The NEW "Official" EPoX 8KHA+ thread Update: added links, and downlods, vcore mod guide

[Raspewtin]

i bought one from newegg.com with a N+ bios and it wouldn't post, just gave a FF error code. returned it got another, same thing, now happily running a msi nforce. this boards seems to work great for everyone but me, but irregardless, i won't touch this board again. i really wanted to like it too. oh well

 

[Tummy]

NicColt I love your sig! So true, so true...

anyhow, this new beta bios solved my software reboot problems like many others if anybody cares.

 

[Deanodarlo]

Check out the new Epox budget board:

8KHAL - Epox do what Abit did with the KT133E

Since this new wonder bios is called 8khaL00.bin isn't it for the above motherboard? This uses dip switches by the way for FSB and multipliers.

I'm going to wait for an official bios update. The most encouraging thing is that this bios has solved many peoples soft reboot issues above ~155, which means that an official bios fix IS POSSIBLE! HURRAY!

 

[chizow]

Heheh I'm still running BIOS 10/05. Never had the soft boot issues, only thing is it recognizes my XP as an MP. Not sure, maybe I'll flash my BIOS to 11/02 or 11/20 to see if I can get my FSB higher, even unlocked, my FSB won't hit 166.

Chiz

 

[gregor7777]

Well, mine is arriving today and I hope it works out. It would be a real bag over the head, punch in the face deal if I finally decided to trade in my kt133, and the board I choose doesn't work the way I want.

Anyways, we'll see.

 

[SnowPunk98]

I suggest you guys try the new unofficial bios the L one because I read all the posts over at amdmb.com and everyone is having great success I would do it now myself but I dont have the cooling to overclock not till christmas when I get my watercooling

 

[ChrisADuffy]

Got my 8kha+ yesterday now all i need is the memory from crucial which is on the way.

 

[mboy]

I have been having trouble with mine as of Late. Win98 got corrupted the other day, wouldnt let me play Undying, wouldnt even let me re install it, says there was a kernel error. Had to reinstall Win98 and it was ok after that. BUT, win2k has froze up on me a few times this past weekend. Ghost Recon demo froze, AvsP2 froze 2xs last nite, even froze upon startup. 3d mark wont run when I have the card Oc'ed heavily (even tho it ran at that OC 2 weeks ago at higher OC). Not sure if it is the 4.35 VIA 4-1s I upgraded to from the mobo disk version over the weekend, the new rounded 18" ata 100 IDE cables I installed or cruddy power coming from my wall (my UPS has beeped when running 3Dmark2001, and especially Prime 95. I may have too much hooked up to it). I even backed the FSB down to 145, CPU volt at 1.85 and ram is +.3 from stock.
I have a 330w enermax running it all. Temp is a cool 35-37c idle and only went up as high as 41-42c under prime 95.
May do a fresh install of win2k this weekend to see if that will help (what a PITA that will be).

 

[chizow]

mboy,

may very well be a power issue, possibly either of the variables you mentioned, the PSU or APC. I've never had a problem with the outlet power supply causing my system to become unstable, but after about 4 months of heavily OCing my 300W Enlight on an A7V133 with a 1.4 T-bird, my system started to become unstable and gave me similar errors. Lots more BSODs, soft boot problems, no POST on cold boots unless I messed with the monitor and power switch, random reboots, and dumps out of games. Looking back, I'm almost 100% sure it was my PSU (the 300W wouldn't POST my 8KHA+, 400W Antec is running everything and more like a dream).

Chiz

 

[Deanodarlo]

I'm called spirits247 over at amdmb.com and have been debating the dividers question:

Debate over dividers

With the help of some guys over at Alliance forums, I described the theory behind dividers in the above thread and why we should have them at 160 FSB and above (please don't mention chipsets without reading the theory people ).

Now I've seen more evidence, including oscilloscope readings, my opinion is - WE HAVE THE 1/5 and 2/5 dividers, and even more

Here is yet more proof. Using the new 8KHAL00.bin bios (I'm sure this is for the new 8KHAL motherboard, oh well it works! ) some people are solving their motherboard reboot issues but also hitting 220+ FSB!

They are achieving this by setting the RAM to 100 instead of 133, which uses a 3/4 RAM divider on the FSB.

So if you set 220 FSB, your RAM is working at 165 (3/4*220) intead of 220!

220+ FSB with the new 8KHAL beta bios on an 8KHA+

Since it would be impossible to run AGPs and PCIs at these higher speeds on 1/4 and 1/2 dividers, then I think we can assume the board has the 1/5, 2/5 at 160 and above, and the 1/6, 1/3 at 194 and above, just like the clock gen PDF states.

REMEMBER, HOWEVER, THAT IT IS NOT THE BIOS THAT DECIDES THE DIVIDERS, WE'VE ALWAYS HAD THEM WHEN PROGRAMMING THE CLOCK GEN TO OPERATE AT CERTAIN SPEEDS (see theory in my other post above).

If the official 8KHA+ bios is as good as the 8KHAL beta one (and why shouldn't it?) then we have one fast motherboard on our hands when RAM tech catches up!

 

[mboy]

Chizow, I am going to plug it straight back into the wall (well, with a surge protector of course) tonite and mess with it some more. I probably have to much hooked up to the UPS (everything connected thru my surge protector is going thru to the UPS). Monitor, printer, Computer, maybe even my speakers (dont remember right now), dumb I know. I will just go straight to wall and plug my 2nd computer and monitor into the UPS and see what happens.
In a week or so I should have this board running off an Antec 400W and will use the 330w Enermax for my new k7S5A that is replacing my little dawg's rig (already have the board from a while ago or probably would have gone with another epox

Never switched PSU's before, is it a PITA? I can either do a swap or just take my mobo out and put it into the new sx1040 and since the 5.25 are on rails, just slide them into the newer case. WHich do you figure to be easier?
ThanX!

 

[fizzah]

Good day people I seem to have lost my old account, which is just as well, I haven't posted since the KT133A fun, but now it seems I feel exactly the same as I did with my KT7A. Heres the goodies.

Just got a 8KHA+ (N+ bios)
1.333T/B from the last rig (only used it for a few days before I RMA'd the board and ram back) (cooled with a Swiftech MC462-A Rev.1)
Enermax 431w
3 x 256 PC2100 Crucial DDR,
El Generico Ethernet
IBM 60.0GB
Maxtor 80.0GB
Plextor 40x CD-ROM
Plextor 8/20 CD-R
Advansys Ultra SCSI Card
Visiontek GeForce3 Ti200
SB Live Value

Running the chip at stock with the latest 4in1s and latest IDE Miniport made the box at least somewhat usable. I still encouter some soft reboots for what seem like virtually no reason, just surfing the net or copying files. This is my 3rd winxppro install on this machine now and I'm getting a bit frustrated. The first one I tried totally stock windows drivers, it was shaky but usable, clocked up to 1502 (10.5x143) or just about anything above stock-clock is unusable. 2nd attempt. (as I said before) latest 4in1s, miniport driver, (ALWAYS using nvidia 22.80 drivers, they have given me the best results thus far, altho even best has not been great, the latest WHQLs wouldn't run ANY games ) but that install went south, started giving me unmountable boot volume BSODs on bootup, if not corrupted file BSODs or other ones I didnt get a chance to read just in the normal running. I've been reading about new BIOSes and such but thought I'd try to tap some experience first before infuriating myself further . This is my 3rd install, its still completely raw, I've installed aim, and thats about it. No drivers or anything, I was hoping anyone would some ideas. I tried futsing with voltages, I pushed the CPU up .25v and the memory up .1v and that aided stability, but heavy games like RTCW hang after a while, other games dump back to desktop. I got the board from newegg so if it comes down to getting my money back, I guess thats an option, but my family really needs a second computer running with all the work we do (and I really need a machine that'll run some post-1995 games ). Thanks for your help.

-fizzah

P.S. also just to note, since power seems to have been an issue, I got the enermax 431 thinking it would be enough juice, but I'm using one of those nutsola coolerguys cases with 5 fans in it, I wanted this machine to run chilly, I checked my voltages and everything seems to be on the line, except in bios the 5v was running at 5.56v or so, not sure if that matters or if I'm even speaking english at this point. Also board is currently at defaults.
Thanks again

 

[LocutusX]

5v rail @ 5.56? Are you sure that's not 4.56?

Because if it is... you need a better P/S.

The Enermax's are known for not getting along well with the Epox's, at least thats what many people say. Myself, I use the 431w Enermax with 100% stability on a 100mhz overclock. I guess I'm just lucky.

 

[fizzah]

yeah it says 5VSB 5.56v I just checked it again... is this a likely cause of my troubles? I can get an antec 400w from best buy probably, pretty sure I saw them there last week. I dunno I got it to run rtcw for over 5 hours of straight play, which got my hopes up, but it gave me a stupid error report window on exit, and the next reboot I got the aways fun "windows has recovered from a serious error." I got this board after reading all the shining reviews and all the forumites saying "great board" and how solid it was, I envisioned a sure thing, but it's never that easy!

 

[mboy]

Just got home and plugged the comp (with surge protector) straight into outlet bypassing UPS, and as soon as windows booted up and started loading some apps, it rebooted itself. UGHHH. Running Prime 95 now and will all nite to see if she will remain stable. At this point it is either the board or the PS. Guess I will find out next week or so when I get the Antec 400w. If it's the board, Newegg will be getting it back. Hope not because I was enjoying it very much up until this past weekend.

 

[chizow]

damn mboy, that sux

are your rail readings giving any indication of low rails/fluxes? I'm thinking it probably is your PSU, so hopefully that fixes everything. from your prev. post, replacing the PSU isn't really a pain depending on how you had it rigged up before and how much headroom/how big your HSF is. I put it in with an empty case, so it was no sweat at all, but I can imagine it being a pain if you had an 8045, all your 4 pin headers and wires arranged etc. Other than that, just a matter of replugging everything into your components and the mobo and screwing it into the back of the case.

Chiz

 

[chrisjor]

I received my board from newegg on 12/3. There is a silver sticker with an N+ on the chip near the Post code LCD.

 

[mboy]

Yeah Chizow, 8045 :-(. I just ran Prime 95 at a FSB of 148 and it crashed, backed it down to 145 and its going ok now. 5v rail 4.87-4.89, little low for my taste. Check my sig. It is possible my SBLive 5.1 is holding me back or the 3com NIC. GUess we will see

 

[Tycoonx]

How come i'm getting such a low score in Sandra 01 Mem Test?

I got 725/734, while others gets 1100+?

My specs are:
1800+ XP with Win XP
Epox 8KHA+ with the October Bios
2x256 Crucial DDR
Enermax 431

 

[chizow]

<< Yeah Chizow, 8045 :-(. I just ran Prime 95 at a FSB of 148 and it crashed, backed it down to 145 and its going ok now. 5v rail 4.87-4.89, little low for my taste. Check my sig. It is possible my SBLive 5.1 is holding me back or the 3com NIC. GUess we will see >>



Mboy, that is a very real possibility. I posted this a few weeks ago when I re-installed my Lite-On and moved my PCI cards around. Basically, switched my V5 from PCI 2 to PCI 6 and moved my 3Com and SBlive! around as well. After I did that I couldn't OC past 133FSB after running 150FSB fine!!! I was thinking it might be my PSU, but I have a 400W Antec and it was running everything fine.

So I moved everything back to the original spots. V5 to PCI 2, 3com to PCI 5, Sblive to PCI 4. Once I did that was back to normal OCing to 150 FSB. Think it has something to do with the Interrupt Requests and the PCI slots priority. Also, 4 of the 6 PCI slots share IRQs, so if possible, try not to put to 2 devices on the same IRQ. Not sure what OS you use, but I was using WinME and Win98SE when I had that problem. Using Win2k Pro now, so I'm not sure how the virtual IRQs are affected by this.

Chiz

 

[mboy]

I use 2k pro 99.9% of the time. 98Se just to play games with my little boy that we cant play on 2k.
Nic in PCI 2, SBLive in PCI and Vid in AGP of course. Think I should move something around? What sould I move to where?

Also, what should the LED's read? Mine are reading FF, I thought this was normal until I just read something that this in fact is an error. WTF?

 

[SnowPunk98]

so is there an official "L" BIOS? besides that beta one floating around

 

[Afrochops]

Question about the onboard audio. is the driver written by via or someone else? and secondly is there a windows xp compatible version of this driver? thanks
nate

 

[Bovinicus]

I hear this board has problems with certain power supplies. I am pondering the purchase of this board and would like to know what kinds of PSU's that the motherboard doesn't cooperate with. I have the 300W sparkle that comes bundled with the Enlight 7237 case. Also, does anyone know if some of the latest BIOS updates have fixed the problem in which systems using this board in conjunction with a certain video card (Some GeForce card) will not properly setup Windows 2000? I have Win2k, and a GF2. I don't want to have to switch out my video card to setup Windows if I do a fresh formatting of my harddrive before I put in the motherboard. Thanks.

 

[chizow]

mboy

I have my 3Com NIC in slot 4 and my SBlive! in Slot 5. Don't use Slot 1 if you can help it (unless you use a PCI and no AGP) as it shares an IRQ with the AGP slot. Slot 2 does not share an IRQ with anything, so another good choice. Slot 3 and 5 share an Interrupt header, as do Slot 4 and 6. Basically, I just try not to put 2 cards in slots where they would share an Interrupt header, but after that, its a matter of testing and getting your airflow right.

Also, if you are using win98 or ME this might make a difference if you are worried about IRQ sharing. Not sure as much again about Win2k or XP, as they use virtual IRQs. You can disable onboard stuffs that you don't use. I never use the serial ports, so I disabled both of em. Also disabled the 2 USB port headers I don't have plug headers for (you can disable 4 of the 6 if you want, just leave USB 1 and 2 on, they are the ones connected to the main board). I think most people disable the onboard sound as well. Doing this made a big difference in IRQ assignments in Win98SE and WinME....the stuffs I wanted to have their own IRQ weren't sharing anymore.

No need to move stuff around if you are running fine, but again, I had problems hitting my previous OCing speeds after I moved some stuff around. I mighta been able to clear my CMOS to get it back to normal, but moving stuff back was all I needed to do.

Oh yah, FF means "successful boot attempt". Its what your LED should be reading if you boot successfully. My feeling is people with FF showing just don't have a good enough PSU to power up their system.

Chiz