AOpen AK89 Max: From Ugly Duckling to Swan
by Wesley Fink on April 21, 2004 4:16 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
AOpen AK89 Max: Tech Support and RMA
For your reference, we will repost our latest support evaluation procedure here:The way our Tech Support evaluation works is first, we anonymously email the manufacturer's tech support address(es), obviously not using our AnandTech mail server to avoid any sort of preferential treatment. Our emails (we can and will send more than one just to make sure we're not getting the staff on an "off" day) all contain fixable problems that we've had with our motherboard. We allow the manufacturer up to 72 (business) hours to respond, and then we will report whether or not they responded within the time allotted, and if they were successful in fixing our problems. In case we don't receive a response before the review is published, any future responses will be added to the review, including the total time it took for the manufacturer to respond to our requests.
The idea here is to encourage manufacturers to improve their technical support as well as provide new criteria upon which to base your motherboard purchasing decisions. As motherboards become more similar everyday, we have to help separate the boys from the men in as many ways as possible. As usual, we're interested in your feedback on this and other parts of our reviews, so please do email us with your comments.
AOpen's technical support process is very straight forward and clear. It is, in fact, one of the best we've encountered. If you have questions about features and specifications, the best place to find an answer is on-line at "Tech Inside". Once inside the Tech Inside page, you can select features and a question and get detailed information about your question. Many questions will be answered here.
If you have a more serious problem related to your installation and need more help, then AOpen's Problem Report is available. First select "Service", then "Problem Reports"" on the AOpen web page. Once you've opened the Problem Reports page, you click on the hyperlink that refers to the country and/or language that applies to you. AOpen includes the following countries and languages:
English (Canada, USA, and Latin America)
English (Europe)
English (Asia & other regions)
Chinese
China
Japanese
German
Dutch
After clicking the hyperlink, we were taken to the "AOpen American Technical Support Center" page. Here, we were asked to fill out a detailed form where we were asked for our personal information (name, address, phone number, etc.), the product in question, the model/serial/part number, system specifications (CPU, Operating System, BIOS version, etc.), and of course, an area for describing the problem in detail. AOpen even lists examples in green under each category in case a user is unsure about what to type in.
In case you do not like the support form format, you can also select the Dr. Open Center, which is a web interactive Technical Support Help Center.
Our last two experiences with AOpen technical support were impressive. AOpen continued to far exceed most other manufacturers this time around, with a response from their tech support staff 10 hours after we sent our email. The answer we got was helpful and correctly diagnosed our problem. We did not try the online Dr. AOpen this time, but our past experience with Dr. AOpen was very good. All-in-all, AOpen has a recent history of some of the best Technical Support experiences that we have encountered.
If you still have a problem and need to RMA your board, AOpen has on-line RMA Procedures, including tracking of RMA requests. You can select "Services", "RMA Services" and be taken to an "OpenCare" page to fill out an RMA form or track an existing RMA Request. This is an outstanding RMA procedure and most users will find the whole AOpen Tech Support and RMA process to be easy to use and responsive.
AOpen's RMA policies and procedures are outstanding and are too rarely seen in the Computer industry. Any manufacturers trying to set up a good interactive website and an RMA process should take a look at the AOpen USA site at http://usa.aopen.com.
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retrospooty - Friday, April 23, 2004 - link
Am I the only one that found this artcle hard to follow ? Its all over the place ... What the hell was being tested ?cowdog - Thursday, April 22, 2004 - link
Thanks for the information.BTW, I finally did get through to AOpen, and they have been very prompt and helpful. I must have fallen through the cracks or something earlier.
Wesley Fink - Thursday, April 22, 2004 - link
Cowdog -I used our standard Mushkin/OCZ 3500 at default speed. Above 233, I used OCZ 3500EB to DDR500, and OCZ 4200EL to DDR550. if you look closely at the screen shots the memory is identified on the overclocks. As you state, BH6 can't reach these levels.
AOpen tells us the board would require a revision to allow an increase in vcore, and with the nF3-250 near, a new rev will not appear with the 150. They can't modify the vCore on this board with just a BIOS update. vdimm and higher FSB may be a possibility - we have requested those changes - but it is more likely these will come with the 250 version.
cowdog - Thursday, April 22, 2004 - link
FYI: This seemed as good a place to post this as anywhere else. Just came across a new bios, 1.07"For AMD recommended,memory clock will set to DDR333 when DIMM1 and DIMM2 plugged double side DDR400 memory."
Two things:
1. BIOS defaulted to 200x11 for me, which isn't a good thing for an A64 3200
2. I have no option for DDR400 in the bios with 2x246MB Mushkin Lv II PC3500.
3. When I tried to lower the multipler, the bios gave me an error at POST (safe mode or something like that). Then even if I selected bios defaults I had the same message. I reset cmos and it worked, although cpu frequency went back to the 200x11.
Might want to be leary of bios 1.07, although my system may simply be whacked.
cowdog - Thursday, April 22, 2004 - link
Wesley, I must admit that I haven't tried Dr. AOpen; I missed that. I did fill out their tech support form (with serial number, etc.) three times. This third time (last night) I did receive an automated reply for the first time. I kept screen shots of the previous forms, and I know my email was right. I'm not sure what happened. Anyway, I'll try Dr. AOpen as well, thanks.Couple of things to add:
1. As far back as the official 1.06 bios, I was able to change multiplers (only downward, of course) using Clockgen. I found that clockgen would work if I set the multiplier lower in the bios, even though that did not change the multiplier at post. 1.06 m bios now changes the multiplier at post, as you note. Funny thing too, after I updated to 1.06m, the default multipler was 4.
2. I don't understand why AOpen won't open up the cpu and dimm voltages as they did with the AK86-L. As you note, the AK89 Max is their current A64 flagship. Why add features via bios update to the AK86-L but not do similar for the AK89 Max? Unless, of course, those features can't be added with a bios update. Do you know?
3. When you overlclocked the memory 1:1 to 250Mhz, were you using the OCZ or Mushkin memory that you referenced earlier in the article? I am unable run some Mushkin BH-5 memory 1:1 at anything higher than 230Mhz (clockgen) and 210Mhz (bios) with the multiplier way down and LDT at 3 or 2.5 even though I can run the same memory at speeds higher than 250Mz on another board. Same thing with some Corsair LL v.1.1 memory. Just curious. Perhaps the cpu is the limiting factor; is there that much variability?
Anyway, thanks for a really nice and thorough review. I am trying very hard to like this board (and AOpen) and your review renewed my motivation.
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - link
#7 - The Asus K8V is based on the VIA K8T800 chipset which has no capability at all for a PCI/AGP lock. We have found the performance of the VIA and nForce3-150 to be about the same at stock speed, but the VIA is simply not cpable of avchieving the overclocks we have reported in this review.The K8V performs about like the MSI K8V Neo which is included in our benchmarks.
Modal - Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - link
I wish you would have done some comparisons with the ASUS K8V Deluxe as well, as this seems to be quite a popular board for Athlon64 machines (plus, I'm thinking about using it for my next build...). Oh well...Wesley Fink - Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - link
#5 - Have you tried Dr. AOpen on line? If nothing has worked please email me your details and I will forward your email to contacts at AOpen.Both Evan Lieb and I have had very positive Support expereinces with AOpen. If others are getting different treatment it is important to know that and report it in our reviews.
gimpsoft - Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - link
is this a Real AGP /PCI lock ???i heard there way to mod the bios to lock but not the same as hardware Agp/pci locks
well something like a sofmod ill see if i can find the link
may be a this must buy board i got a via KT800
i can do 3000+ 10 X 250= 2500MHZ but my radeon 9800pro & audigy bitch they say to high =) PCI: 41 APG: 83
bigtoe33 - Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - link
2-I was quite impressed by te FSB's the AOpen was able to hit and did feel the review was there just to show what the board is capable of.I also have this board and i would say 1:1 will be pretty limited due to 2.8V vdimm max.
Also it was nice to see a comparison of 3dmark although i know this is not a bench Wes uses.
Overall i think the review showed the board has awesome potential and proved that boards can become awesome with a "tuned" bios ;-)