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

[Dagon]

I installed my replacement mobo today hoping that this would solve my video issues. For those of you who dont remember, I can't get a video signal to my monitor. Apparently it wasn't a problem with my PSU or my motherboard because I have replaced each of them, and I still don't have any video.

 

[Dagon]

I installed my replacement mobo today hoping that this would solve my video issues. For those of you who dont remember, I can't get a video signal to my monitor. Apparently it wasn't a problem with my PSU or my motherboard because I have replaced each of them, and I still don't have any video.

I have replaced my power supply, and my motherboard. I have tried using my friends corsair ram instead of my OCZ. I tried using my old PCI video card instead of my PCIex16. I have even tried running everything outside of my case to make sure that I wasn't getting a short because of it. When I ran it outside of my case I left the cd-rom, the floppy drive, and the hard drive off of the system. Still no video... This leaves two things unreplaced; the video card and the CPU.

Today I took the fan and heat sink off of my video card out of curiosity, and I found a nice black spot on the GPU and the heat sink that alligned to each other. I can only assume that this means my video card is dead, but still leaves the question as to why my old PCI card didn't work.

Does this mean my PCIex16 video card is dead?
Do you guys think I should get it replaced or send my computer to someone that knows what they are doing? For the sake of replacing another working part, and thus wasting another two weeks of time.
If not, you guys helped before, do you have anymore suggestions? I think I am about to have an emotional breakdown.

 

[techfuzz]

Originally posted by: Dagon
Does this mean my PCIex16 video card is dead?
Do you guys think I should get it replaced or send my computer to someone that knows what they are doing? For the sake of replacing another working part, and thus wasting another two weeks of time.
If not, you guys helped before, do you have anymore suggestions? I think I am about to have an emotional breakdown.

Just stick with it Dagon, you'll eventually get it working. Computers can drive you completely bananas, but that moment when you get everything working just right you'll be very happy! I've build plenty of computers over the years and I don't think I've had one build go completely right from start to finish. Something is always holding you back, that's what makes it fun and challenging!

Do you know someone who might have another PCIe video card you could borrow to see if it is in fact your card that is bad? Also, your card doesn't have a 4-pin molex connector on it that you haven't forgotten to plug-in to the power supply?

techfuzz

 

[SPQQKY]

Originally posted by: Dagon
I installed my replacement mobo today hoping that this would solve my video issues. For those of you who dont remember, I can't get a video signal to my monitor. Apparently it wasn't a problem with my PSU or my motherboard because I have replaced each of them, and I still don't have any video.

I have replaced my power supply, and my motherboard. I have tried using my friends corsair ram instead of my OCZ. I tried using my old PCI video card instead of my PCIex16. I have even tried running everything outside of my case to make sure that I wasn't getting a short because of it. When I ran it outside of my case I left the cd-rom, the floppy drive, and the hard drive off of the system. Still no video... This leaves two things unreplaced; the video card and the CPU.

Today I took the fan and heat sink off of my video card out of curiosity, and I found a nice black spot on the GPU and the heat sink that alligned to each other. I can only assume that this means my video card is dead, but still leaves the question as to why my old PCI card didn't work.

Does this mean my PCIex16 video card is dead?
Do you guys think I should get it replaced or send my computer to someone that knows what they are doing? For the sake of replacing another working part, and thus wasting another two weeks of time.
If not, you guys helped before, do you have anymore suggestions? I think I am about to have an emotional breakdown.

A black spot on the gpu and heatsink really sounds like bad news to me. There should be only thermal goop/tape and nothing else.
Any signs of a clear or brownish liquid?
Def sounds like the video card is borked.
A lot of older pci cards don't like todays new boards, maybe try each pci slot.

 

[Dagon]

Good pep talk Techfuzz i wont give up! And believe me, i have looked for that connector on the card atleast 20 times thinking mabye it needs a seperate power source.

As for spqqky, I didn't see any liquid but I could have missed it if it was clear. I tried each of the 3 pci slots unfortunately. I'm kind of leaning on the idea that the new motherboards don't like old pci cards(i think its a fx5200). I will probably send my card back for a replacement if I can get my friend to lend me his card to test first. Either that or my other friend has a brother that builds a lot of systems so mabye he can troubleshoot it for me. This was exciting at first but I'm starting to get aggrevated when I turn on my $100 working machine that sits next to my $1200 unworking machine.

 

[techfuzz]

Dagon, if your friend can't loan you a video card, maybe you could give you your video card and have them put it in their system to see if it works. Of course you might have to pony up some $$$ just in case your bad card sets his motherboard on fire when he turns it on

techfuzz

 

[Dagon]

Well I'm up and running now. I don't know when or how it happened because i swear i checked the CPU every time it was out of my system. But for those of you who like a good laugh I've got two words for you. Bent Pin Guess who forgot to lift the lever for the cpu lock when inserting it. No wonder the CPU came out when I pulled off the heatsink.

 

[techfuzz]

Glad you found the problem. What are you going to do about the "burnt" GPU?

techfuzz

 

[RocketsFan]

Hey guys, I assembled my 9NPA+ -based PC together and am having an issue occasionally when booting into Win XP Pro. I've installed drivers as well as Civ 4 and about 50 XP patches and updates, so I've successfully been in Windows, rebooted, etc. several times. The issue I'm having now is something I've had happen to me since I first rebooted this machine after installing the nVidia drivers :

For whatever reason, the machine locks up on the Windows XP boot screen. The one where the status bar is moving at the bottom. I never get into Windows. I thought it may be an overheating issue, but I don't see that. In the BIOS, the CPU temp is 42C max. I've tried the failsafe settings and the optimal settings in the BIOS, but still it locks up at the boot-up screen in XP.

Any suggestions?

 

[teddyv]

Hi Folks - Newegg has the board on the way and I am bussy getting driver disks together. Anyone know if it is necessary to install the Raid drivers for the Sata drives to work? I am using a Sata as my boot drive but have no intention of (ever) using Raid.

Any other advice on Bios and Drivers I should be using is most welcomed.

Thanks

 

[GuitarDaddy]

No raid drivers necessary for me, I have a single sataII drive and it was "plug and go"

 

[Dagon]

To be honest I dont think the GPU is burnt(beings im using it now). I think some of the black die from it just rubbed off onto the heatsink making it look like it was burnt. I showed a few of my friends and they seemed to agree with that. Except the one who licked it... he thought it was burnt. haha


Teddyv-
I didn't install any raid drivers, I did install all of the other drivers though, except the Nvidia firewall which ive heard some drag about.

 

[techfuzz]

Stay away from the firewall, it's bad news. Everything else should just plug and go like GuitarDaddy said.

techfuzz

 

[alembic5]

I just bought one used off another forum member. It's a great board thus far! I have a winny 3500+ in a water cooled box, still running stock speeds for now until I get the chance to tweak it, hopefully this weekend. I haven't overclocked anything in over 2 years, so I'm not familiar about the basics of A64 OC'ing. Does anyone have any links to sites that walk you through the best way to start out? Especially with the memory timings. There are alot more options in the bios on this board, many of which I am unfamiliar with. Any links or advice would be much appreciated!

 

[gfngfgf]

RocketsFan: Which nVidia driver version did you install? Personally, I haven't had any issues with any versions, but there are some people who only have success with certain older versions.

 

[sixth]

Just a heads up for all, i just installed the newest nforce drivers, 6.72, in game performance i ran taskmgr and during Quake 4 both processors are now used, i dunno if that was only my machine, but now all games play on both cores? i dunno..thats what i noticed with the new drivers!

 

[shrimpsiumai]

So what's the ram to go for on this board as far a 2 gb (2X1)?

Is the Kingston ValueRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) System Memory still the best(value wise) ram to get for this board for 2gb (2x1gb)?

 

[swamyg1]

how is the 10/18 bios working for everyone? Anybody here install it yet?

 

[sixth]

I am running it now, downloaded it from the german site and burnt the img to a disc, flashed perfect like always, no issues as far as i am concerned.

 

[Jader88]

Anyone have problems with the NIC cards (ethernet) port on the EPOX ultra? I have an ASUS premium and have never been able to get the Ethernet ports to work correctly.

 

[imported_situman]

improved overclock with new bios?

 

[swamyg1]

yeah, I'm waiting for that magical bios too

 

[MadScientist]

Originally posted by: shrimpsiumai
So what's the ram to go for on this board as far a 2 gb (2X1)?

Is the Kingston ValueRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) System Memory still the best(value wise) ram to get for this board for 2gb (2x1gb)?

I'm using 4 sticks of 512mb Corsair Value ram, CAS 2.5. No errors with Memtest86. Corsair Value ram at Newegg

And no problems loading the 6.70 nforce drivers minus NAM.

 

[phanna]

Hi, I'm new to these forums and I think I am posting to the proper category on this one. I did alot of searching on this and I couldn't find the answer anywhere. I have a Epox 9NPA+ Ultra and a venice 3000+ overclocked to 2.5GHz (8.5x294). My question concerns the memory dividers. I have my divider set in the BIOS at 333MHz, and if I understand correctly that would be a 5:6 memory:HTT frequency ratio. Therefore, my memory should be running at (294*(5/6)), or 245MHz. My POST screen correctly reports 245MHz. However, when I run any Windows software such as SiSoft Sandra or CPU-Z, my memory speed is reported as 227MHz (CPU/11). I wouldn't typically be concerned about this except I cannot find any documentation stating problems with CPU-Z and Venice memory dividers. My question is this: which is correct? I would think the BIOS would be correct, but does anyone else have this problem? Any insight would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[gfngfgf]

phanna: I replied in your other thread.