3.... ....although I only have to reboot 2 times with the Max 3. Maybe abit will fix it with a new bios? Probably not for awhile though....look how long it took them to fix the 1:1 250fsb bug.

Man... why do new motherboards STILL have the cold-boot problem

I'm looking to upgrade my TH7-II platform for "hopefully" a 3.2 Prescott + Max3 early next year. So... looks like I still have 4-5 months of reviews to read

Question for Krag

krag said:

I do have one bug to report. My IC7 had a cold boot problem. I had to reboot (hit power switch) about 3 to 4 times before I could boot into windows. I am sorry to say that I still have the same problem with my Max 3.... ....although I only have to reboot 2 times with the Max 3. Maybe abit will fix it with a new bios? Probably not for awhile though....look how long it took them to fix the 1:1 250fsb bug.

Click to expand...

Does the cold boot problem mean that your Raptors on the ICHR RAID are not detected and hangs at the RAID BIOS screen? This is the problem I have on my IC7-G. When I get this failure, it's always one of the two Raptor drives that fail to detect. It's definitely not a problem with the drives since the non-detected drive is sometimes 1 and other times 2. It takes a couple cold boots to get both of my Raptors to detect.

If this is the problem you describe, then it certainly points to a BIOS issues since it appears to be across all the different Abit boards. Perhaps this is related to the Maxtor SATA drive detection problems.

Re: Question for Krag

lokicat said:

Does the cold boot problem mean that your Raptors on the ICHR RAID are not detected and hangs at the RAID BIOS screen? This is the problem I have on my IC7-G. When I get this failure, it's always one of the two Raptor drives that fail to detect. It's definitely not a problem with the drives since the non-detected drive is sometimes 1 and other times 2. It takes a couple cold boots to get both of my Raptors to detect.

If this is the problem you describe, then it certainly points to a BIOS issues since it appears to be across all the different Abit boards. Perhaps this is related to the Maxtor SATA drive detection problems.

Click to expand...

Nope, my raptors dont' hang up in the raid bios screen they boot just fine. Its the ol' cold boot problem all over again....hit button > fans & lights come on > black screen > no post > repeat steps 1 thru 4 until post screen apears.

Well, looks like I'll find out what's up first hand.... My MAX3 was delivered today !

I somethimes get 'cold boot' problems on this box. I was hoping they'd be gone when I dump the 845 chip, oh well, can't have it all I quess......