Abit av8 a good board?

[phr0m]

whats everybody here think of the abit av8, looking for replacement of my asus board (stopped working right ) so i was thinking this would work better
whats you're guys thoughts on this?

 

[hkctr]

Maybe I'm just lucky. Some of the members here have been having problems with this board and the Asus A8V Deluxe in regards to power supplies and memory compatibility. I didn't have problems getting either to board to work. The only reason I have the AV8 instead of the A8V Deluxe is that the Asus board started smoking (one of the black, square parts near the socket split and burnt) on the 4th day I owned it. The store didn't have any more in stock so I got the Abit instead.

Both run/ran very smooth on a PSU ripped out of a 3yr old Aopen case ($20 for case & PSU), 2X256mb Adata PC3200 memory modules (Adata markings on the chips, $70) that I had laying in a drawer because they refused to run on 3 different socket A nvidia boards. I picked up a used winchester 3200+ for $140 and everything is good. I set both boards up at FSB 215, memory 1:1, everything at default voltages and using stock heat sink. Nevers gets above 41 deg and never goes down except for user error. I got massive overclocking out of my system years ago so this setup is fine with me. If I need to go faster, I'll get a new CPU.

 

[phr0m]

hmmm did some searching and i'm not finding as many problems for the av8 as i did with the a8v...... ,but i still think my mobo was the problem got my p4 system up and it works fine with the same ram psu and gfx card..... all i really wanted was dual channel why cant i have it?!?!?!?!?

 

[defmusik]

AV8 is pretty much a disaster if you're going with the new 939pin CPU's. The only way to avoid LOADS of problems (that you definitly don't want to encounter, TRUST ME) make sure the board is the new revision (1.1) and has the latest drivers (1.5 at least, which supports the newer CPUs like the 3000+ 939). Go on the abit forums and look under the 939 socket motherboard section and look at all the threads concearning the AV8, you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

[phr0m]

yeah i did see that the main problem with this board is when you have a new winchester core cpu and old bios..... wich yes i do have a winchester core, but i did buy this mobo from newegg.com so i would expect them to carry the new mobo revision just like they carry the new asus revision 2.0 sooooooooo i just hope i get the new bios on this abit board the asus one had already come with the newest bios 1.0.0.8

 

[aatf510]

My FX-55 had tons of problem with the ASUS board (rev 2 even with BIOS 1009), and I finally switched to ABIT. ASUS makes great mobo and I had never use anything else before going to this ABIT board, but the A8V-Deluxe Board was a nightmare to me.

 

[VStrom]

Originally posted by: phr0m
yeah i did see that the main problem with this board is when you have a new winchester core cpu and old bios..... wich yes i do have a winchester core, but i did buy this mobo from newegg.com so i would expect them to carry the new mobo revision just like they carry the new asus revision 2.0 sooooooooo i just hope i get the new bios on this abit board the asus one had already come with the newest bios 1.0.0.8

I was wondering myself what version BIOS Newegg had in stock. This isn't something they list.

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

The AV8 is a wonderful mobo... and it's cheap! The Guru stuff is actually nice now that it's working ok.

About newegg and BIOS version:
"I bought mine about the 14th of Dec and it came with bios 15."
http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=370864

Revision 1.0 is pretty much gone from the market as far as I know.. but if you get one just RMA it for a 1.1.

 

[Pollock]

I don't know what revision of the AV8 I have, but my Winchester booted up in it with no problems, so I'm assuming a newer revision (I got it a week ago anyway).

However, if you plan on overclocking a lot, don't go with this board. I'm beginning to believe my board doesn't have a working PCI/AGP lock because it's stable in regular torture tests (like Prime95 - my CPU is a week 44 so it shouldn't have any problems with Prime95), but as soon as I go into 3D apps with an overclock, it'll freeze. Stable at 9*267 at 1.6 vcore in Prime95, but as soon as I play something like Far Cry, it'll freeze after about a minute. Same thing at 8*267, using both a 6600GT and a PCI GF4MX. It works perfectly fine at 9*255 (or at least so far). Memory is no problem running at some random ratio (177MHz or something).

I don't know what else it could be, although if anyone else had any suggestions for me, I'm open to them. However, I'll be getting an MSI or Epox pretty soon here, once I decide between the two.

 

[phr0m]

good glad to see that newegg has the new ones i was really getting worriedtat i have to try and get another board again...... dont want another asus a8v problem. the overclocking on this board i did hear wasnt very grand but right now i just want my system to run with all my memory in it and be able to post

 

[Quino]

Pollock try increasing the northbridge voltage from 1.55 to 1.6 or 1.65., just make sure you have a small fan on top of it to cool it These boards seem to max at 269-280 even after increasing the nb voltage.

 

[Pollock]

Oh, I've already tried with northbridge, southbridge, etc. voltages as high as possible, and 3D apps just don't want to be stable at anything about 256FSB or higher, even at 8*257. I only asked for 267FSB, but it seems I can't get even that... Also, I'm pretty sure it's not my graphics card because it runs fine on my Athlon XP system with a crappy generic PSU. Unfortunately ZZF ran out of stock of Neo2s even when they said they were in stock, so it looks like I'll be waiting until Monday.

 

[phr0m]

ooooooooooooo my new psu and mobo arrive today............ gonna test my asus a8v with the new psu (ocz powerstream 420) because i did have a generic 500w in and 4 sticks of ram running at 2.7v so maybe it was just a psu problem my 12v rail ran at about 11.8 and below at stock....... i guess i will find out later today if it was that psu

 

[Pollock]

Bump for more opinions.

 

[boatillo]

The Abit looks like a fine and dandy board imo, and the 3rd eye system would be pretty fun to mess with....however I can't live with their 20pin placement. (would drape that huge bundle over hsf and seat it right up against my rear case fan). The epox boards do the same thing although not quite as close.

 

[VStrom]

I recently (last week) got mine from Monarch Computers and it was the updated version. I had no issues with the Winchester CPU. From what I've heard, unless you are buying it from a small shop that doesn't move much merchandise, all of the AV8 out there are the BIOS 1.5 or later.

 

[phr0m]

yeah got my abit av8 up and running right now and yes my asus a8v does work (it was the psu... bad 12v rail i guess) and rigt now i would say i like the abit board better than the asus a8v just because the chipset heatsink is a lot better and more effiecnt then the asus one and the abit board is set up for overclocking better then the asus board (more options to tweak and more volts to mess with also fsb can go up to 320) personally i do like both boards but i would say if you are going to overclcok go with abit....

 

[Pollock]

Stable in both Prime95 and 3D apps at 270*9 at 1.525v on my K8N Neo2, confirming I couldn't get past 255FSB on the AV8. Oh well, the Neo's layout works much better in my case anyway.

 

[phr0m]

yeah i sent back my abit because it seemed a bit flacky and weird. I would have gotten the msi neo2, but is uses the nvidia chipset which i heard that may cause issues if you have an ati gfx card (which i do) and my asus is working good and fine but required a good psu. So if you do go with the asus a8v get a good psu.

 

[Pollock]

I've never heard of issues with ATI cards, although nVidia cards do perform a little bit better on nForce chipsets than Via chipsets.

 

[Texun]

How about waking up a dead thread?

I read several glowing reviews on the Abit AV8 and ordered one from ZZF with a 3800 Newcastle yesterday. I did a search here and now see that it is or was buggy. It's mid-March so how are you guys doing with your AV8 now?

 

[GML3G0]

So far, I think it's crap. I can't pass 270MHz FSB with 8:2:1 divider. 3d apps fail.

 

[Texun]

Originally posted by: GML3G0
So far, I think it's crap. I can't pass 270MHz FSB with 8:2:1 divider. 3d apps fail.

Ouch! What's a stable overclock for it?

 

[GML3G0]

I think my CPU is holding me back, but still the board's AGP/PCI locks don't work too great past a certain point. So far I have it at 266 x 9. So my 3200+ is at 2403MHz.

 

[res0n0xg]

av8 is a perfectly stable board under its limitations, you won't have any problems from that perspective, if you have anything besides a 3000+ you'll also be fine because you won't need a 260mhz plus fsb. at around 260 and above the damn agp lock fails and you'll crash your video card causing hard locks or vpu recovers depending on the brand of your video card. i wish there was a fix for it but there sure as hell isn't and my 3000+ is stuck like a rock at 2.3 ghz because of the board, but im gonna live with it for now.