** Official EPoX 9NDA3+ Thread ** S939

[ezorn33]

What about intensive gaming, like EQ2?

 

[pantner]

no idea...never played it...

even so, its still better to have it running at DDR400...

 

[UKnowWhat]

Originally posted by: pantner

@ UKnowWhat, i'd be surprised if this board WORKED with 4xDIMMS of 512mb of RAM....EVERY A64 S939 board i have seen, has had some problem with running 4 DIMMS of RAM....ESPECIALLY at DDR400...

try booting with 2xSticks of RAM, then go into the BIOS, and force the RAM to run at 166Mhz, then shut down, and put in the other 2 sticks and turn it on...although 2x512@400 is faster then 4x512@333, its interesting to see what happens...

[/quote]


Interesting. I will do that at 166MHZ just to see if it works. Even though I have no inclination at all to use 2GB but I still want to see how Chinese MB makers implementing the American ways of the 80s by documenting something working while in fact it doesn't work at all.

 

[arswihart]

I might try 2x1gig at some point in the near future, if that goes without a hitch, I'll be interested to hear your results, so then I can consider 4x1gig, that would be amazing

 

[UKnowWhat]

I'll be damn. It was working at 166MHZ not at 1T but at 2T. But the most important clue it gave me is the 2T parameter is the one screwing up the party. And indeed, once I relaxed the timing to 2T, it also works fine at 200MHZ.

It seems to me for whatever reason, A64+ can't handle multiplexing dual channel at 1T and I was quickly to blame Epox for AMD's problem. 2GB now on 4 slots and it's amazingly fast.

 

[UKnowWhat]

And the MX Duo cordless keyboard and optical mouse also arrived today and works. I just finished one of the tough jobs today. And my machine now singing 2GB. Got to be a lucky day for me. It's time for Warcraft 3 and not being nailed by the enemy because my lousy cordless mouse moves with its ball like a pregnant pig.

 

[alexandreBR]

Originally posted by: pantner


now, i've also contacted EPoX about this board, mainly talking about the USB Ports Dropping out, the undervolting and the position of the 2 SATA ports near the AGP Port....here is their reply

Dear Sir
About your question reply as below.
1....
2.About the voltage too low ,because on board sensor check opint have difference,but voltage support is normal.
3...

what did he mean by "because on board sensor check opint have difference,but voltage support is normal"?

here i've set it as +0.075v.. I had once sent an email to Epox support.. they've told me not to worry about undervolt if it was stable ... I mean using CPU in stock... but now my 3000+ is overclocked... so I thought I had to set vcore at least at 1.4v... now it goes from 1.392 to 1.440... depending on what software or game I use... I've already tested my rig for 6 hours with Prime95... I've also run 3dmark01, 3dmark03, SuperPI and OCCT for several times... seems to be stable. No problems at all up to now.. now my CPU is working @ 245x9... 3500+

Did the guy from Epox mean that the BIOS and USDM give wrong Vcore information?

 

[pantner]

r

Originally posted by: alexandreBR

Originally posted by: pantner


now, i've also contacted EPoX about this board, mainly talking about the USB Ports Dropping out, the undervolting and the position of the 2 SATA ports near the AGP Port....here is their reply

Dear Sir
About your question reply as below.
1....
2.About the voltage too low ,because on board sensor check opint have difference,but voltage support is normal.
3...

what did he mean by "because on board sensor check opint have difference,but voltage support is normal"?

here i've set it as +0.075v.. I had once sent an email to Epox support.. they've told me not to worry about undervolt if it was stable ... I mean using CPU in stock... but now my 3000+ is overclocked... so I thought I had to set vcore at least at 1.4v... now it goes from 1.392 to 1.440... depending on what software or game I use... I've already tested my rig for 6 hours with Prime95... I've also run 3dmark01, 3dmark03, SuperPI and OCCT for several times... seems to be stable. No problems at all up to now.. now my CPU is working @ 245x9... 3500+

Did the guy from Epox mean that the BIOS and USDM give wrong Vcore information?

I think thats what he meant...i did actually reply to get him to clarify some things, and one of the things i asked was that. I also pointed out the fact that you can't use the right-angled SATA connectors on those 2 near the AGP cause of the direction they face...at-least, im pretty sure you can't...

 

[alexandreBR]

Originally posted by: pantner

I think thats what he meant...i did actually reply to get him to clarify some things, and one of the things i asked was that. I also pointed out the fact that you can't use the right-angled SATA connectors on those 2 near the AGP cause of the direction they face...at-least, im pretty sure you can't...

Ok. I'm waiting for the reply....

 

[arswihart]

you mean you can't use both at the same time with right angle plugs. I'm gonna be getting a right-angle sata cable and a straight one this weekend, which I intend to cut down so that I can use it for the other connector and just bend it in the opposite direction of the right-angle cable. I've heard this works fine, and I don't see any reason why it wouldn't.

 

[pantner]

ok, well...have had another reply

Dear Sir
The board support power was correct ,the sensor check was close but not at the point,so the voltage's numerical have some difference.
About the SATA cable,i know the right angle cable will cover the other one ,but you will have one port can use.
TheUSB device issue,wait for your check.

i also put all my voltages back to default, and it seems to be stable...also lowered my load temp by 7C!

 

[alexandreBR]

I've sent another email to Epox Support and they have already answered:

Hi,

I'm coming here again because since I've taken part of Anandtech's forum, I've read some posts of people complaining about the undervolt issue. One of the guys there has received the following answers:

Dear Sir
...
2.About the voltage too low ,because on board sensor check point have difference,but voltage support is normal.

Dear Sir
The board support power was correct ,the sensor check was close but not at the point,so the voltage's numerical have some difference.

Well, in fact, USDM and the BIOS give me bad information on Vcore or not? I really need to know this because of the overclock... do they read it correctly or not? Currently, as my A64 3000+, 1.8Ghz, is overclocked to 2.2Ghz (A64 3500+), I've set the vcore to +0.075 (I have the 9NDA3+ rev. 2) and now is pretty stable... Before that, my Kingston Hyper X UL kit (2-2-2-5-1T, 2.7v), in stock mode (1.8Ghz, vcore OFF) was stable, but overclocking the processor made me have some memory crashes when tested with memtest86. v.1.51... increasing the vcore with +0.05 seemed to have solved the problem, but, sometimes, when I rebooted the system, I've experienced freezings... now, I've set vcore, as I said, to +0.075; USDM and BIOS read it as 1.39-1.45 (is that reading correct?) and the system is rock solid. Memory is working in stock frequency, 200Mhz - DDR400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
Alexandre Maciel


The answer:

Dear Sir
The board voltage in bios monitor was for check ,but it have range about the 5% miss ,because the check point have difference at sensor position .The power support with board for processor ,chipset and devices is normal,you can do adjust voltage step by step for system overclocking,but we are not suggest user run overclock too more,because overclock was so easy let system crashes and devices life be short.


So, this way I think it's completely clarified... in fact neither the BIOS nor USDM give us correct reading on vcore...

However, now I have a doubt: am I seriously risking my processor by setting vcore to +0.075 in the Bios? I've got stability by that... I don't know why, but after installing my new memory kit I've had to increase vcore. Even setting it to +0.05v gave me some memory problems. Before that, with my old sticks, I had complete stability in OC even with vcore set to OFF. I wonder if it has to do with cpu memory controller?

 

[pantner]

well, where do u think the UDSM got its information from??? THE BIOS....

and i doubt it is seriously hurting your processor...i used to run my old AXP with over .2v increased VCore sometimes (up to 1.9V from 1.65V)

 

[alexandreBR]

Originally posted by: pantner
well, where do u think the UDSM got its information from??? THE BIOS....

and i doubt it is seriously hurting your processor...i used to run my old AXP with over .2v increased VCore sometimes (up to 1.9V from 1.65V)

Certainly I know USDM gets its information from Bios.. but, if you pay attention to the Bios Health Status you'll notice that both the temps and the voltages are a bit higher than in USDM... Because of that I've asked about Bios and USDM.

Towards damaging my processor, indeed from now on I won't care about it...

I really appreciate all your help!!!

thx!!!

 

[alexandreBR]

Hi guys!!!

Well, this time I've come here because I'm really facing a problem. I've noticed that since I've installed my new memory kit, my rig has had some strange issues. Firstly, I've had problems running memtest86... I've got errors all the time with the sticks set @2-2-2-5-1T, 2.7v... then, I've found out that it was happening due to low vcore. Setting it at +0.075 has solved that issue. In fact, I've considered it a bit odd because I can perfectly remember that with my pair of Kingston Value working in Single Channel, ddr333, even with the OC I currently set here (245x9), memo set @133Mhz, I have never needed to increase vcore to have an stable system (Prime during 12h, OCCT, memtest86, 3dmark, all these programs were run several times on that occasion)

But now, running the KHX TCCD @200Mhz, 166 in the Bios, I've noticed that sometimes the system fails to boot. When I switch it on, there's no video. I've already read the user's guide and there it's said that it takes place because of an OC failure. Even with vcore set to +0.075, vdimm 2.7, my OC, 244x9 now, has caused me to have some worries. That was already confusing me.

However, another thing has happened and has really made me decide to get help. For three or four times, when I've switched the system on, it seemed that it was going to start normally, leds were on normally, but suddenly, before post appears, the system has switched off by itself, fans sttoped working, there was no trace of power in the mobo... debug led was off... wow... system was completely off, power or hdd lights had went out.

I've already updated the bios.. things keep as described above. So far I can't even imagine what could be causing the system to work that way. Then, as I don't have much experience in OC, and consequently I have no other idea of what I should do to solve that, I'd appeciate if any of you could give me some help. I wonder if it has to do with chipset voltage?

 

[pantner]

ok...having a little prob with my board...

am running Window XP Pro on my 2x200GB SATA RAID-0 array, on SATA 1&2 (i rotated the Zalman cooler on my 6800GT and now i can use the previously blocked ports!)

however, i now have a 120day trial of Win XP Pro X64...have installed that onto a 80Gb IDE hard drive...which is running at Primary Slave (no master...just can't be bothered t change the jumper )

when i set the BIOS to boot from the IDE drive it works fine...until i have to cold boot the system, then it goes back to the RAID array...

anyone had the same problem???

i've even had it not detect the hard drive twice...i don't think its the hard drive, since im having no problems AFTER i am able to boot off it...


BTW...new BIOS released at the start of april... 9nd35401.zip

 

[arswihart]

i would set the jumper as cable select or put it to master and plug it into the master connector of the ide cable. Why you are trying to get away without doing this, I don't know.

Then make sure you have the boot ORDER set for the 80gig drive, this is a separate setting just for hard drives, not the setting where you choose boot from floppy, cd-rom, etc... It just has a list of your actual installed hard drives and you can move them up and down to make the correct boot order. Save the BIOS settings and it should work unless there's something with the RAID that I don't know about, never used RAID before.

I think the cable setting is the most important thing, especially since you say its not even getting detected sometimes

 

[pantner]

im not a moron ok, i know how to change the boot priority...

i really don't think that changing it to master will do anything, it shouldn't...and CS does not work...EVER!!!!

if i can be bothered i'll change the jumper setting...its just such a hastle to do it with my case...

 

[arswihart]

you never know who you're dealing with here, didn't mean to insult you pantner, good luck

 

[pantner]

lol, thats cool...


im just a little edgy recently...for personal reasons...

anyway...

so far, have just been putting up with it and using the ESC boot menu on boot-up...i looove that feature, my old mercury board had it, and i missed it with my gigabyte!

 

[UKnowWhat]

Pantner,
I also found that CS doesn't work with WD drives but it does work with Maxtor drives.
---
Tell us how X64 OS works. I am considering to try it because I use many engineering applications in simulation.

 

[arswihart]

whatever, I've always used CS for my WD harddrives 3 wd800jb's and a wd1200jb, on all boards including this 9nda3+, and they've always worked just fine, finished booting in about 30-35 seconds

 

[UKnowWhat]

How's your X64 performance? and compatibility with old applications?

 

[pantner]

well, there hasn't been a major performance increase...

the only programs so far, that don't work, are aquamark3 and Daemon Tools (or any virtual drive software for that matter)

have played a few games, Warcraft 3, UT2004, LOTR:BFME

 

[MoboMojo]

Just got the 9NDA3+ and 3200+ Winnie from Newegg.....waiting on Corsair Value Select DDR400 memory from ZipZoom to put a system together for my son....

Anyone know if the Corsair Value Select will be a problem....thought I saw a post somewhere that said its cool with the mobo/cpu combo I'm working with.