EPoX "EP-9NPA+Ultra" NVIDIA nForce4 ULTRA Chipset Motherboard

[Azkarr]

My board seems to be having a bootup problem. I recently detached and reattached my two HDDs, and now every time I press the power button on my PC, it posts and then tries to boot from the floppy and CD-ROMs every time. Since I have nothing in those drives, it says disk boot failure and asks to put a disk in. However, if I go into the boot menu and select the HDD with Windows on it, it boots perfectly. Anyone know what could be causing this? Thanks in advance.

 

[mdubrow]

Originally posted by: Azkarr
My board seems to be having a bootup probelm. I recently detached and reattached my two HDDs, and now every time I press the power button on my PC, it posts and then tries to boot from the floppy and CD-ROMs every time. Since I have nothing in those drives, it says disk boot failure and asks to put a disk in. However, if I go into the boot menu and select the HDD with Windows on it, it boots perfectly. Anyone know what could be causing this? Thanks in advance.

Most likely, when you disconnected your hard drives, the BIOS changed the boot priorities on you. Try going into BIOS and (re)setting the boot priorities to the order you prefer. Be sure that the actual hard drive you want to boot from is listed first in the HDD Boot Priority (or something to that effect) sub-menu.

 

[Azkarr]

Thanks, but I already tried that; the HDDs are the 1st boot devices, but it still didn't work. Also, I notice a lot of stuttering from my music and sound in games, etc recently. I think Windows is either screwed up or the HDD is. I'll probably try reinstalling the OS, and if that doesn't work, I'll try to do it on my 2nd HDD.

 

[SPQQKY]

Did you reconnect the HDDs in the same order? In other words, plug them back in the same ports? Are they SATA or IDE?

I share my wifes HP printer on a network without a problem on my system. Does the system recognize the printer being there prior to trying to install the drivers?

 

[Azkarr]

I plugged everything back the same way. One HDD is IDE and is in channel 0 like it was before; the same with the SATA drive in SATA port 0. It's still not booting straight from the HDD. I think Windows is still messed up because sound is stuttering so badly; I tried reinstalling drivers for many components but nothing will fix it. I'm not sure if it's a hardware or software problem. Thanks again for the replies.

 

[SPQQKY]

Tell me they're not Maxtors...........LOL. Did you try to just use the HDD with the OS on it and not the other one. Which is the OS loaded on, the SATA or IDE.

 

[Azkarr]

OS is on the SATA. And the HDD is a Hitachi, and the PATA one is a Seagate (woot). I'll try to use jsut the SATA HDD and see what happens. I'll probably also reflash the BIOS.

 

[imported_Husky55]

Originally posted by: SPQQKY


I share my wifes HP printer on a network without a problem on my system. Does the system recognize the printer being there prior to trying to install the drivers?

SPQQKY,
yes, my system recognizes the HP 2600N Color LaserJet as a network printer.
Does your Network Connections show 1394 as being firewalled and connected LAN and Hi-Speed connection in addition to the Local Network Connection i.e. Ethernet ?

I think the HP software saw the 1394 and shut down because it was looking for the Ethernet NIC address.

RobbyG,
I also have problem with the Epox site in TW. Very slow connection I had to cancel several times. Based on SPQQKY info above I have not installed the Thunder Probe utility ( about 48MB). If you still want it I will be happy to send it to you. PM me.

 

[imported_Husky55]

Originally posted by: Azkarr
OS is on the SATA. And the HDD is a Hitachi, and the PATA one is a Seagate (woot). I'll try to use jsut the SATA HDD and see what happens. I'll probably also reflash the BIOS.

If everything you tried fails then may be the following will help.

I have a couple of Maxtor Diamond 10 250 GB and I had some trouble with them. Not sure what caused the problem but I had boot disk failure also.

I finally took the Maxtors to another computer ( XP) and formatted them as NTFS. Then I clean install XP and that solved my problem. Apparently, the XP setup program format the HD in a different manner than another computer which performs the formatting independently.

I suspect the boot sequence somehow was messed up with XP install.

 

[Azkarr]

I also noticed that the HDD clicks fairly loud for about 2 seconds at start up... if I unplug it I hear no clicking. I remounted the HDD and the clicking stopped at startup for a few hours and then came back. I'll probably reinstall the OS and will definitely check if the HDD is failing.

EDIT: After reflashing the BIOS and tweaking it, I fixed the bootup problem. The HDD seems to be fine after I remounted it again, not sure what caused the clicks (might be the cheap and crappy case). I still have a problem with the stuttering though, but I'm pretty sure that's not related to the mobo. Thanks to all who replied.

 

[SPQQKY]

The clicking is more than likely the drives SMART info being written due to the errors you were getting, this is a very annoying little sound. I don't get that as my drives are installed on the RAID controller which totally eliminates SMART operations.

 

[SPQQKY]

Originally posted by: Husky55

Originally posted by: SPQQKY


I share my wifes HP printer on a network without a problem on my system. Does the system recognize the printer being there prior to trying to install the drivers?

SPQQKY,
yes, my system recognizes the HP 2600N Color LaserJet as a network printer.
Does your Network Connections show 1394 as being firewalled and connected LAN and Hi-Speed connection in addition to the Local Network Connection i.e. Ethernet ?

I think the HP software saw the 1394 and shut down because it was looking for the Ethernet NIC address.

RobbyG,
I also have problem with the Epox site in TW. Very slow connection I had to cancel several times. Based on SPQQKY info above I have not installed the Thunder Probe utility ( about 48MB). If you still want it I will be happy to send it to you. PM me.

It does not show it is firewalled, do you have security center enabled? That may be interfering with it. I disable winblows security center.

 

[T-man]

anyone using 2x 1 gig sticks in this board?

I bought the Epox 9npa+ Ultra on the basis of the Anand review giving it the thumbs up.

But, it won't overclock as well as my old VIA based abit AV8

Abit AV8
3700+ Sandy
OCZ 3200 Plat mem, These are 1 gig sticks! <<<< NOTE <<< :Q
520w OCZ PS
with this combo, the CPU willl run rock solid 3d stable at 11x240=2640mhz all day

all same parts, with the 9Npa+Ultra (5804 bios) will NOT even run 11x220=2420mhz!
It just reboots or shuts down once making windows and running a 3d app.
This is the 2nd one I tried, Epox sent me a fresh board after the first one had same results.
...sigh...

It runs perfectly at stock settings

All I can think is the VIA handles the 1 gig sticks better than the NF4?
All other parts are the same, only the motherboard was changed out.

your thoughts, advice?

T-man

 

[SPQQKY]

Yeah, ditch that 5804 BIOS like I said in my PM. Use the 5525 beta BIOS, it's the best one available IMHO. Try TWR 3 setting in BIOS. Can't think of anything else right now.

 

[ferrari601]

Im having a problem with this motherboard. With or without the cpu and ram in, the led for the cpu and the chipset wont light up. only the dimm led lights up. It wont post. It turns on and the system starts whirring for a sec or two but then it immediately shuts off. when it does that no led lights on the mobo lights up. i have to press the onboard power button again at which time only the dimm light turns on.
Do you guys know whats' wrong? Is it a problem w/ the chipset, the cpu or both?

 

[SPQQKY]

Sounds like either the PSU or your board is shorting out to your case. Try taking the board out and setting it on the box it came in and see if it fires up that way. If not, try another PSU.

 

[aksnow7]

Anyone using this board with an X2 3800+ and overclocking? I can't seem to get over 2.4 Ghz. I've found quite a few threads on this subject, just not many using this board. I've done the following:
Flashed to the latest bios.
2 gigs of OCZ value @ 2-3-3-7.
HT @ 3
FSB: 240
Ratio: 10X
CPU V: +0.025v
Mem Freq.: DDR333(166mhz)

Any recommendations?

 

[bwanaaa]

Originally posted by: Husky55
I have a problem, possibly relating to my Epox chipset.

I have a Belkin Pre-N wireless router to share broadband with my desktop and laptop. I plugged in the new HP 2600N printer into my router.

I cannot install the HP network software. Something about encounting an error and have to shut down setup. I have the router firewall enabled and WXP SP2 firewall enabled also. I suspect that the firewall on the router stops the HP application from accessing the network. Although subsequently, I found out this was not the case

But then, I did find out that my Laptop, an Acer Centrino, with builtin Ethernet port has no trouble to find and install the HP 2600N wirelessly.

I knew that I had trouble with the Nvidia NF4 Ultra chipset driver 6.66 version so last night I did a clean install of XP and Nvidia chipset drivers and video card. It was late and I quit.

This morning I tried again to install the networked printer to my desktop. The driver did not install. I keep looking at my Network connection and for some reason 1394 keep showing as a LAN or hi speed internet connection in addition to the Local Network Connection which is also LAN and hi-speed internet with an Ethernet. I could not disable the 1394 connection, something about other protocols depend on it. Did you guys see this 1394 and Local Network Connection?

I wonder if anybody with an Expox 9NPA Ultra has installed a network printer to their XP - SP2 system.

With a clean install of XP and Nvidia chipset driver 6.66, I thought that it would be a slamdunk install but that was not the case.

I only installed the Ethernet, Network Bus Enumerator. I did not install Nvidia IDE, NAM and Sound codec and applets.

MS IDE drivers and Realtek drivers 3.76 were used.

I finally installed the HP LaserJet on the USB connection and it's working OK.

I have an AMD 4800x2 on the epox mobo and it works fine with an HP printer networked - TN2100. But I could not even install windows with the 6.66 driver from nvidia. The box kept rebooting after 2 passes of the 'blue worm'. I used the epox driver disk, installed windows (SP1) and then updated the driver chipset after I updated to SP2 and put all the windows updates on it. I NEVER installed the NVIDIA IDE drivers - what for since I am using SATA RAID. Funny thing is - you have to enable ''IDE boot raid' in the bios of the epox mobo to get the sata raid to work. Maybe it's just labeled with that version of English they use in Asia.

 

[bwanaaa]

Originally posted by: SPQQKY
I am using the 6.53 nForce drivers and 5525 beta BIOS. The beta's are not on Epox's web site but can be found at AOA.

AOA?


Where?

And can one downgrade the drivers on a box set up with WINXP PRO on a sata raid simply through add/remove software OR is some low level stuff needed PRIOR to the raid installation?

 

[SPQQKY]

Here is a link to the beta BIOS for both 9NPA+Ulra and 9NPA+SLI. It's a zip file named [*]Desktop

The 5525 is for the Ultra and the 5524 is for the SLI.

 

[Dave Sz]

So I'm testing out one dimm at a time and I noticed that both dimm 2 and 4 are VERY unstable at 290mhz while dimm 1 and 3 sre more stable at 310 than dimm 2 and 4 at 290. Both 1 and 3 are rock solid at 300.

 

[imported_Husky55]

Originally posted by: SPQQKY
Here is a link to the beta BIOS for both 9NPA+Ulra and 9NPA+SLI. It's a zip file named [*]Desktop

The 5525 is for the Ultra and the 5524 is for the SLI.

SPQKY, why are you running the BETA?

I cannot find any description of the changes.

 

[SPQQKY]

It's been the most stable BIOS for me. I run a 280 x 9 with HT x4 and memory set with 166 divider which gives me 229MHz (DDR458) 2-2-2-5 and have run it that way since the BIOS was released (basically since I got the board). The 5804 BIOS prevented me from shutting down or restarting in Windows, the previous BIOS just sucked. The 6/29 BIOS is probably the best official BIOS.

 

[mdubrow]

Originally posted by: SPQQKY
The 5804 BIOS prevented me from shutting down or restarting in Windows, the previous BIOS just sucked. The 6/29 BIOS is probably the best official BIOS.

I haven't had any problems with shutdown / restart with the 5804 BIOS. But I might have updated the BIOS before installing Windows (not positive about that, though). Guess I got lucky for once!

 

[sgtdic]

i installed windows before anything else. then i installed all of the drivers that came with the mobo disk. then i used magic bios to install the latest bios (804). i haven't had any problems, really, so far with anything pertaining. except as mentioned before, the ntune monitor won't work (supposedly not supported by this bios) which i don't know why.

i am having problems with my front case usb ports. it's so weird. it's hooked up correctly (even compared to the usb slot card that came with the mobo). they're getting power and even my usb headset works, but when i hook up my PSP, it says the device is not recognized by windows

FYI and to whom it may concern: if anyone is having problems hooking up front audio on this mobo, make sure you put the "mic power" aka "mic bias" wire on the NC pin on the mobo. i fretted this problem for days because i had mic power on the +5V pin....grrrr

i've also tried updating to the latest nforce drivers through the nvidia site. i would not recommend trying this because my system wouldn't even boot to windows. i ended up booting to last known good, doing a system restore, and reinstalling the drivers from the disk.

i also don't recommend installing the wasay backup utility on the disk. something weird happened which also included the blue screen of death and i had to uninstall it, with it leaving about a 500 meg separate partition on my hard drive.....for what use now? after doing all of this, i lost all my files that were on my main partition i hope this helps some people out. anyone have anything to say about any of this? please don't bash me too hard because this is my first build