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

[Stout]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Stout, use the drivers on the nVidia website. But just so you know, nVidia will be releasing a new set of drivers very soon.

Which version of the 8RDA+ do you have?

How can I find out the version/stepping of the mobo?

 

[Megatomic]

Stout, there'll be a little sticker on the motherboard that displays your Rev. Also, programs such as WCPUID and CPU-Z will actually report your NB/SB steppings. WCPUID and CPU-Z misreport my A3/A3 steppings as A2/AS but that's beside the point. I hear they are reporting the C1 stepping NB properly.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Rashad
Thanks Megatomic

So I guess its a Vantec Iceberg job then huh? Copper or Aluminium? Any real difference? What heatsink is recommended for the SB though? I've noticed that its hotter than the NB.

Oh, the readings are only wrong because I was using Winbond HWDoctor, it doesnt give the readings in the right order (DUUH) but i find it gives a lot more readings than that crappy usdm from epox. But i'm still confused as to why the system temp is 10C higher than my old board. Where exactly is the the sensor fo the mobo anyways?

Thanks again

I'd go with the copper Iceberg as copper conducts heat better than aluminum. Then you can just use your NB cooler on your SB chip. I used the passive NB cooler from my busted ASUS K7V on my SB chip. And I used ASIII in between the coolers and the chips (both NB and SB). I didn't bother installing an active cooler on my NB chip as I decided to limit my FSB o/c to just 166MHz.

And I don't know where that thermistor is. My system temp. readout is on par with the readout my 8K3A+ gave me so I never looked into it.

 

[Rashad]

Excellent!

I'll be looking into that. Thanks buddy!

 

[Megatomic]

No prob. Good luck and have fun with your tweaking Rashad.

 

[Rashad]

(oops)

I've spent the weekend playing with it so now i'm running at 1995Mhz (10.5x190)

My NB is A2 and SB is A3 it seems.

I was really happy with everything until my AGP seems to have got locked to 1x. Now that peeved me off. I tried reinstalling XP, cleared the bios, flashed the bios, but no change. Have I broken something? I'm guessing it has something to do with the nForce drivers. Everytime I try to install the nForce drivers the installation dies before it starts. Its like just before the main setup screen loads up the installation stops as if i had just clicked Cancel or something. Again I reinstalled XP and SP1 but I can't seem to fix this. Is there a driver ineed to install? Any ideas?

 

[LastRide]

Here is an excellent site on Nforce2 mobos for those of you who don't know.There is a guide on doing VDD mod,Bios updates,cooling and a few other things.Just click on Epox Nforce2 on the left.I am linking the main page for others that have Abit Nforce2 mobo also. 8RDA FAQ

I just setup my new 8RDA+ I received a couple days ago.It has an A1 Northbridge which refers to C1.I hit 220 FSB with 10 multiplier so far.Running dual channel OCZ PC3700EL memory in dual channel mode.I know I can do 230 and maybe 240 FSB out of this puppy.I don't really care to run it that high right now.I am using a 1700+ that does 2.4GHz on 1.8-1.85V stable.I put my vantec iceberg copper cooler on the northbridge with arctic silver 3.So far I am really impressed with my new 8RDA+.My first one A2 stepping only hit 190 FSB.I did the VDD mod and set it to 1.8 VDD to get 205FSB out of it which was still ok,but the A1 stepping is the mobo to get.

 

[Zap]

Damn, still having the problem with audio. Sound will just stop playing, though everything (Device Manager, Nforce Tray) says it's fine. I've narrowed the problem down to one device that, when removed from Device Manager, Windows XP finds again and then everything's fine until next time. This is the third time this has happened. The device in question is:

NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio Codec Interface

When sound dies (just rebooting doesn't fix) I have to remove that device from Device Manager and reboot to get sound back. Anyone else encounter that problem? Most of the time it is fine, just twice at a LAN party this has happened, plus it happened again last night.

 

[LastRide]

This probably won't fix your problem but there is a windows update to do with the audio in the drivers updates.

 

[mste456]

i've just finished moddin my northbridge with a hsf taken from a old epox kta3+. fits a treat exactly the same as the standard hs on the board. put some hs on the old ti4200 mem also.

 

[Megatomic]

Zap, what rev. of the 8RDA+ board do you have? What BIOS rev. are you using? Which nForce driver pack have you installed? And what speaker configuration are you using?

I also have an 8RDA+, board version 1.1 with A3/A3 NB/SB chipset. BIOS rev. 3305 is currently in use but I have used the 3402 and 3507 as well with good luck. And I am using the 2.03 nForce driver pack with the latest update from Windows Update for the nForce2 audio. I am only using 2.1 channel speakers so I am not utilizing any advanced audio functions but I have no problems either.

If you can post up some additional infos I will try to help you out.

Edit: What OS have you installed? If it's WinXP, have you patched it with SP1?

 

[cloud639]

i've recently patched my winxp with sp1 and dont' know if i should update my nvida driver. I keep hearing people talk about the BSOD when they update their drivers. I don't have the BSOD now and i didn't do a clean installation (meaning format comp) when i installed sp1. ANyone think i should update nvida or should i just keep the old driver.
In addition, why do we have to reformat when installing sp1 and nvida drivers?

 

[Zap]

I think I _may_ have it solved. The Southbridge may have been overheating. I had put a Zalman passive heatsink (those yellow ones) and put it on the Southbridge. The last time I noticed this happen, the sound started crackling and chopping up, then died. I checked that USDM monitoring software and the CPU was hitting over 50ºC and system temp was over 40ºC (I'm trying unsuccessfully to make this machine quiet). The next day I looked in the case and the Zalman heatsink was dangling by one clip. Now, the thing is that the FSB was at 166MHz, which the board supports, and the board doesn't come with a heatsink on the Southbridge, but could it be that the case temperature was too high for the Southbridge to handle without a heatsink? The reason I put a heatsink on it to begin with was because it got really hot to the touch. Anyways, I replaced the clips (using clips from the original Northbridge heatsink) and it's on there better than before. Those Zalman clips don't hold too well, plus one of them broke. I'll see if this fixes the problem.

I built the machine sometime in April. The BIOS was already the newest at the time (dated something like March 24th). At the time I downloaded the newest nForce drivers. Also, I did get the Windows Update driver for sound. Running Windows XP Pro with SP1 and fairly current updates. Don't know what version board.

 

[joe4324]

Is there anyway to tell what Nforce chipset they are putting into these boards? I want to buy a 8RDA+ tonight but I dont want to buy a version that doesnt support the bartons. I hear there is actually a difference in the performance between the earlier nforce2's and the newer ones as Nvidia has refined the core and made it capable of handling the new amd chips.

I'm sorry if this is already answered somewere else, I just want to get this question out here and I'm going to search some now.

 

[LuDaCriS66]

Originally posted by: joe4324
Is there anyway to tell what Nforce chipset they are putting into these boards? I want to buy a 8RDA+ tonight but I dont want to buy a version that doesnt support the bartons. I hear there is actually a difference in the performance between the earlier nforce2's and the newer ones as Nvidia has refined the core and made it capable of handling the new amd chips.

I'm sorry if this is already answered somewere else, I just want to get this question out here and I'm going to search some now.

I believe the chipset version is written in the manual... at least my C1 version is noted as Crush18D in there.

 

[coomarlin]

Is it true that if you flash to the newest bios and you have the newest northbridge that the bootup will show "nVidia 400mhz support" or something like that. That should verify that you have the newest northbridge shouldn't it? I just got my board last night and it is a revision 1.1 board with a bios dated 3-5. I think I'm going to flash to the newest 5-7 bios to see if I get the message at post.

 

[coomarlin]

I know the new version of the northbridge is the 18D, but what is all of this stepping stuff? What is the difference between A1 A3 C1?

 

[RefriedBeaner]

Ok. Well, I have a 8RDA+ on its way to my house as I type this and after reading most of the billion posts in this thread, I'm still not sure what kind of ram I should buy if I want to use this board to overclock my 1700+ (b core). Can anyone help me out?

 

[LastRide]

coomarlin,A2 was the first Northbridge stepping released.The A3 was the next stepping released.The newest stepping is A1 which is C1 (same thing).Northbridege says A1,not C1 but is also refered as C1.


RefriedBeaner,all depends what your 1700+ is capable of and your mobo.I ran mine at 230 FSB with 10 multiplier for 2.3GHz.That is 460 DDR.You will need PC3700 Twinmos or OCZ or whatever other PC3700 memory out there.If you want to run high FSB (if your mobo can do it) you will want PC3700.If you just run 190-200FSB or less than good PC3200 or 3500 will work.Some HyperX ram PC2700 is pretty good and some people are getting big overclocks with it but its a chance.

 

[coomarlin]

I updated my bios to 507 last night and I got the message "nVidia Ultra 400 Support". I then went into CPUID and under Mainboard I have revision C1 so I am happy about that.

On another note I ran 3dmark 2001 with my stock setup Athlon 2500+ and radeon 9500np and received 10400. I then overclocked the processor to (168x12.5=2111) and installed th softmod to my radeon bringing it up to a 9700 and now I'm getting 14200! I'm quite happy. I am going to overclock the Radeon, but I can't seem to download Rage3D tweak from rage3d. Their servers were hammered last night after the 3.4 cats came out. I'll get it eventually

As for memory, I'm using Kingston HyperX. No problems so far.

 

[Zuke]

Well, I've had TWO 8RDA+ motherboards die on me now.

I've built many computers, I'm not new to this. CPU=XP1700 (t-bred B), HyperX PC2700 512mb, GeForce 2 Ti

In the first situation the first boot was fine, operating system installation was fine, I even had it running at 10x200fsb for a day and a half. Was very stable under Prime95 and 3dMark. I started testing other settings to see what the upper limit of the cpu was, nothing too elaborate and the board spontaneously rebooted a number of times and then stopped all together. Code "FF" was the only result. I RMA'd the board.

Second board came 2 weeks later, I installed memory, cpu, and video card. "FF" was the only result. After trying all the usual stuff plus emails to Epox, I cleared the CMOS one last time (I had done the exact same thing before) and for some damn reason, this time the board booted.

This time I ran it at 11x166fsb but the board started rebooting again. I fiddled with memory timings thinking that the default ones might be too agressive, more random reboots. Then finally the board shut down and all I get is "FF". All attempts to clear the CMOS give no effect.

CPU, video card, and memory have all been tested in another machine. Power supply is brand new 350w. The individual components work.

Epox answer has been:
The odds of a person getting two bad boards in a row is too remote - I'm not doing something right.
Run through the steps I'm already doing and my problems should be fixed.

I've never seen a motherboard fry itself by the user adjusting BIOS settings. Shutdown and need to have the CMOS cleared? Yes. Burn up a CPU? Yes. But make the motherboard itself not work anymore? Never. Especially when voltages weren't adjusted.

I'm not RMAing this board. I'm returning it and never buying another Epox product. Each time I have to return the board it costs me $10. RMAing the first board also cost me two weeks of turnaround time. I'll buy an Abit or Asus motherboard instead - I've never had a problem with them.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Not sure which rev. board I have but I'm running an XP 1700+B at 10x200FSB with agressive CPU and default Vcore.
1 x 512MB stick of Corsair XMS PC2700 LLPT running in sync at 200MHz 3-3-3-6
100% stable for 2 weeks.
Using Zalman CNPS 3100 and 300W Sparkle.

 

[RefriedBeaner]

I'm just trying to get to the 166-200 FSB range, will HyperX PC3000 get me there?

 

[Zuke]

Ok, I need to eat a little bit of crow.

I picked up an MSI K7N2G today from a computer store in town because I was having no luck with my 8RDA+.
Put everything in, booted up and got no action on the motherboard. The diagnostic lights gave the error for bad processor or processor not installed correctly. I reseated the CPU, still no joy. Thus my problem has to be the cpu. Why it worked in another system I don't know - however I only put it in that other system long enough to boot, I didn't run it for any length of time.

Kudos to the MSI board though for having a diagnostic specifically for a bad CPU instead of Epox's "FF" which really isn't that specific.

 

[Ltroy24]

I have heard alot about corrupt bios and what not on these boards my friend has sent one or 2 back i was wondering the situation is with this problem. If i get an nforce 2 board this will probably be it but might go with a cheaper kt400 $$$ a little short.

Luke