PC Chips P4 MicroATX M935DLU is *not* undervoltable

[arman68]

At last, I may have found an undervotable MicroATX P4 motherboard. According this page: http://www.pcchips.com.tw/PCCWeb/Produc ... 22&LanID=0 the PC Chips M935DLU (v1.2) has the following feature:

Over-Clocking
Maximizes your system performance by selecting from these overclocking options
(1) Flexible CPU/DDR core voltage adjustments
(2) Adjustable FSB/DDR ratio

When I checked the manual, the bios picture shows an adustable vcore. There is another revision of this motherboard - v2.0 - and the manual shows the same thing.

Could anyone confirm?

edit: bought one, and after testing motherboard, vcore is not adjustable, contrary to what the website and manual say - furthermore, FSB can only be set to 2 frequencies: 100Mhz or 133MHz. With a P4-M, vcore defaults to 1.625v and CPU temperature monitoring does not work, as it always reports 20°C, no matter whether fan is running or not. Talk about crap motherboard, and false advertising... Next, I'll be testing the MSI P4MAM-V

[arman68]

Just bought one off ebay; I guess we will soon know...

I'll post the results here.

[arman68]

Modified subject and first post with test results.

[sthayashi]

Moved to Consumer Advocacy / Feedback since there are very serious claims of false advertisment.

[Ralf Hutter]

Moved to Consumer Advocacy / Feedback since there are very serious claims of false advertisment.

I wouldn't say that at all. All mobo manufacturers advertise something along the lines of "adjustable FSB" and/or "voltage adjustable". IMHO, this has never referred to any particular amount of adjustment, nor whether it's adjustable up or down. And with respect to this poorly worded prose on the PCChips website, it talks about "flexible" voltage adjustment. It never says "manually adjustable" Vcore adjustment. For all we know, it may have some sort of automatic Vcore adjustment depending on the FSB or the version of the processor itself. And there's no way to tell without having the actual board and manual on hand to play with.

I'm certainly not any more savvy than the average geek, but I've always known that a vague advertising claim is just that, and that the actual amount and type of adjustment can, in no way, be determined without going into the BIOS and actually playing around. And, whatever adjustments are currently available in the BIOS are subject to change when a new BIOS is released. Every users manual that I've ever read makes some sort of a caveat about that, something like: "because BIOS code is the most often changed part on the motherboard, information contained in this manual my not be the same as bla, bla,bla...."


As an aside, that's one of my big issues with the "Undervoltable Motherboards, add to the List" thread. People are posting stuff in that thread which is nothing but a cut 'n paste from the users manual and is completely useless without actually being able to access the board's BIOS itself.

*EDIT* Please do not take this as any defense of PCChips/ECS products. IMHO, they are the lowest quality, most poorly designed motherboards in existance. I would not personally use one, even if I was paid to use it.

[arman68]

And there's no way to tell without having the actual board and manual on hand to play with.

Unfortunately that's true. And I totally agree with you that one should not trust the manufacturer claim and manual. However I do not think we should condone Manufacturers putting vague wordings. Under UK consumer law it falls under the "misdescription of good and services" and is illegal.

In the case of this particular PC Chips, I do not think the wording was that vague, especially since it is part of an explanation of the motherboard overclocking features, which strongly suggest at least some degree of user control over the listed factors (FSB and vcore).

FYI, a similar incident happened to me a couple of years ago with the AOpen MX533V motherboard. The website and manual clearly stated that the vcore was manually adjustable, and they even specified the range which showed it was undervoltable. Of course when I went in the bios, it was not. I complained to AOpen and threatened them with legal action. They apologised and confirmed that *none* of they microATX boards have manually adjustable vcore, and offered to replace the motherboard with an ATX motherboard of my choice. Shortly after they changed all the motherboard manuals and website to avoid misleading consumers.

*EDIT* Please do not take this as any defense of PCChips/ECS products. IMHO, they are the lowest quality, most poorly designed motherboards in existance. I would not personally use one, even if I was paid to use it.

Well yes I was quite surprised by their claim and decided to give it a try. Got a motherboard cheaply on ebay, bundled with 512MB ram; quite a good deal actually, I should be able to more than recoup my costs by selling them separately. To be honest, I have stress tested the motherboard and I think it is perfectly good. Quite a nice surprise actually.