The Definitive Review Of The ABIT BF6 Motherboard

Comment #1

I got the BF6 (actually two) instead of the BE6-II just so that I could run a FastTrak 100 + two Deskstar 75GXPs. I confirm and it is now widely reported that the BF6 fails miserably with that combination; it works on my BH6. We haven't been able to get anything from ABIT, Promise or IBM on this. Could you see what you can find out.

Thanks,

Ron Reaugh

Hello Ron,

There are several possibilities why you are having problem with the combination. Let's go through them one by one.

You have installed the FastTrak 100 card in the sixth (last) PCI slot which is a full bus slave slot. If I'm not mistaken, the FastTrak 100 requires a bus mastering slot to work properly. So, you should try relocating the card elsewhere. The first 5 PCI slots are bus mastering slots.
You have installed the FastTrak 100 card in a slot that's sharing IRQs with another card. It's possible, when you do so, that one of the cards cannot share IRQs and is thus causing the problems. You should try installing the card in a slot that is not sharing IRQs with another card.

To check for alternate PCI slots to use, click here.
The FastTrak 100 supports a total RAID space of 128GB. If you are using two 75GB IBM Deskstar 75GXP hard disks, that would be a total space of 150GB, way over the FastTrak's limit. That could be the problem as well. In that case, you might have to drop the FastTrak and find another RAID card that supports more than 150GB.

Please try out the possible solutions mentioned above. If they don't help, let me know. I'll try bugging ABIT again! :)

Adrian Wong
Adrian's Rojak Pot
http://www.rojakpot.com/
http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/

Comment #2

Hi Adrian,

Can you tell me what exact revision the BF6 from the review had? I have the 1.0 and the L2 Cache Latency option doesn't work with that board (another guy had the same thing and ABIT seems to know about this). If your test board was a newer revision I would be curious if the L2 thing has been solved with a newer revision. Thanks.

Maarten

Hello Maarten,

What problem regarding the L2 Cache Latency option are you referring to? I have the rev. 1.0 board and there's nothing wrong with the L2 Cache Latency option. However, it didn't seem to do much. Is that what you are referring to?

In any case, I'll contact ABIT and ask them about this L2 Cache Latency issue and see what they have to say.

Adrian Wong
Adrian's Rojak Pot
http://www.rojakpot.com/
http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/

Hello Maarten,

Just got word from ABIT. The L2 cache latency setting is only valid when you use the older Celerons or Pentium II processors - those based on 0.25-micron process technology.

The new Celerons and Pentium !!!s, based on 0.18-micron process technology won't be affected by this setting. Their L2 cache is built into the CPU die and the latency can't be altered in any way.

So, it looks like the L2 Cache Latency feature was a bummer almost from the beginning. Still, it's curious to note that while ABIT claims that the L2 cache latency cannot be altered if the L2 cache is built into the CPU die, I was able to change the cache latency of my old Celeron 300A's built-in L2 cache. This was confirmed by H. Oda's WCPUL2 utility.

My take on this would be that changing the L2 cache latency of all Intel processors with built-in cache are possible, but not with ABIT's L2 Cache Latency BIOS function. You will have to use an alternative method like WCPUL2 instead.

Adrian Wong
Adrian's Rojak Pot
http://www.rojakpot.com/
http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/

Your comment about the ABIT motherboard and the L2 Latency setting. You said something about being able to change the L2 latency on a Celeron 300A... The 300A does have the .25 core, so I am not sure why you seem surprised.

My BH6 rev 1.01 has the L2 latency setting built into the BIOS and has always worked... Of course, I can't say I have ever noticed and speed increases by lowering the latency, but I run it at 2 (the new Celeron 2 latency) any.

Joe M.

Hello Joe,

When I said it was curious that the function worked with my old Celeron, I meant the fact that ABIT is saying that the BIOS function - L2 Cache Latency only affects processors that have their cache placed outside, on the PCB. The Celeron has its cache built-in and thus, this proves that it's not the placement of the cache that is the problem.

In any case, I don't think the L2 cache latency can't be changed for the newer Intel processors. I could be wrong but if the L2 cache latency of the old Celeron with its built-in cache can be manipulated, why not the newer ones? Perhaps, only ABIT's L2 Cache Latency BIOS function won't work for these processors.

Adrian Wong
Adrian's Rojak Pot
http://www.rojakpot.com/
http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/

Comment #3

Hello Adrian,

I really enjoyed your thorough and detailed review of the ABIT BF6 mainboard. I purchased 4 such boards ( 3 were version 1.0 and the last board was version 1.1 ) . I encountered some problems you may be interested in. These were also reported to ABIT, Kevin and Mr. John Tsai.

On 2 of the version 1.0 board there was problem with the CPU temperature sensor. On windows 98SE when the PC goes to standby ( start => shutdown => standby ), within a few minutes the CPU temperature would rise to over 70c setting alarm in BIOS PC Health status. This happened using the older Pentium II -333 and 400 MHz (Intel boxed processor). Keep in mind the CPU temperature never increased, this problem was due to the sensor. You might want to try this test with your V1.0 board. I was able to monitor temperatures using Winbond Hardware Doctor utility and another utility, Motherboard monitor.

On the third V1.0 board a Coppermine 600e (Intel boxed processor) was installed and there was no problem with CPU temperature sensor. On the V1.1 board this problem never happened using any Intel processor.

Another minor inconvenience of Abit BF6 board is the BIOS (PC Health status) does not show smart fan speed for smart case fan connected to fan3. In addition, the case fan will not shut off when PC goes to standby. I also have the older BH6 and one feature i like is smart case fan connected to fan header 2 will shut down when pc goes to standby. i contacted ABIT and they verified the fan header 3 on BF6 is not smart.

Thanks again for your great reviews ,

George Grabowski (Florida, USA)

Hello George! :)

Thanks for the feedback.

I didn't have any problem with my rev. 1.0 board. But then again, I was using the Pentium III-550. The BF6 (and the BE6-II as well) uses the d+ and d- pins of the processor to monitor its temperature. That means if there's a problem with the reading of the CPU temperature, it would usually have to do with processor itself since the sensor is built-in. I remember somewhere (I think in the processor datasheets) that some of the PII and Celerons have defective sensors.

Strange that the v1.1 board did not exhibit similar problems with the Pentium IIs you used. Since ABIT informed me that all BF6 boards samples the d+ and d- pins for CPU temperature information, the v1.1 boards should also have similar problems. I'll check with ABIT about this issue.

Indeed, the fact that fan3 isn't smart fan-ready is quite inconvenient if you have a smart fan attached. I wonder why they didn't make it smart. It's too much of a stretch to go all the way to the fan1 and fan2 headers, even if they are smart-capable.

Adrian Wong
Adrian's Rojak Pot
http://www.rojakpot.com/
http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/

Hello George,

I approached ABIT regarding your problem. According to them, it's possible that you failed to disable a BIOS function called CPU Fan Off In Suspend (found in the Power Management Setup screen). If you have enabled it, it would suspend the CPU fan when the CPU itself is suspended. That may have caused the marked increase in CPU temperature.

However, I still think it's due to the defective thermistor in Intel's older processors. :)

BTW, not that only the CPU fan (FAN1) and power fan (FAN2) headers can be controlled by the above mentioned BIOS function. The chassis fan (FAN3) header is always enabled, irrespective of the BF6 version.

Adrian Wong
Adrian's Rojak Pot
http://www.rojakpot.com/
http://www.adriansrojakpot.com/