*** Official EPoX 8RDA/+ (nForce2) Thread ***

[paladiin]

Ok, think I figured it out. A1 is the number on the actual chip. C1 is what WCPUID detects it as. Supposedly the same thing.

Someone can feel free to correct me if that's wrong.

 

[Megatomic]

Ok, it's time for me to ask a question now. Has anyone noticed whether or not overclocking on the 8RDA+ affects the onboard LAN feature of the board? I am running my new Barton 2500+ at 175MHz FSB and either the cable hub for my neighborhood is congested with kids out of school for the summer or my network performance has degraded somehow.

My wife says the internet feels slower to her as well and she is on a non-overclocked KT266A system with a PCI 3Com NIC. I'm inclined to think that out of school kids are my problem, but I just want to make sure.

Thanks for any opinions.

 

[merlocka]

I thought I would post my "mini-review" for anyone looking at Crucial ram with this board.

Everything purchased from Newegg
8RDA+ C1 ver 1.1 board
2x 512MB Crucial PC2700 C2.5
AMD Barton 2500+
Vantec Aeroflow + Vantec Iceberg kit on North & South bridge IC's.

I was a bit worried about the choice of memory after reading through this thread, but I've always had excellent results with Crucial. I'm not a huge overclocker, but I will certainly take a speed boost if I know that stability isn't jepordized. I chose the Crucial becaues I was hoping to get a gig of ram for a pretty reasonable price.

I ran this thing through the ringer at default settings, without a hiccup from, Prime95, Sandra Burn-In, or 3Dmark. They all looped (together) for 12+ hours straight. Memtest also looped without error. So.... I couldn't help seeing if I could get a bit farther with the RAM.

Long story short, I just completed 2 Memtest loops and then about 12 hours of looping (the above combination) at 200x11 @ 2.5/3/3/7.

My SiSoft memory scores at default 2.5/3/3/7 are 2387/2240. At 11x200 I get 2834x2628. Everything else is at default settings. I'm sure these aren't spectacular compared to some of you guys with PC3200 (or higher) memory but I'm pretty happy.

My conclusions?

1) Crucial ram (at least the latest and greatest stuff from Newegg) seems to work OK in my board
2) This board rocks. I'm sure the Asus boards are great too, but I'm really happy I chose the Epox. This is my first non-asus board in a long time and I couldn't be more pleased. Not a single hiccup from install to overclocking... well except when I tried 200MHz FSB @ 2/2/2/6. That taught me what error "50" means, and then how to clear the CMOS


edit - oh yeah... I forgot the reason I wanted to post! Can a few of you post your Sandra memory benchmark scores? I wanted to see how well I'm stacking up. I'm running version 2003.3.9.44 if it matters.

 

[pspada]

My cuz in NY was having problems accessing the net yesterday too.

 

[mboy]

Originally posted by: merlocka
I thought I would post my "mini-review" for anyone looking at Crucial ram with this board.

Everything purchased from Newegg
8RDA+ C1 ver 1.1 board
2x 512MB Crucial PC2700 C2.5
AMD Barton 2500+
Vantec Aeroflow + Vantec Iceberg kit on North & South bridge IC's.

I was a bit worried about the choice of memory after reading through this thread, but I've always had excellent results with Crucial. I'm not a huge overclocker, but I will certainly take a speed boost if I know that stability isn't jepordized. I chose the Crucial becaues I was hoping to get a gig of ram for a pretty reasonable price.

I ran this thing through the ringer at default settings, without a hiccup from, Prime95, Sandra Burn-In, or 3Dmark. They all looped (together) for 12+ hours straight. Memtest also looped without error. So.... I couldn't help seeing if I could get a bit farther with the RAM.

Long story short, I just completed 2 Memtest loops and then about 12 hours of looping (the above combination) at 200x11 @ 2.5/3/3/7.

My SiSoft memory scores at default 2.5/3/3/7 are 2387/2240. At 11x200 I get 2834x2628. Everything else is at default settings. I'm sure these aren't spectacular compared to some of you guys with PC3200 (or higher) memory but I'm pretty happy.

My conclusions?

1) Crucial ram (at least the latest and greatest stuff from Newegg) seems to work OK in my board
2) This board rocks. I'm sure the Asus boards are great too, but I'm really happy I chose the Epox. This is my first non-asus board in a long time and I couldn't be more pleased. Not a single hiccup from install to overclocking... well except when I tried 200MHz FSB @ 2/2/2/6. That taught me what error "50" means, and then how to clear the CMOS


edit - oh yeah... I forgot the reason I wanted to post! Can a few of you post your Sandra memory benchmark scores? I wanted to see how well I'm stacking up. I'm running version 2003.3.9.44 if it matters.

Your Sandra mem scores are pretty low for 200fsb regardless of what the ram is rated for (no offense of course)

@ 200fsb I am getting 3068/2899 with twinmos/winbond pc3200 5-3-2-2

You wont see much difference in the real world tho, those benchies are mainly for braggin rights

 

[Blooz1]

My Sandra results are 3100/2827 at 10.5x211, 1 stick Twinmos/Winbond (BH-5 chips) at 5-2-2-2.

 

[carmat4]

I just installed this mobo, and its working fine so far. The instructions say to install Windows Service pack 1 before installing the drivers, otherwise you wont get USB 2.0. The network port wont work with out the drivers installed, so I cant use my dsl connection. I dont have a dial up connection. How do I do????????

 

[carmat4]

nevermind I just found and old external modem. I also singned up for msn dial up. Im currently downloading, so slow.
service pack 1 will take 2hrs and 5 minutes.

 

[pspada]

You're kidding? You could just unzip the driver files, and manually load the one for your network driver.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: pspada
Your kidding? You could just unzip the driver files, and manually load the one for your network driver.

For real!! Install Winzip, right click on the driver package, select Winzip, then Extract to, then select your extraction location, extract the drivers, and then load the MAC driver manually. I use this method (minus manually loading the drivers) so that I can delete the display and SW IDE drivers before installing the package automatically.

 

[pspada]

Yea, joining MSN....that's just giving your soul away to the devil........:evil:

 

[mdiver3669]

I just bought a Radeon 9100 and 8RDA+ from newegg. With the 9100 in the AGP slot the computer won't post or go to the bios screen at all. It gives me an error code of 26 which correlates to an overclocking problem. I have cleared the cmos numerous times, my older nvidia card works perfectly, i have updated to the latest bios and everything. I have also tried "Resetting configuration data" to "Enabled after I successfully boot with the older nvidia card, then switch to the 9100 card, still unsuccessful. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[HoMeZ]

How do I disable the onboard sound? is the ac97 audio thing? Sorry if this question was asked before but there are over 10 pages that I don't have the time to read.

 

[MARMADUKE]

yes,disable ac97 in bios

For real!! Install Winzip, right click on the driver package, select Winzip, then Extract to, then select your extraction location, extract the drivers, and then load the MAC driver manually. I use this method (minus manually loading the drivers) so that I can delete the display and SW IDE drivers before installing the package automatically.

You put the epox disc in cdrom and the autorun starts, exit autorun, open device manager and you will see network driver, click on this and then install/update driver and YOU point windows to the epox disc in cdrom and it will find and install the network driver only!...THEN REBOOT

Mboy
I was testing yesterday and this is what I scored:
@ 200fsb I am getting 3068/2899 with twinmos/winbond pc3200 5-3-2-2
same exact score and timings LOL

 

[HoMeZ]

Thanks Marmaduke and What IDE/mobo drivers are you guys using for this mobo? the ones from nvidia or the ones off www.epox.org?

 

[MARMADUKE]

nvidia..but say no to SW drivers during install!

 

[HoMeZ]

I thought the nvidia drivers were the SW ones... how do you get the non sw nvidia drivers?

 

[MARMADUKE]

you dont...nvidia..Just say no......... to SW drivers during install!

 

[HoMeZ]

So you use the microsoft ide drivers?

 

[HoMeZ]

AFter i diable sound with ac97 do i need to diable game port and midi port? I am using a santa cruz instead of onboard sound.

 

[Megatomic]

Yes, disable all 3 of them. I use onboard sound but I disable the joystick/midi port anyways.

 

[HoMeZ]

What is a midi port? What is it used for? And is there anything else I need to disable that my santa cruz has that i don't need on the mobo?

 

[Phierce]

Ok, I have a little problem. This is my first computer build. First I'll give you the specs:

EPoX 8RDA+
Athlon 2500+
2x 512MB Kingston HyperX PC2700
ATI Radeon 9500 Pro
WD 1200JB
Antec Sonata with 380w PSU
LiteOn 52x32x52x CDRW
NEC MultiSync LCD 1760NV

Ok, I hooked up the CPU, RAM, Vid Card, fired it up, and it POST'ed fine. Only thing is the CPU was reading 1100mHz and the RAM was 100mHz. Common problem I guess, and apparently it is fixed by flashing the latest BIOS. So I download the latest BIOS, put it on a floppy, and fire it up. Hit Alt-F2 and I get the BIOS screen, and "Hit F1 to Continue" and in the error box below it says "Source File Not Present".

Ok then. I keep the same BIOS, manually move the FSB up to 166mHz. Now I boot up, and it's not reading my CDRW, which is on the secondary IDE. Not good.

So, I need help with my "source file not present" problem, and getting the motherboard to recognize my LiteOn CDRW. Thanks.

 

[MARMADUKE]

Ok, I hooked up the CPU, RAM, Vid Card, fired it up, and it POST'ed fine. Only thing is the CPU was reading 1100mHz and the RAM was 100mHz. Common problem I guess, and apparently it is fixed by flashing the latest BIOS. So I download the latest BIOS, put it on a floppy, and fire it up. Hit Alt-F2 and I get the BIOS screen, and "Hit F1 to Continue" and in the error box below it says "Source File Not Present".

I wanna know who the moron was that told you to do this?

 

[Phierce]

Originally posted by: MARMADUKE

Ok, I hooked up the CPU, RAM, Vid Card, fired it up, and it POST'ed fine. Only thing is the CPU was reading 1100mHz and the RAM was 100mHz. Common problem I guess, and apparently it is fixed by flashing the latest BIOS. So I download the latest BIOS, put it on a floppy, and fire it up. Hit Alt-F2 and I get the BIOS screen, and "Hit F1 to Continue" and in the error box below it says "Source File Not Present".

I wanna know who the moron was that told you to do this?

Do what? Flash the BIOS with Alt-F2? I believe it was from the 8rdafaq.com page, and it says "hit alt-f2 to run awdflash" during POST.