- Jun 14, 2003
- 7
- 0
- 18,510
Hi. I'm new here.
I just bought the Epox 8RDA3+ that I saw reviewed here at the site (nForce2 roundup I think). I have a problem that absolutely NO ONE has an answer for, and I would really like to correct the problem so I do not have to send the board back.
I replaced a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP2.0 and XP2000+ cpu with the Epox 8RDA3+ and a Barton 2500+ cpu.
Everything is fine except that my graphics card is now almost melting it is so hot. It locks up the machine within minutes, sometimes as long as an hour, but the instant I try to run any 3D app, like a game, it 'screams' and locks up hard.
The vid card is a Leadtek A250 GF4 Ti4400 128MB (seen here: http://www.leadtek.com.tw/3d_graphic/image/winfast_a280_td_2.jpg )
Plugging it back into the Gigabyte board, it will run ANY and ALL games, benchmarks, everything, without ever getting too hot to touch. Even after hours and hours of playing UT2003 with details all set to maximum, its still barely warm to the touch. And only one case fan blowing on it.
In the Epox board, it requires the side case fan plus two strategically placed 80mm fans almost right on top of it to stay cool long enough for me to write this!
I've checked all voltages, all read normal (1.5 for agp, etc). I've checked and rechecked. I've reinserted the card into the board 90 ways to sunday to make sure its locked in correctly. There is only one other PCI card in the whole system, a SB Audigy.
The power supply is adequate as its the exact same setup, same hard drives, cdroms, etc, as the Gigabyte setup. Except there are 2 less case fans and 1 less CDROM to run in the Epox setup. Well, until i had to place the two 80mm fans next to the vid card to keep it from catching on fire lol.
Even now, I nearly burned a finger just touching the outer edge of the vid card. Strange thing is...when I plug my old Leadtek GeForce2 GTS into it, the EXACT same thing happens, except that it shuts down a lot quicker, as my GTS doesn't have nearly the heat-sink monster and two fans that the new GF4 does.
Anyway, I know this is long, I apologize. I really wanted this board to be good, its my first nForce board of any kind. I've always stuck to the VIA boards as they are highly stable, and provide only minimal performance losses compared to the nForce benchmarks.
I am trying to get a good, educated answer to this before sending it back to newegg.com and paying the 15% restock. Yes, I am one of those that if I get burned by a mfg's product, I am not likely to buy it again, even on replacement, and I never suggest it to my customers.
Any help on this would be appreciated greatly. Or just tell me 'RMA the darn thing and be done with it'.
If I RMA it, I would also like to hear everyone here give me a nice suggestion on a board to replace it. Again, this is my first nForce board of any kind, and from what I have seen, I am not real fond of them (especially the driver installation...why does it install audio drivers, gfx drivers, drivers for stuff I don't have on the board or have turned on???? VIA never does that!).
All it needs is to have this:
Barton support
333Mhz support (duh lol)
SerialATA (SI3112 preferred)
USB2.0 (not that I have any 2.0 devices yet)
Mainly its that Silicon Image 3112 I want, as I have a nice 80GB Maxtor SATA 8MB cache drive that was supposed to go into the Epox, but I am not bothering to even try it until I get the thing replaced/fixed.
Again, appreciate you all taking time to read this, and hopefully give me some fixes, or at least some advice on what to replace it with.
Travis H.
travish@angrygames.com
Help! I don't speak Russian!!!
I just bought the Epox 8RDA3+ that I saw reviewed here at the site (nForce2 roundup I think). I have a problem that absolutely NO ONE has an answer for, and I would really like to correct the problem so I do not have to send the board back.
I replaced a Gigabyte GA-7VRXP2.0 and XP2000+ cpu with the Epox 8RDA3+ and a Barton 2500+ cpu.
Everything is fine except that my graphics card is now almost melting it is so hot. It locks up the machine within minutes, sometimes as long as an hour, but the instant I try to run any 3D app, like a game, it 'screams' and locks up hard.
The vid card is a Leadtek A250 GF4 Ti4400 128MB (seen here: http://www.leadtek.com.tw/3d_graphic/image/winfast_a280_td_2.jpg )
Plugging it back into the Gigabyte board, it will run ANY and ALL games, benchmarks, everything, without ever getting too hot to touch. Even after hours and hours of playing UT2003 with details all set to maximum, its still barely warm to the touch. And only one case fan blowing on it.
In the Epox board, it requires the side case fan plus two strategically placed 80mm fans almost right on top of it to stay cool long enough for me to write this!
I've checked all voltages, all read normal (1.5 for agp, etc). I've checked and rechecked. I've reinserted the card into the board 90 ways to sunday to make sure its locked in correctly. There is only one other PCI card in the whole system, a SB Audigy.
The power supply is adequate as its the exact same setup, same hard drives, cdroms, etc, as the Gigabyte setup. Except there are 2 less case fans and 1 less CDROM to run in the Epox setup. Well, until i had to place the two 80mm fans next to the vid card to keep it from catching on fire lol.
Even now, I nearly burned a finger just touching the outer edge of the vid card. Strange thing is...when I plug my old Leadtek GeForce2 GTS into it, the EXACT same thing happens, except that it shuts down a lot quicker, as my GTS doesn't have nearly the heat-sink monster and two fans that the new GF4 does.
Anyway, I know this is long, I apologize. I really wanted this board to be good, its my first nForce board of any kind. I've always stuck to the VIA boards as they are highly stable, and provide only minimal performance losses compared to the nForce benchmarks.
I am trying to get a good, educated answer to this before sending it back to newegg.com and paying the 15% restock. Yes, I am one of those that if I get burned by a mfg's product, I am not likely to buy it again, even on replacement, and I never suggest it to my customers.
Any help on this would be appreciated greatly. Or just tell me 'RMA the darn thing and be done with it'.
If I RMA it, I would also like to hear everyone here give me a nice suggestion on a board to replace it. Again, this is my first nForce board of any kind, and from what I have seen, I am not real fond of them (especially the driver installation...why does it install audio drivers, gfx drivers, drivers for stuff I don't have on the board or have turned on???? VIA never does that!).
All it needs is to have this:
Barton support
333Mhz support (duh lol)
SerialATA (SI3112 preferred)
USB2.0 (not that I have any 2.0 devices yet)
Mainly its that Silicon Image 3112 I want, as I have a nice 80GB Maxtor SATA 8MB cache drive that was supposed to go into the Epox, but I am not bothering to even try it until I get the thing replaced/fixed.
Again, appreciate you all taking time to read this, and hopefully give me some fixes, or at least some advice on what to replace it with.
Travis H.
travish@angrygames.com
Help! I don't speak Russian!!!
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