A few Epox 8K7A questions

[Malleus]

I'm looking at getting the Epox 8K7A to replace my Pentium III system and had a few questions. I ran an extensive search, but couldn't find stuff that totally explained some of these problems.

1.) Please talk about the details with the 5V rail problems. I'm reading about bugs withing the board. Is this something that causes problems in the long run? I'll be getting an Athlon XP more than likely... is it true that this alleviates the 5V problem?

2.) I'll be running Windows 2000 SP 2 on my new system. Someone talk about the Aureal Vortex 2 problems (if any) that they have.

3.) If I'm buying a new case what kind of PSU should I be looking at?

I might have more questions later.

[Tryade]

Well, I can only tell of my own experiences, I've had no problems what so ever with the 5V rail, it's always been steady at 4,9V approx, no lockups or crashes so far.

I'm running mine with an Enermax 350W PSU, and it's working great.

[NWEng]

The problem with the 5v rail on the 8k7a is that the mobo takes it's power from the 5v. Power from a PSU being a finite resource, means that if you're giving to the mobo, you're also taking away from something else. To get around this problem, some people have bought PSUs that allowed you to bump up the 5v in the PSU via a potentiometer. Since the Enermax does not have one of these adjustment pots, it leaves little recourse if you're overclocking and allocating more power for vcore and the dimms. I would recommend either the Sparkle or Antec 400w PSU for the 8k7a for these reasons.

Also, unless you're looking at an aluminium case, I personally recommend the Antec cases. I like the fact they're modular; it makes them easy to install/deinstall. The only thing they don't have is a removable mobo tray. www.emscomputing.com has Antec cases w/o PSUs if you'd like to put something other than an Antec PSU, and their prices are fairly reasonable as well. (My $.02 on cases.)

[Malleus]

What about Enlight PSU's? I was thinking of getting the 340 W one with the case.

[Malleus]

*BUMP* Anyone?

[WinXP]

I have the 8K7A+ running Win 2000 sp2 with the Aureal Vortex2 with a Antec 400watt power supply. The system runs flawless. With the Antec my +5v rail never drops below 4.88v under load. I am running a 1.4@1700@2.1v at 10x170fsb. In Win 2000 it will recognize the Aureal Vortex2 an load drivers for it an it works fine.

[Malleus]

Is that an XP or Thunderbird processor Win XP?

[WinXP]

T-bird

[Malleus]

someone explain the problems with the voltage on the +5 rail. What kind of problems does it cause if it goes under/over too much ? Does it cause a stability problem?

[NWEng]

Anything outside of an accepted tolerances will (probably) cause instability issues, especially low voltage. Getting too high a voltage isn't that good either. I can't tell you what the limits are, unfortunately. You should be able to dip down to 4.80 and up to 5.20 without too much problem though.

[Malleus]

... and is this a problem that is caused by the board or is it something that is caused by having a cheap/underpowered supply?

[NWEng]

It can be one, both, or all. It just depends. Refer back to my original post to you for specific information on the 8k7a.

[E-Blitz]

Hi Malleus,

for more informations about +5V / 8K7A / Enermax prob look
for threads, same forum, "Mod on Enermax PSU / Mentaly" and
"Epox +5V issue - interesting discovery / Robo Tech".
Easy to find using "search".

Good luck

E-Blitz

[Gary99Z]

I'm using the Enlight 340watt supply with no problems what-so-ever. My 5-volt measurements are usually between 5.01 and 5.06. The lowest that I've seen is 4.99 volts. I don't overclock the system but I do have a fairly loaded system (hardware).