EPoX "EP-9NPA+Ultra" NVIDIA nForce4 ULTRA Chipset Motherboard

[Rumple]

Yes i have the latest bios installed. I have no red crosses in my device manager. The hard drive is brand new this is the first install of windows on it I wouldnt think i would have to repair it. Im pretty sure its a motherboard problem and not a windows problem. I am pretty savvy with most everything PC. Ive tried about every possible combo i can think of short of reinstalling windows. But actually there are USB drivers on the mobo cd when i browse it i can locate a folder with usb drivers in it. I have tried it with and without these.

I do have all the USB connectors inside hooked up correctly as i said my printer will work from every one of them. Its just anything other than my printer that wont work. Not my digital camera or my floppy/7in1 drive. Not the G7 that i have now returned since i couldnt get it to work on my PC.

ARGH. I dont even care if anything else works except i need my 7in1 drive for my camera.....If i could get that to work i could live with nothing else usb working. 90% of the time my PC is on its playing CSS/BF2. Anyone know of any other type of connection i could use to hook that drive up? Is there any kind of adapter so that i wouldnt have to hook it up thru USB?

**wait so your saying i should disconnect all the usb connections and see if the ones actually on the back of the mobo work? **

 

[RideFree]

**Yup.* *
About 15 pages back, in this thread.

If that fails, 9sli6209 is apparently a beta BIOS that works by changing some of the IRQ assignments and/or sharing.
If you need it and can't find it, let us know. I would have suggested it second, if it were not beta.

 

[techfuzz]

5t3v0 - I did a bunch of testing earlier and this is what I've come up with.
CPU Speed - 2205MHz
HTT - 245MHz
RAM - 200/166 (CPU/11) ~ 200.5MHz @ 2.5-4-3-7 (1T) - default vdimm (2.7v)
HT multiplier still at AUTO (5x I presume?)

I tried upping the vdimm to 2.9v and got to 255, but I had to drop down the HT multiplier to 4x.

Now since my memory is rated at 2-3-3-6 (1T) at 200MHz, I should be able to tighten the timings above to the rated ones, right?

Any comments/suggestions?

techfuzz

 

[Rumple]

Well see unhooking wont really fix my problem since i dont need to use USB for anything really other than my printer which seems to work just fine the way it is. What i really need to work is my mitsumi floppy/7in1 which has to be hooked up to usb internally. If i can get that to work i will be satisfied since i really dont use the USB ports for anything else. I took back my g7 and went with a g5 so that solved that problem. Just want to get that card reader working so i can use my camera.

 

[IlluminiX]

Originally posted by: RideFree

If that fails, 9sli6209 is apparently a beta BIOS that works by changing some of the IRQ assignments and/or sharing.

Except that isn't really true regarding the Beta BIOS, as everything is the same with the IRQ assignments and or sharing between the last final BIOS and the Beta BIOS. The Beta BIOS is only recommended for people who freeze with high speed USB 2.0 devices (with a high correlation to X2 users) and while I don't know exactly what was fixed (and Epox doesn't seem very fast to finalize it yet), I do know that nothing IRQ/sharing is changed.

Sounds like Rumple just cannot even USE certain devices (people who need the Beta BIOS can use their devices for a short while before they freeze), which is either an issue with an unupdated list of compatible USB devices in the BIOS, or something with the devices and XP, but I really cannot say for sure. Since your USB printer works, I would say that it can't be the USB controller in XP malfunctioning and I would say that at the very least, one USB port works. I recommend trying those problematic devices in the printer USB port (but perhaps you did this) to see if they then work, and then you would know that it's the motherboard hardware itself. If they continue not working, then I would say that the devices themselves have some compatibility issues, and the easiest way out would be to get a PCI USB 2.0 card and plug them in there.

Let us know what happens!

IlluminiX

 

[5t3v0]

techfuzz, You shoukld be able to get default timings at stock although I'd be surprised if you could tighten them any more than that as they are very tight already for 2Gb. The other timings might have some movement though although the benefits to performance are usually pretty small. I've posted my full list of timings somewhere if you're interested. Here they are. Definately set the HT multi at x4, even if your board seems stable at Auto or x5. No point in taking the risk as it wont boost your performance.

 

[techfuzz]

Originally posted by: 5t3v0
techfuzz, You shoukld be able to get default timings at stock although I'd be surprised if you could tighten them any more than that as they are very tight already for 2Gb. The other timings might have some movement though although the benefits to performance are usually pretty small. I've posted my full list of timings somewhere if you're interested. Here they are. Definately set the HT multi at x4, even if your board seems stable at Auto or x5. No point in taking the risk as it wont boost your performance.

Ok, it works perfectly at 2-3-3-6 (1T) with no issues so far. I also manually set the HT multiplier to 4x. Now I'm going to try to tighten up everything as close to perfect as possible.

EDIT: I found the CPU max to be at 280MHz with +0.075v. Prime95 confirmed, but I'll have to run it overnight to be sure. Since we only have a 5:6 (DDR333/166MHz) divider I have to use it even though my memory seems to be able to go up to @255MHz. I'm still trying to tighten up the memory timings.

Have you ever had memtest86 just lock up on you? I had this happen a couple times when I was testing the memory at really high values > 250MHz. No errors, just solidly locked?!

techfuzz

 

[Rumple]

Ok i ordered up a new pc for my friend and i just built it today. He has all the same parts as me. Before i put the motherboard in his pc i put it into mine to see if this solved the problem....Viola it worked perfectly. So now i can conclude it was a problem with the motherboard. It just seems wierd that all these devices would work on every pc except mine. The really wierd thing is that my printer would work on EVERY SINGLE usb port i had. RMA time i guess.

 

[techfuzz]

Originally posted by: Rumple
Ok i ordered up a new pc for my friend and i just built it today. He has all the same parts as me. Before i put the motherboard in his pc i put it into mine to see if this solved the problem....Viola it worked perfectly. So now i can conclude it was a problem with the motherboard. It just seems wierd that all these devices would work on every pc except mine. The really wierd thing is that my printer would work on EVERY SINGLE usb port i had. RMA time i guess.

Did you check to see if you had enabled USB v1.1 & v2.0 in the BIOS? If only v2.0 was enabled then any slowed speed devices like your mouse *might* not work. If the USB voltage was bad too, any device that didn't get power from an external source might not work either (except I think you mentioned you tried your cd burner and it didn't work).

techfuzz

 

[RideFree]

Originally posted by: techfuzz

Originally posted by: Rumple
Ok i ordered up a new pc for my friend and i just built it today. He has all the same parts as me. Before i put the motherboard in his pc i put it into mine to see if this solved the problem....Viola it worked perfectly. So now i can conclude it was a problem with the motherboard.

Did you check to see if you had enabled USB v1.1 & v2.0 in the BIOS? If only v2.0 was enabled then any slowed speed devices like your mouse *might* not work. If the USB voltage was bad too, any device that didn't get power from an external source might not work either (except I think you mentioned you tried your cd burner and it didn't work).

techfuzz

Also, what BIOSs did the two boards exhibit? i.e. Newer board might have newer BIOS.
And, here's the big ?
When you (temporarily I assume), "Before i put the motherboard in his pc i put it into mine", did you or did you not hook up your case's USB to his M/B?

 

[5t3v0]

Originally posted by: techfuzz
Ok, it works perfectly at 2-3-3-6 (1T) with no issues so far. I also manually set the HT multiplier to 4x. Now I'm going to try to tighten up everything as close to perfect as possible.

EDIT: I found the CPU max to be at 280MHz with +0.075v. Prime95 confirmed, but I'll have to run it overnight to be sure. Since we only have a 5:6 (DDR333/166MHz) divider I have to use it even though my memory seems to be able to go up to @255MHz. I'm still trying to tighten up the memory timings.

Have you ever had memtest86 just lock up on you? I had this happen a couple times when I was testing the memory at really high values > 250MHz. No errors, just solidly locked?!

techfuzz

If you're running cpu at 280MHz then you should set the HT multi to x3. The underclocking of the HT bus will not lose you any performance. Remember to keep it at or below 1000.

With the 166 divder on 280HTT and x9 cpu multi, the ram would run at 229MHz. This is the same as my setup. Works well for me. Dropping to the 133 divider means underclocking the ram at 180MHz so avoid that.

I've had memtest halt after throwing hundereds of errors but not never without errors.

 

[tjpark1111]

guys is it true that this board cannot control fan speeds using speedfan, etc. software? Can it at least read some temps then? And if the board cannot control fan speeds using the software, what are you guys using to control fan speed?

 

[Fallengod]

Originally posted by: tjpark1111
guys is it true that this board cannot control fan speeds using speedfan, etc. software? Can it at least read some temps then? And if the board cannot control fan speeds using the software, what are you guys using to control fan speed?

Um no. Where did you hear that? I can control my cpu fan no problem. I 8> Speedfan.

 

[tjpark1111]

I recommended this board on silentpcreview, and they said they'd rather go with the A8N-SLI because this board doesn't support cpu control by software. Here's a link to it:
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=29542
it's the 10th reply or so....

 

[gfngfgf]

I also <3 speedfan, and control of the CPU fan speed works fine, as does temperature reporting. For me, Speed02 in SpeedFan controls the CPU fan and the others don't do anything (that I can observe).

 

[macplaxton]

I'm having USB2.0 problems with a 9NPA+ SLi mainboard. Can someone please send me a copy of the 9sli6209.bin beta bios or upload it again as the link is now dead.

Cheers,
Rich

 

[RideFree]

Rich, You've got mail :heart:

 

[Geophagus]

HI, I have been reading through this thread very interesting and informative, read about the USB 2 problem and the bios fix, could someone please give me the bios date and a link to the bios many thanks.

 

[IlluminiX]

I don't have the SLI board, so I'm afraid I don't have the Beta BIOS for that (sounds like RideFree does )

But I posted the 2/9/06 Beta BIOS for the other 9npa versions at the Rebels Haven 9npa Ultra Bios Page... Here

Strange that Epox is sooo slow to finalize it, but at least in the meantime you can be stable!

 

[RideFree]

Originally posted by: RideFree
Rich, You've got mail :heart:

You too, IlluminiX :heart:

 

[macplaxton]

I've flashed the bios 9sli6209.bin and the USB 2.0 transfer of massive files to/from the external hdd is working flawlessly.

I've used two of these EPoX boards, 1 a 9NPA+Ultra with a AMD64 3200+ and the other a 9NPA+SLi with a dual core AMD64 4200+. Only had a couple of glitches with the X2 (which are now sorted with the beta bios). The other board with the 3200 is running rock solid.

Many thanks for passing on the bios RideFree.

Cheers,
Rich

 

[LZ1GJD]

Hello,
it is sad that with the first post in this forum, I'll have to complain about a problem.
It is my mobo that I recently exchanged to my old ASUS A8N-E which I had some issues with.
The problem is as follows, when I have installed nVIDIA IDE drivers, have some activity on my hard drive, and then start an application that measures the temp of the hdd, or would give me the SMART data like Everest, Speedfan or HDD Life my PC freezes. This problem I get solved by installing the standard MS ide drivers that come with my OS (WinXP SP2). Still I would like to use those from nvidia, as it allows me to benefit from the NCQ feature on my hard drive.
Please, could any1 help me out with this, I would really appreciate it.

 

[Mem]

Still I would like to use those from nvidia, as it allows me to benefit from the NCQ feature on my hard drive.

LZ1GJD:Welcome to the forums,there is no real benefit in having NCQ enabled with Nvdia SW IDE drivers,infact I get slow bootup with NCQ enabled.

My advice is leave NCQ disabled with the Nvidia SW drivers installed,you are not losing anything in the real word performance wise.

 

[LZ1GJD]

Thank you for replying to my message.

The problem is that I am getting these lock-ups with nvidia drivers no matter if NCQ is enabled or not. When at the computer shop we mounted the motherboard into the computer case, the pcb was a little bit curved towards its centre, they said it should not be a problem to the normal computer operation and in fact I've not had any other problems with this mobo, except these lockups. But as they seem to happen only with the nvidia ide drivers, it is probably not a hardware issue, but some incompatability, some sort of bug or whatever.

Do you think there's a chance, the mobo could be faulty ?

 

[5t3v0]

There's lots of people warning against some nVidia nforce4 IDE drivers due to bugs. The recommendation is not to install them & use the MS divers. That's what I have done. Have you downloaded the latest version of the platform drivers from nVidia?