BIOS 1.4 has been out for a week or so & reputedly improves further on things (including a working PCI lock).
We finished testing early last week (after testing it again.. and again). The amount of times we've been through this with BIOS 1-1.3 made us go nuts. Unfortunately we don't have time to test all BIOS revisions but if someone could let us know what it's like if they already have the board we would appreciate. Tim just spoke to an Abit rep and we're gonna do a follow up in the next week or so (short article, Tim is telling me the details as I type...).
It's all a bit crazy, because Abit knows we've been having some rather big issues with the board, yet it has not kept us up-to-date on BIOS releases (that may, or may not fix the problems encountered). A shame. Anyway, we will have a look at the new BIOS - I'll set off a stress test before I leave tonight and then have a look at the other issues we've had to see if they are fixed.
I know that the BIOS team has been putting a lot of work in, and they have acknowledged that there were problems with the early BIOS revisions - details of the fixes are on its website. The problem here is a break down in communications for whatever reason. BIOS 1.0 was awful, as was BIOS 1.2. BIOS 1.3 is better, but there were still problems. Hopefully (as we should find out next week), 1.4 will fix the outstanding issues. We will be keeping you informed on that.
Sorry Tim, was just that most of the time when a piece of hardware has a significant problem like this an official press release goes out and is included in the review so that people know Abit are addressing it (straight from the horses mouth as it were)
The thing is, this board has sapped up more than enough time (read: Both of us, on and off over a four-to-five week period) and we eventually called it quits the weekend 12/13th on fourth time lucky. The board is going to sap up more time now, but then we want to get to the bottom of what the hell is going on with it. I've got a meeting with Abit next week, so hopefully I'll find out some more then.
It's not that Abit has been unresponsive, it's just taken a long time for the BIOS to get fixed. It looks that when it was fixed, we weren't told about it. The board has been out for a while, and we don't physically have the time to spend a month reviewing a mobo, but the board was in such an un-reviewable state when we first got it, we've had to keep trying until we got somewhere with something that semi-worked.
Im using it now and it's not been a promising experience The word "frustrating" comes to mind. Random lockups in windows after booting and it just reset when I tried enabling SLI with 91.33s (91.31s had the SLI on 570 problem, 33's were fixed). It's also inconsistent when settings agressive BIOS timings, 50% of the time it'll reboot and POST right away, but the other half refuses to POST. It's also a LOT slower booting. "Fix some problems, create some more" comes to mind. The board needs a new revision. New BIOS revisions aren't going to fix it.
its not like they are gona recall all the boards they sold and substitute them for revised ones..... i think... its a bit sad that ABIT put out such bad board.
I've added an update to the bottom of the final page, as a result of our preliminary testing with the new BIOS this evening - the board didn't get any better.
That's a helluva shame - I was really getting excited at the performance of the board especially considering how much cheaper it is than some of the boards it was equalling or beating. Stability comes first though - if two tech-heads struggle for ages with it I'm not going near the darn thing. I'll take the M2N32 instead despite the price hike.
