What pieces to go with EPoX 8RDA3+ PRO? Chip/memory?

[EricW]

Hi all,

A couple weeks ago my mother's PC died that I built for her (8RDA+/AMD 2400).

After replacing the motherboard with a newer 8RDA3+PRO, I still can't get it to boot. I would get error E8, which is not mentioned anywhere by any EPoX info. In trying to narrow it down, I put in a spare AMD 1800+XP chip I had and that changed what happened.

It'd boot, but stop at post code 1D. Again, not much info on that code, and it info that is there is all over the place, some had it be a power supply problem, some memory, some this or that... none of it helped. I happened to order 2 of these boards, both do the exact same things, so I doubt its the board, unless I am VERY UBER unlucky.

Now when I first built the machine, I had to use a stick of PC2100 RAM to get it to boot so I could adjust the FSB memory timings so it would be able to see the corsair XPS 2700 (I think it is) memory.

But I figure that they'd have fixed that by now with the 8RDA3+PRO... alas I can't find that old stick of memory to find out. If I remove the memory completely, I get post code F2, and long slow beeps. Which, in a way, is good. But I can't test my theory out since I can't find that old stick of memory.

I tried a new power supply (Antec 550W TruePower 2.0), and no difference tonight.

Tried no video card, PCI video card (what it originally had, a FX5200), and a AGP GeForce 4600 or something. No difference. Hard drive/floppy/DVD Rom plugged in, or not plugged in, no difference. Tried with mouse/keyboard/video cable plugged in, not plugged in, no difference.

So, what do I do now.

I'm tempted to just scrap the memory and the cpu and buy new, but WHAT will work DIRECTLY with the 8RDA3+PRO without having to jimmy it like I did with the 8RDA+ a few years ago? I assume the HD/DVD/Video are still going to be ok, since they make

Thanks in advance,

Eric

 

[WT]

Obvious question, but have you checked the capacitors on the board ?? Epox boards, especially the 8RDA boards, are known to have bad caps that can cause oddball error codes and the specific bootup lockups that you describe. See if any of them are bulging or leaking a brownish goo (for lack of a better word). I RMA'd my board about 4 months ago which had only one bad cap, but even just one caused lockups in Windows.

 

[EricW]

Heh. yes, that's what killed the first one problably, and I bought 2 new ones, and the caps are fine on them so far.

But do you know what speed/types of chips/memory would go best with a 8RDA3+ PRO?

 

[EricW]

Well, I went out and bought a 512mb 2700 stick of ram, popped it in, and it booted further, up to 7F.... can't get a video feed with either the cheapy FX5200 or an old GeForce 4600 AGP.

Any ideas?

 

[WT]

I'm using Geil 512 DDR3200 in my board, but I can't at this point even remotely blame the RAM. You've tried different CPUs, vid cards, RAM, PSU .. damn near everything thats going to fail in the board !! Have you tried resetting the CMOS to clear out a possible bad setting ? I've also heard of Epox boards getting flakey BIOS chips, with this link adding more complaints:

PCStats forum

 

[fire400]

epox sucks

 

[EricW]

Ok, it turned out at the 7F code that it was the monitor just not wanting to "wake" up, once I tried a different monitor I could see what was going on. Turning off and back on that first monitor "fixed" it. It had been waiting for me to press F1, but I couldn't see that heh.

So it finally works...

I do remember when I built this machine in the first place, I had to fiddle with the BIOS to get it recognize the fancy corsair XMS memory I bought back then. Apparently, nothing changed since then, as these boards didn't like them either.

So final score:

New motherboard
New (Sorta) CPU
New Memory (because I'm tired of fiddling with the corsair XMS)
New PSU (the old one seems to work, but I am not taking any chances at this point).