**Official Epox 8K5A Series (KT333) Thread** (Files, Reviews, and Info Inside!)

[RideFree]

russr,
I think the XP SP1 has all you need for USB2.
I've done it both ways and the XP SP1 USB2 drivers are what you want to use. There are no VIA drivers that will make USB2 work any better...even if VIA should come out with new ones, SP1 makes all of the USB2 issues go away TIKO.
After a point, you should not have to upgrade certain things, and this is one of them.
Amen.

 

[RideFree]

Ruroni,
If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were pulling our cranks, but you have put too much effort into this for me to consider it to be anything but a big head-scratcher.
As for

Maybe I should just get a dell?

Dood, I thought we were already workin' on one. Most of the ones I've seen were about as troublesome as you lament here. The shop I worked in refused to even diagnose 'em. :frown:

One thing I know is that no one even wanted to know what DEDs were. :Q The other thing is that the skillfull use of icons will not fix this either but it's the only thing we have yet to try

:disgust::frown::|:Q

Look, tell us what area you live in and let's have a local wizzard make contact with you and get together to see if the Midas touch may be applied (or to lay hands on it and pray).
I would gladly drive a hundred miles just for a crack at the Gordian Knot! - and I mean for free.
I do not take "no" from inanimate objects, and damn seldom from anyone, for that matter. In other words...Let's figure out WTFs going on here.

 

[russr]

Ridefree, Insane3d told us that WinXP Sp1 is not enough for the 8k5a2 board. He said it only installs microsoft drivers, but usb2.0 on the 8k5a2 requires via drivers so u won't have usb2.0 unless you install the via usb2.0 from the CD. I did that and now I upgraded them thanks to the link that RURONI posted.

 

[Ruroni]

RideFree, much much appreciate the offer, but I already did the next best thing I could think of. In the pinnacle of my despair I went to a retailer nearby that also does repairs (NOT for free). To my humiliation, the AT2 MAX2 immediately booted up and installed XP. After it was done, we paid close attention the POST and noticed that for some reason the Abit was registering the CPU as a 1500+ when it was supposed to be a 2200+. They then figured it must be an overheating problem, so they slapped on a better heatsink and tried running the CPU as the 2200+ that it is. It crashed. Then they whipped out a 2400+ they had just gotten in today. Wouldn't you know, this little sucker (being the cooler core that Thoroughbred Rev B is) just booted right up. And upon correction in the BIOS (back up from 1500+ to 2400+) the system ran just fine. I bought it right there and then.

Not exactly an overly HAPPY ending, but at least I have one bad ass machine running apparently stable, at least for now. I still have the 2200+ OEM, the Epox 8k5a2+, and just about enough components to piece together ANOTHER system. All I am missing is the RAM (which I'm not willing to get, when I have reason to believe it will be a waste). A las, I don't think I could get the Epox and XP2200+ to work... I am still having the infite problem. At least now, I have a reason to suspect that it's the XP2200+ throughbred Rev A. For some reason, I guess it refuses to run like a good little CPU.

Getting this system to run has cost me a fortune. Leaving a bad taste in my mouth... I wish I could say that there was a lesson to be learned. But There really wasn't. Except that I cab't expect things to work as advertised.

Is it a design flaw in the chip?. BEAR IN MIND, I had TWO XP2200+ one OEM and one RETAIL. Also, if you remember my temperatures where in the high 40's never above the temperatures that Epox recommends.

RideFree, I'm in the NYC area. If you're in the vicinity, and are interested in taking a gander at the remaining 8K5A2+, XP 2200+, and the rest of the stuff; so as to try to get it to work, you're welcomed. (Not if you're going to travel an excess of 15 miles though)

Lastly, I would like to thank the kind people of this forum who continuously gave me suggestions and encouragement to try to get my system up and running. Later, maybe I will be willing to try to get the Epox with the 2200+ to run. (Although I'm still out of ideas, except to get a fancy smancy heatsink and fan). I guess if I end up with 2 good systems, I wouldn't feel as though TOO much money was inexcusably wasted.

 

[Insane3D]

Hey guys..just decided to snag a 2400+ from Newegg and see what I can get out of it on the 8K5A2+ with some Corsair PC3200C2..

I will keep this thread posted with my results...

 

[Chappo]

Could someone please help me with my problems ???

Thanks in advance

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: Chappo
Could someone please help me with my problems ???

Thanks in advance

Sorry man...missed your post..

First, you need to change the FSB jumper to the 133mhz position since it comes on the 100mhz FSB setting by default. You are seeing 1150mhz since your CPU has a 11.5 multiplier and you are running a 100mhz FSB (11.5 x 100 = 1150mhz). When you set the jumper to the 133mhz FSB setting, it will run the proper 1.53ghz speed (11.5 x 133 = 1530).

The FSB jumper is yellow, and it is just above and to the side of the AGP port, near the audio ports. The jumper should be moved from the bottom two pins (100mhz FSB) to the top two pins (133mhz FSB). That should make your XP run the proper speed.

Now, C1 usually does mean a memory issue. If it still keeps happening, you might want to try moving the RAM to one of the other slots. When the board first powers up, it will show "FF", then cycle through a bunch of other codes, then display "FF" again when it cycles through the bios and begins to boot the OS.

I hope this helps...

 

[Live]

Originally posted by: Insane3D
Hey guys..just decided to snag a 2400+ from Newegg and see what I can get out of it on the 8K5A2+ with some Corsair PC3200C2..

I will keep this thread posted with my results...

I want to know everything

Unlocking, installation, overclocking, performance you name it. And I will bug you for it too

Good Luck!

 

[Chappo]

Thanks for that... actually i just 'assumed' the jumper setting was correct....but after reading CAREFULLY i noticed that it was default at 100

and the POST led just displays FF now...

THANKS THANKS THANKS

 

[deadseasquirrel]

have an 8k5a2 and am using 3 ide devices-- HDD, dvd, and cdrw. can i connect the HDD to IDE2 and the cds to IDE1 and have everything work okay? something i read said to make sure HDD is connected to IDE1. the reason i ask is because my ribbon cable isn't long enough for both cds and then into IDE2, but just right for IDE1.

deadseasquirrel

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: deadseasquirrel
have an 8k5a2 and am using 3 ide devices-- HDD, dvd, and cdrw. can i connect the HDD to IDE2 and the cds to IDE1 and have everything work okay? something i read said to make sure HDD is connected to IDE1. the reason i ask is because my ribbon cable isn't long enough for both cds and then into IDE2, but just right for IDE1.

deadseasquirrel

That will work fine.

 

[Live]

I just tried a program that let me set my FSB directly under windows. It works great with my 8k5a3+. So for gaming I raise my FSB to 154 to get me a 250Mhz boost and when its time to let the downloading begin I just lower it agin so I can get the sound of the fans down.

You need these 2 files:

directio.zip

setfsbU14d_8kha.zip

From the directio.zip copy the file "GIVEIO.SYS" to your setfsb folder and away you go.

 

[russr]

Live, setting the FSB through software can damage your hardware if you do it enough. I lost a stick of RAM because of this so just be wary.

 

[RideFree]

Ridefree, Insane3d told us that WinXP Sp1 is not enough for the 8k5a2 board. He said it only installs microsoft drivers, but usb2.0 on the 8k5a2 requires via drivers so u won't have usb2.0 unless you install the via usb2.0 from the CD. I did that and now I upgraded them thanks to the link that RURONI posted.

After having installed the XP OS on this 8k5a2+ numerous time just to experiment around, I am fairly sure that one of the installs went like I stated in the post you reference.
This is the way it happened according to my memory...understand, I did not keep a diary.
I only had the keyboard installed to the PS2 port and the MS USB optical mouse/trackball was inoperative untill I did the SP1 routine. And after rebooting, the mouse was active. Also, hardware reported that USB 2.0 was up & OK.
Probably, SP1 sniffed out the fact that there was a MS trackball attached to the USB port and bootstrapped itself into the system.
Prior to SP1 the USB was dead in it's entirety. After SP1 it was rollerball city!
However, this does not make me right and Insane & you wrong.
It only means that it did work at least one time in this specific case and possibly can not be duplicated. I'm not going to install XP again on this unit unless I make this a Linux Mail Server and move some partitions around in the process.

So the exception(s) can not be verified or denied at this point.
XP picks up on the VIA after VIA is on the system and then it becomes XP after the SP1 (drivers, that is).

 

[RideFree]

Ruroni,

They then figured it must be an overheating

This was the only thing that was left to question.
However, you tried two CPUs & two HSFs and I figured that you couldn't possibly have not gotten the cooling wrong four times in a row - and there were other things you did - like reseating the CPU that made me dismiss user error on the cooling. Obviously, the shop couldn't get the 2200+ to cool either.
Looks like the 2200+ is a chip to avoid. I thought that AMD tested the retail units with the cooler but apparently, not.
However, the bright side to this issue is that you are probably about as high-end expert on these issues as they come.
I'll bet you learned a lot more than you would have liked.
Now, when Insane "goes away" you'll be able to offer relief on this thread.
PS Most certainly these were TBred As not TBred Bs.

 

[MrEMan]

Does anyone know if the IDE master and slave channels are still dependent, or are they running separate signal timings? In other words will a high speed ATA133 hard drive be slowed down if a CDRW, DVD or LS-120 SuperDisk is attached to the slave channel?

Also, is the hard disk only slowed down when accessing the slower device, or is the max speed limited to the slowest deviced connected to the shared cabl?

I know there was device speed dependence in the past, but I was never able to find a definitive answer back then, nor now with the latest ATA133/EIDE drives (I previously had written the author of Anand's in-depth RAID controller review, but I never did receive a reply).

Lastly, has VIA implemented the fix to their IDE maximum transfer problem on the KT333 and/or KT-400's yet, or do you still have to patch the drivers with VIA's or the 3rd party patch (I can't recall who created the patch, although I believe it was the German tecchannel.de site that found the problem)? My recollection is that there was a too frequent refresh problem during burst transfers which limited burst transfer speeds to be less than ATA66 max speeds.

Thanks for the assistance.

 

[BZeto]

Is SP1 neccessary? Would I be fine running windows XP without it?

 

[mooo]

Originally posted by: RideFree
russr,
I think the XP SP1 has all you need for USB2.
I've done it both ways and the XP SP1 USB2 drivers are what you want to use. There are no VIA drivers that will make USB2 work any better...even if VIA should come out with new ones, SP1 makes all of the USB2 issues go away TIKO.
After a point, you should not have to upgrade certain things, and this is one of them.
Amen.

I have the same issue that russr does. Only one of the ports seems to be USB2.

RideFree, are you seeing all your ports listed as USB2 in Device Manager? Did this happen after installing SP1?

russr, did you find a solution to the problem?

 

[mooo]

They then figured it must be an overheating

I would not have believed my eyes. An overheating problem that always occurs at the exact same point in time?!

 

[russr]

For the USB issues:

check out my post here:
link to post

My advice is this: if you have USB and USB2.0 working *it's important to make sure that USB2 is working) after sp1 then you're fine. if not then SP1 and via drivers should be installed.

And for usb1.1, each controller controls one ports, so if you have 6 usb ports (on panel and optional), you would have 3 usb 1.1 controllers. 1 usb2.0 controller controls 6 ports so that's why there's only 1 of them. as long as it's there though it means u have usb2.0.

 

[jagilbertvt]

Hey all,

Here's my problem. I recently purchased an Epox 8k5a3+. I've been enjoying great performance from the onboard HPT374 controller when using my 2 IBM 75GXP's (30gb ATA100) in RAID0. I recently purchased 2 Maxtor 53073U6 (30gb ATA66) drives. I connected them to the 2 remaining raid channels for the HPT374 and setup a large (4x 30gb) RAID0 array. After installing WinXP on it, I benchmarked it, and the throughput was horrid.

I then decided I should setup the original 2 ibm's in raid0 again to test out the Maxtor's. I again installed WinXP on the IBM array and benchmarked the Maxtor's on the HPT controller (in single drive mode as well as raid mode) (using ATTO and HD Tach). In a single drive config, the Maxtor's write speed was about on par, if a bit low. However write speed was very degraded (about 3MB/sec max).

I then tried the Maxtor's in RAID0, and the results are, if anything, worse than in a single drive config.

I then tested the 2 drives individually on the onboard IDE channels, and they perform as expected (~30mb/sec read, ~25mb/sec write).

I have the latest HPT bios installed (1.22 (hacked into the Epox 8/15/2002 BIOS) as well was the latest drivers (1.22). I tested the drives w/out via 4-in-1 drivers, w/ via 4-in-1 drivers, w/out XP SP1, w/ XP SP1.. Same results each time. I also tried moving the Maxtor drives to the 2 channels the IBM's were on and put the IBM's on the 2 channels the Maxtor's were on (to be sure it wasnt something wrong w/ those 2 channels). The IBM's performed flawlessly, but the Maxtor's were still degraded.

I've currently emailed Highpoint, as there seems to be some sort of compatibility issue between the HPT374 and the Maxtor 53073U6 drives.

The next test I guess is to try the 2 drives on my Promise FastTrak100 TX2 card, but I'm guessing they'll work fine on it.

Any tips/suggestions from any of you folks?

 

[RideFree]

moo ETAL,

I have the same issue that russr does. Only one of the ports seems to be USB2.

Yes, it appears that hardware is only addressing one USB2 port but all of the ports are capable of 1.1 to 2.0

And if you check the driver info under hardware, it states that the driver is supplied by MS and is digitally signed by MS...this is after the application of SP1.
As we all know, WinXP USB2 support was not universally available from MS until the arrival of SP1.
(However, I believe that there was a patch earlier than SP1.)

 

[RideFree]

MrEMan,

Does anyone know if the IDE master and slave channels are still dependent, or are they running separate signal timings? In other words will a high speed ATA133 hard drive be slowed down if a CDRW, DVD or LS-120 SuperDisk is attached to the slave channel?

Whew! you sure know how to ask loaded questions...

I routinely attach LS-120 (2x) as slave to either IDE channel with the HD attached as master and have noticed no subjective differences.
As for your more detailed part of the question(s), I have not objectified my observation with any testing.
However, you could easily do this with a couple of timed tests with the LS-120 attached/detached. Just make sure that you either reboot inbetween tests or clear the buffers.

 

[RideFree]

jagilbert,
I'm thinking this may be more of a Maxtor problem than a Highpoint.

Obviously, your testing with the Promise will possibly establish that.
If not, you may just have to chalk it up to the fact that these Maxtors are two-year-old technology and may not survive in the 21st century.

You've obviously put a lot of effort into it so far...keep it going.

 

[jagilbertvt]

Well, I did some further testing w/ the Promise FastTrak100 TX2 and performance is on par with what you'd expect (both read and write). I've tweaked the stripe size on the HPT374 and gotten much better read benchmark results, so I dont think reading is really an issue (about 43mb/sec avg), however write speed is still greatly hindered (3.5MB/sec), so there is definately some sort of compatibility issue between the HPT374 and these Maxtor drives (and maybe others). I know there were some issues w/ old HPT controllers and maxtor drives, perhaps this is more of the same, as was suggested by RideFree. Not much I can really do until I get a response from Highpoint at this point (other than trying to trade these drives for a couple of IBM's ).