Chip problem or mobo problem?

EricW

Member
Oct 23, 2001
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My mother's Athlon 2400+/EPoX 8RDA+ machine died about a week ago, error code "CF" on the mobo, and it had orange fuzz coming out of some of the capacitors. I decided to replace the motherboard/fan/heatsink on it. I bought 2 EPoX 8RDA3+PRO's, one for my mom, one for my sister's machine who's is acting wonky as well.

Well, I put it all together, and tried to boot: Error code E8 on the motherboard, which is described exactly nowhere on EPoX manual/site/internet....

Tried changing the battery, no dice.

Pulled out memory, everything except CPU, still error code e8.

I popped in the 2nd board, same code... Only if I remove the CPU does it change, and when I do that, it merely sticks at "FF" and doesn't do anything.

The chip looks fine to me, no bent/missing pins. Even a new heatsink/fan combo for it.

I could try to remove the chip from my PC and bring it over (since I plan on replacing my machine soon anyways)... is this advisable?

Does it sound more like a chip problem than a motherboard problem since both boards do the exact same thing?

Looking at the spec's for the board it SHOULD take the 2400+ Athlon, I can't see why it wouldn't. I tried changing the FSB speed jumper, no change. Both power connecters are plugged in (20+4) (antec 400W power supply).

Can anyone help? Heh. She's getting frantic without her games ;).

Thanks in advance.