Am I Killing my MoBo?

[tlemaste]

Since I have upgraded my system (replaced my Athlon 1.4 with the XP2600+) I have been very satisfied with the performance, but....

Three times since May 12th (when I installed the new cpu) I have gotten the BSOD with the
***Hardware Malfunction, etc.

No other indications. These have all occurred durring the night when the system was running un-attended - nothing intensive. Evenings were cool with the cpu temp in the 39-42c range, not folding (at the time), just downloading some binaries (for evaluation purposes only, ). I have NOT checked yet to see if the caps were bulging on the mb. I guess I'm afraid of what I might see. Does anyone know if the XP2600+ draws too much power for the 8KHA+ board? The cpu is officially supported, but....???

Would it be worth my time to assume the hardware is still stable and it's a firmware/driver problem?

If the unthinkable happens, and I am forced to part company with this mb, what are some reccomendations for a mb that will let me continue to use most (if not all) of my current parts (see my sig)? If I have to get a new mb I'll be on an extremely limited budget!

Thanks,

[Gizmo]

Drop your multi to 15 and see if the system stability improves. If it does, the problem most likely is NOT the mobo.

[EPoX Tech]

I'd say that the 2600+ doesn't pull too much power from the EP-8KHA+, but does draw on a very high level of current - perhaps a little too much for an outmoded PWM.

[SteveI]

What PSU are you using? Just curious. I've noticed on a couple of my PSUs, they seem to lose a bit of their 'umph'. On one, I thought the CPU was losing it's overclock and gave up 200mhz to get it stable. Months later, I swapped out PSUs and noticed I got the performance back. The PSU is only 3 years old, and still works in a less demanding envirnment... but what's the fun in that?

If the caps on the mobo are fine, and everything else is fine, check your 5v rail. If it is low (<4.8v) or fluctuates a lot, it may be unable to handle the load.

[PaulPhoenix]

Hi everyone.. I actually registered just to be able to propose a solution to this problem. I have the same problem with my m/b. Everythings fine with my old Duron 800, but the new XP2000+ I bought yesterday causes the same error. If it does not appear during startup, it certainly occurs when I run the Memory Bandwidth benchmark in SiSoft Sandra. (BTW, the system passes all the CPU-related benchmarks without a hitch, provided that the system can survive until the login is complete in WinXP.)

Things I tried:

1. Default Fail-Safe settings
2. Default Optimized Settings
3. Single stick of DDR Ram
4. Barebones system
5. Looking for updated drivers
6. (BIOS is already updated to latest version)

When I checked EPOX US, I found the following:
KB article

The article does not cover 8KHA+ but I think it's worth a try. I'll try it tonight and post the results. If anyone gets to try it before I do, please send the results as well.

[jnansley]

Disabling SSE? Ugh. If you are interested in the performance of your SSE-enabled applications (think DirectX), and this "fix" does indeed work, I'd consider a newer board anyhow.

Curious though, I wonder why this is a KB article for the 8K5A*, but not the 8K3A*? (Same NB, different SB).

[PaulPhoenix]

I don't like it either But if disabling SSED "solves" the problem, I will know where the problem is. Then I might go for a new board rather than for a CPU replacement (which won't solve anything if EPOX 8KHA+ is the cause.)

PS: I have searched many forums for this problem and I have seen a few 8KHA+ problems and lots of 8K5A* problems but no 8K3A*..

[PaulPhoenix]

I've listed the things I've tried in another thread. But the short version is: No luck!

System Halted 8KHA+ and AMD 2400+