EP8RDA+ Ghosts in the attic

[shortnugly]

Can't solve this one.

EP8RDA+ with ATI Radeon 32 SDR Video card, 512 stick of 3200 Corsair XMS, 1.4 Athlon.
Bios Flash 12/02/2002, had some problems with Video drivers but resolved them. XPSP1A

Running fine on XP Pro

Installed Norton Firewall 2001 (oops, not XP compliant)

Tried to uninstall, Tried to uninstall using Cleansweep ( not so good)

F*ck it, backed up pics, documents and formatted drives.

Fresh install of XP, XPSP1A, latest drivers from ATI Video, Latest drivers from Epox for the 8RDA+.
Boots up but when it's restarted normally, all PS2 devices (mouse & keyboard) are frozen.
Hard reset, boots up works fine.

Normal restart or normal power down, upon rebooting, all PS2 devices (mouse & keyboard) are frozen.
Hard reset, boots up works fine.

Consistent pattern.

Raze the drives to smoldering ruins. Fresh install of XP, reload all latest drivers. This time loaded Video drivers and Epox drivers first before XPSP1A
Normal restart or normal power down, upon rebooting, all PS2 devices (mouse & keyboard) are frozen.
Hard reset, boots up works fine. (Damn!)

Wipe out the drives, Fresh install of XP, XPSP1A, latest drivers from ATI Video, Latest drivers from Epox for the 8RDA+.
Flash new Bios 3.13 from EPox. Now I lost internet connection and only boots from HD.

I assume the XPSP1A has the correct USB 2.0 drivers? The PS2 devices do not respond on a normal boot up. They only work on the hard reset.

What now? What's in the BIOs that's causing this. It all started after the messy removal of Norton Firewall. Each time the drives are formatted I would think I'm starting fresh.

Next step is to go back to previous Bios version but don't know where to go from there.

Any thoughts?

 

[Iron Woode]

for the onboard nic it sounds like you pooched the MAC address. You must re-enter the MAC address in the BIOS.

Why are you using the Epox drivers? They are outdated. Get the Nvidia Unified drivers ver 4.24

SP1 must be installed before Nvidia Unified drivers. However, you can still install the Unified drivers before SP1. You just have to manually update the USB drivers in Device Manager.

Newest BIOS is dated 02/12/2004

 

[shortnugly]

I'll go after the latest drivers and bios.

Dumb question, how do I re-enter the MAC address in the bios?

 

[Megatomic]

The MAC address is on a sticker on the parallel port or somewhere in that vicinity. Look in your mobo manual for the BIOS option to enter the number. You're not the first to need to do this, so don't worry.

 

[Zap]

Does the MAC address come back if you jumper the BIOS to clear it?

 

[mechBgon]

You have the two PS/2 devices in the correct ports, right? Keyboard in lower port, mouse in upper port? Also, what power supply are you using there? The 1.4GHz Athlon Thunderbirds are some heavy hitters in the wattage department (for an AMD CPU, anyway) so hopefully you have a respectable-brand 300W unit or preferably higher?

 

[shortnugly]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
You have the two PS/2 devices in the correct ports, right? Keyboard in lower port, mouse in upper port? Also, what power supply are you using there? The 1.4GHz Athlon Thunderbirds are some heavy hitters in the wattage department (for an AMD CPU, anyway) so hopefully you have a respectable-brand 300W unit or preferably higher?

Yes PS2 devices are in correctly, Power supply a 400 watt, (can't remember the brand, it was an anandtech recommended PS),

All was working fine until the messy Norton Firewall uninstall.

 

[shortnugly]

The MAC address is on a sticker on the parallel port or somewhere in that vicinity. Look in your mobo manual for the BIOS option to enter the number. You're not the first to need to do this, so don't worry.


Does the MAC address come back if you jumper the BIOS to clear it?

I see a sticker on the nic adapter with the numbers P29-112-11A9, is this the MAC address?

I plan on going back to my old bios 01/20/03 to see if this gets my MAC address back. If not, I'll have to find out how to update manually.

Thanks for your help, I'll keep posting on progress.

 

[mechBgon]

The MAC address is 12 characters long and is in hexadecimal, so it will use numerals 0 through 9 and characters A through F. Therefore the one that starts with a P can't be the MAC address.

Bigger picture: why would the network adapter's MAC address have anything to do with freezing PS/2 devices? You could disable the onboard NIC completely in the BIOS and see if that changes anything.

 

[Iron Woode]

Originally posted by: shortnugly
The MAC address is on a sticker on the parallel port or somewhere in that vicinity. Look in your mobo manual for the BIOS option to enter the number. You're not the first to need to do this, so don't worry.


Does the MAC address come back if you jumper the BIOS to clear it?

I see a sticker on the nic adapter with the numbers P29-112-11A9, is this the MAC address?

I plan on going back to my old bios 01/20/03 to see if this gets my MAC address back. If not, I'll have to find out how to update manually.

Thanks for your help, I'll keep posting on progress.

You can also type (in command prompt) ipconfig /all and you will find your MAC address there AKA physical address.

 

[shortnugly]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
The MAC address is 12 characters long and is in hexadecimal, so it will use numerals 0 through 9 and characters A through F. Therefore the one that starts with a P can't be the MAC address.

Bigger picture: why would the network adapter's MAC address have anything to do with freezing PS/2 devices? You could disable the onboard NIC completely in the BIOS and see if that changes anything.

The PS2 devices freezing began before the bios flash killed the nic.

 

[shortnugly]

Here's what worked:
1. flashed the bios back to 12/31/02 (got the mac address back)
2. wiped the drive
3. installed XP (Pro)
4. installed XPSPA1
5. Installed Nvidia Nforce2 drivers V 2.0
6. installed ATI Radeon Drivers for WinXP from the ATI site
7. So far so good

I have one 512 stick of Corsair 3200 XMS.

I contacted EPoX support. They used to post the BIOS settings to get PC3200 to run at 400mhz. They don't have it up anymore.
This was their reply:

Try the following BIOS settings:

Memory Frequency = 100%

Memory Timing = Expert

T(RAS) = 7

T(RCD) = 3

T(RP) = 3

CAS Latency = 2.5

 

[pspada]

So your memory was set too high, and that's why the system would not run properly?

 

[shortnugly]

Originally posted by: pspada
So your memory was set too high, and that's why the system would not run properly?

No, I had Default Bios settings.

I set the latter timings that Epox support sent, after everything had stabilized.

Still not running at 400.

Hmmm...

Well, the first problem is solved, moving on to the next one.......