EP-8kda3j Voltage (Agian), Reboots and whining sound

[Sander]

Hello there everybody. New here on this forum and just wanted share some of my problem with my epox 8kda3j board.

1) Like most of us I have those annoying voltageproblems. I have the 7/16 bios and the voltage at boot is usualy 1.37 volt. I can fix this by clearing the CMOS or loading optimized defaults. After a while the problem usualy returns but I discovered that this happens only if there's been a change in hardware. For example swapping a PCI-card or enabling/disabling network or USB.

2) Sometimes just working in windows suddonly a whining noise. Just for a second or so. It seems to be coming from the powerregulators on the board. Anyone with the same problem?

3) The third and last problem. When my system boots in windows it often reboots or gives a bluescreen. This happen always between the WindowsXP logo (Blue slider) and the logonscreen. If I reach the desktop. The system runs perfectly stable. I can play DOOM3 for hours an hours without any stability issues. I noticed that the IRQ addressing during post isn't always the same. I really think that there a conflict someware but I haven't discovered it yet.

I have emailed the problem also to EPOX but no response so far. Hope anybody has an answer for these problems.

My systemspecs;

AMD Athlon 3000+
Epox EP-8kda3j mainboard
Asus Ati radeon 9800XT
Creative Audigy 2
1 Gig Kingston Valueram (2 modules 512 double sided)
Onboard LAN enabled
Onboard Sound disabled

[Oldjim]

See the post by Alexsha a bit further down this page. The solution seems to fix most peoples problems.
Quote
"Flash to 07/14 BIOS and then turn off, unplug the PSU, wait 20 sec and the plug PSU back in. Do not clear CMOS.
This should do it, at least this helped many other users with same problem"

[graz]

Just got my 8kda3+ and you can add my name to the list that gets the whining sound. Not a real nuisance, but still its there.

No undervoltage problems on my setup yet, so thank god for that.

cpuz reports my bios as 05/05/2004, any reason why I should upgrade it?

G.

[Sander]

I went further with the Idea that there's some kind of conflict between devices.. I couldn't be more right. I inserted my Audigy2 into PCI slot 3 because I wanted to see what would happen. After clearing the CMOS the machine didn't boot at all. The monitor stayed blank and the system kept rebooting in POST. Just terrible to see the system act like that.
The next step was removing the audigy and let the system run on onboard sound. Found no problems here. Then I decided to test the 5-14 bios. I inserted the Audigy back into PCI slot 3 and cleared the CMOS. The system had no trouble at all. Just booted into windows with all the onboard devices on and no problem what so ever. After this I placed the Audigy in slot6 Because this has an IRQ that is not shared with onboard devices. And agian no problems.

What I noticed is that this BIOS version has a option to disable Cool 'n Quiet. When you disable this the voltage problem keeps away. Sound like music to me.

I guess those guys at Epox are having quitte a bit of trouble making a stable BIOS for this board. For the meantime I keep testing the 5-14 BIOS. I any news arrises I'll let you know.

EDIT // PCI Slot 3 shares the Interrupt with the onboard devices so that's why I needed to use this slot. My mistake..

[Reejoc]

where'd my posat go ?

[Daniel ~]

Deleted. Please read our forum rules.

[Reejoc]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

Deleted. Please read our forum rules.

I see.

Meet me at twelve O'Clock noon by the statue. Weapon of your choice: rapier or pistol. To the death - may the best man win.

[Daniel ~]

Rest assured, he already has.":O}

[jnansley]

Yes, ahem, I was meaning to make a little snide remark about Creative cards and PCI buses in general, but I figured I'd made it too many times I see you discovered yourself

[Reejoc]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

Rest assured, he already has.":O}

Where the hell were you?

I waited for 45 minutes by the statue then the police arrested me for carrying a illegal firearm in public.

[Daniel ~]

Well I assumed you would recognize defeat when it was handed to you.":O}

[Daniel ~]

Originally Posted by jnansley

Yes, ahem, I was meaning to make a little snide remark about Creative cards and PIC buses in general, but I figured I'd made it too many times I see you discovered yourself

Was I lost?

Look guys it really is simple stuff. Seek only solutions, contain and restrain your natural frustration and accept the limitations of the EPoX topic and we've got no problem.

OR...
Post in the AMD or Intel CPU and motherboard topics, where the restrictions placed upon the EPoX topic aren't in effect.

We'd want to keep our EPoX representation, many find it useful. I act to preserve it, no more than that.

[Razorfish]

OH...scary ive heard of pistols at dawn but pistol over the net... i warn any man messing wit Dan on HIS ground.

[g3no]

I was troubled by the whining sound as well, but found that i only get it when im overclocked. at stock speeds, with my 8kda3j and 3000+ its not there, but if i jump up to say 2.5ghz i get a loud and annoying chirp from the power regulators on the mobo. The only thing i can figure out is it goes away if the CPU is under full load, but is always there if the cpu is idle or under partial load. for now ive reset speeds to stock and am looking for a solution (the sound isent that awful i just get annoyed by things like that)

[Sander]

Ik did some research again about the problem I had with the bios 7/16 (See beginning of this tread). Here's what I discovered. If you flash your bios using the ALT-F2 method a section of the bios will not be overwritten which I believe is the bootblock. Usually motherboardmakers don't alter the bootblock often so It doesn't have to be replaced. Also for security reasons the bootblock remains the same throughout multiple bios versions.
I couldn't believe that epox would release a non functional bios for my board (V1.0). So I used the AWDFLASH util and used the commandline switches to make sure that the bios is completely overwritten and all the CMOS, DMI and PNP data is reset.
After all this the board runs very stable with the latest official bios and no voltage problem anymore. Here the commandline for the AWDFLASH util I used (Use at you own risk!!);

AWDFLASH [Filename].bin /PY /WB /CC /CD /CP

Hope it helps you guys just like it helped me.. By the way, Still no response from EPOX. Keep you updated.

[Daniel ~]

Thank you Sander, very useful information indeed!

[aldamon]

Originally Posted by Sander

Ik did some research again about the problem I had with the bios 7/16 (See beginning of this tread). Here's what I discovered. If you flash your bios using the ALT-F2 method a section of the bios will not be overwritten which I believe is the bootblock. Usually motherboardmakers don't alter the bootblock often so It doesn't have to be replaced. Also for security reasons the bootblock remains the same throughout multiple bios versions.
I couldn't believe that epox would release a non functional bios for my board (V1.0). So I used the AWDFLASH util and used the commandline switches to make sure that the bios is completely overwritten and all the CMOS, DMI and PNP data is reset.
After all this the board runs very stable with the latest official bios and no voltage problem anymore. Here the commandline for the AWDFLASH util I used (Use at you own risk!!);

AWDFLASH [Filename].bin /PY /WB /CC /CD /CP

Hope it helps you guys just like it helped me.. By the way, Still no response from EPOX. Keep you updated.

Thanks Sander. I'll have to give this method a try this weekend.

[aldamon]

You're my hero Sander! Your switches worked beautifully. No more VCORE problems

If anyone's interested, I've uploaded a modified BIOS package for the 9/15 BIOS. I've included a version of the 9/15 BIOS with 1.8V VCORE (Thanks Mr Dead!). I've also modified UPDATE.BAT to include Sander's command line switches and the correct file name. Simply copy all of the files to a bootable floppy or CD and type UPDATE like normal:

http://www.damontech.net/mod34915.zip

[BAcon]

does this stop the vcore going to stupid highs under load also?

[aldamon]

Under load, the VCORE hits whatever you set it to. It actually undervolts by less than 0.1V when not under load. So make sure what's set in the BIOS is the maximum VCORE you want to use.