Need some advice...

madmatmadmat
edited January 2004 in Hardware
I've got the chaintech 9CJS Zenith but I'm finding that this board is a real slug in certain areas.
It's a royal pain in the backside to flash the bios, it refuses to run the ram at the settings I choose, I set the ram to 3-4-4-8 and at any divider below 1-1 it'll run the ram at 2.5-4-4-8 despite the settings I choose.
It's limiting my overclocks badly...I'm getting to where I hate this board.
Here's my question, I'm going to RMA this board and swap it for a different board which will be an Abit of some sort.
I have two choices, I can have them send it back to the vendor for credit and get a IC-7-Max3 but have my comp be down for around 2 weeks which means my production will be nil for that time or I can swap it for a IS-7 and get credit for the price difference and have my board in hand the same day I take it in, bear in mind, my production is of major importance to me.
There's the difference in chipsets, the IC-7 runs the 875, the IS-7 runs the 865 but it has the hack for enabling P.A.T. on that board so the performance is comparable to an 875 chipseted board.
Both boards offer the ICH5R southbridge so I'd still have raid options.
Any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreaciated.
Thanks guys.
P.S., no I'm not going to just dump the whole Intel thing and go AMD so that's not an option...

Comments

  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    I voted for the Max3 ...your production isn't as important to me as it is to you! LOL
    No really ...Abit Max is so sweet. Also 875P is the way to go IMO.
  • ketoketo Occupied. Or is it preoccupied? Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    I'd say it depends in part on your time frame for a future upgrade and what direction that might go in.

    -if socket 478 Prescott, go Max3
    -if very long term (into 2005), go Max3
    -if you'll jump on something new that comes out just because you've got the fever whenever the urge strikes and it will be in 2004, go IS7

    The IS7 is pretty full featured, has the PAT hack and the Intel RAID as you mentioned, will be just as fast tho slightly less full featured than the Max, obviously. The Max is somewhat more likely to support Prescott due to being a later production model than IS7 and *likely* to have better power handling (haven't looked at Abit's site, have they announced Prescott support on legacy mobos yet? Asus have...). My last point above is pretty much all about the IS7 *should* run as fast as Max, so save a few pennies for down the road if you're going to be swapping more this year anyways, regardless to what (AMD/Intel) except for a straight cpu to Prescott swap.
  • madmatmadmat
    edited January 2004
    Well, the Abit 875's will support prescott and I have no plans to build a new system anytime soon.
  • madmatmadmat
    edited January 2004
    BTW here's a copy of the email I sent to Chaintech customer support about this problem.
    I failed to mention the problem I'm having with the cas settings not running under the user settings properly but I just addressed the bios flashing problems.
    When I try to program the new bios into my system I get an error saying that "the bios lock string does not match my components" This is ridiculous, I've had boards from ASUS and Soyo and MSI and I've never had half the problems with any of them as I have with this major piece of garbage that I paid through the nose for.
    This board is without a doubt the worst I have ever had the misfortune of using and I will advise anyone considering buying any Chaintech product to give them as wide a berth as possible.
    I paid well on $300.00 for this board solely based on what looked to be a premium board with a premium bundle but I've found out that the only premium was the price.
    I just want to know why do you make it to where you have to type a string of commands to flash a bios and then not give the string of commands needed with the bios download?
    I have no clue as to what I need type in to make this thing work, I fire it up on a boot floppy, type in awdflash after the A: then input the bios name to be flashed and tell it n for saving the old bios and instead of flashing the bios it gives me an error...why the **** is that?
    I'm so disillusioned with this product that I want to ship it back to the place of purchase and trade it in on a product that will actually do as it's supposed to, an Abit IC7-Max3.
    I've never read anything but good things about those boards.
    I guess you get the idea that I'm less than happy with your product, do you have a cure or shall I just pitch it?
    Signed, Matthew Harris
  • ketoketo Occupied. Or is it preoccupied? Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    You are aware that Max3 has voltage regulation issues, dramatic fluctuations of vdimm?
  • madmatmadmat
    edited January 2004
    Nope, everything I've read on the Max3 has been positive.
    Where did you see that about the Vdimm? A little linkage would be greatly helpful and appreaciated.
  • ketoketo Occupied. Or is it preoccupied? Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    For starters, it's stickied on top of Abit's Max series support forum. There's also a so far unfixable VTT fluctuation issue, not sure what that is tho.
  • madmatmadmat
    edited January 2004
    Well, from what I've read the voltage fluctuation is only a problem when you're running the memory voltages above 2.8v at a high FSB at 1-1 so I doubt I'd have that problem.
    I don't plan on running above 2.8Vdimm and although I'm going to be shooting for 280fsb or more (this cpu has run at 280@ stock Vcore on a Shuttle SB61) I'll be running my ram at a 5-4 divider so that my ram will still be in spec. as far as speed is concerned.
    The AI7 doesn't offer the number of SATA ports that the Max3 does and it doesn't look to be as proficient at OC'ing either.
    Thanks for the heads up though, I hope that Abit has fixed the boards that are on retail shelves considering that this problem was "cured" in RMA almost 2 months ago.
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