@PcBytes: Nice collection, hope you get well soon. I don't own the legendary NF7 (but it's successor, the AN7) or an IP35 - I have the following in my collection:

• ABIT AN7 (original packaging, accessories)
• ABIT AV8-3rd Eye (original packaging, accessories)
• ABIT BE6 (just the board)
• ABIT BE7 (just the board)
• ABIT BP6 (just the board)
• ABIT IC7 (original packaging, accessories, untested)
• abit iL-90MV (just the board, untested)
• 2x ABIT KV8 Pro-3rd Eye (original packaging, accessories, one defective recently)
• ABIT KX7-333 (just the board, defective)
• abit NF-M2 nView (just the board)
• ABIT RocketBoy AV8 (original packaging [same as AV8-3rd Eye], accessories)
• ABIT UL8 (original packaging, accessories, untested)
• ABIT VP6 (just the board, defective)
• ABIT HotRod 100 (just the card, untested)

The KX7-333 didn't boot at all, even with the last BIOS hotflashed - maybe the caps? The VP6 is mysterious - it booted with the last BIOS but froze soon (no matter if one/two CPU/s) and then didn't boot on several attempts. The KV8 Pro-3rd Eye was in use for many, many years until some months ago where it suddenly had a "dead POST code", can't remember the exact code, but read about it years before somewhere.

kind regards
soggi

Let's see:

- KX7-333 - replace the Nichicon caps around CPU and it should work - a TRW search already shows bad Nichicon caps from 2001-2004 batch. I suppose Teapos can stay for the time being since they seem to be in less stressed areas.
- KV8 Pro-3rd Eye - If it's POST 90, I think that's the one that tells of the "dead POST code". Right before BIOS initialization, if it's anything like my previous IP35 Pro (non-XE) in the POST routine.
- VP6 - try reflashing the BIOS or burn a new EEPROM with its BIOS - my BE6 exhibited similar issues until I replaced its BIOS chip with one from a long since scrapped ECS K7S6A.

some "Soyo" boards are sold in China, they are all rebranded from other things I could see the same happening to Abit I suppose

I got 155 Abit boards in good working order, including some very rare ones, either NOS, full package or board only and 2 that await repairs; all ATX standard - this was a decision I made early on to limit myself to ATX only - it would probably be a really long post to list them all but that would start with AX5 and finish with IX48 GT3.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-08-14, 21:01:

Let's see:

- KX7-333 - replace the Nichicon caps around CPU and it should work - a TRW search already shows bad Nichicon caps from 2001-2004 batch. I suppose Teapos can stay for the time being since they seem to be in less stressed areas.

Even now, I won't touch Nichicon caps with a bargepole. I've replaced literally hundreds of them on mobos and power supplies, Only Jamicon has faired worse. Rubycon, Sanyo and Panasonic for me.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-08-14, 21:01:

Let's see:
...

I also guess that the KX7-333 has bad caps. The VP6 also has been tested with a hotflashed BIOS - no change, it's weird. BTW some months ago I bought an ECS K7S6A in original package...I want to test it against the legendary ECS Elitegroup K7S5A, when I have the time for that. The K7S5A was a really great board for it's time/price together with the modded CheepoBios (or honeyX BIOS, I used the former). Concerning the KV8 Pro-3rd Eye's error, I can recall that replacing the BIOS doesn't help, unfortunately (read that in a thread somewhere...). At the moment I don't have the time to fix all these things...

nd22 wrote on 2024-08-17, 16:05:

I got 155 Abit boards in good working order, including some very rare ones, either NOS, full package or board only and 2 that await repairs; all ATX standard - this was a decision I made early on to limit myself to ATX only - it would probably be a really long post to list them all but that would start with AX5 and finish with IX48 GT3.

This is much more freaky than I am...
Do you have good pictures of all of them where you can read the printings on small ICs?

kind regards
soggi

It might be time for an "abituary".

I will always remember my BX6 fondly.

soggi wrote on 2024-08-24, 05:31:

I also guess that the KX7-333 has bad caps. The VP6 also has been tested with a hotflashed BIOS - no change, it's weird. BTW som […]
Show full quote

PcBytes wrote on 2024-08-14, 21:01:

Let's see:
...

I also guess that the KX7-333 has bad caps. The VP6 also has been tested with a hotflashed BIOS - no change, it's weird. BTW some months ago I bought an ECS K7S6A in original package...I want to test it against the legendary ECS Elitegroup K7S5A, when I have the time for that. The K7S5A was a really great board for it's time/price together with the modded CheepoBios (or honeyX BIOS, I used the former). Concerning the KV8 Pro-3rd Eye's error, I can recall that replacing the BIOS doesn't help, unfortunately (read that in a thread somewhere...). At the moment I don't have the time to fix all these things...

nd22 wrote on 2024-08-17, 16:05:

I got 155 Abit boards in good working order, including some very rare ones, either NOS, full package or board only and 2 that await repairs; all ATX standard - this was a decision I made early on to limit myself to ATX only - it would probably be a really long post to list them all but that would start with AX5 and finish with IX48 GT3.

This is much more freaky than I am...
Do you have good pictures of all of them where you can read the printings on small ICs?

kind regards
soggi

I do not have pictures of all of them but I can take as many pictures as you like if you want to put them on your website.
By the way: you got the best info and BIOS updates of Abit boards! If possible and time permits I would gladly help you to put pictures, update board info and specs.

Thank you very much, nd22! I recall that we were talking/posting about ABIT several times in the past. As said some times before and above, I'm also some kind of fan and collector of ABIT's hardware. We should take this unique chance to built a (nearly) complete collection of spec pages and stuff of motherboards (and other HW) produced by ABIT/abit. You named the problem: "If possible and time permits...". ABIT motherboard's manuals are in the pipe for two years or more, f.e. ...but I think we can focus on that.

Currently I don't need pictures for the illustration of the spec pages, therefor I use the official pictures - BUT nevertheless it would be great to have high-res pics of your collection. I need high-res pics to identify every component exactly of boards I don't own myself, f.e. by reading the markings on small ICs like AC'97 codec, VRM controller or PLL / clock gen.

We should stay in touch concerning this... PM / E-Mail, let me know what you think!

kind regards
soggi

I'm doing my part of collecting ABIT HW as well (as best as I can), awaiting another one just soon, in the beginning of september.

If any of the ones I listed are of help, I can take some photos of 'em as well. Most of what I listed here is easily accessible to me.

I also have several of other motherboards, should you need info on 'em. Soltek, MSI, QDI, ASRock, Syntax SV266A, LuckyStar, and I think the list goes on.

soggi wrote on 2024-08-30, 06:50:

Thank you very much, nd22! I recall that we were talking/posting about ABIT several times in the past. As said some times before […]
Show full quote

Thank you very much, nd22! I recall that we were talking/posting about ABIT several times in the past. As said some times before and above, I'm also some kind of fan and collector of ABIT's hardware. We should take this unique chance to built a (nearly) complete collection of spec pages and stuff of motherboards (and other HW) produced by ABIT/abit. You named the problem: "If possible and time permits...". ABIT motherboard's manuals are in the pipe for two years or more, f.e. ...but I think we can focus on that.

Currently I don't need pictures for the illustration of the spec pages, therefor I use the official pictures - BUT nevertheless it would be great to have high-res pics of your collection. I need high-res pics to identify every component exactly of boards I don't own myself, f.e. by reading the markings on small ICs like AC'97 codec, VRM controller or PLL / clock gen.

We should stay in touch concerning this... PM / E-Mail, let me know what you think!

kind regards
soggi

You are welcome!
I am NOT trying to brag about it but I think I got a respectable collection of Abit hardware - motherboards, video cards, uguru panels, mouse pads, you name it. Also during testing I found very often that official specs are not what actually works on the hardware - despite what the manual or the BIOS version mentions so I think we can work together to put up "final specs": type and size of memory supported, CPU supported, etc.
I do not have a camera, all I got is a smartphone but I think I can borrow some professional equipment for high res photos; as for the manuals I got most of them from the internet.
Currently I am working on testing all socket 462 generations of CPU's so maybe we can start with that?
So when do we start? 😀 PS: I am very excited!

Three of the ABIT boards I listed in my earlier post on page 1. NF7-S, BE6-II and IS7-E.

I'm also waiting on a KR7A w/ Thunderbird and then a MSI MS-6168 v2 (PB OEM).

PcBytes wrote on 2024-08-01, 14:01:

ABIT had some real bad cap choices and their RMA'd set of caps showed they learnt nothing from MSI getting bit in the a$$ by Teapo crapacitors.

Oh, sweet summer child! I could wish Teapo were the worst caps my eyes have seen.

OK...let's get these things sorted...

First... I'm almost always busy as we all are, i guess. So let's make a plan and/or set conditions to save time.

But first for me...vacation...until next week's sunday (If you wonder that I maybe don't answer)!

@PcBytes:

I would create spec pages for every motherboard, if I had the time, but that's unrealistic, unfortunately - so let's focus on ABIT. BTW I already have a spec page for Syntax SV266A as I own it myself for ~20 years. BTW2 i have all latest BIOSes and manuals for Syntax motherboards and notebooks available for download on my website (-> https://soggi.org/motherboards/syntax.htm).

Please wait with posting pictures/photographs... Unfortunately your pictures aren't good enough 🙁. Taking photos with flash is a bad idea in the most cases. Take the time and take the photos when you have good lighting from daylight. It is important to me that I can read the printings on very small ICs. If it's not possible to reach the goal with one photo, then take some detail photos. Important ICs are (as mentioned above) Super I/O, PLL/clock gen, AC'97 codec, PWM/Buck controller, IDE/SCSI (RAID) controller, Firewire controller, hardware monitoring chips...simply said all the chips which have some kind of higher logic in it and aren't just simple resistors, caps, MOSFETs or drivers and stuff.

From your list I'm interested in almost all (except BP6 and VP6 which I own myself).

@nd22:

You don't need to brag about it... What you have IS a respectable collection! 😀

nd22 wrote on 2024-08-30, 08:46:

Also during testing I found very often that official specs are not what actually works on the hardware - despite what the manual or the BIOS version mentions so I think we can work together to put up "final specs": type and size of memory supported, CPU supported, etc.

This is exactly what I found out about specific hardware and you could hit it even more bad... ABIT/abit is OK with these issues - have a look on MSI, they even don't get it that they have two different versions of their P35 Neo with the need of two different BIOSes because they used two different PLLs/clock gens.

nd22 wrote on 2024-08-30, 08:46:

I do not have a camera, all I got is a smartphone but I think I can borrow some professional equipment for high res photos; as for the manuals I got most of them from the internet.
Currently I am working on testing all socket 462 generations of CPU's so maybe we can start with that?
So when do we start? 😀 PS: I am very excited!

Today's smartphone's cameras are really OK for taking photos of motherboards (or it's components / ICs, if you don't get a good photo of the whole board). As said above, I don't need high res pics for illustration on my spec pages - I need them to identify components on the boards and finally to provide the appropriate drivers and stuff on the spec pages.

Finally let me show you how good photos or scans should look like. The user havli has great high-res pics on his website http://hw-museum.cz/ .

kind regards
soggi

gdjacobs wrote on 2024-08-31, 00:50:

PcBytes wrote on 2024-08-01, 14:01:

ABIT had some real bad cap choices and their RMA'd set of caps showed they learnt nothing from MSI getting bit in the a$$ by Teapo crapacitors.

Oh, sweet summer child! I could wish Teapo were the worst caps my eyes have seen.

I know there's worse (Chhsi, Choyo, Tayeh, and list goes on) but my point was that ABIT had learnt nothing from the lawsuit that bit MSI for using crapcaps - Teapo and Chhsi usually were MSI's faves.

I think that in order to keep things tidy and clean I will sort the boards by the socket, chipset and memory - if 2 types are used.
Example:
LGA 775
Chipset : Intel 915p
Memory type ddr1
Model
1. AG8 : full version of the board. I have it.
2. AG8-V : lite version; same PCB but with extras such as firewire removed. I do not have it.
3. AG8-3rd eye: full version with uguru clock version 2 accessory included. I have several uguru clocks including the one sold with this particular board.
I think photos of the full version with mention that the V version lacks extras should be ok.
Uguru clock and panels should be put in a separate page dedicated to accessories.

nd22 wrote on 2024-08-31, 13:14:

I think that in order to keep things tidy and clean I will sort the boards by the socket, chipset and memory - if 2 types are used.
...
I think photos of the full version with mention that the V version lacks extras should be ok.

I don't care in which order you plan to take the photos, but it's better to have one (or more, if detailed photos are necessary to identify the important ICs) of every single board (no matter if they have the same base model) - else you would run into the issue which you condemned above: wrong specs instead of final specs. We shouldn't get lost in such details - I will see, if I can merge two ore more boards into one spec page like I did with ABIT IC7 / IC7-G.

nd22 wrote on 2024-08-31, 13:14:

Uguru clock and panels should be put in a separate page dedicated to accessories.

I agree with that...although it's some kind of compromise to just display the boards themself. But... you always have to make compromises.

kind regards
soggi

PcBytes wrote on 2024-08-31, 10:40:

I know there's worse (Chhsi, Choyo, Tayeh, and list goes on) but my point was that ABIT had learnt nothing from the lawsuit that bit MSI for using crapcaps - Teapo and Chhsi usually were MSI's faves.

Chhsi, Fuhjyyu, Rulycon (lol) and so forth are terrible in any application. Fuhjyyu can fail sitting on the shelf. I wouldn't use Teapo's lower ESR series -- that's a realm where Nippon Chemi con and Nichicon have previously had trouble and building reliable caps can be difficult. However, companies like Delta and FSP can successfully engineer power supplies using Teapo general purpose caps that perform safely, reliably, and efficiently. In terms of Chinese/Taiwanese caps, I'd probably rate them in second tier behind Taicon, roughly the same as Samxon.

Another Abit fan here. I currently don't have any Abit motherboards in my collection mostly because they've become extremely difficult to find down here in Argentina, but I miss my old KT7A-Raid v1.3 🙁