aBit just closed the sticky so no one else could post to it. They sent me a PM stating that I broke the rules by posting the review from cluboc.net and that if I posted it again or any other comments that made Abit look bad, they would ban me. Boohoo, who cares.
Well I wrote to PCMag and here is my response... I think everyone who is experiencing the problem should also write to them. In the next few weeks I will be creating a petition website that people can go to who feel they were wronged by aBit and then we can take this up a further level.
---- snip----
Hi, Al:
I've forwarded your message to Abit through our channels. Let us know if
anyone contacts you in the next few days.
I should note that the AI7 has a special coprocessor that dynamically
monitors the clock rate. So it may, in fact, not be running at a
constant voltage or clock rate at all, but varying the clock rate
dynamically in order to maintain stability. How this translates into
real-world performance is unknown.
Also, overclocking is always a bit dicey. It's always possible that you
got a CPU that won't tolerate a higher voltage. Or it's possible that
some Abit boards happily run at higher voltages, while many don't.
At any rate, give the process a couple of weeks; if you don't hear from
them, drop me a line.
Best regards,
Loyd Case
Technical Director
ExtremeTech / Ziff-Davis Media
www.extremetech.com
Voice: 408.732.1347
Mobile: 408.712.5235
-----Original Message-----
From: Miller, Michael
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 2:36 PM
To: deleted
Cc: Stam, Nick; Case, Loyd; Salvator, Dave; Louderback, Jim
Subject: RE: Can you please help me?
I'm not sure what I can do, but I'm copying some of the folks from our
ExtremeTech web site, which covers more of the motherboards and
overclocking issues.
Michael
-----Original Message-----
From: deleted
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 3:08 PM
To: Miller, Michael
Subject: Can you please help me?
Dear Sir,
I am just a regular guy in desperate need for help from someone as
powerful
as yourself. Yes you do have the power to help. In the past I have
seen
many different magazine and letters to magazine that help people out
with
their problems. Today my problem is not one easily solved.
I purchased an aBit motherboard called the IC7 MAX3 about 3 months ago.
I
was one of the first people in Canada to have one because I paid the
premium price of first delivery through my reseller. Along with this I
also purchased some high quality ram made by OCZ which was rated to run
at
250 Mhz FSB. I also purchased a intel pentium 4 2.4C. All this was
great
until I started to overclock a little, after all the board was marketed
as
"Built for Overclockers, By Overclockers". This was clearly the biggest
marketing joke ever when people started to find out that this board was
"Built by stiffs for stiffs". The proposed marketing propaganda was
their
new and improved OTES cooling, though it looks good it serves no real
world
purpose. They also claimed that the board was able to do up to 3.2v for
memory, however 2.8v is the maximum anyone can run stable. The same
memory
in a ASUS P4C800 deluxe will do 280 FSB as opposed to the Max3 at 266
FSB
at 2.8v.
I hope you understand the technical babble because it is very easy to
explain this in plain english. Simply, Abit's board does not do as
advertised. And now they are saying that there is no problem and that
we
will not fix the problem. However, they released a new board called the
AI7 which apparently works perfect at 3.2v. Please help me and please
help
a whole community of aBit IC7 MAX3 users who really need to get what
they
paid for. They don't answer our calls, they delete posts from their
forums
when we put the explanations of the problem. Anything that is bad PR
for
them, they delete. WE NEED YOUR HELP SIR! HELP!!!!
Yours Truly,
Al
--- snip ----
Cheers,
Axiom