EPoX 8KTA3+

[MikeAce]

beware of this motherboard guys. I did months of research at the beginning of this year and decided to go with this epox board. so far it has been the worst machine I have ever built. The intergrated via ide controller will NOT support a cd burner. (some unresolved DMA issues) I am unable to install windows 2000 because of fatal blue screens saying the highpoint raid device driver failed to load. fatal exception 0E errors constantly plague this machine. I've had to buy a 3rd party ide controller just so I could burn my CD's. I mean come on guys, what kinda crap is this? it seems to me that the computers of today aren't nearly as stable nor reliable as the pre ATX computers a few years back. I still have a 233 MMX O/C'd to 266 with 75 mhz bus and its had a 45 day uptime in windows 98. what happened to those days when you could build a computer and not have stupid issues like the ones I'm having now?

 

[Nomis]

Are you sure some of the problems you have is not caused by the VIA southbridge chipset? Have you update the bios to the latest one yet? The EPoX 8KTA3+ is a pretty good motherboard, you just have to play around the setup between via driver and hardware arrangement or assigning IRQs. I have the Iwill KK266-R and I'd to reinstall windows few time, all because of the VIA 4-in-1 driver and the raid driver. I got error when I install the raid controller driver, IRQ problems for the optical drives, drives didn't show in windows, hard drive driver problem. All took me few days to straighten them out the installation steps. The EPoX 8KTA3+ is a stable and good overclocker, you should be happy with it.

 

[MikeAce]

it wasnt a resource conflict and I updated everything to date from the hoighpoint bios, motherboard bios, to the 4-in-1 via chipset. after spending a month of constantly fighting with this system I sold the board and the 512 megs of ram for 150 dollars. I talked to a friend who has worked with epox boards and he said that 90% of the time its an issue with the motherboard. I personally have written off via 4-in-1 as a workable chipset for my personal needs. I dont even want to deal with a chipset that you have to jigg rig to even get to install 98. heh as for overclockability for the board itself, I wasn't impressed since I could only squeeze 156 mhz more out of my athlon before the bios would give me a checksum error. hell it even gave me a checksum error when I tried to disable the onboard via ide controller.
I'm looking into getting the new asus board with the AMD chipset and adding a promise raid controller to it. then I'm going to pick up some new pc2100 ram. I'l see how well that works...

 

[Nomis]

I hope everything will go well for you this time. I know how frustrating that can be, took me more than a year and went through few motherboards till I find a good and almost problem free one.

 

[DE]

MikeAce (May 01, 2001 08:43 p.m.):
it wasnt a resource conflict and I updated everything to date from the hoighpoint bios, motherboard bios, to the 4-in-1 via chipset. after spending a month of constantly fighting with this system I sold the board and the 512 megs of ram for 150 dollars. I talked to a friend who has worked with epox boards and he said that 90% of the time its an issue with the motherboard. I personally have written off via 4-in-1 as a workable chipset for my personal needs. I dont even want to deal with a chipset that you have to jigg rig to even get to install 98. heh as for overclockability for the board itself, I wasn't impressed since I could only squeeze 156 mhz more out of my athlon before the bios would give me a checksum error. hell it even gave me a checksum error when I tried to disable the onboard via ide controller.
I'm looking into getting the new asus board with the AMD chipset and adding a promise raid controller to it. then I'm going to pick up some new pc2100 ram. I'l see how well that works...

Sorry to hear that. My 8kta3 (no +) is great for me. My tibrd 750 is running 1162 (7.5*155).

 

[wolfman]

I have 2 8KTA+ boards one with 900 Tbird @ 1070mhz no problems and 1 with a 1.2 gig DDR @ 1388mhz and have had it over 1.4. Im using windows me on both and have them networked for home. I have been happy with. I did update the bios and used the newest 4in1 drivers. Did you check for a hardware conflict, I have a sony cd writer and it works fine.

 

[MikeAce]

I have come to the conclusion that I had either a bad motherboard or incompatible hardware. I know my burner isnt compatible since I found this url: http://www.plextor.com/english/support/faqs/faq_technical.html#via
now what in the hell is via thinking not fixing this problem of not supporting a plextor burner? also I have found that the same via chipset has a long list of other unresolved issues. I say good riddence to bad rubbish

 

[Les]

Mike,
Even after I installed the latest BIOS update for my 8KTA3, my Plextor 12/10/32 would lock up my system about 1/3 the way through a CD burn. Epox was no help, but I found a permanent solution on my own: I simple unchecked DMA mode for the CD in device manager. Plextor recommends using DMA (if possible) but then Roxio (Adaptec) EZ CD creator says DON'T use DMA mode. Go figure. ANyway I can burn CD's without a hitch

 

[GPS]

I have an Epox 8KTA3 and I am having a heck of a time getting this MoBo to load an OS. I have been trying for about two weeks. I have change the cpu, mem, video and hard drive. Starting only with the bare essentials. I have had only TWO successfull OS loads. Once with 95 and once with 2000. When I loaded the 4in1 drivers the system was turned to SCSI. Epox support is a joke. They say scsi is normal! It even gave me a scsi controller card, but I don't have one. I was only able to get an OS loaded when the board was still cold. When I did tried to fix any of this it just screw up the system and it would not reboot because of problems with the extended memory or the config.sys. I research this board and all my components. I had hopes for a great OCing system. But now I only hope I can return it for something different.

My 2 cents!!

 

[MikeAce]

heh, finally I hear someone else with problems with this board. I've now ordered an asus A7m266motherboard with 512 megs of pc2100 ram which I should be getting in a few days. heh, now I dont even care about O/Cing I just want a system that actually works and meets my needs.
[

 

[AKDUDE]

After two months of running without a hitch my EPOX 8KTA3 (not plus model) died last thursday.
Sending it back to NEWEGG in the morning.
I tell ya folks, reading all the sites out there, ive yet to really see a KT133a chipset board that dosn't have problems.
I picked the EPOX cause I saw the least complaints, and it is built well, with big caps, and nice heatsinks on the mosfets, as well as a ISA slot with no AMR.
I think the via chipset failed on my board, because my onboard sound was kinda screwy as well a week before the big burn.
I personally have lost confidence in the chipsets that AMD has been using... Who knows, a year from now I may be using a P4.
AKDUDE

 

[GPS]

I just talked to my brother who also has an 8KTA3. Says his works fine. He has convinced me to give mine one more try. I am going visit him this coming Sunday. He wants to make sure the board is not DOA.
He pushed his 600 Duron to 875 with a small stock HSF. It will help to rule out any human error factor on my part. He says dont use the 4in1 drivers. However, I am calling newegg just to get the ball rolling anyways.
I'll kept you posted as to my progress,
+ or -.

 

[GPS]

Well here is the latest on my 8KTA3. I gave it another try in loading my Windows 2000. NO GO! So I took the hard drive out and put it in my other computer with an FIC AZ-11. The OS loaded right away. Ran it for awhile to make sure it was stable. Worked great. So then I put the hard drive back in the Epox computer. Took three reboots to get it to work. Played a couple of solitar games, then tried to send an email to epox and the screen went black. Ran a few programs and the thing just crashes. I think the thing just gets hot somewhere between the video and the cpu. Got a RMA from Newegg, they are going to send me another 8KTA3, WHOPPIE! Epox tech support is a joke. The best they said to me was "sorry for your fustrations". I still have to pay for shipping the thing back. If the new board won't work, I am thinking of trying the Iwill or Abit board. But I think this sort of thing is to be expected, as these boards are made in a slave labor country.

 

[MikeAce]

hah I know the feeling. since in my past I have never gone wrong with an asus, I decided to get the A7m266. I'm still waiting on it because the dealer had it back ordered. hopfully it will ship out tomorrow and I can get it by wednesday of next week.