For anyone thinking about buying an Abit...

[Antimatter]

A little history,

Abit have a history of excellent boards, but if you're after reliability then there might be a problem.
Voltage regulators on Abit mobos have been weak in the past, with low quality capacitors and a lack of switching transistor heat dissipation.
If you expect your Abit to last, it might need some modding.

[Mr ABIT]

ive been watching forums looking at abit boards for a while now, havnt seen anyone report any probs with their v reg's ... anyway , hopefully its "in the past..." as you say :D

[SilverPriest]

Ah welcome Antimatter, i think i posted in your thread about your oc'd durrie on GP.
As for dodgy Abit boards, hmmm, you have any backup for that statement?

[whetu]

*bites lip*

[Humantuckshop]

Originally posted by Antimatter

Abit have a history of excellent boards, but if you're after reliability then there might be a problem.




Hmm, there seem to be contradictional language aspects in the above quoted sentence, note: Excellent boards but they are unreliable? :confused: :rolleyes:


If you are serious about the Abit board problems: What time period was this exactly - and what boards were affected? Every single one?

[mird-OC]

i think he means Abit make excellent boards - i.e. many features, well rounded, often groundbreaking - but the do have a history of lack of foresight when it comes to voltage circuitry. it's been an issue on many of their older boards, although i haven't seen or heard of any problems with their boards released in the last year or so.

[Humantuckshop]

Quite right - I can't think of any of Slot A or Socket A mobos that were affected tho......

I think it was Abits LX based mobos that had a few problems in that area.... the LX6 series I think.....

[Py7h0n]

Well it would have to be quite a while ago because I had a Abit BH6 and it was sweet .... (probably still is if I take it out of my basement :))

[mird-OC]

a few of their BX boards suffered too (including some of the early BH6s).. nothing nasty tho, just (as i said earlier) a lack of foresight.

[KingJackal]

...and probably nothing worse than more generic brand anyway??
:confused:

So my KR7A-RAID is safe? Please say it's safe, pu--leeeeease :D

[Antimatter]

I've seen the problem right through to KA-7 so far. It takes a few years to show up so you should see a good lifetime out of the boards. They aren't any worse than Jetway or PCChips for the problem anyway.
The evidence is in a stack of mobos with blown capacitors and switching regulators if you want to come and look.

[Humantuckshop]

You didn't say anything about it taking years in your original post.

I would be surprised (and disppointed:p) if most people on this forum kept their boards for more than 6 months.....


Must................ not ..................... upgrade, yet. ;)

[Ripping]

my current BD7-R is my second board from Abit. The first was a ver 1 BH6.
That ran (and still is running) faultlessly. Hence my desire to stick with Abit. With a BIOS upgrade the BD7-R is proving to be just as stable as its older brethren.
I wholeheartedly recommend Abit boards.
2 boards out of millions sold might not be a lot.. but you'll find plenty of others with similar opinions.

[Agent 86]

Every mobo manufacturer has produced a bad board, a bad bios or a bad batch of an otherwise good board. I guess for some people this could put you off a particular brand for life. Its quite common to hear ppl say on hardware forums don't buy so and so brand coz I bought one and it was crap.

I remember all the problems I had with me BE6-II. I said I'd never go near abit again but after doing some research on P4 mobos I bought an Abit SD7. If I was buying a board tomorrow I'd probably get an Abit BD7-R and not because its an Abit, its because it kicks some serious booty when you slap on a Northwood.

[paul rhee]

Abit had some rough history.. like ATA66 controller on BE6.. so they made BE6-2. and flaky bios problem with BD7. but who brought us the heaven of SOFTMENU? and who made the one and only Dual Celeron board? (yes mird-oc..) and who made the first legacy-free board? its all Abit. even if we take the flaky history into account, they still are the pioneer of all the "first-in-market" stuff. and for that, they are to be praised among us tweakers/overclockers. personally, i perfer Abits certain level of problematic/tweakblity. because if a component works too perfect, its kinda boring.. isn't it? maybe that's why i still keep my radeon.. XP333 is another story tho.. but its not made by Abit :-)
call me an Abit whore, but i'm sure my next upgrade will take place when Abit releases new K8 MB.

and dude.. KA7 is a history. its 21st century mate.. how many boards has Abit made since KA7?

[Nebulus]

/me looks at the abit KRA7-R (brand new) with 3 regulators blown off. after 60 seconds of power on time :| back to the supplier for this board.

[Humantuckshop]

Dude, that is some serious bad luck, make sure it wasn't your PSU's fault tho. It would be a real kick in the nuts if another board was blown up. :eek:

[Antimatter]

A tech in Ukraine reckons Abit use crappy capacitors...our company electronics expert reckons they use lots of capacitors to make up for it. I reckon it's the heat is the major problem though.
It's been happening all the way from PH-5 onwards.
If you plan on keeping them a while it might be worth checking for bulging capacitors occasionally and gluing heatsinks on. :)

[Humantuckshop]

Originally posted by Antimatter
I reckon it's the heat is the major problem though.



I can understand the heat issue back in the days when Abit used 2 phase power solutions, but with the newer cooler running 3 phase power I don't understand your comment about heat, where is this heat coming from?

[Antimatter]

Originally posted by Humantuckshop

where is this heat coming from?

The switching transistors still generate heat...my point is:
where is the heat going to?
Newer mainboard voltage regulators are still putting out a lot of heat but generally have a northbridge fan that circulates air over that area.
I'm sure the same problem could exist with most newer boards but what happens when the Northbridge fan dies?
My problem with Abit is merely that they have a record of being wrong about this...and that they have used crappy capacitors in the past...I'm not saying they haven't sorted it out...just giving the historical facts.

[Nebulus]

wasn't PSU the soltek drv5 that it was being used with it worked a treat. :)

[Ice Czar]

Originally posted by Nebulus
/me looks at the abit KRA7-R (brand new) with 3 regulators blown off. after 60 seconds of power on time :| back to the supplier for this board.


bad luck :(
My KR7A is doin fine (for about 2 months now)

[Nebulus]

Ah well 3 nuked KR7A's later my customer has finally gone for a Soltek DRV5 and loving it. Just one of those silly things i guess.

[SilverPriest]

Most Interesting (http://www.theinquirer.net/03070210.htm)

[Ice Czar]

Originally posted by Nebulus
Ah well 3 nuked KR7A's later my customer has finally gone for a Soltek DRV5 and loving it. Just one of those silly things i guess.

Either

A. Your resaler abuses his boards
B. Shipping Gorillas
C. An awfully large batch of BAD boards
(maybe they reserve them for NZ :p )
or
D. It didnt like its playmates
E. Was very finicky abouts its power
(I use a FERRUPS to condition mine)

Im glad your Soltek is working out ;)
My KR7A is healthy and hale :D

Originally posted by SilverPriest
Most Interesting (http://www.theinquirer.net/03070210.htm)

F. Bad Caps :rolleyes: Abit must just be thrilled with THAT supplier

:eek: :eek: :eek:
No mention of the latest crop of KR7 KT7 ect
Keep my caps cool (19C) and the power stable (Ferrups)

[mird-OC]

Originally posted by SilverPriest
Most Interesting (http://www.theinquirer.net/03070210.htm)

hehehehe...

* ONE NEW ZEALAND "white box" supplier emailed us to say he didn't consider Abit's record too bad at all.

He said: "I don't think the Abit's stack up too bad. Even given the attentions of all those mad overclockers out there, in their basements with arc-welders and dry-ice units, their failure rates haven't been particularly unusual as far as we're concerned."

He added: "For what it's worth I'm writing this on an overclocked VH6-T and it's never given me a moments trouble."
don't we know a certain VH6-T owner Abit wh0re? ;)

[Nebulus]

Are you mad show me a person that would abuse something that cost more than they pay themselves aweek. and nope no Gorillas here. Bad lot of boards i be thinking so and bad bad caps.

After keeping one of the boards and replace all caps with ones well above Abit's Spec's i now have one running nicely in my server, also will now overclock like a bad mother. Sold more soltek boards than i can count, only had on returned (due courier running it over with his van the dumbarse).

The boards when i first turned them on had a brand new geforce 4 ti4600 in it which i tested in about 4 other boards and it runs fine and still runs fine.
It all just comes down to the luck for the draw... i still own my Abit BX6 Rev2 Slot1 motherboard that baby is still going strong.
Originally posted by Ice Czar


Either

A. Your resaler abuses his boards
B. Shipping Gorillas
C. An awfully large batch of BAD boards
(maybe they reserve them for NZ :p )
or
D. It didnt like its playmates
E. Was very finicky abouts its power
(I use a FERRUPS to condition mine)

Im glad your Soltek is working out ;)
My KR7A is healthy and hale :D



F. Bad Caps :rolleyes: Abit must just be thrilled with THAT supplier

:eek: :eek: :eek:
No mention of the latest crop of KR7 KT7 ect
Keep my caps cool (19C) and the power stable (Ferrups)

[Ice Czar]

Originally posted by Nebulus
After keeping one of the boards and replace all caps with ones well above Abit's Spec's i now have one running nicely in my server,



Linkage? (In case) :D
or just the part number or specs ;) ?

[Nebulus]

Hehe.. that will mean downtime for my server while i look at the numbers hehe... will do it sometime in the weekend if i remember.