I'm back! (upgrade failed)

[Guest Max Cowgill]

Well, after many many hours of trying to get my new motherboard to work (Epox 8rda+ Nforce2) I was unsuccessful :( I installed my new mobo and reinstalled all my hardware, but when I turned the system on there was no video signal and the comp started beeping at me. At first I thought the new RAM I got (2x512MB PC3500 Kingston HyperX) didn't work so I switched back to my generic PC2700 RAM and still no video signal. So I removed and reinstalled my video card several times, and that didn't do anything. I went so far as to take the GPU cooler off my video card and remove the silver compound I had applied, and reapplied it but that did nothing. I changed the cooler on my GPU and that did nothing. I cleaned the contacts of the AGP card and the slot, and that did nothing. I removed my CPU, took the heatsink off, cleaned off the silver compound, reapplied, reinstalled, and that did nothing. I played around with power cables and IDE cables and still no luck. I finally gave up and switched back to my old MSI KT3 Ultra 2 mobo and whaddya know! Everything works just fine! I'm still installing apps and configuring my system, but it's definitely working better than it was before, as I no longer get random memory errors and I'm able to overclock farther than I was before. I've been running Prime95 torture test for the last 7-8 hrs with zero errors, and I'll be running memtest at some point. Now I just need to reinstall FS2k2 and all my add-ons (that oughtta take awhile...)I'll update my adventures in overclocking as soon as I find out what the wall is ;) Oh, and let me just say: it sure is nice having a Gig of PC3500 RAM!!! I just wish it was running in dual-channel mode @ 200MHz or higher on that 8rda+ though :(-Max Cowgill

[Guest Paul_W]

Isn't there a failure rate associated with new main boards? It's been my understanding that a certain percentage are duds from the outset, and I once experienced that myself when I installed a new Mustang board in an old Cyrix system; after hours of work I discovered the thing was useless, and the vendor confirmed it had random errors after it was returned. In fact this is one of the main reasons I'd prefer to buy a board that's been pre-tested. When I built my current system I ordered the board, CPU and RAM from TCComputers.com; they assembled those three components and did a burn-in test over 48 hours I believe.I'd be interested to hear from some of the experts on how reliable new main boards are these days.

[Guest Max Cowgill]

This wasn't a new board, I purchased it used online. I probably just got scammed is all...

[Guest RonB49]

> . . . and the comp started beeping at me.Did you count the number of beeps? The mobo may be telling you its problem. There was an article in Maximum PC magazine a month or so ago about decoding the beeps for verious motherboards. I don't know whether their articles are archived online or not, but you might want to check. Or post here and I'll look in my mag. R-

[Guest outtatimeiii]

I had this problem when I installed my Radeon 7200 in this comp. I first thought it was a dud (A friend pulled it out of his comp and sold it to me). But counting the beeps, it was 5, which was a video error. Checked the connections to the video card, and sure eunough, the card wasnt seated properly. I put it in right, and it worked like a charm. Your prob may be that something is not seated in the slot right, which was the prob in my case.

[Guest cw1011]

I would call the customer support number or do a search - the beep codes are telling you what is wrong. The fact that they are working probably means the board is working. That said, I think my next computer will be a refurbished Dell. My current box is a refurbished 1.4 upgraded to a 1.9. It has worked like a champ for 2.5 years. Not bad in computer land. And Dell has some outstanding deals on high end machines, including free shipping. Food for thought. best,Colikn

[Guest Max Cowgill]

>> . . . and the comp started beeping at me.>>Did you count the number of beeps? The mobo may be telling>you its problem. There was an article in Maximum PC magazine>a month or so ago about decoding the beeps for verious>motherboards. I don't know whether their articles are>archived online or not, but you might want to check. Or post>here and I'll look in my mag. R-no way to count, it never stopped! it was just one long string of beeps. The nice thing about that particular board is that it has an LED display which tells you what it's doing at the moment and gives you any error codes. The one I seemed to be getting was "1d" or at least, that's what it looked like to me... I looked this error up in the manual and it just said "reserved". I also tried looking it up on Epox's website but their site was down/I couldn't find it.Oh well, at least I'm running again now (but I seem to be encountering that same old problem again w/BSODs when pushing the FSB too high, guess I need to unlock my CPU)-Max Cowgill

[Guest Max Cowgill]

>I had this problem when I installed my Radeon 7200 in this>comp. I first thought it was a dud (A friend pulled it out of>his comp and sold it to me). But counting the beeps, it was 5,>which was a video error. Checked the connections to the video>card, and sure eunough, the card wasnt seated properly. I put>it in right, and it worked like a charm. >>Your prob may be that something is not seated in the slot>right, which was the prob in my case.As stated in my original post, I reseated the card several times. I even went so far as to change GPU coolers and reapply thermal compound. I might try again with a different board but I dunno if I wanna go through all that again...-Max Cowgill

[Guest Max Cowgill]

>I would call the customer support number or do a search - the>beep codes are telling you what is wrong. The fact that they>are working probably means the board is working. I wish I could. Epox doesn't have a tech support number (not for the U.S. anyway) and their website was no help whatsoever... I'm gonna try some of the various forums for this board and see if anyone can help.-Max Cowgill