Epox 8KDA3+/J BIOS thread...

I ve tried bioses of 14.5 15.6 24.6 and 30.6

and imo the bios of the 14.5 is the best rockstable and no vcore bugs...
but i didint got any bugs with any bios!
about the vcore little thing when u set it to 1,7 it ll real good 1,8 V
so u ll enough reserves...
maybe i try the new bios but the board is rockstable....

my cpu doesnt like more than 2250 seems to me cause i could
set 275x8 HTx4 !!! = 2200MHZ HTransport!
but got :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana:ty memory

i got the kda3+ and got probs with the nvidia ide drivers (cant boot win if i instll it)
my amd stepping is ADA3200AEP5AP = clawhammer 1024kbL2 C0
and CAAMC 0344SPMW
i ordered a newcastle core... 3000 maybe i can put it higher
i cooled with air zalman cnps7000aCU i set the vcore to 1,7 (1,8real) got bout 55C idle :P so i tried if the cpu is stable...
but prime get s an error until 1 min... temp was 65C...LOL

so i aborted it.....

hope it helped u little bit...

seEn andL

lol.. ok 2 people say the 5-14 is the best beta out there.. So anyone wana post the dang thing?

i got my epox baord yesterday ...this thread is so confusing, one says a bios is good and the other says it sux.

so which one is the best so far?

I hav'nt experianced anything different in any of them.. No speed increase nor stablility was gained that i now of.. I'm now on the 5-14 offical bios.

Uhm, taken from the .txt file in the newest official bios:

Quote:

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5.Support 8KDA3+ 2.0.

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WTF, is there a 2.0 already?

I hope so, mine isn't performing as well as it should do or as I've read seen here.

Can't get it over 225 HTT without all kind of random errors and bsod's :( while my K8N pro has no problems with 240 at the same voltage. Tried a few biosses but that didn't matter.

Vcore looked stable with the last official version with me

Quote:

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Originally posted by YoupY
I hope so, mine isn't performing as well as it should do or as I've read seen here.

Can't get it over 225 HTT without all kind of random errors and bsod's :( while my K8N pro has no problems with 240 at the same voltage. Tried a few biosses but that didn't matter.

Vcore looked stable with the last official version with me

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Same here, anything over 225 htt I get a blue screen and some error on nv_mini.sys thing. Pretty pissed off cause I've waited 2 weeks for this board.

Ok wait a sec.. The 5-14 bios must have the 300HTT bug.. cause now i cant get 300HTT stable as before.. At 299HTT everything is stable under prime 95.. At 300 it errors basicly in a min or 2.

Damn back to 7-9.

umm.. i guess i'm not stable at the 7-9 bios either at 300HTT.. Damn.. another night of testing.

@coldflare and youpy

have you guys set your agp to 67 to enable pci lock? it seems as though if you set your agp to 66 or auto, the pci won't lock when you overclock... that maybe why you can't get above 225 stable...

setting it to 67 locks the pci.

as for which bios is best...

IMHO, the 5/14 has enabled me to get over 300 HTT while the 5/5 bios locks up AT 300 HTT.

i'm sticking with the 5/14 for now

as is said in my own opinion i got very stable with the bios of the 14.5 so this is the "best"

BUT I DIDNT got any PROBLEMS nor bugs with any of these bioses i ve TESTED...

but i only tested with my "favorite" bios how high i could get...
but my cpu is limiting me on 2250 mhz

so i tested 245x9, HTx4
and i tested 275x8 HTx4 !!! so HT was at 2200 MHZ!!!

ok hope that makes things clearer to U !

seEn andL

Quote:

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Originally posted by shimmishim
@coldflare and youpy

have you guys set your agp to 67 to enable pci lock? it seems as though if you set your agp to 66 or auto, the pci won't lock when you overclock... that maybe why you can't get above 225 stable...

setting it to 67 locks the pci.

as for which bios is best...

IMHO, the 5/14 has enabled me to get over 300 HTT while the 5/5 bios locks up AT 300 HTT.

i'm sticking with the 5/14 for now

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I actually got the pci to lock when I took out one of my dimms. Wierd.. I'm using two sticks of twinmos ch-5. And my vcore still changes by .1 randomly.

Is 2400mhz for a clawhammer at 1.7vs a good overclock?

Quote:

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Originally posted by ColdFlare
I actually got the pci to lock when I took out one of my dimms. Wierd.. I'm using two sticks of twinmos ch-5. And my vcore still changes by .1 randomly.

Is 2400mhz for a clawhammer at 1.7vs a good overclock?

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on air? not bad.

Quote:

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Originally posted by The Runner
on air? not bad.

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Thats with water. Max temps 42. I still think its sub par from what the rest of you guys are getting. I'm so jealous of your 2.8ghz newcastle clocks!!

No problem here for 295 x 8 with bios May 5 , max i get with this unmodded bord is 282 x 9 = 2538 mhz ( clawhammer 3200+ ) i think cpu is at the end

Started testing this board (8kda3j) with 3700+ yesterday with the shipping bios, and it is very stable and good!
SO far, I have gotten to 340.39x7 stable. The mobo will run super pi, sandra, and 3d01 at this speed.

I think 340 htt is the limit for the board, as I cannot even go 1 mhz faster without instant hardlocks after I set with clockgen.
Without vdimm mod, I had to use to 100 divider for the ram when I was at 340.39 htt lol. I modded the vdimm last night and now my vdimm is @ 3.05 :P and I'm running with one 1 gig mushkin 230x11 5-2-2-2 cmd1. Temps are about 43-45c in bios(air) which is pretty damn good considering im using amd hsf and it's running at around... 2530mhz i think. Before vdimm mod, The ram could not go over 215fsb @ 6-2-2-2 cmd 2. I think the max vdimm on the board I was geting then was 2.81.

Overall very happy with this mobo.

I have a A64 3200+ @ 2.584Ghz 1.7v with my 8KDA3+. My HT mulitplier is at 4 BTW and the HTT/mem clock is at 235Mhz 1:1, which seems to be the limit for most people even though my RAM is Geil PC4400 RAM, it could also be because I have 1GB of it though to (yes command rate is set to 2T BTW). Its quite a bit better than the K8N Neo I had which gave me nothing but trouble right out of the box so I'm pretty happy with it.

I'm using a Vapochill LS to cool it to those speeds though so I guess my overclock isn't so hot (does about -33C underload BTW, but ambient temps are well over 90F as I live in S. California and my air conditioning isn't working ATM so I guess those temps aren't bad).

BTW, how do you volt mod this motherboard? I think its the vCore that is holding me back as my cooling sure seems adequate.

There is a nice post in the hardware/motherboards/mods section here:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...threadid=36041

I have a Problem. I can´t flash my Epox 8KDA3+. Always i want to start awdflash than i become the error message that he diden´t find the .bin Bios.

Whatever I'm trying, I can't get my mem to work very well with any of the biosses :(

Whatever I do I can't get mem mem over 225 - 230 with 3.0V. My K8N pro did somewhere near 240 with the same voltage. Tried AGP to 67 and all the combinations of dimm slots, but no difference. Error messages don't seem to make sense too, looks like there just randomly generated. Maybe my mem controller has been punished too much, but can't test that yet, since I haven't another A64 over here.

Weird though there's a difference of 10 tot 15 mhz with both boards. Has anyone experienced simular problems??

Quote:

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Originally posted by Riverna
I have a Problem. I can´t flash my Epox 8KDA3+. Always i want to start awdflash than i become the error message that he diden´t find the .bin Bios.

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Have you tried the magic bios flash utility?

Man i hope you guys are making sure your getting the right vcore voltage on the following post after you save the changes.

My vcore will change all the time on a cold boot.. Sometimes just changing the memory timing will default the vcore back down to 2.5v..

I make it a point to hit the 'Pause Break' key on every post to double check that vcore.

That board is truly freakin on drugs when it comes to voltage setting. Sometimes you'll see vcore settings from 1.55v-1.85v and other times from 1.55v-1.7v. Set it at 1.7v in the bios and it could boot up next time under 1.6v.. maybe even 1.34v if it feels like it. On a very rare occation it will actually give you .05 more then you set it like setting it to 1.7v and you'll get lucky and get 1.75v..

Its crazy and as much as i've toyed with this board over the past week durring long nights, theres no patteren.

It seems though as long as you dont go into the bios you'll be fine with it staying put.. But heh wait a few hours or so and turn the computer on and its gona defualt either to 1.55 or worse 1.34v.

So for that reason i'm like forced to keep some stupid week overclock in the bios just to make sure it will post and let me get into the bios when that happens.

I've also noticed that when ya get a prob with it where it is just being stupid and wont even get close to the voltage you set it at and save in the bios, to just power off and power on again and check and see if its at the right voltage then.. If not do this step several times till she finally gives in and gives ya that voltage.

For these reasons i'm kinda afriad people are gona vcore mod this board and fry there CPU cause on that faithfull post after the mod ya might get that stupid 1.34v vcore and not notice and start upping that VR and on the next boot pop! heh Thats why i think i'll stay away from the vcore mod... I mean if i could figure out why the vcore is so stupid and adviod it then i'd go for it.

Hell its like one second i'm like damn high FSB! Then the next these voltage probs are making me think RMA TIME! Next board please.. It hurts bad cause i like the 250GB chipset that others dont have and the mult adjustments and the fact that you can mod this baby and have ultra high VDIMM.. If they could just stablize this thing it be a no brainer!

On a more possitive note i managed to get my 3400+ runing at i think 2480+ at 249FSB.. Well over 310HTT i believe.. Using a vdimm of 3.40v.. All that on an old ass stick of Corsair 3200PT 512MB w/timings of 2.5,3,7,3.. Sandra mem benches in the upper 3750+ range. I believe i've hit the max FSB this CPU wants to do since its a c0 revision.. I dont think its the ram since 249FSB is stable and 250 aint.. I've also dropped the mult to 7 (Which i didnt beleive you could do since they only show 8-11 for me in the bios) and same drop right away in prime95.

heh the stupid part after all that i didnt get an increase in 3dmark. :(

I'll have to find those screens.

what cpu do u use cg or c0 stepping

most (all) nforce3 250 (Gb) got the bug with false vcore reading (sry 4 my english m8) btw its only with cg stepping "newcastle" core (but not in bios)

so if it set the vcore lower than 1,5 u ve done something wrong or sonething the board didnt like
maybe u know the warnin messages... (@ cold boot)

so i ve setted it to 245x9 and when i setted it default 200x10 vcore to 1,55
it told me the warning message (LOL)
so i pressed the key to go along...

the vcore which u put in the bios is "real" i m sure...
i got when i set it to 1,7 (real 1,8)

so dont be nervous of going along if u know what u do!
so u can easily make the bios mod if u know what ur doing....

or maybe what 4 a power supply do u use?

seEn andL

heh i'm not using a newcastle.. I own a 3400+ C0 1MB cache Clawhammer.. I bought that like before it even came out to most retailers.. Its legit though.

I'm pretty sure the vcore the board shows on the bottom window on post is the actual vcore being used.. I know this cause if it does its thing and under volts to 1.34v which is rare on post i cant get into the bios.. i get a black screen after the post screen.

I'm using a Antec 550WATT True Control P/S with all the pots maxed and its never givin me a prob whats so ever on many other MB's.