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Here is the current makeup of my everyday PC.

Monday, 9/08/97

I upgraded to a USR x2 56kbs Sportster External Voice modem. It was a breeze. Vroom! Vroom! are my impressions of this speed demon. I am lucky enough to have a very good connection to a USR x2 ISP. Nine times out of ten I am able to connect at 52kbs. The difference between the x2 and my old USR 28.8kbs Sportster Internal modem is very noticeable. I am getting 50kbs FTP transfer rates from my local ISP. For those of you who are hardcore web surfers the x2 Sportster Internal at $130 including rebate is well worth it if you can get a clean conncetion to a reliable x2 ISP.

I am preferential to USR's x2 technology rather than Rockwell and Lucent's K56flex because I think that USR is the best modem manufacturer out there. Check out 56K.COM for the latest information on 56kbs modems and 56kbs issues.

I also found a cool utility to track down and diagnose the root cause of Internet performance problems. Visit VitalSigns Software and download a trial version of Net.Medic. Net.Medic helps you recognize and avoid many Internet bottlenecks by:

• Optimizing your online connections
• Identifying many Internet ailments in seconds
• Tracing the cause of these ailments to their source
• Offering suggestions about how to solve the problems, and whenever possible automatically fixing them.

Monday, 9/01/97

Amazingly, I finally got a response from Abit about my AX5.

Begin Quote
One of your readers and friends of ABIT alerted me to your web site. I just wanted to know if finally the AX5 is performing well or not? If it is, could you please, as a consolation to our poor company which has been really hurt by this AX5 problem we were having, inform your readers that despite all the hassle you had to go through it is quite a nice motherboard? Thanks and in the future we will redesign our customer service in the US. I have heard the same thing many times about answering emails to our ABIT-USA office. I think I will switch to the US office in the future or something. Until then if you need to reach ABIT for any reason, please write to my email address.

Sincerely,
Michael DePrenda
ABIT Marketing
End Quote

Thanks for the response Michael. Better late than never I guess. I will concede that despite all of the hassle my Abit AX5 rev 2.21 is a very nice motherboard. I would also like to point out, however, there are many very nice motherboards from manufacturers other than Abit that consumers may obtain without a hassle.

I can understand why your company has been hurt by the AX5 problem. Consumers got burned by Abit and they are retaliating by hitting you where it hurts; sales. Consumers vote in the marketplace with their dollars and they should never be taken for granted. If you don't want to service them appropriately then someone else will. Capitalism is a beautiful thing. Hopefully Abit customer service and quality control will improve as a result of this incident. If it does, then I would consider buying another one of your products.

Wednesday, 8/06/97

I called Abit-USA once again last Friday. It had been two weeks since I filed my request for a replacement Abit AX5 and received a callback number. I inquired about the shipping status of my replacement and I was informed that my file had been "lost" and that it had not shipped. The representative apologized and said that I would have a replacement within two days. I received it today. It was a revision 2.21. This is the fixed revision of the AX5. It only took me an hour to install the new board and my very unpleasant experience with Abit has finally ended. I doubt I will ever buy another one of their boards again.

Note, to this day Abit has never responded to any of my emails. If you need to contact them I recommend doing it by phone. I have also been told by other individuals that Abit-Taiwan is more responsive to end-users than Abit-USA.

Thursday, 7/24/97

Abit may not answer email, but they answer their phone. My emails continue to remain unanswered so I decided to call the number that Abit listed for their US office on their website. I received a few emails from individuals informing me that they had much better success contacting Abit over the phone rather than by email. After a few rings an individual by the name of David answered the phone. I told David that I was calling to get a replacement for my revision 2.2 AX5 that had the battery overcurrent problem and he knew exactly what I was talking about.

David said that he would fax me a form that I would need to fill out and fax back to him. He said he would then assign me a callback number and fax it back to me. He also asked me if I wanted to contact UPS to schedule pickup for the board or if I wanted them to do it. I explained to him that anything other than having a new board cross-shipped to me was unacceptable and that I would be willing to give him a credit card number as a deposit. I had to press the issue, but he eventually agreed to my request. The paperwork has now been processed and it is a waiting game from this point on. I asked David when I should expect to receive the replacement and he said that he couldn't give me an exact shipping date because that was up to their shipping department. He did say that it was possible I would receive it within a week. I doubt it.

Many of you asked why I didn't send the board back to the place where I bought it to get a replacement. The reason that I didn't do that is because Abit had decided to service AX5s with the battery overcurrent problem rather than replace them. I could of sent the board back to the vendor, but they would of had to go through similar channels to get the board repaired because of Abit's policy. If the vendor gave me a replacement Abit would not compensate them in return so the vendor would have to eat the cost. Since Abit has decided to deal directly with anyone who has the problematic revisions directly I decided to handle it myself to expedite the process.

I also received two AMC SDRAM module to replace my two Macrotron SDRAM modules that refused to work together. Guess what? The AMC SDRAM modules refused to work together also. Since each SDRAM module has slightly different timings and each each motherboard has slightly different 'tolerances' for SDRAM I decided to try various combinations of the four SDRAM modules to see if I could get one combination to work together.

After many hours of troubleshooting and one unrecoverable corrupted Windows 95 registry, I finally got an AMC and Macrotron SDRAM module to work together. However, they would only work together if the Macrotron SDRAM was in bank 0 and the AMC SDRAM was in bank 1 and not vice versa. I also had to use the default SDRAM BIOS settings. Any other configuration resulted in crashes and GPFs.

I used the Winstone 97 benchmark to test the possible combinations. I haven't found anything better to stress test memory, memory settings, and overclocked cpus. I kept running the Winstone 97 benchmark over and over until I found the combination that allowed me to compete the benchmark multiple times. I haven't had any problems since, but in my opinion I shouldn't of had to go through so much work to get the SDRAM to work together in the first place.

I will keep everyone apprised of the Abit situation. Some of you thought my earlier comments about Abit were harsh. I don't think so. I can deal with and understand that problems often exist in new products and technology. What I can't deal with are company policies of silence when the problems do exist. Expect another update if and when I receive my replacement.

Monday, 7/14/97

A lot has happened since my last journal entry. First, both Abit-USA and Abit-Taiwan still refuse to respond to my emails. To date I have 5 emails that have gone unanswered. The only information that I have received from Abit came from a post on the alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.abit newsgroup. Everyone on their newsgroup is screaming for information. Someone was gracious enough to post an email that he received from Abit in regards to the same problem that I am having (read my earilier journal entry which describes the problem). Here is what Abit had to say:

Quote
Concerning the problem that you face, we kindly ask you to return the defective board to the dealer whom you bought it from, or you may return the board to following service stations and we will fix the problem for you. If you'd like to send the board back to us, please E-Mail to the service center which is nearest to you for a RMA number. We will pay the round trip freight for you and guarantee you to fix the board within 7 working days.

If you are from or near the America, please contact with the following person:

Company Name: ABIT Computer (U.S.A.) Corporation
Contact Person: Ms. Daisy Wang
Address: 46808 Ladeview Blvd. Fremont, California 94538 U.S.A.
E-Mail: daisy@abit-usa.com
End Quote

Their service center has not responded to any of my emails either. I have no faith that they would return my board back to me in 7 days either since they don't know how to return email. I won't give them my board unless they agree to crossship me a new one. Needless to say I am angry especially since Abit raves about their customer service on their website. The following information was taken from the Company Profile page located on the Abit website. It can be found at http://www.abit-usa.com/about.htm. The excerpt talks about Abit's commitment to customer service.

Quote
Service
The complex circuitry and multiple applications of the computer's mainboard often leaves the customer frustrated and perplexed. According to our definition of quality, the mainboard should include both quality of production and quality of service. Since the establishment of our company, global service has been our policy. Even though you purchase your mainboard from Taiwan,we provide immediate technical support, RMA and other services. We are committed to answering you technical questions within 24 business hours. We attribute our long history of customer satisfaction to our fast response time and our willingness to work closely with our customers.
End Quote

What a load of crap! What is even more amazing is that they don't recognize the AX5 as a current model on the support area of their website even though they have already sold thousands of them. They made a bios upgrade available for the PX5 but I was left to my own intuition that it would probably work for the AX5.

While Asus and Tyan have, Abit has not released or even made users of their TX based boards aware that they will need to download a patch from Intel to allow Windows 95 to recognize certain aspects of the Intel 430TX chipset. The 430TX chipset came after the release of Win95 and certain aspects of it are not recognized. I guess you are suppose to figure this problem out for yourself also. How hard would it be for them to update their FAQ?

Overall, I don't recommend the AX5 and PX5 to anyone at this time. Get the IT5H if you insist on going with Abit, but don't plan on getting help from Abit if you run into problems. The AX5 and PX5 are not ready for prime time and Abit has a number of bugs to work out. It is Abit's problem and not the fault of the newly released Intel 430TX chipset. If you do take a chance with the AX5, make sure that you get a revision 2.21. This supposedly is the new fixed release.

I also decided to bump up my system memory from 32MB to 64MB of SDRAM. I purchased another matching 32MB Macrotron SDRAM module. I wanted to make sure that I had identical SDRAM modules to ensure that they would work together. How many nightmare stories have you heard about SDRAM not working together in pairs? Guess what, they didn't work together. I received one GPF after another in Windows 95 and my system became extremely unstable. Each SDRAM module worked perfectly independently but not together. That is a huge reason why I evicted my M-Tech Mustang R534. There were also no bios settings that remedied the problem. I have another pair of SDRAM from a different manufacturer scheduled to arrive today. I will update you on how it goes in the near future.

Here is the rule of thumb that I would use when buying SDRAM. Try to use only one module of SDRAM at all times if possible. If you ever anticipate needing 64MB of SDRAM buy a single 64MB SDRAM module now. This will prevent you from every having to run SDRAM in a pair configuation later. This is where the majority of SDRAM problems occur. All SDRAM is not made alike. There is currently no SDRAM "standard". You are rolling the dice when trying to get SDRAM working together in pairs.

If you do decide to decide to use SDRAM in a pair, try to buy an identical SDRAM module. This will increase your chances that it will work, but it is no guarantee. The motherboard also plays a factor. I am a case study in this fact.

I would also make sure that any vendor that buy SDRAM from has tested the SDRAM in the same board and can verify that it works and it will work in pairs. Make sure that you can return it without penalty in case he/she is just running their mouth just to get your business.

Wednesday, 6/25/97

Speaking of bleeding, that is exactly what I am doing now. I evicted my M-Tech Mustang R534 and replaced it with one of the first Abit AX5s that hit the market. I have the original R534 revision. Cyrix sent me one of the first R534 motherboards that became available. The reason I evicted the R534 was because of its poor support for SDRAM. The only SDRAM that M-Tech qualifies to work with the R534 is SDRAM that it sells through its distributors. This SDRAM is manufactured by SmarTech. Unfortunately SmarTech can't even get their SDRAM to work with the R534 100% of the time. There have been multiple batches of SDRAM that have failed M Technology testing. M-Tech has supposedly been working on this problems for months, but I have seen no remedy of the situation.

You might get a single module of another manufacturers SDRAM to work in the R534, but the real problem comes when you try to use them in pairs. This is where the R534 has major problems. The R534 is still a very good board, but you are rolling the dice if you use this board with SDRAM. I stated this in my M-Tech Mustang R534 review.

I wanted to upgrade my 60ns EDO to 10ns SDRAM, but there was no M-Tech qualified SDRAM to be found. So I said to myself what a perfect time to get a new motherboard. The Abit AX5 won out because of the following reasons:

• Jumperless
• Based on Intel's TX chipset (I already own a HX board and who would want a VX board)
• Support for 83MHz bus speed
• 3 SDRAM slots and 4 EDO slots
• ATX form factor

I must admit that the Abit AX5 has sold me on 3 concepts:

1. Jumperless technology - I will never have to unscrew the case to change a jumper setting again.
2. SDRAM - 10ns SDRAM will support up to 83MHz bus speeds. There is a need for only two SDRAM memory settings in the bios and I can set them both to their fastest settings without thinking about causing memory related system lockups. This is in start contract to the countless number of memory settings for EDO and an even greater number of possible EDO memory setting combinations. You can spend a lot of time tweaking memory settings before your system is optimized and is stable. Granted with EDO you are almost always guaranteed that the memory will work in your board. Not all SDRAM will work in every motherboard because not all SDRAM is alike.
3. ATX - It was painful having to spring an extra $90 for the In-Win ATX case, but it was worth every penny of it. I will from this day forward preach the beauty of ATX form factor design. For those of you who don't know the ATX Form Factor is a baseboard mechanical specification that addresses shortcomings in the Baby AT. The specification was developed by Intel. The ATX form factor is essentially a Baby-AT baseboard rotated 90 degrees within the chassis enclosure and a new mounting configuration for the power supply. In this way, the processor is relocated away from the expansion slots, allowing them all to hold full length add-in cards. ATX defines a double height aperture to the rear of the chassis which can be used to host a wide range of on-board I/O. Only the size and position of this aperture is defined, allowing PC manufacturers to add new I/O features (e.g.; TV input, TV output, joystick, modem, LAN, audio, etc.) to better meet the needs of end users. You can read more about the ATX specification here

The big problem with my AX5 is that Abit has recalled it. They made this public on the Abit newsgroup. There was a problem with a single motherboard lot that had a battery over-current problem. Needless to say this adversely affected the CMOS. Unfortunately I was one of the lucky ones who received a AX5 from that motherboard lot. My system clock loses time and I must reset the Soft Menu options everytime that I turn off the machine. Abit supposedly has since remedied the problem and all new AX5 revisions work perfectly. I think that makes me feel even worse.

One thing I can't speak highly of is Abit technical support. They have not responded to my emails and they don't answer posts in the alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.abit newsgroup. I bought the board from Real World Technologies and I was assured by them that they would get the problem corrected for me. They are dealing directly with Abit to get all of the defective boards that they sold to their customers replaced.

I'll keep you posted on this page as this saga progresses.