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

[Ultralight]

Originally posted by: teknopath
I just built a new PC with this MOBO and the x1900xt. No problems with northbridge fan. With the Antec P180, this board, and this card, cabling is a bit messy due to the placement of power connector.

Thanks for the information because I am sure that some day I'll want to upgrade from my X800 GTO. I keep reading about people's concerns over the Northbridge fan and the placement of the longer high level tiered cards. But you have actual first hand experience. Nice.

My case is a Thermaltake Eclipse DV and I didn't have the issue where the power connector is placed. Perhaps this is due to the fact that my Antec PSU has a decently long power cord.

 

[Fallengod]

I have p180 with this mobo as well. The only problem I had is I had to run the ATX connectors up over all the pci cards, which is mainly the video card. No big deal though. Not like it blocks anything really.

 

[RideFree]

Originally posted by: IlluminiX
Umm - What does eating your NAS mean? I had no problems upgrading from the Beta Bios to the latest one using the Magic BIOS utility, and you can always just save the .bin file to a CD and upgrade using the alt - f2 trick to start Winflash at bootup. I don't know why you were even on the Beta BIOS Ridefree since it was intended for people with USB issues in conjunction with the X2 processor and I thought you had no probs with your Opteron.

Anyway - there is no great need to upgrade for people with the Beta, but no harm should come to your system whichever way you deside to flash either.

Peace!

I mean, my 320GB standalone Network Server was turned into mush by switching to this BIOS (or at least the files were) and I'm taking the EPoX OOS!
This was the last straw. :thumbsdown::thumbsdown::thumbsdown:

 

[Fallengod]

Does anyone happen to have or know if a XP-120 heatsink fits fine with this mobo?

 

[IlluminiX]

modempower - I actually don't think it will because of the memory, and that's why they came out with the SI-97 or whatever (feel free to correct me if I am wrong here). But actually you can save money and do what I did and use a 120mm fan with an XP-90 (!!!) and you should get very similar results for a lot less money! The 120mm fan will fit in the clips (my 120mm fan is 25mm thick so that might help), but it is a bit tight, but definitely is the way to go!

Peace!

 

[Ultralight]

Anyone here using PC4800 with this board? Any issues? What did you set your voltage at?

 

[RideFree]

Originally posted by: modempower
Does anyone happen to have or know if a XP-120 heatsink fits fine with this mobo?

I happen to have one working. 12cm fan.

 

[FSamir]

Hello from Serbia

I am pleased with this mobo...stable and everything...
Rev. 1.1 with original BIOS and no problem with USB 2.0 HDD enclosure (NEC chipset and Maxtor 80GB).
Is Zalman NB47J good on chipset...with CoolerMaster PAC-P01 too hot.
From Coolermaster soon will come very good chipset cooler - Blue Ice Pro RR-NCW-L4E1-GP.
My sound (PCI3) and graphic card sheer same IRQ (18). There is no problem but how to separate them from BIOS.

Sorry for poor English....

 

[sgtdic]

FSamir, to free up some of your IRQs, go into bios and disable the IDEs and SATA ports that you are not using. if you are using them or do not want to do it that way then go into bios, find IRQ RESOURCES SHARING?, it should say auto, change it to manual and place them where you want using the numbers.

 

[wb182]

This is my first computer using a SATA HD, and after installing it and having everything good and running, the SATA HD for some strange reason gives me the "Safely remove hardware" icon in my system tray. Does anyone know how/if I can get rid of this? It's the only HD in the system, and it's definately not external.

If this isn't related to the mobo specifically and how it handles SATA, my apologies.

 

[gfngfgf]

wb182: I believe that if you install the nVidia SATA/IDE drivers, you'll get that "safely remove hardware" icon. I don't know if you can get rid of it (short of uninstalling the nVidia IDE drivers), but you could always use XP's "hide inactive icons" feature so that you never see it. That's what I do.

(Actually, uninstalling the nVidia IDE drivers wouldn't be that bad of a solution either. Some people have problems with their IDE drivers, some people report slowdowns, some people have no issues at all. The Microsoft drivers should be fine. Your call.)

 

[Ultralight]

When I was putting together my build with this board sevreal people told me not to install the IDE driveres (nor the Active Armor firewall for that matter). So I would have to agree with gfngfgf's suggestion, plus by me doing so I didn't have any issues..

 

[tjpark1111]

anyone know if coolers other than the NB47J will work on this mobo? I wonder how hot the NB will get overclocked with only a NB47J, and how far it will overclock. Can we get some answers with max overclock from ppl for the NB when ruling out everything else?(state if u have stock/aftermarket cooling for NB)

btw, meuge, how are you liking your MCX159? any temps?

 

[liqnit]

I have this board about 1 month now and i am very happy
i am working with my A64 3200 @ 1.35v @ 2400Mhz and the it is working great.
i have stock cooler only
and i wonder if anyone has managed to push this CPU with stock cooler to higher frequency.

thanks

 

[aboothman]

I have the NB47J and it fits fine. Dunno about temp differences, or how well it OCs compared to stock cooler. Kinda curious myself....

 

[gfngfgf]

I've got the NB47J and it's currently overclocked at 250x10, no worries. It's just a little warm to the touch, but I haven't had any crashes because of it. If you've got good airflow in that area, I wouldn't be too concerned about it, but that's just me.

 

[liqnit]

hi
i got my 3200 @ 2700Mhz @ 1.58v
Max temp are 44c on stock cooler
SuperPi 1M is 34sec

i am think of using Noctua NH-U12 Cpu cooler
but it is very big and i am not sure it wouldn't hit my mem or VGA card
has anybody using it?

 

[cogit0]

Hello all!
I have an Athlon X2 3800+, each core running at stock speed of 2GHz (10x200) . I have the bios from 12/6/05 (9NPA5C06.bin) installed, and I think it's the forceware 6.70 drivers installed. IDE drivers are the windows native ones (WinXP sp2, but see below).

RAM is a single stick of Corsair ValueSelect 1GB DDR400 (PC3200), single channel, 3,3,8,3,2T (all auto-selected), placed in slot 1. DIMM voltage is 2.8V

Hard drive is a maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB 7200 RPM SATA150 on SATA1. SATA3-4 are disabled

And all that is lead up to two (I think) separate questions. First the hard drive. It seems like my drive read/write speeds are really slow. I have run some simple benchmarks, but have nothing to compare the results to. It seems like my HDD is paging rediculously slowly, but I dont know of a way to quantify that. It could just be the driver controlling the hard drive, or the controller on the HD board itself, but again I dont know what it could be. I'm posting the problem in this forum because I'm wondering if it could just be a problem with how the mobo controls the SATA, via the windows drivers. I know that there were problems with the NVidia IDE drivers, but i dont know if those issues have been fixed. Any thoughts wrt this prob? What would be a good way to quantify the problem to tell me if my gut reaction re HDD transfer rates is correct? Would it be the mobo, or just the drivers that would muck it up?

The other thing is memory. My RAM has been pretty solid, especially since i'm not kicking up the speeds on it. But I am thinking of updating the RAM. My question is whether it would be better to get 3 more of the same 1 GB stick and have 4 GB of single channel ram, or whether it would be better to get two pairs of 512 dual channel and fill the banks with 2 GB of dual channel. Again, this may be slightly off topic, but In perusing through the 75-some-odd pages for the mobo, there seems to be some debate as to whether dual channel filling all banks or single channel filling all banks would be better/faster/more efficient. Again, any thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Mem]

I have the bios from 12/6/05 (9NPA5C06.bin) installed,

cogit0:
There is a new official bios dated 18th April 06,

Workaround :
1.Add 'Burst Length' and 'DRAM Bank Interleaving' item.
2.Fixed copy failure if copy file from PATA HDD to USB2.0 HDD.
3.Solved some old type PCI VGA hang at POST 29h when full screen logo show.
4.Added 150Mhz and 183Mhz potions for memory clock item.

I would install the Nvidia SW IDE driver,but have NCQ disabled,you can disable NCQ once you install the SW IDE driver , can find it in Nvidia SATA controller properties in Device manager of the HD in question.

Try a defrag of HD too,see how it performs then.

 

[Fallengod]

Just fyi. I asked a while ago if the xp-120 fit with this motherboard. Well, I bought it and it definitely does not. It hits the capacitors. So dont get an xp-120 with this mobo.

 

[Sonikku]

Hello. I'm considering getting the 939 Ultra Epox and was wondering if an Opteron would run fun at first boot. I hear you need a bios update to get Opterons working, but if I get an Ultra now will it come with recent enough bios to recognize an Opteron?

 

[liqnit]

Originally posted by: modempower
Just fyi. I asked a while ago if the xp-120 fit with this motherboard. Well, I bought it and it definitely does not. It hits the capacitors. So dont get an xp-120 with this mobo.

sorry to hear that
then the board can use the XP90 or big typhoon?

 

[Fallengod]

XP-90 definitely fits, I dont know about the Big typhoon.



Does anyone here know if the arctic freezer 64 pro fits with this mobo?

 

[firewolfsm]

Can someone go over all the good tweaks here? I reeeeaaaallly don't want to read through 70pages.

O, by the way, I unplugged the northbridge fan and everything has been fine so far. The load temps only went up 2C, that oculd be because I have an 80mm intake blowing air over that area though. I think it should be safe for anyone with decent airflow, replace the thermal grease if that helps. There is NO need for that Zalman.

 

[firewolfsm]

bump