Abit IP35-Pro Review

[Surfrider77]

Man I need to buy a new board, like yesterday... I am so tempted to pull the triger on this Abit, but I feel like I havent researched all the other boards, and I am also tempted by the EVGA 680i, not because of the sli per se, but as i just fried my new 8800 GTS 640 SC in less than a week, the EAR program where they overnight you a cross shipment and a prepaid box to send your broken part back is awsome. I spoke to a guy on the phone at 1am last night when the card fried and had it all worked out in 15 minutes, and my new card should be here tomorrow. he said the same applies to theirt MB's. So much to ponder...my brain is going to explode. You guys seem to be getting great results with this board, and with this many owners on the forum that makes for good unofficial support.

X38 is out in a month and is rumored to support SLI. I think its been said it wont at release, but is open for future BIOS updating. That would be my advice. I "upgraded" to this P35 from a 680i and I dont miss that board one damn bit. X38 will only be better.

My 2c.

 

[Evilsizer]

it wont take a bios update for SLI, its about the drivers from NV saying yes to intel x38. NV has said in the past that they think that intel chipsets are not up to there standards for performance. yet in single card head to heads intel chipset own.

 

[SuperDave1685]

Well considering I just bought this board and its doing quite nicely... I think I'll hold off for a while

 

[chawks2]

I'm tempted to try the vdroop mod but I'll probably mess up my board

The key is to get a cheap one/deal from someone on the forums. Not too long ago there was an IP35 Pro for sale with a bad BIOS chip. Purchase the $6 BIOS chip and your cost is 106$. Lately I have been throwing my money in the trash can, so it wouldnt be much different and at least it would be for a good purpose/project!

 

[Albaholic]

The key is to get a cheap one/deal from someone on the forums. Not too long ago there was an IP35 Pro for sale with a bad BIOS chip. Purchase the $6 BIOS chip and your cost is 106$. Lately I have been throwing my money in the trash can, so it wouldnt be much different and at least it would be for a good purpose/project!

Yeah I saw that in the classies a little too late. I don't need a second one but at that price, I wouldn't mind

 

[David_N]

Does anyone know where the new ethernet controller drivers and the new RAID drivers are? I'm about to do a fresh Vista install and I'm looking for them before I do it, and they aren't on the Abit site yet...

 

[Surfrider77]

Does anyone know where the new ethernet controller drivers and the new RAID drivers are? I'm about to do a fresh Vista install and I'm looking for them before I do it, and they aren't on the Abit site yet...

You need to do some creative deciphering, but usually the Taiwan site has updates long before the US website does. If not, check out the Abit forums and do a search.

 

[Evilsizer]

www.abit.com.tw

 

[SuperDave1685]

The drivers are on the CD that comes with the board. Read the manual on how to make driver floppies if you have to. You have to boot from the CD and follow the onscreen menus to get there. With Vista, I didn't think you needed a a RAID disk though??

 

[Surfrider77]

The drivers are on the CD that comes with the board. Read the manual on how to make driver floppies if you have to. You have to boot from the CD and follow the onscreen menus to get there. With Vista, I didn't think you needed a a RAID disk though??

There are newer drivers available than whats on the CD. Fairly sure that is what he is asking about. Last I checked they were not on the US site and I had to download them from the Taiwan site, hence my response.

For Vista, you can install without loading a single thing on the board other than the LAN drivers. It will not be the most current RAID driver though, but its a hell of a lot easier to just update it from within Vista later rather than making a driver boot disk.

XP you need to load everything, of course.

 

[Deanzo]

What a Great board this is, Ive benched it on Dry Ice, it was like a rock, Had my first go at benching LN2 last night and it would let me boot into windoz @ -179c .

But you do need to look out for the ice

 

[Nandro]

Is 11 the latest bios or does Taiwan have a newer one?

 

[Evilsizer]

What a Great board this is, Ive benched it on Dry Ice, it was like a rock, Had my first go at benching LN2 last night and it would let me boot into windoz @ -179c .

But you do need to look out for the ice

this board has set WR's

 

[meionm]

How large is the heatsink in thee center?

 

[Nandro]

About 3" long and an inch and a 1/4 wide.

 

[Evilsizer]

ok so i update my board to the bios 14 no problems at all well... if you consider that at the same fsb and timings for ram i had to up the mch volts a touch more then in the 11bios. not really sure why it would cause that though...other then that nothing i see a problem with.. dont have my D9's any more for high speed clocking so its pretty much 400mhz is where im staying at for my 4gigs of ram @4-4-4-10 timings, i tried there rated timings per ddr2-800. the board does boot up but getting in to windows is iffy, stock timings are [email protected],im running 2.175 volts for 4gigs/4x1gig sticks.

 

[Rattle]

I just updated to the 16 beta, not sure why but i cant OC on this mobo for crap over 400. perfectly stable at 400 and 1600 with mobo at stock volts, highest i can get in is 415. it wont even boot at 425 !! I have tried with 3 different sets of ram lmao and all sorts of settings.

I am at a loss here.

EDIT

I figured out my 4gb of supertalent doesnt overclock for poop
NVM lol

 

[chawks2]

I figured out my 4gb of supertalent doesnt overclock for poop
NVM lol

Was that 4 x 1G, or 2 x 2G? Have heard stories about tough times in general with the 4 x 1 config on this board.

I still havent started oc'ing my 4G Pats.

 

[Surfrider77]

Ive got 4x1G sticks and I found my FSB max to be around 513. No matter how many volts I tried pushing through the board, it didnt seem to help. Reading info from other forums, I am fairly sure I would get a much higher FSB if I went to a 2 slot ram configuration. I prefer to run at 499 to keep under the 500fsb boot strap anyway, so my current setup is just fine for now.

 

[Rattle]

i tried them individually and same thing, unless this board is just not liking over 400, which i doubt. I will be to test further in a couple weeks with another mobo.