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

[mboy]

Originally posted by: mechBgon

Originally posted by: mboy

Originally posted by: Mark

Originally posted by: mboy

Originally posted by: Mark
didnt know mech, but both had the same problem. anyway i took it to frys earlier tonight and the customer service rep recogized me and asked someone to test the mobo out. it didnt boot up but instead gave a "c1" error this time. she gave me store credit so i bought the msi nforce 2 board(too lazy to find model number, but its the cheaper one without the integrated graphics or firewire). so i connect everything up, boot up, detects the memory and cpu fine, says something about a floppy drive error(i dont think the drive works anymore) so i hit f1 to continue and all i get is a very small line in the upper left hand corner(dont know what its called, but im sure you've seen it) and it doesn't go past there. so i power it off, disconnect the floppy, reboot, get into the bios, disable check for floppy, try and save, AND IT WONT SAVE. when it asks "save to cmos?" i hit Y and it crashes the only way to reboot it to manually shut off the power thru the power supply. i might take it to a pc repair shop sometime this week and have them try and find out what the culprit is. here are my specs if anyone is interested.


antec 1080amg case with 430w truepower supply
amd athlon xp1800 palomino
msi nforce2 based board
512mb kingston pc2700 ddr ram
western digital 20.5gb hard drive
soundblaster like value sound card
ati radeon 9500 non-pro

R u going to bash MSI (like u did Epox) now that u cant get the MSI to work properly?
Or must it now be Nvidias fault becasue u cant build a computer?

You're an idiot. Who the hell said anything about Nvidia? Just shut up and get out of the thread if you're not going to contribute anything.




And MARMADUKE, thanks for the advice. I'm gonna take my cpu, ram, and mothebooard all to the local pc shop and have them test all 3 of these out in different machines.

I may be an idiot, but my 8rda+ is running 11.5 x 200 fsb and have given an awful lot of people advice on here about the 8rda+

You bash the Epox board in an Epox thread, then buy an MSI, then come back to the Epox thread when you cant get the MSI to work!
Maybe u should get out of the Epox thread now.

mboy, my 8RDA+ simply decided it wasn't going to boot any more, like Mark reports with his. I don't think that makes me an "idiot" simply because my board has stopped working, and I happen to be interested in his report that his two 8RDA+'s quit. The more info we can gather (and report to EPoX), the more likely this can be fixed or at least pinned down to a specific cause such as VRM failure.

I never mentioned you. You didnt bash a company, then buy another companies product and have similiar issues either.

 

[mechBgon]

Good point

Anyone having similar problems with the 8RDA+, please do take the time to report your problem to EPoX here The more info they've got to go on, the better they can identify the problem, if there is a problem.

Incidentally, some MSI's shipped with engineering BIOSes by mistake, Mark. I hope your troubles work out.

 

[Mark]

Originally posted by: mboy

Originally posted by: Mark

Originally posted by: mboy

Originally posted by: Mark
didnt know mech, but both had the same problem. anyway i took it to frys earlier tonight and the customer service rep recogized me and asked someone to test the mobo out. it didnt boot up but instead gave a "c1" error this time. she gave me store credit so i bought the msi nforce 2 board(too lazy to find model number, but its the cheaper one without the integrated graphics or firewire). so i connect everything up, boot up, detects the memory and cpu fine, says something about a floppy drive error(i dont think the drive works anymore) so i hit f1 to continue and all i get is a very small line in the upper left hand corner(dont know what its called, but im sure you've seen it) and it doesn't go past there. so i power it off, disconnect the floppy, reboot, get into the bios, disable check for floppy, try and save, AND IT WONT SAVE. when it asks "save to cmos?" i hit Y and it crashes the only way to reboot it to manually shut off the power thru the power supply. i might take it to a pc repair shop sometime this week and have them try and find out what the culprit is. here are my specs if anyone is interested.


antec 1080amg case with 430w truepower supply
amd athlon xp1800 palomino
msi nforce2 based board
512mb kingston pc2700 ddr ram
western digital 20.5gb hard drive
soundblaster like value sound card
ati radeon 9500 non-pro

R u going to bash MSI (like u did Epox) now that u cant get the MSI to work properly?
Or must it now be Nvidias fault becasue u cant build a computer?

You're an idiot. Who the hell said anything about Nvidia? Just shut up and get out of the thread if you're not going to contribute anything.




And MARMADUKE, thanks for the advice. I'm gonna take my cpu, ram, and mothebooard all to the local pc shop and have them test all 3 of these out in different machines.

I may be an idiot, but my 8rda+ is running 11.5 x 200 fsb and have given an awful lot of people advice on here about the 8rda+

You bash the Epox board in an Epox thread, then buy an MSI, then come back to the Epox thread when you cant get the MSI to work!
Maybe u should get out of the Epox thread now.

Good for you. Want a cookie now? And like I said, both Epox boards were test with different hardware and both failed so it's obviously not my fault. And I'm not bashing Epox, just the board. I'm not some motherboard company fanboy like you might be. Have a nice day.


Love,


Mark

 

[HardwareAddicted]

Success story !!

Here's the system :

Epox 8RDA+ (of course)
2100+
IBM 60 7200
2 sticks of Kingston Hyper X PC2700
GeForce 3 Gainward Ti-200 128mb
Lite-On DVD
Lite-ON 52x24x52
XP Pro
Maxtop case w/Q-Max PSU (Very surprising)

All of this is available on NewEgg.com

With MARMADUKE's help... (you da man) I now have it running as follows :

9.0 x 192 for 2100+ (no voltage bump)
6-3-3-2.5 ram timings
Note: Ram setting are at 100% in the bios....

This board just plain ROCKS !!

I just wish I wasn't building it for someone else now... must ...get ..one... must .... drool... get ...one...

Good news for Kingston Hyper X ram though...

~ Mark

 

[Grminalac]

Just got off the phone with Kingston who are sending me replacement modules branded with another maker than infineon. Seems they are aware of a memory stability issue with nforce2 boards and some memory modules. Supposedly a fix soon. Until then the boards could be unstable with certain makes/models of memory.

(FYI. I RMA'ed the motherboard twice thinking it was faulty as the memory ran flawlessly in 2 other systems)

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Grminalac
Just got off the phone with Kingston who are sending me replacement modules branded with another maker than infineon. Seems they are aware of a memory stability issue with nforce2 boards and some memory modules. Supposedly a fix soon. Until then the boards could be unstable with certain makes/models of memory.

(FYI. I RMA'ed the motherboard twice thinking it was faulty as the memory ran flawlessly in 2 other systems)

Good post Grminalac. The guy I traded my Kingston ValueRam to also is getting the same deal from Kingston for the same reason, there is an issue with Infineon chips and nForce2 boards, it looks like the same is probably true for Micron chips though Micron/Crucial are too cowardly to fess up like Kingston is.

 

[MARMADUKE]

WOW..maybe they will send you some corsair

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: MARMADUKE
WOW..maybe they will send you some corsair

I think some memory modules with Winbond chips is the most likely scenario. I'm glad these guys are going to get something that works (my fingers are crossed for them).

 

[SpideyCU]

Wow...I need to call Kingston.

 

[Balex99]

I do not know if my board has always shown this but I noticed today that my led display is posting FF and everything is running fine. I don't think it has shown this before and wondering if something bad is about to happen. Just installed a vid capture card and it was a tight fit but all installed well. If I didn't have a window to see the code I would'nt think anything is wrong.

Running XP pro, 2100 tbred 12.5 * 180

I am at work and have not brought the speed down to see if that helps anything.

Just wondering if FF after windows is up is a bad thing?

 

[mechBgon]

FF is only bad if your system isn't completing its POST, so it sounds like you are OK.

 

[MARMADUKE]

FF is good when up and running

 

[iamme]

Just put together my new system today

Epox EP-8RDA+
AMD Athlon 2100+ XP (running at 2400+)
512MB Apacer Infineon PC2700 (running at PC3200 DDR400 speeds!)

Running at 200FSB x 10.
RAM at 6-2-2-2.5
Voltage = 1.7V

Running at around 50 degrees C.

Ran Prime95 and Memtest86 for a while with no errors or crashes.

Any hints at things I can tweak?

 

[MARMADUKE]

Memory tips for setting up new unflashed mobo.
Use Corsair XMS Series ONLY! (NOT TWINX XMS-LL series)
XMS3500 DDR Memory runs @ 5222 over 220 FSB!
XMS3200 DDR Memory runs @ 6332 over 220FSB!
TWINX1024-3200LL (no good)
CMX3200 LL Memory(no good)
XMS2700 LL Memory(no good)
TWINX/EL/LL/OCZ series is not nforce2 supported!(bios fixes are on the way!)
Use Mushkin Enhanced black & purple
Use Twinmos
HyperX -kingston is taking this stuff back?
Geil some failing memory test86?
do not use kingston 2700 value ram!
do not use crucial pc2700 ram!
do not use samsung pc2700 ram!
These are all low budget modules that can give you a C1 code or run unstable (replace memory module) in ALL nforce2 systems!

 

[EvilSponge]

Hello all,

I wanted to thank folks here on the forum for all there help and advise I have finalized my settings
for my AMD rig also special thanks to Big_Pow, Chizow and mboy:

MB: Epox 8RDA+ Rev 1.1
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2100+ 1730Mhz @ 2400.1Mhz
FSB: 191
Multi: 12.5
Mem: 1 stick Corsair XMS 512M PC3200 DDR400
Mem: 100% sync
Mem settings: 5,2,2,2
Graphics Card: Gainward Geforce 4 128M
GF4 settings: 280/560
Vdd: 1.56V
Vcore: 1.77V overvolts to 1.80V stable
VDimm: 2.77V
AGP: 1.5V

Testing:

SiS Sandra reports running equivalent CPU between P4 2.66 and P4 3.06
10 hours of Prime95 so far 0 errors will run 48 for complete assurance

Temps:

Cooling: Volcano 7+ for CPU w/ Artic Silver III
Fan for NB HS w/ Artic Silver III (A3 stepping)
Passive HS w/therm tape for SB chip
Ram HS for Mosfit chain w/therm tape


CPU temp unloaded: 37c / loaded 43c

Last thing to try Vdd mod for 200FSB other than that I'm estatic!

-ES

 

[soundforbjt]

How come my Samsung memory works so well?

System specs: Stable as a rock in Prime 95 and memtest

Athlon 2100+ Tbred 12x200=2.4ghz
Heatsink Thermalright AX-7 Y.S. Tech adjustable
Epox 8RDA
512MB Samsung 2700
ATI Radeon 8500 64MB
Leadman 500W PSU
Windows XP

 

[MARMADUKE]

I think my samsung was tca2...would freeze @ postup?

 

[iamme]

btw, what temperature monitoring programs are you guys using?

 

[EvilSponge]

Guys FYI New Egg has the 8RGA+ in stock price is $139

-Es

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: iamme
btw, what temperature monitoring programs are you guys using?

I use Motherboard Monitor. It's free and supports a huge range of boards.

 

[m1ke101]

Originally posted by: iamme
btw, what temperature monitoring programs are you guys using?

I just use the included one on the epox cd, USDM

 

[sambao21]

Which do you guys think is better 8rda+ or NF7-S 1.2? I can get a 8rda+ for $99 while the NF7-S 1.2 would be $135, and the only reason I can think of for the NF7 is the vdd setting in bios. Other than that I don't really care for SATA or Soundstorm. Do you guys know how easy it would be to mod a 8rda+ with SMD Grabbers? What do you need to do that other than the grabbers?

 

[mboy]

Originally posted by: EvilSponge
Hello all,

I wanted to thank folks here on the forum for all there help and advise I have finalized my settings
for my AMD rig also special thanks to Big_Pow, Chizow and mboy:

MB: Epox 8RDA+ Rev 1.1
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2100+ 1730Mhz @ 2400.1Mhz
FSB: 191
Multi: 12.5
Mem: 1 stick Corsair XMS 512M PC3200 DDR400
Mem: 100% sync
Mem settings: 5,2,2,2
Graphics Card: Gainward Geforce 4 128M
GF4 settings: 280/560
Vdd: 1.56V
Vcore: 1.77V overvolts to 1.80V stable
VDimm: 2.77V
AGP: 1.5V

Testing:

SiS Sandra reports running equivalent CPU between P4 2.66 and P4 3.06
10 hours of Prime95 so far 0 errors will run 48 for complete assurance

Temps:

Cooling: Volcano 7+ for CPU w/ Artic Silver III
Fan for NB HS w/ Artic Silver III (A3 stepping)
Passive HS w/therm tape for SB chip
Ram HS for Mosfit chain w/therm tape


CPU temp unloaded: 37c / loaded 43c

Last thing to try Vdd mod for 200FSB other than that I'm estatic!

-ES

have u tried dropping it down to 11-11.5 x 200 yet

That seems to be my setups sweet spot @ 2.305ghz

 

[chizow]

Here's an XP fix to high IDE CPU utilization for those having HDD performance issues:

Fix and Discussion courtesy of John.

There seems to be some discord over its effectiveness, and I haven't tried it myself (my main array doesn't run through the IDE headers), but its worth a shot for those with issues.

 

[Mark]

Anyone know the number for Kingston? I have that sam ram everyone is talking about.