Abit IP35 Pro eats memory sticks?

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Das_Saunamies
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Abit IP35 Pro eats memory sticks?

Post by Das_Saunamies » Tue Sep 01, 2009 1:29 am

I became suspicious after having bought and had problems with a third set of memory sticks for my Abit IP35 Pro.

First two kits I bought were Kingston dual-channel 2x1GB sets (KHX6400D2LLK2/2GN) and this last one was a Corsair Dominator set (TWIN2X4096-8500C5D). Every kit was extensively tested with Memtest (overnight runs) upon installation, no errors then. However, within a period of a few months, every kit started showing the same symptoms: Memtest errors, BSODs and freezes. Freezes and crashes occur at random times with random applications running, usually at low load (games work fine, paradoxically), and for some reason come more frequently at night (between 12 AM and 6 AM, 0000-0600 hours).

I should have probably googled about this sooner, but now that I did, I found many complaints about the IP35 Pro and memory issues, especially dead sticks:

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=65959
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1351591
http://www.google.fi/search?q=IP35+Pro+memory+issues

Is anyone familiar with this problem from personal experience or through other channels?

I have tried to remedy things with many, many combinations of timings and voltages, overclocking and default settings, but nothing can cure the problem once it starts. Resetting CMOS worked for the first set of Kingstons, but not for the second, Corsairs start running again once the computer has been offline for hours.

I tried contacting Abit support, but they have gone silent. The e-mail addresses do not work anymore, BlackBox doesn't do anything anymore... I guess the bankruptcy is total.

I've bought an Asus P5Q-E and some Corsair XMS2 RAM to remedy things. I will be returning the IP35 PRO to see if I can get a refund from the retailer in case they can't replace it. I absolutely adore the µGuru, but there is, in my opinion, something wrong with this board, and I need to be able to trust my computer, as I use it for work.

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Post by blackworx » Tue Sep 01, 2009 1:58 am

This is the first I've heard of this, but I'll certainly be keeping an eye on mine in future.

Just out of interest, how old is your board and have you any idea what its total uptime is? It's just over a year since I replaced my original Pro with an XE (not so much of an upgrade as I had the opportunity to swap it for free) and I haven't had any of the symptoms you mentioned.

And yeah, Abit is now completely bought, and their PC components business wound down, so I think we're on our own :(

lm
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Post by lm » Tue Sep 01, 2009 3:02 am

blackworx wrote:And yeah, Abit is now completely bought, and their PC components business wound down, so I think we're on our own :(
If the PC business was also bought, and the buyer just shut it down, they still need to honor warranties?

To OP: You shouldn't have any trouble with the retailer, I think we have pretty strong consumer protection here in Finland.

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Tue Sep 01, 2009 3:06 am

Just out of interest, how old is your board and have you any idea what its total uptime is?
This is a 1.0 revision, total uptime and age I found in the BIOS: 5,868 hours of PC uptime with 10,662 hours plugged into AC power, so just over a year old with 50% use rate. I would say 50% of that uptime is work, gaming or HTPC use, 50% idle or light browsing or chatting. I am currently trying to find the receipts, but they're lost in a landslide of paper that is not in any sort of order after I moved house.

First kit I think lasted 4-6 months (unclear when exactly trouble started), second lasted another 4-6 and this Corsair set has had trouble within two months of purchase, possibly showing the signs earlier due to overclocking (1066 RAM = 356x9 CPU with 1:1.50).

I've got my fingers crossed that there is some other explanation for this than motherboard failure, and that I can keep the frankly excellent-for-silence IP35 Pro in all its µGuru glory.
If the PC business was also bought, and the buyer just shut it down, they still need to honor warranties?

To OP: You shouldn't have any trouble with the retailer, I think we have pretty strong consumer protection here in Finland.
I have no idea about how the warranties still apply, but Abit's site is up, their mobos are still on sale and I am counting on the strong legal protection to give me what is mine. Frankly I don't care what happens beyond the retailer, as this will be their responsibility AFAIAC. 8)

EDIT: Corrected age and uptime estimates.
Last edited by Das_Saunamies on Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

wharrad
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Post by wharrad » Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:02 am

I have sympathy for you, it can be so frustrating! At least Corsair have lifetime warranties.

Anyway, the only thing I could think of that'll cause RAM to burn out over a period of time is voltage. What are you running at? I believe it should be 2.1v. The board might be lying and sticking out more juice than it should, so maybe try knocking it down a touch to 1.8v.

Also, it could be a flacky northbridge, they don't tend to like larger amounts of RAM. Normally if you're just using 2 sticks I'd assume it'd be fine... But try bumping the northbridge voltage up 0.2v. I'm not sure what the default voltage is on that board, but if it's 1.28v, try 1.3v etc.

That might resolve a few issues.

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:11 am

wharrad wrote:Anyway, the only thing I could think of that'll cause RAM to burn out over a period of time is voltage. What are you running at? I believe it should be 2.1v. The board might be lying and sticking out more juice than it should, so maybe try knocking it down a touch to 1.8v.

Also, it could be a flacky northbridge, they don't tend to like larger amounts of RAM. Normally if you're just using 2 sticks I'd assume it'd be fine... But try bumping the northbridge voltage up 0.2v. I'm not sure what the default voltage is on that board, but if it's 1.28v, try 1.3v etc.

That might resolve a few issues.
Thanks. I'll try upping the MCH (previously NB) from the 1.2xV to 1.4xV. I've had sets of two and four sticks, and now have 2x2GB, so MCH voltage might be a part of the problem. I have always run RAM at spec; Kingstons were 1.9V I think and Corsairs say 2.1V as you suggested (v1.4).

I didn't think of upping the MCH voltage as I wasn't overclocking previously, but if it's true that full banks give them hiccups, I am definitely going to try this solution.

I put the order on the Asus on hold for now, see how this goes. I've set everything back to the "correct" i.e. overclocked settings, as that is how the PC should be able to run.

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Post by blackworx » Tue Sep 01, 2009 10:25 am

lm wrote:
blackworx wrote:And yeah, Abit is now completely bought, and their PC components business wound down, so I think we're on our own :(
If the PC business was also bought, and the buyer just shut it down, they still need to honor warranties?

To OP: You shouldn't have any trouble with the retailer, I think we have pretty strong consumer protection here in Finland.
I meant "on our own" as far as finding an explanation or solution goes. Obviously they have to honour warranties, but as op has said it is the retailer's responsibility to sort that out, especially in the absence of any meaningful response from what used to be Abit.

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Wed Sep 02, 2009 12:07 am

At first the raised MCH voltage seemed to do the job... but I left the machine idling for the night, and by morning Firefox had crashed, and the moment I quit and reported from the crash dialog, I had a BSOD. Memtest ran immediately after got thousands of errors instead of the previous dozens or hundreds.

I think it's time to go ahead and buy another board, as I can't afford any downtime.

Edit: now this is obviously plain voodoo, but I will uninstall Firefox and see how things go with Opera, recreating the usual crash conditions the best I can. Only common factors between crashes have been long uptime, idle PC and Firefox running; most BSODs have occurred immediately after quitting and reporting from the Firefox crash dialog.

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Post by blackworx » Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:52 am

Do you use the uGuru systray util? I have heard that certain versions are very leaky, moreso in Vista/XP64 I believe. Can't see how that would actively cause memtest errors, but if you do use it then it might be worth disabling to see if it makes any difference?

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Thu Sep 03, 2009 3:36 pm

I had not used the µGuru tray utility (I hate tray clutter) until the problems started appearing and I needed active monitoring to determine the cause, so doubt it's that... but thanks for the tip, the first µGuru version I used was indeed a bit flaky.

ONE POSSIBLE EXPLANATION: I asked the shop to see if they had heard of similar problems. Apparently most if not all Abit IP35 series motherboards they had sold had had memory trouble, especially with full banks (4x1 like I had at one point) or premium memory like my 1066 Dominators.

By their instructions, I cleared CMOS for the umpteenth time and stuck in 2x1GB of very regular Kingston HyperX DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 memory... has not crashed yet, vDIMM at 2.0V, MCH voltage upped to 1.29V (for dips' sake, +0.04). I'm going to keep this running until the new motherboard arrives tomorrow afternoon, and if there is no crash, I will deem the problem solved for now - and move all my stuff on the new one. :D

Thank you all for the input, I'll let you know how it all ends.

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Post by JazzJackRabbit » Fri Sep 04, 2009 6:03 am

Scary if true. I got three IP35Pro's and so far they've been nearly flawless. One is running 24/7, other one is running in a fileserver/MSSQL DB rig 16 hours a day, third one in my main PC, all three rigs run with 4 or 8GB or ram installed with all four memory slots occupied. So far there has been couple of glitches, for example I saw my fileserver hang once on boot and if anything goes wrong, they need to have CMOS reset, but other than that they've been good. I haven't run memtest on any of them, but I would imagine if there were any problems I'd see BSOD eventually after running them for so long, and it hasn't happened yet.

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Fri Sep 04, 2009 11:16 am

Guess mine's a "Monday Edition". :?

What spec of RAM are you using Jazz; timings, frequency?

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Post by JazzJackRabbit » Fri Sep 04, 2009 2:05 pm

I use this ram in my main PC and fileserver/MSSQLDB rig, 8GB each. I use four 1GB sticks of older Micron PC2-1000/2.2V ram in my 24/7 rig. Those are the older ones that are infamous for burning out easily when clocked at max speeds/voltages. So far they are fine, haven't had to RMA them, but I never ran them close to their specs. 24/7 rig also used to have a pair of Corsair cm2x2048-6400C4DHX installed, but I took them out because I thought I might put them to better use somewhere else.

I do not run my ram above specs though, in fact none of my rigs run memory faster than 800MHz and max voltage is 2.0V. All timings and voltages are default ones. I figure my time and peace of mind (as you found out) are worth more than 1-3% performance boost I get by overclocking ram to the max.

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Fri Sep 04, 2009 9:45 pm

Yeah, will be the last time I try to play the Hz game with memory, just not worth it. :roll:

Same sort of frequencies and timings as my Kingstons then, just in 2x2 and not 2x1 or 4x1 form. Dunno if Crucial's more compatible or what, but this just reaffirms my suspicions that there's something iffy about my sample, albeit it is true that all the machines I had no trouble using Kingston in were AMD.

Been running steady for 24 hours twice in a row now with an accidental boot in between - am so used to having the machine off for the night that accidentally pressed the power button in the morning. No light, no sound = no power. Primitive logic 1 - 0 Silent computing. :lol:

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Post by blackworx » Fri Sep 04, 2009 11:43 pm

I've got 2x2GB Dominator with FSB overclocked to run @ 1:1, stock timings, and I haven't had any problems during use, but I have always had the occasional boot hang (maybe once or twice a month) ever since I built the machine :?

It also became unstable under load (video transcoding) when, after having PSU problems, I ran it for a while with only half the 8-pin EPS connected. I'm assuming that was more to do with the overclock though.

Thanks for posting your shop's advice - it will undoubtedly save a lot of hair pulling if/when mine does go south.

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Sun Sep 06, 2009 10:34 pm

Aye, I hope this helps someone else too in case of any troubles. Just goes to show that even a "surefire combo" like high-end Corsair+Abit can go wrong and that it's always trial-and-error with DIY.

Another 24x2 streak behind me, I can say this feels rock-solid now. Game performance seemed unaffected at first, but maps with long viewing distances and lots of movement like Left 4 Dead's finale for the Dead Air campaign can get choppy. I'm betting it's actually the HDD with my virtual memory on it, but 4GB of RAM would probably not hurt, especially so with a 512MB graphics card.

This week - as soon as I get back on track with university - will see the rebirth of this rig on the Asus Maximus II Formula.

I could not live with any hangs or crashes. It is a frightening prospect when your livelihood depends on stability and silence: I'm a translator, and often work with texts in the 10,000 wordcount region and strict deadlines. One crash or delay and I am dead. :!:

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Fri Sep 25, 2009 10:22 am

After a clean reinstall of Windows XP and some days of stress testing, gaming and general use, I can conclude that my IP35 Pro sample was the source of all the trouble. The Corsair and Kingston sticks all work, and this new mobo works beautifully with them - I bought the Asus Maximus II Formula for its extensive BIOS controls and apparent robustness.

Hard to say if my sample went sour after more than a year of active use or if the fault still lies with the sticks somehow, but if the IP35 crapped out just after 12 months, shame on Abit, may they rot in peace.

My first faulty motherboard ever, if you don't count one that blew up due to dust concentration. Live and learn. :)

The Maximus II Formula is a very nice board indeed, by the way. Plenty of cooling on it and it's built like a brick shithouse. None of that push-pin nonsense with the heatsinks either, all bolted down with spring-tensioned screws like you see on video cards these days.

Shame Asus still can't code their Fan Xpert for crap, no modifiable profiles, temperature can't be calibrated and you can't adjust voltage directly either! I use it as an on-off switch for the fans. :lol:

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Post by Monkeh16 » Fri Sep 25, 2009 10:48 am

Funny, I find my IP35 Pro (both of them, actually) works perfectly, and it has done for quite some time.

My old Asus board, however, has killed three sticks of RAM, and a friend with the same board has killed four, now his board is dead. Said board also has a broken BIOS which overvolts by default and won't boot in certain conditions if, of all things, you disable the floppy controller.

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Fri Sep 25, 2009 12:34 pm

Yep, hence I keep repeating the word "sample". Not all units of the same model are created equal, unfortunately.

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Post by JazzJackRabbit » Tue Sep 29, 2009 6:45 am

Heh, the reason I went with Abit during my last round of upgrades was because then current P35 based Asus motherboards were too power hungry and because my experience with Asus was bad. Old P3V4X (still remember the name rofl) was good but had faulty temp sensor which would raise alarm needlessly. P4P800/P4P800SE (two separate boards) had the same temp sensor issue plus they were unstable as heck. They would need bios reset every so often and occasionally would refuse to boot unless I wiggled the videocard. The videocard seems like a build issue, but it's strange that two Asus motherboards would have the same issue. Sadly cheapo ECS motherboard from FRY's CPU/Mobo bundle proved to be more stable than my P4P800's.

So now that Abit is gone and Asus is out of question, Gigabyte will probably get my money next time around. They seem to be making solid boards and Ep43 I got for my sister seemed to have pretty flexible bios tweaking option wise.

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Post by fjf » Wed Sep 30, 2009 8:09 am

I have a IP35 pro working 24/7 with 2 GB of kingston memory working more than one year perfectly. I hope I got a good sample ;)

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Wed Sep 30, 2009 8:13 am

fjf: My IP35 Pro is now rock-solid with 2GB too. I'm selling it on like that because I just can't live with a product that doesn't do everything it says on the box.

And Jazz, Gigabyte would be my option #1 too, at least for building regular setups for other people, if only for their reputation for being robust and simple. I just wanted to go overboard to treat myself, and hence went with Asus' ROG (Republic of Gamers) stuff. :D

Also, I found Gigabyte's site arduous to use compared to Asus' site that was easy on the eyes, quick to browse and was even kind enough to recommend boards for me! This pleasant experience did affect my decision. Lack of proper fan control on Gigabyte boards did not help their case, of course. :P The Asus control may be lacking in many ways, but at least I can control all the headers.

I too got two wonky boards from Asus in the past, the A8N-E (broken cooling, BIOS needed two updates) and A7N8X Deluxe (occassional instability, issues with Nvidia chipset's HDD control). Too bad my venture back to Abit ended up like this - and Abit belly-up. :(

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Post by Monkeh16 » Wed Sep 30, 2009 4:28 pm

Don't be fooled by the pretty site. When you need a BIOS or drivers, their download site will drive you mad. And their customer support is far from brilliant.

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Wed Sep 30, 2009 4:34 pm

Yeah, I've been hearing bad things about the support too, so I'm hoping this board was expensive enough for them to have actually made extra sure it stays working. Not like that logic always works, but fingers crossed!

The download site was nice enough, though the moment it forces you to choose your OS was not a pleasant one. At least the links work, unlike the crumbling remains of Abit's...

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Post by Monkeh16 » Wed Sep 30, 2009 4:36 pm

Das_Saunamies wrote:Yeah, I've been hearing bad things about the support too, so I'm hoping this board was expensive enough for them to have actually made extra sure it stays working. Not like that logic always works, but fingers crossed!

The download site was nice enough, though the moment it forces you to choose your OS was not a pleasant one. At least the links work, unlike the crumbling remains of Abit's...
They don't always. And having to completely reload the page for each drop-down box selection, which on their poor little server somewhere in a closet in taiwan takes some time, is extremely annoying.

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Wed Sep 30, 2009 4:37 pm

Eugh... I can only imagine the horrors that await once I make the move to Windows 7 next month - with all the other preorderers. :roll:

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