Abit BX6 - rev 2.0, problems?

[Larry]

Okay. I just picked up a BX6r2 from Abit, since it seems to be the only brand of motherboard that I haven't had any problems with yet. This includes experience with ASUS (TX-97, P3B-F, P2B-F), Gigabyte (TX and FX based motherboards), and Tyan (Tomcat). I have noticed quite a few complaints regarding the compatibility of Abit mobos and Matrox G400 based cards. However, IMHO, I really do think Abit makes decent quality boards. Asus fans can argue all they want, and the fact is, a lack of transitors on the motherboard seem to worry me . Anyway, I was just wondering if these problems are limited to the actual hardware, or if it was because of the "rocking" problem that seemed to solve many people's problems. Also, I read somewhere that sticking a PCI card into the slot next to the AGP causes black screens, and the inability to use AGP 2x. Can somebody confirm (or hopefully un-confirm) this problem as well?

Basically, I'm hoping that anybody using an Abit board right now to reply and describe if they are having any problems with the board, and what I should look out for. I've never had problems with my BH6, so I don't expect any with my BX6r2. However, if there is any, please let me know, and I will go out and buy a Soyo..heheh Thanks in advance!!!

Larry Yuan
3D Audio Immersion www.3dai.net

[SteveC]

Hi, I have an Abit BX6r2 and have absolutely NO problems with it at all. The only possible problems you'll ever see are that if the G400 isn't perfectly seated, it plays up. And also, the PCI slot next to the AGP slot shares its IRQ with the AGP slot, which in Matrox' case, is NOT a good thing.

Also, I got the BX6 rev1 and that had no probs with my G400, and currently has no probs with the G200 in it.

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Cheers,
Steve

"The chances of anything coming from Mars, are a million-to-one", he said.

[Lewpy]

I have a BX6r2 motherboard, and I have a 3C900B network card in PCI slot1 sharing an IRQ with my G400 Max. This causes me no problems what-so-ever.
I think it depends on both the hardware, and the driver for the hardware, that is sharing the IRQ with the graphics card as to whether you get any problems.
If I could free-up PCI slot1, I would. But all PCI slots are used, and since I've had no problems I'm in no rush to do anything radical.

[Ant]

I have a BX6 r2 in my main test system and have used it with the beta MAX, 16MB G400, 32MB G400, the release MAX and the Marvel G400 and have no problems whatsoever going back to the earliest 5.x betas to 5.30.

[Brian R.]

See my signature. I have had the SCSI card and the DXr3 in PCI 1 with no problem. This system has also run at 129 fsb without problem.

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Win98SE, 600 PIII @672 MHz w/GlobalWin VGS-08 heatsink/fan, ABIT BX6-2 MB, 128 MB Siemens PC100 SDRAM, G400 MAX, Diamond V2 SLI, Diamond MX300 with Senheiser HD-600 headphones and Sennheiser DSP360 Dolby processor, CL Dxr3 Decoder, Adaptec AHA2940 w/uw SCSI, IBM 9ZX 9.1GB 10K UW SCSI HD, WDE 4360 4.3GB 7.2k UW SCSI HD, modified Supermicro SC750A case with PCP&C Silencer 275W PS, and a partridge in a pear tree.

[Zwisch]

I also have an Abit BX6rev2 with a MAX and fully equiped... RR-G, 2 Voodoo's in SLI, MX300 sound, network.. and I am not getting any problems at all with the card... The system is O/C and stable as hell in 2X.

[Larry]

Thanks for the replies, guys! I just installed the board, and everything seems to be fine so far. No crashes in Quake2 with TurboGL when playing, although I've noticed the same that that I did when I was using the P3B-F, and that is Quake2 seems to like to hang on that grey screen after the computers been running for awhile...I have no idea why though.

Larry

[Nuno]

How did you dare to go along with an Abit? Didn´t you heard how crap that stuff is? Don´t come here complain later if something bad happens...

[Dude]

I have an ABIT BX6R2 and had no problems until I tried to put a network card in slot 2. It was weird everything ran fine until I tried to surf the net. Once I started netscape, the screen would break up and the puter would lock.

The solution: Put the network card in slot 3. This solved it, no problems at all.

So now my PCI cards are in slots 3, 4, & 5 and 1 & 2 are empty. Therefore, the further away from the G400, the better!!!!

[Nuno]

Pci slot 1 usually shares the IRQ with the AGP slot. So it´s not a good idea to put there a card that requires its own IRQ. Good for voodoo´s, though.

And for a motherboard with 5 pci slots there still must be another IRQ sharing between two slots (slot2 and ? ). That´s not really Abit´s fault, blame instead the ageing PC/AT arquitecture.

[Lewpy]

To clarify:-

AGP shares an IRQ with PCI1 (PCI-A)
PCI4 shares with PCI5 and the onboard USB controller (PCI-D)
Only PCI2 and PCI3 have unique IRQs (PCI-B and PCI-C, respectively).

If you want to totally stop IRQ sharing, you have to pick up a server-grade motherboard, with PCI-PCI bridge chips and APIC's on-board, and then install a suitable MPS-compatible OS. Then you can have IRQs all over the place As long as the drivers for your cards can handle PCI-PCI bridge chips: not all consumer-grade ones can.
The sooner the ageing PC-AT/ISA architecture is abandoned, the better.