Found a good deal on a motherboard is it any good?

[kajjot]

Hi i have found an awesome deal on a Foxconn Blackops motherboard.
£99.99 new. everywhere else costs alot more.
BLACKOPS : Foxconn BLACKOPS Motherboard - Socket (S775) Intel X48 ATX Gigabit LAN

Is this motherboard any good motherboard?
I have a Q9550 3x1TB HDDs and 2x 4890 cards currently on a P45 motherboard.
Thinking of swapping it for X48 for extra PCI-E lanes.

What do you think?

Thank you!

[dacads]

Overclock3D.Net :: Review :: FOXCONN BlackOps X48 Motherboard :: Introduction

[Johnny D]

I also was looking at this so i'm interested in peoples opinions

Even cheaper below


Foxconn BlackOps Intel X48 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard

Ebuyer is selling it at £250!!!

Johnny D

[skull_bone]

I used this board for most of last year, overclocking it when i was part of the BenchTec UK overclocking team. I was using Dry ice and a Phase Change cooler on it and benching CPu's from E2140's to E8600's and even a QX9650 (which got to 5ghz). I was also benching graphics cards in crossfire and triple crossfire. This board never let me down, was easy to use (once i'd had some time in the Bios) and was excellent for clocking Quads. For eighty quid, (@ overclockers.co.uk) it's a steal. Basically, for X48, it's either this board or the mighty Asus Rampage Extreme. Both good boards, but having used both in anger, i think i'd go for this one as it's got a more rounded performance range. Although the Rampage does excell at clocking RAM to insane speeds.

I realise that this forum doesnt delve much into heavy overclocking, but i thought i'd share my experience anyway. Good board, insane price.

One thing, if you do get it, check the Northbridge chip has good contact with it's heatsink. Boards like this and especially the Rampage extreme have generally pretty shoddy contact, which can hamper performance in the long run, and shorten the lifespan in the long term. Don't be worried though, it's easy fixed by removing it, and cleaning off the old TIM and applying some of your own. Or even using a 3rd party NB cooler. The board i had was an Engineering Sample, and as such didn't have the heatpipe or the faux LN2 pot Northbridge cooler gadget, and it managed a mighty 620mhz FSB overclock on air!!

[Johnny D]

Hey skull bone,

I took the plunge and bought the blackops and paired it with a quad 8200. Now here's my problem. I get code 03 when i boot up. Did you have this problem with the qx9650? I've read somewhere that it could be the bios needs updating from P04 to P05. I also read that the bios needs to manually changed to support FSB1333. How can i do that though when i can't get into the bios?!
What is happening is when I power on the post code display flashes FF very briefly, then switches to a continuous 03 display. After almost exactly 5s the mobo powers down. After 5s the cycle repeats itself.

Just wondered if you experienced this or can offer any advice
The memory installed is 4g of OCZ PC3-12800 DDR3 Intel Extreme Edition (4x1GB). I think they are compatable The PSU is 450w and the graphics card is asus 9600GSO. I

Thanks in advance

Johnny D

[skull_bone]

Try booting up with one stick of RAM. Also, make sure the power cables are seated properly. Have you got an 8pin CPU power plug in the CPU power socket? Also, have you tried changing BIOS by the Jumpers? Let me know how you get on.

[Johnny D]

Hi Skull bone,
Thanks for getting back so quickly. I went to bed pulling my hair out with frustration!

1 - Tried booting with only one stick of ram, 2 sticks etc and without the graphics card and that didn't work.
2 - My PSU is only a 4 pin rather than 8. I didn't think this was an issue as in the user manual it says it can be connected this way
3 - I'll try swapping the jumper pin and booting from bios 2 etc ( I pressume that's what you mean).

I'll let you no if that works.
Out of interest i read somewhere that another person had a similar issue and had to have a bios chip sent to him from foxconn to replace and update from P4 to P5. Thought i'd share that with you if it helps.

Thanks so far mate,

Johnny D

Update - I've now tried booting from bios 2, and forcing bios 1 and 2, but i still get the same error 03. I also changed the FSB jumper to 333 from auto but still no good

[Johnny D]

Hey Skull Bone,

I got in touch with Foxconn and it seems that i have bought "old stock" from the retailer.
Foxconn said there is a compatability issue on older mobos with quad core cpus on older bios revisions.
They are sending me a replacement bios chip to install on the mobo and that should hopefully do the trick.

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers
Johnny D

[easyrider]

Originally Posted by kajjot

Hi i have found an awesome deal on a Foxconn Blackops motherboard.
£99.99 new. everywhere else costs alot more.
BLACKOPS : Foxconn BLACKOPS Motherboard - Socket (S775) Intel X48 ATX Gigabit LAN

Is this motherboard any good motherboard?
I have a Q9550 3x1TB HDDs and 2x 4890 cards currently on a P45 motherboard.
Thinking of swapping it for X48 for extra PCI-E lanes.

What do you think?

Thank you!

Around 2% difference running PCI-e 8x8 over PCI-e 16x16

You wont notice any difference in real world terms. You know this right?

[skull_bone]

Glad to hear you're getting such good support. They do seem to look after their customers (in my experience). I had seen that error before, but couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. Sorry i couldn't be of more precise assistance.

Dan.

[Johnny D]

Hi Dan,

I'm still having a few problems with this mobo. I wonder if you can help on this error code problem please.
I cant get my pc to boot albeit once, but now i keep getting the following error codes FF,A0,40 and then 54 with a beep beep beep beep (several times).
I've replaced the bios chip with a new one from foxconn and like i said i goot it to boot once, then it all went pear shaped.
Heres a link to the codes i could find
BlackOps: AWARD & Intel X38/X48 POST Code/Debug LED Guide - XtremeSystems Forums

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
for the record my memory is OCZ intel xtreme 1600. (4 x 1G).

Thanks
Johnny D