In search for 8rda3i owners...

gofra · Jun 12, 2005

Hi!

I just wanted to make a list of ppl using those mobos. Its a completly new board (AFAIK, rev 3.) and cant seem to find anyone having it. I would like to exchange some info. So? Hands up!

thanks!

Hughhefner · Jun 22, 2005

I just ordered 6 of these in the 8RDA3I-pro version from newegg. I'll be installing 1 of these on friday.

Looks like a real winner to me.

gofra · Jun 22, 2005

Thanx for the reply...feel the same about it although I own a non pro version here. Good luck with it!

Cheers

bryan_d · Jun 22, 2005

Hello,

I have the 8rda3i rev3.1 here!

Question for you people though, how does one go about cooling the little mosfets? I know for the old large ones you just slapped on a heatsink on the mosfets but now they are so small that the heatsink probably wouldn't do anything I also read somewhere that the silver on the pcb around the mosfets were apparantly there to dissapate heat? Can anyone confirm this?

Tip to you guys, the NB cooler on our 8rda3i is pretty much useless and this is why:

Bryan D.

Hughhefner · Jun 22, 2005

I always take the GOOP off the northbridge heatsink, lap it a bit then stick it down with Arctic Silver adhesive and attach a 40mm fan to the top of the heatsink. It works MUCH better than stock.
To cool the mosfets or "Bobafets" as I call them, small ramsinks for video cards work well.

There is alot of info on mosfet cooling in the forums.

bryan_d · Jun 23, 2005

Hef,

Are you talking about lapping the NB or the HS? I will lap both but would like to know what you have done?

I know of putting heatsinks on the mosfets but was wondering if there was something else I could do for this board. I have read somewhere that the silver plating on top of the PCB near the "bobafets" act as heat dissapaters, is that correct? If that is the case then I will glue some non-conductive adhesive heatsinks to that area.

Can anyone verify?

Also, you can see that normal BGA ramsinks will not work because the mosfets are so small and capacitors are so tightly enclosed around them.

Bryan D.

gofra · Jun 23, 2005

Same here - I took both, NB and SB off. Then I put back the Zalman NB passive cooler (lapped of course) to the NB and the default NB cooler on the SB - with Zalman thermal adhesives. I cannot afford putting a fan on a NB now since Zalman CNPS 7000 CPU cooler left me no space - but I'll figure out an alternative way...

@BryanD -> how far dd you manage to push your board? Mine seemed quite ok on 220FSB, didnt wanted to go any further though (still in testing phase - gotta find out the maximums for each of the parts separately...)

good luck both...

bryan_d · Jun 25, 2005

I have been only hovering around 200 seeing as though my Gskill 1GBZX are not compatible with the nforce2 chipset because of too of CPC being on. I didn't want to proceed with a higher FSB because I couldn't get it to be stable in Memtest and Prime. I didn't want to go A-synch because I wanted better performance...

Also right now I am revising my WC so I am running my other nforce2 board.

I have the Zalmn NB cooler and I decided against it because the footprint was not big enought to cover the whole NB. Did you lap the NB or just the cooler? I found that the NB itself was concave. I will lap my NB and will probably see if there is a way around the whole CPC ON thing on this cheap little board and then I will see how far this board will go!

Bryan D.

gofra · Jun 26, 2005

No, I left my NB as it was Im affraid. You made me think now, mentioning its concave. I allready had problems living with the fact that it was far from smooth! Just curious: how the heck do you lap NB? You take it off or do it on board?! (please excuse my noobiness, but it seems quite a hard thing to do)

Thanx

bryan_d · Jun 27, 2005

This is the guide:
http://motherboardfaqs.com/epox/epox_mods_lapping.htm

Bryan D.

gofra · Jun 28, 2005

Thanx for the guide!

gofra · Jun 28, 2005

Maaaaaan is that chip bent! I bet ants could hide under it with the HS on!
Seriously, I laughed @ myself when I saw that the majority of the surface had no contact with the heatsink at all.
So here I am now, cursing the Nvidia coloured sign (lol) that allready made me change at least 20 papers...

Cheers!

bryan_d · Jul 2, 2005

Gofra,

Did you notice any increase in OC with the lapping of your NB?

Bryan D.

gofra · Jul 3, 2005

Hmm, couldnt say for sure Bryan, since I didnt push it that far. All I know for sure, is that NB feels a bit warmer now which would be a proof it really is transfering the heat. Its never hot though, just a bit on the warm side @ 1.8V.

Pitty, I didnt write all those numbers down before, so we could have a picture. I guess I just did cuz I wanted my rig to run cool.

If you decide to do it: patience! It took me a lot just to flatten the surface (I didnt go all the way to copper) so dont give up. But hey, its kinda neat seeing your heatsink sitting totaly flat on a newly lapped NB!

bryan_d · Jul 3, 2005

gofra said:
If you decide to do it: patience! It took me a lot just to flatten the surface (I didnt go all the way to copper) so dont give up. But hey, its kinda neat seeing your heatsink sitting totaly flat on a newly lapped NB!

Oh I have done it to my previous 8rda and also my Radeon 8500 but was just wondering what kind of performance numbers you got with it? I was hoping that maybe you would say, "heck yes I gained 20mhz with this lapping!!!" So that I would have something to look forward to! My previous lapping of the 8rda was not as thorough as it was for normal HSF lapping because I did not know how deep to go, until I found out that it was a long way down to do any damage.

Also, did your NB have that circle copper plate?

Laters,
bryan d

gofra · Jul 4, 2005

AFAIK, there is a copper plate as a base. But as I allready mentioned, I didnt scratch it all the way down to it - just made sure its flat. And btw, I did notice one improvement: I dont have to change the Vdd untill 220FSB. Before that, I had to around 212. Keep in mind though, that my cooling is much better now than it was before so I cant realy say how much did only lapping it help...

gofra · Jul 4, 2005

/offtopic

btw Bryan, are you using a moded BIOS for you board? Or would you have an idea where to get it perhaps?

Thanx

bryan_d · Jul 5, 2005

Wow,

My 8RDA3I only has a plastic or whatever NB. My original 8RDA though, did have the copper cap.. I wonder how that would affect the cooling of the NB? Oh well, probably going to have a copper cooler on it anyway

As far as having a modded BIOS, that would be a no... I wish. I have searched high and low for one but they are only for the 8RDA3+, which has different compenents built in and I believe also houses a MCP-T SB, so you lose prettly much all your built in mobo functions like sound, some USB, seriel and audio functionality if you use that bios. But apparently it has been done by someone in AOA forums I believe but I might of read wrong.

I really need that modded CPC BIOS, it is what would fix my RAM problem because it sure fixed it for the NF7-S... I would email Merlin for the a modded BIOS, but I don't want to pester the poor guy... he must get requests all the time!

Bryan d.

gofra · Jul 5, 2005

Cool, just make sure you "drop by" if you do get the BIOS

Btw, plastic?

Im sure you were thinking of die over the NB. Gotta admit, its pretty thick, so lapping seems a must here. Especially so, if your chip is as bent as mine was!!

Take care...

gofra · Jul 5, 2005

EDIT: by bent I meant concave...lol

In search for 8rda3i owners...

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