Epox 8RDA+ and Athlon XP 3000+ 400Mhz

[JohnnyMike]

I have an Epox 8RDA+/Athlon XP 2100+ with 1Gb PC3200 400Mhz DDR. I am considering upgrading to an Athlon XP 3000+. With the latest BIOS, the 8RDA+ officially supports the 333Mhz version ofthe 3000+, but there are 400 Mhz OEM versions available. Does anyone have any knowledge or experience that the $00 Mhz version will work on the 8RDA+? My thinking is that it would be optimum for the FSB and the Memory bus to operating at the same frequency. Or is there something wrong with my thinking?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Shimmishim]

it should work...

as long as you have a newer nb chipset or a rev 2.0 8rda+ it should run at 200 mhz (400 mhz ddr) with no problems.

 

[MichaelD]

Hello JohnnyMike and welcome to the AT Forums.

I have an Epox 8RDA+ v1.0 running the 5/7/2003 bios. Whether or not your board will support the 400MHz version of the Athlon XP is dependent on if your board will do a 200MHz FSB. Mine does, and I got lucky b/c most V1.0 boards will not do 200MHz.

You have PC3200 memory, which is 200MHz memory. That's a good start. What FSB are you running with your XP2100? I run an XP2100 in this rig. See sig for details.

Is your 2100 a B-step? If so, the multi should be unlocked. Lower the multi and raise the FSB to 200MHz. If you can run benchmarks, I.E. Prime95 torture test for 12 hours w/o crashing, your mobo will do 200Mhz, no problem.

The latest bios should recognize a 200MHz FSB Athlon and run it fine. Even if it doesn't, you can still manually set things to run at 200MHz., providing the above stuff is true. Hope this helps.

edit
Or as Shimmishim said, you have a V2.0 board.

 

[Brian48]

I have an older rev 1.1 8rda (non-plus). It does o/c and run at 400mhz FSB, but ONLY if I run in single-channel mode with DIMM slot 1. The moment I use DIMM3, the system becomes very unstable. It does run perfectly fine in dual-channel config at 333 FSB and below though.

At first I thought this was isolated to just this board, but my first 8rda did this as well and so does my Soltek SL-75FRN-L. I'm assuming this is a quirk of the earlier nForce2 chips that did not officially 400mhz.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Brian48
I have an older rev 1.1 8rda (non-plus). It does o/c and run at 400mhz FSB, but ONLY if I run in single-channel mode with DIMM slot 1. The moment I use DIMM3, the system becomes very unstable. It does run perfectly fine in dual-channel config at 333 FSB and below though.

At first I thought this was isolated to just this board, but my first 8rda did this as well and so does my Soltek SL-75FRN-L. I'm assuming this is a quirk of the earlier nForce2 chips that did not officially 400mhz.

Brian48,
That is my story, to a T! Same exact deal as you...except my board is a "+". It will only do dual-channel at 333MHz. Anything higher and I'm lucky if it boots at all. Been at 400MHz, single channel for more than a year now. I've gotten my money's worth out of this board.

 

[EPoXTech]

Hi

EP-8RDA+ REV 2.0 or higher supports Barton 3200+ (400Mhz).
ftp://ftp.epox.com/downloads/FAQ/CPU%20approval%20list-%20Jan04-2-k7-e.pdf