OUCH! I burnt my hand! Funny 8RDA+ story

[JNav89GT]

Got my new Epox 8RDA+ mobo last night and finally got time tonight to mess with it. Bought a cheap ass IOFlex ATA133 Raid card at newegg for $29 and despite crap manual and cd driver it runs well. Installed WinXP w/SP1 at default speed using my newer Tbred 1800+ that would do 2ghz aircooled at 1.95v in my 8K9A. Well everything setup smooth, sound is GREAT btw. Decided to push fsb. Straight to 200fsbx10 at 1.95v(hell why go for lower :p) No post. changed cpu interface from aggressive to optimal and boom(insert Madden voice) it boots and gets 3150/something in sandra mem test. Then it locks, erm darn. Reboot thinking maybe it was a bug w/old sandra. Get to desktop and freeze, shoot darn board won't do 200mhz I don't think. Decide to feel NB to check temp. OUCHHHHHHHHHHHH! It was freaking HOT HOT HOT!!!!!! Seriously got a 1st degree burn on my finger. Friend is over he got burnt too lol. So back to the parts graveyard I dig out a silver orb that never got used(rolls eyes) take the fan out of it. Position it on nb and screw it on(slightly off center). Boot at 200, run some sandra, run some 3DMark(12k untweaked with default WinXP SP1 drivers w/PNY GF4 4400) NB is cool as a cucumber now.
Whoever states the NB is not hot either got a better board than me or didn't take off the crappy ass thermal pad under their NB heatsink and therefore isn't getting the heat off the biatch.

[muzz]

Amen bro. mine cooks as does galifirie's, good mobo, I'm hoping it has alot more to give though... I see you've been paying attention.....;)

[JNav89GT]

erm having problems getting into bios now
was ok till a failed attempt at 10.5x200 at 1.95v

Watercooling with maze3, temps are good

beta bios flashed prior to install

not sure what gives but if I hit delete to get to bios I am greeted with a black screen and blinking cursor. 3-4 reboots I am able to get into bios. Sometimes locks in bios as I am making changes. Have cleared bios, tried to reflash to the beta again, disconnected the power and cleared bios. Also, getting into the PC health section and attempting to allow shutdown at certain temps hard locks bios. ???????

Board is back running at 10x200 and apparently stable in prelim testing but not 100% sure until it passes battery of tests. But this bios bug is getting me mad as I hope the board isn't on it's way out

[BTank]

Yeah, but did you take the button battery out too? If you really scramble it the bios can remain corrupted until you remove the battery for 3 minutes. There is a difference between the jumper and the battery.

[sysfailur]

Yeah, these NF2 northbridges get hot... I dunno how large the stock heatsink is on the Epox board, but the Asus board is pretty big, mind you it's passive, but it's still pretty big... so I have that, AND I have an 80mm fan blowing over it and the mosfets that also have heatsinks on em, and I'm getting temps of like 40C on the northbridge! I am seriously thinking of pelting it and seeing if it'd perform better w/ that.

[Emericana]

pelting a NB wow i never thought i would see the day.

on my 8rda+ the NB heatsink only gets warm and it will run at 200FSB without a hitch. However, like stated, this could very well be because it is not getting good contact with the northbridge because of the thermal pad.

i can NOT do 204-211FSB even though my ram CAN handle it so i am thiinkin it very well could be the northbridge. i will try to put a 80mm over i once i get water cooling set up on this board.

[antipop]

Same thing happened to me today with my leadtek ti4400, i remove it to add some artic silver to the core and memory but i forgot to replug the fan. After 10min of ut2k3 the game crashed, i touch the card as it was the last thing i've removed and it was so hot, i nearly burnt my hand. Shut down the comp and replugged the fans (i couldn't touch the card as it was so hot!!!).

[Caper]

The NB on my 8RDA+ doesn´t feel hot at all, barely warm.
I have not mounted any fan on it yet.
Run 211 fsb 2.0-2-2-4 rock solid.
Let´s see if EPoX releases a Bios that enables higher fsb settings, might need to do it then :)

[Drozdov]

my NB is not warm and im at 200fsb...its pretty "cool"

[impulse]

I put a old abit Norhtbridge fan on my northbridge, the screws line up great if you squeeze the fins on it(a7n8x) ill snap a pic of it when i get it back monday. Oh and lol, i can jsut imagine you two dorks. You reach down and burn your finger "ouch that motherf`ers hot, Touch it!" friend: "ok" hehhe

[N8]

Drozdov,

Is ur NB cool or your NB HS cool? Only saying cuz some ppl thought their 8K3A's NB's ran cooler than they did till they replaced the TIM and found out the HS wasn't gettin too much of the NB's heat :)

[Drozdov]

Yes the nb HS is cool...i wouldnt run my rig without a HS on it.

[Justintoxicated]

Originally posted by N8
Drozdov,

Is ur NB cool or your NB HS cool? Only saying cuz some ppl thought their 8K3A's NB's ran cooler than they did till they replaced the TIM and found out the HS wasn't gettin too much of the NB's heat :)

Yea i found out my HS wasnet working when i came home one day and it was lying on top of my GF4 4600, So much for the stock 8k3a+ HS!

[sysfailur]

Originally posted by MickeyMouse
what you guys can't run 211mhz 24/7 stable :)?? just do what I did evercool 7025 and bolt it on
http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=5183117

works like a charm 4,2,2,2 timings also not bad for pc3500 corsair ram and not trying at all.

Not I :\ I could only do it if my room was very very cold... like -5C. So I'm pretty sure it's a heat issue on the NB.

Btw, pelting the northbridge--tis old business! Here's my 8k3a+ pelted up ;)

http://www.maximumoc.com/img/hardware/epox_block/6.jpg

[Caprid]

Got my 8RDA up and running. I got me one of the 'Hot' ones :(

It'll run 211 for about 10-15 minutes then crash. And if I insist on rebooting it, it takes out the OS. I put a temp probe on the north bridge and watched it rise. It starts doing funky things about 45c, it crashes at 53c and seems to level off at 57c.

I dug around and found an old socket 7 HSF. Lapped it flat with some 600 grit, drilled a couple of holes in it, and put some ASIII on the NB.


http://caprid.homestead.com/files/socket7nb.jpg


SOB is cool now :D 211FSB for the last 24 hours under full load.
23c

:cool: