who is using AB9PRO?

[azomiss]

i just want to know if there is a ab9pro + conroe user.

i need some home made test results with this configuration pls

 

[The_OGS]

Hi Azomiss,
Ahhhh, that New Computer Smell...
I had forgotten. It's fantastic, I return to the room and it stinks of new fans and new powersupply etc.
Hey this AB9 is great, it offers to send 2.3v into my RAM :^) You gotta watch that, some RAM (like mine) is rated 2.1v and not all mobos can supply even ~2.0v, it can be a real problem...
Anyway, what can I do for you again?

 

[platbr]

It's not a pro, but I just installed an AB9. I'll second the review below -- this is a great motherboard. I love the information LED right on the motherboard (not that I've needed it, but it's a nice feature) and the μGuru utilities are great. I also was unaware (and pleasantly surprised) to find IEEE-1394 included as part of this package. Very nice, indeed.

Overall -- it rocks. I think the differences between the AB9 and the AB9 Pro are mainly port-related. At $140, I went with the AB9. I highly recommend the board....

Can I help with something?

 

[The_OGS]

Hi platbr,
You know, the regular AB9 is all anyone needs - the Pro offers 10 SATA and dual-LAN, neither of which I really require. But I said WTF anyway, it was only another $15 bucks and I grabbed it.
Are you aware: you cannot boot from IDE harddisk on these mobos?
Man I thought I'd never see the day when SATA was native, and F6 drivers required for IDE support... LoL. Kinda sad, in a way...
But I am using 4 SATA devices (3 HDs and DVD) so I guess you can't have too many :^)
Also, the Pro adds External SATA - a strange-looking plug. Who knows? LoL
ABit has also updated their S/PDIF (I must have optical S/PDIF, both in and out!) The new ones have a little trap-door that disappears when you insert your Toslink cable. Better than the old Plugs, which could become lost...
Note: always purchase 'A' model motherboards from ABit, you won't go wrong (I have AN7, AN8 and now AB9). They are always the best,
L8R

 

[platbr]

Hey OGS,

That was pretty much what I figured; trying to keep the overall cost down (spousal justification here) I skipped the more full-featured products. I am proud of my final cost at $675 (not including the heatsink/fan).

I was NOT aware you couldn't boot an IDE drive of these mobos. Shocking, actually. Luckily, I found a sweet deal on my SATA 160gb drive. Took a couple tries to get the F6 boot to work for me ;-). As for IDE -- I remember when it was all MFM and RLL drives, and nobody had heard of IDE -- and that was a really long time ago. Sort of lame that XP doesn't know how to use the SATA drives.

This is my first Abit motherboard, but I'm really stoked. Seems like a true enthusiasts board. Is there any way to adjust my RAM timings below 533? Also, is there any way to manually adjust the timings and latency?

 

[The_OGS]

WinXP will boot right into any SATA HD attached to the Intel ICH8 SATAs (no F6 required).

Is there any way to adjust my RAM timings below 533?

No - trust me, you don't want to! Note: AB9 DOES support FSB533 (ie. D-805) but they just fail to mention it anywhere on their website...

is there any way to manually adjust the timings and latency?

Yes. BIOS v/11 allows memory adjustments (and will boot Core2 from right outta the box), however I predict a new BIOS will appear before September...
Regards

 

[BUFF]

however I predict a new BIOS will appear before September...

BIOS 13 is out now

I would be very surprised if you can't boot from an IDE drive - are you sure that it isn't a case of setting boot & drive priority?

 

[Crazylegs]

The way I understand it, there is one IDE connection on this MB, and it was included primarily to provide support for IDE CD/DVD ROMs. Of course, you use the CD/DVD to load the OS onto the harddrive, so how could you do this without a bootable drive?

I am waiting for my AB9 pro and E6600 - it should arrive any day now. So psyched.

I chose the ABIT AB9 pro because overclocking is not important, I am running an All-in-Wonder X1900 (SLI/Crossfire is not an issue), and in the few reviews that I have seen (Anandtech.com especially) the Abit boards compared very favorably to the much more expensive ASUS and INTEL boards. The only difference between the Pro and non-Pro - the extra LAN (you never know when I may use this) and the extra Sata ports. I have no need for those now, but the idea of having an external sata drive (or DVD) in one year made me think of spending the extra $10.00. It should be faster than USB 2.

I'll let you know how the board works when I get it assembled.

 

[testbenchdude]

The way I understand it, there is one IDE connection on this MB, and it was included primarily to provide support for IDE CD/DVD ROMs. Of course, you use the CD/DVD to load the OS onto the harddrive, so how could you do this without a bootable drive?

I am waiting for my AB9 pro and E6600 - it should arrive any day now. So psyched.

I chose the ABIT AB9 pro because overclocking is not important, I am running an All-in-Wonder X1900 (SLI/Crossfire is not an issue), and in the few reviews that I have seen (Anandtech.com especially) the Abit boards compared very favorably to the much more expensive ASUS and INTEL boards. The only difference between the Pro and non-Pro - the extra LAN (you never know when I may use this) and the extra Sata ports. I have no need for those now, but the idea of having an external sata drive (or DVD) in one year made me think of spending the extra $10.00. It should be faster than USB 2.

I'll let you know how the board works when I get it assembled.

I researched this very subject for almost 3 days straight during the hell of a time I had getting my AB9 Pro to work. Here's my specs:

P805 D (stock speed for now)
2Gb Patriot DDR2 667 (the cheap stuff)
80gb Maxtor IDE
500Gb Maxtor SATA
7900GT
Audigy2ZS
IDE DVD-R/W
Floppy drive

What I found out is that the 965 spec does not include native support for legacy IDE devices. Mobo manufacturers like Abit have had to "cobble" on third party chipsets onto their boards in order to provide IDE functionallity--in this case, it's a JMicron chip.

What they don't tell you is that in order for you to install the most widely used OS in the world, that you have to install (via our old friend F6) the disc labelled "JMicron RAID Driver" in order to get your IDE functionality so that you can boot off of it. This little, seemingly insignificant detail derailed an entire weekend I had planned to spend cruising the interwebs and online games and I was mightiliy pissed at the time (have had only two weeks at home this entire summer).

One more thing that I was not able to figure out was how to get a master and a slave to work together on that lonely IDE, so in the end I ended up simply chucking the old 80gb HDD and running a couple of partitions on my 500gb drive so that I could use my IDE DVD drive. Yuck. IMHO, the whole experience just sucks unless you have all SATA stuff, in which case, 9 (plus the funky external port) ports are awesome.

Why didn't I return the board? I'm stubborn and refused to let a little thing like the BSOD get the better of me. Plus I hear that there is a new BIOS out so I can't wait to install that when I get home... on second thought, maybe I shouldn't because while it's not my ideal configuration, it works at least and I'm tired of troubleshooting the beast.

Good luck--I'm probably going to Ebay my board in a couple of months in order to fund a newer Conroe board.

*edit*

I forgot to say that I actually had to buy a floppy drive for like the first time in about 7 years, and the cheapest I could find it for was $15!!! It's a racket, I tells ya. I really need to learn more about Linux so I can dispense with the WinXP beast...

*additional edit*

The rational for including a legacy floppy interface but not the (more) modern IDE interface in the 965 chipset just dawned on me. Honestly, what were they thinking? Stupid chipset.

 

[Crazylegs]

It's good to know- I am used to F6 from installing SATA drives in the past, but I guess my question is - usually you are prompted to hit F6 and insert the floppy when installing Windows via CD. If the CD drive is IDE, and the computer doesn't recognize the IDE port without the driver, when do you even get the chance to hit F6?

It sounds like you get it all set up and can't get the OS's CD to even run.

I can't wait to do this. I must be missing something. Maybe I'll read the manual.

I agree - this board will work for now - I plan on getting a new one when I Vista comes out.

 

[BUFF]

I would have thought that it was a similar situation to SATA on older chipsets where the board/BIOS will see the drive but the OS needs a driver to use it - here the mobo/BIOS should see e.g. your optical but the OS needs a driver for the controller to use it.

 

[skinnyjoint]

bump for updates on this board.

and dude those are my exact thoughts, how are people even able to get to f6 if it doesnt pick up ide? so hows this board running for people etc?

 

[Crazylegs]

Skinnyjoint wrote:

"and dude those are my exact thoughts, how are people even able to get to f6 if it doesnt pick up ide? so hows this board running for people etc?"

I am supposed to get the board and CPU today - I will let you guys know how (if) it is running. I do not plan to OC the board (yet) - I once had a bad experience with a K3 chip or something - the chip started smoking and killed the chip and MB. Not a happy day.

 

[Crazylegs]

Okay - here we go - I got the board last night and is a no-so brief description of how things are going..... This is probably my 7th or 8th computer - no expert, but no noob either.

The board looks nice - came with a Sh*tload of SATA cables, Monarch had pre-installed the CPU so that was one less thing I had to worry about. The board comes with a nice quick installation guide that explained where to place all of the audio front panel wire, etc. Very easy to follow, actually got it all working except for the front panel firewire, since I am planning to use the firewire slot that comes with the board in the back.

So far so good - the shield popped in as easy as as any shield I ever used before. No complaints there.

1st complaint - the placement of the IDE slot - terrible - I have a Thermaltake Laser III case, which is very tall - the DVD drives are very far away from the IDE slot - so far that using my longest cable, I could only attach the lower DVD drive. This morning, it was off to Compusa for a 36 inch copper cable (another $7.00) to attach both DVDs.

I get all of the drives hooked up and go to load windows. The stuff about it not recognizing IDE drives? Not an issue for me - the drive was seen by the Bios immediately and I went into BIOS, boot order, placed the DVD drive as first choice, and it worked great.

Then the trouble began - the computer did not offer me a chance to go to Raid at all (again, you must change the Bios to see RAID instead of IDE (I guess that makes sense)).

Anyways, I tried to get WinXP to load and I kept running into the same problem - the dreaded BSOD when WInXP went to set up. I figured out that the problem was memory - the default Voltage was 1.8, and when I boosted it to 1.9, it worked (it also seemed much faster). I also learned that you have to change keyboard control from "OS" to "BIOS" - WINXP wants you to have a keyboard that it recognizes. I used my three dollar PS/2 keyboard, and it worked.

Finally, I was able to get windows to load and I started using the operating system - I loaded the Intel drivers from the CD and it asked me for usbechi.sys. I found it on my other computer, loaded it, and when I restarted, I got the dreaded blue screen of death again, with a different error (I guess you can't install usbechi.sys without SP1). So I ended up having to reinstall windows again. This time, I installed only the Lan drivers, so I could update windows to SP2, and then installed all of the drivers. This worked, except that I could not get my two 500gb drives to run in Raid. After SP2, the computer told me that I had a 127gb hard drive, a 345gb hard drive, and a ~480 gb hard drive - not one big HD. That's when I figured out the RAID setting in the BIOS.

So Finally, I changed the RAID setting in, installed all of the drivers during WINXP setup, and lo and behold, WINXP setup announced a great big hard drive! I am now in the process of loading the operating system, will then load the LAN drivers, update Windows, and then update the Intel drivers, the audio and other drivers, and then the video card.

After that, I will install my ATA133 Card and run an additional 2 250 GB drives in RAID. Then I plan on cleaning up the cabling and running some tests.

How fast is this computer? WINXP says it should take 39 minutes to load the operating system. I was doing it in about 12-15 minutes. Not bad.

Scores to come..... without overclocking.

 

[azomiss]

so far ... so beautiful 8)

 

[Crazylegs]

As an update - as I attempted to load the operating system onto the RAID disk, one of the hard drives failed. Ran the diagnostic program, confirmed that it was DOA, so I reformatted the other drive and that is now running the system while I send the other one back to WD (I knew it was too good to be true to be getting them to work together in RAID. The question now is - what caused the failure? Was it simply a bad drive, too much heat, not enough power, air flow, or something else? Maybe the better question is do I dare attempt RAID again?

The board is up and running, and working well. I have started to run some of the benchmarks and they seem right in line with what I have read. On 3DMark03, which I ran to compare my new system with my older system (Athlon XP3500+ with AGP All-in-Wonder), I hit just under 4 times as fast. (Old system: 4009, New System=15350). 3dMark06 was approximately 5000 (probably most due to the card).

The amazing thing is the feel of speed - the computer feels fast - Agent runs great, the Installation of Madden07, very fast. In all - a definite upgrade and I feel worth it.

 

[Scooby2]

Crazylegs:Glad to hear your new pc is working well despite the hiccups.

I do have an AB9-Pro + E6600 and it is a nice system as you say very fast.

The board has been having issues with memory and over clocking. Though things are getting much better with the latest BIOS updates. (1.13 & 1.14) There is still room for improvement but all things considered I am happy with my purchase.

The IDE placement actually works quite well for me. I'm using a large Midi tower case (Thermaltake Tsunami) and have no problems connecting a hard disk and DVD while keeping everything neat.

Finally benchmarking : My best superPI (1m) score is approx 15.3 seconds with the cpu running at 3.35Ghz compared to approx 21 seconds at stock speed. Though for everyday use I run at around 3Ghz.

 

[BillBPA]

I bought and installed a Pro over the weekend. I encountered a lot of problems and set aside a good amount of time to track down a working configuration for the memory I purchased (GSkill PC6400 - 2GB). It seems that some manufacturers are having difficulty getting the 965's to run PC6400 in dual-channel mode. ABIT has massive problems and I have read on their forums that even beta bios updates don't solve all of the problems. I made a hasty decision to purchase and now I regret not buying a 975.

I am running the following:
Conroe E6600 - stock settings
GSkill PC6400 1GB X 2 (2 GB total)
7800 GT
Enermax 550 PS
3 SATA drives (non-RAID) in IDE mode
Sony DVR/CDRW
Dual-boot WinXP SP2/Vista Ultimate RC1 (build 5600)

Overall performance is good, single channel mode is rock stable (will complete hours of Prime95). It is just frustrating that the board will not perform as advertised yet (I am hopeful that full BIOS revisions will provide full functionality). The board has a ton of features and is priced right compared to 975 offerings.

Please post if you have specific questions about this board. I spent considerable time with it - I got an existing XP installation working properly without upgrading and I installed Vista from a clean install to see how that would work, as well.

 

[Scooby2]

I was considering trying out Vista, Does it have all the required drivers ?

 

[BillBPA]

I didn't encounter problems with my setup - NVidia and Creative (Audigy sound card) have Vista drivers published already. Even the uGuru software runs on Vista.

 

[choknuti]

I am using 4 SATA devices (3 HDs and DVD)

Is that a native SATA dvd or are u using an adapter? If adapter which one is it?

Thanks in advance

 

[BillBPA]

My post was misleading - apologies -

I have 3 SATA drives using the Intel SATA controller and an IDE CD/DVD/RW (Sony) which is connected to the single IDE controller. I believe this IDE controller uses the JMicron controller included with the motherboard.

 

[choknuti]

No problemo!! Just wish that there were sata solutions for dvd. Then we could all do away with the IDE port. (While we're at it lets hope for PCI express sound cards )

 

[BUFF]

Just wish that there were sata solutions for dvd.

There are although strangely a no. of the cheaper ones (e.g. Samsung) don't appear to be for sale in the US.
Again for whatever reason the US always seems to be about 2 generations behind Europe for NEC burners as well ...

 

[choknuti]

I'm writing from Russia. The situation is worse here Anything u guys can buy we get 2 months later and with a 20-30$ price hike