8RDA+ GF4 problems??

[Caper]

As some of you might have seen I smoked my GF4 when installing it in my brand new 8RDA+.
Now, that can happend.
I have built rigs for several years now and this is the first time it happend to me.

Soldier2000 reported the same thing a couple of day´s ago, smoked GF4.
ramirez reported the same thing later, smoked GF4.
Stanley Jobson smoked his GF4.


This can of course be a coincidence but it made me wounder.

Today when browsing a Swedish hardware forum, (sweclockers) I saw a thread that catched my eyes.
One guy had problems to boot up with his 8RDA+ anf GF4, installed a PCI gfx and it booted up.
I asked him to try the GF4 in another board.
Lets see if his card are still alive, I really really hope so.

I hope that my feeling about this is wrong...but 8RDA+ seems to have a problem with some GF4´s.
I will not go so far that I say they kill GF4 gfx but something seems to be wrong.

EPoX, please take a look at this.

Edit: Due to more reported dead GF4.

The list of smoked on 8RDA+is now:
Stanley Jobson
Soldier2000
Caper
ramirez
eliteone
Corn
kuzma
Marvin
rocky500 reported 2 smoked GF4 on 8RDA+ (that had to hurt)
xgman
bradmax57(built 2 rigs based on 8RDA+/GF4. One rig fine, the other...GF4 smoked)
coolman888
RacerX1
youthemandan reported 2 smoked GF4 on 8RDA+(ousch..)


Count: 16
Note: This list is only based on AOA users.
It would be interesting to know how many users at AOA have 8RDA+.
All those who had problems, please report it to your EPoX support!

[Daniel ~]

Given the popularity of the GF4's and the prior testing of this board with the GF4's it seems highly unlikely this is more than coincidence. If it were more then we would be seeing hundreds if not thousands of complaints, not 3 or 4.IMHO

[EluSiOn]

well... someone fried his XP 2700+ too...

It is good to keep track these number... how many successful vs failure reports.

[Daniel ~]

Given that the level of competence varies so much I feel it will tell us little. If it was killing CPU it would be doing so in the hundreds and thousands not in isolated and lets face it UNKNOWN circumstances.

WE are for the most part armatures and hobbyists, sprinkled lightly with true professionals. That's not a put down, it just means that few of us follow any sort of exact procedures in building boxes or that those procedures are correct enough to determine cause in every case.

I think it safe to say this board is not killing CPus or GF4's, some have died, the VAST majority have not. IMHO

[EluSiOn]

I know it didn't kill my cpu and my video card... infact, my 8RDA+ was running a SiS AGP card at first... then I installed my GF4 Ti4200. So when I heard this 8RDA+ frying GF4 stories which makes me thinks, huh? No way....

so far only 3 fried... and many didn't

[Caper]

A friend of mine that tough me about computers in -91 will be building a new rig based on 8RDA+/GF4.
I recommended him to boot up with a PCI gfx, flash to newer Bios before he throw in his GF4.
Just to be extra careful.

It would be interesting to NOT do that though
I guess time will tell on this one, 8RDA+ came to Sweden just a couple of day´s ago.

[justshawnf]

I didn't have any problems with my GF4 4200 when I installed my 8rda+.

[tweaky]

Well this board must be the ultimate killing machine, no literally :nervous:

Maybe a coincidence I don't know but my IBM hard disk developed bad sectors and is now making strange sounds that can only mean one thing and one thing only, the hard disk is dying:nervous:

[Caper]

You can´t hold that against EPoX.
Stopped using IBM drives since I built 10-15 rigs with GXP75.
75% of them came back to me within 6 months with broken drives.

Many of the received exchange drives died shortly after that again.

[tweaky]

Yeah I think i'm going with some other brand, maybe the Seagate Barracuda IV, what dya think?

[Caper]

I am currently using Maxtor D740X wich works ok.
Since I started using them I only had one broken.

Fast drives are great but It is good to know they don´t crap out on you...that is why I currently use D740X.

About WD´s and Seagates newest drives I can´t tell, check out the forums if they have many RMA´s.

Good luck!

[Stanley Jobson]

I had the same experience! Leadtek A250TD with first release BIOS - the Leadtek is on RMA now! I stay focused!

[Caper]

Now that was interesting.
Keep focused!

And please, keep the thread clean from speculations.

[Crimsonx]

Well I don't think I've smoked my GeForce4..yet. I'm running an Albatron GF4ti4600 and I've been having problems with misc. crashes in games. I can't even run 3dmark2001se...it crashes out in the first clip of the benchmark. I'm not sure where to go from here.

[EluSiOn]

Crimsonx,

I have similiar problem, I couldnt run Sandra Multimedia Benchmark but I can run 3dmark 2001

Problem #4: Asus GF Ti 4200 AGP 8x only score 7200 pts for 3dmarks 2001.

Solution #4: Although it didn't show in the Window Device manager, I do have a conflict. My GF4 card, onboard IDE1 controller and also my SBLive 5.1 card all were using IRQ 10. I disabled onboard IDE1 controller since I am using the ATA 100 card and also I switch to onboard sound and I have to say bye bye to my LIVE Drive for the time being. Make sure you dun use PCI slot 1 or PCI slot 2.

[SPQQKY]

Funny how when a new board comes out and there are people feverishly swapping out their gear, something goes wrong and they blame the board. Always use extreme caution when handling your hardware. This reminds me of when the EP-8KHA+ came out and there were people going nuts blaming the board for problems and everyone said it was a garbage product, when I handled probably a half a dozen of them and never had one iota of an incident. When Billy Bobs Burger Hut serves a burger with a roach in it, nobody knows about it, but if it happens to McDonalds, the whole world knows. That's because there are "billions served" and unfortunately, not all the customers have their wits about them. I am not attacking anyone here, but I think you understand my point, if you sell a lot of product, there are bound to be those who have problems, whether it is the end user or the products creator, you will hear more complaints.

[Caper]

Now I wrote earlier, please keep the thread clean from speculations.
I am not blaming EPoX here but I have never ever smoked a gfx by putting it in another motherboard.
And I have built lots of rigs last years not to mention how many time I rebuilt my own.
I do know about ESD also.
This happend other users as well.
It might be something for EPoX to know about.

End of speculations from me.

[EluSiOn]

now... 4th GF4 card has been reported fried....

see the first post for the lsit

[dr5op3rdud3]

...another one bits the dust...

[SPQQKY]

Okay, so 4 or 5 gfx card reported dead after handling hardware, who knows how they were handled? Let's see, 4 or 5 out of probably thousands of boards that have been sold in the last few weeks.....I rest my case.
Also, I made no speculation, only a quite reasonable possibility. Like I said, when you have a whole lotta product being distributed, there are going to be issues and some of the problem could be with the end user and some with the manfacturer. We all know that Mercedes may make a great automobile, but I have never heard of them always being perfect off the line, nor is it never possible to crash one into a wall.