Epox 9NDA3+: A New Socket 939
by Wesley Fink on October 25, 2004 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Tech Support and RMA: Epox 9NDA3+
Our support evaluation procedure tries to determine the responsiveness of manufacturers to Technical Support problems. Our procedure:The way our Tech Support evaluation works is first, we anonymously email the manufacturer's tech support address(es), obviously not using our AnandTech mail server to avoid any sort of preferential treatment. Our emails (we can and will send more than one just to make sure we're not getting the staff on an "off" day) all contain fixable problems that we've had with our motherboard. We allow the manufacturer up to 72 hours to respond, and then we will report whether or not they responded within the time allotted, and if they were successful in fixing our problems. In case we don't receive a response before the review is published, any future responses will be added to the review, including the total time it took for the manufacturer to respond to our requests.
The idea here is to encourage manufacturers to improve their technical support as well as provide new criteria upon which to base your motherboard purchasing decisions. As motherboards become more similar everyday, we have to help separate the boys from the men in as many ways as possible. As usual, we're interested in your feedback on this and other parts of our reviews, so please do email us with your comments.
Epox Support can be found by visiting their U.S. website at http://www.epox.com/USA/support.asp. Users need to register to access some sections of the Support options, but the registration process is very simple and straightforward. In addition to the options for contacting support and creating trouble tickets, the user can access a knowledge base by model and download the latest BIOS and drivers.
The RMA process is also described at the US website and the RMA application can be filed on-line. Unlike some other manufacturers, Epox has a very flexible RMA process that will handle RMAs directly from the US office if the customer prefers, without a lot of front-end hassle to return a product for repair or replacement. The procedure is very straightforward.
There are also dedicated Epox websites for Europe, Germany, China, and a global site in both English and Mandarin. In addition, partner sites are available in the UK, Russia and Turkey.
For US customers, Technical Support can be obtained in the Support submenu. As far as email tech support response time was concerned, Epox did fine in our first attempt to measure Tech Support turnaround time. We received a reply to our question in 15 hours. While the time was fast and the answer was friendly, we did not find the answer particularly helpful in resolving our theoretical problem. The answer was one potential answer to the issue, but it appeared more a canned database response than a careful look at what we had asked. Perhaps we were looking for too much in this first test, but overall, the reply time was quite good.
We will be more confident in Epox support when we have had more opportunities to test the quality of Epox support. In fairness, we were also asking questions about a motherboard that has just reached the US market. In fact, the board is not even listed as a product on the US website, though it does appear on the Global Epox site.
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morkys - Monday, December 20, 2004 - link
Wednesday, 24 November 2004ECN 30824
EP-9NDA3+
9ND34B10.BIN
6800h
** Solve USB device resume fail from S4 mode.
** Patch system cole booting fail (hang up at POST FF h)when FSB over clock on SATA PHY M/B.
** Support DDR400 for double banks DIMM.
Has this improved anything for anyone?
I was stoked to get this or the MSI Neo2 Plat but there's always problems with new stuff. There's always problems with most stuff, but I may just go socket 462 for now if Epox or MSI nForce3 isn't trouble free. I was thinking of the Gigabyte but the NXP is too expensive and the non- NXP is still troublesome for some people.
?
staypuffmarshallowman - Thursday, December 9, 2004 - link
I purcased this mobo a week ago and it is defective....sent back as RMA yesterday. I could not achieve any higher than 20Kbps internet connection over my dsl! Furthermore, i had several (10-20) different post codes and i haven't done any overclocking at all. While this is EXTREMELY frustrating, I am hoping my replacement board will be fine. I am really concerned about your findings with the 4 dimms running only at 333!!! Please let me know if they are able to fix this.I don't want to give up on epox yet. My last board or thiers rocked. But this experience has sent me close to the end of our relationship.
Wesley Fink - Thursday, October 28, 2004 - link
Ned -I suspect you are working at 200 with 4 dimms because your 256MB are single-sided dimms. Those are usually no issue for any of the boards. Our standard 4-dimm memory test is with 4 512MB DS dimms or a total of 8 sides. That still is not working on the Epox which overrides the DDR400 and resets the speed to DDR320 with 4 DS dimms.
Just to be sure I have just retested the same CPU and the same 4 dimms on 3 other 939 boards. All 3 handled DDR400 with 4 dimms just fine, as confirmed with CPU-Z and SiSoft Sandra.
NedFlanders - Thursday, October 28, 2004 - link
Mine board worked out of the box with four DIMMS and with the new BIOS too. I am using 4*256 Kingston HyperX. Even though BIOS says 200 it boots at 202 (RAM 404, FSB at 2020 mhz). I have confirmed the speed with CPUID & SAndra. I OC's it to 220 but just to try it. I'm not really into that. It worked fine.in addition to the parts i already mentioned,
i have 6800GT, 2 WD120 (IDE0, IDE1) and a 450watt PSU, athlon 64 3200.
Wesley Fink - Thursday, October 28, 2004 - link
I have tested with the new 10/26 and 10/28 BIOS and the issues still are not fixed. Results remain the same as reported in this review.Below is the email I sent to Epox:
"I have retested the Epox 9NDA3+ with the new BIOS and the 4 dimm issue is NOT fixed. No matter what I set in BIOS with 4 dimms the system boots at DDR320 at 2T (The BIOS states on boot DDR400@166, but CPU-Z reports actual CPU speed as 160x2). I have tested with:
4x512MB Corsair 3200XL v1.1
4X512MB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev.2
4X512MB G. Skill TCCD
4X512MB Corsair CMX512-4400C25PT (DDR550)
I also tested each of the 4 memories at SPD timings at DDR400 and at a forced 3-3-3-10 at DDR400, even though all 4 are rated at DDR400 2-2-2-5. Same results in both sets of tests. In addition the Epox still hangs on reboot more than 50% of the time. The PS is a OCZ PowerStream 520W. Memory Timings were checked with CPU-Z version 1.24 which is a free download at www.cpuid.com. Memory Speed was confirmed in SiSoft Sandra 2004.
Do you have any further suggestions?"
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - link
Epox has just sent a revised BIOS dated 10/26 and called 9ND34A26 to correct the 4-dimm issue and reboot issues with the Epox. As I soon as I complete tests with the new BIOS I will post an update to the review.NedFlanders - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - link
my ep-9nda3+ is in. it overclocks well, cpu is cool and no problems with 4DIMMS at 200ThePlagiarmaster - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - link
Wesley,If divx 5.1.1 is so optimized for Intel, why does hardocp show Intel losing by 20%?? You need to run tests with two different frontends. DVD2AVI for AMD and Xmpeg for Intel. Unless someone has a better suggestion for Intel (Xmpeg always caused them to win no matter what encoder was used). It's a small change and would give a MUCH more accurate picture of what we'd see in the realworld. Nobody comes home with a shiny new PC and runs they crappiest frontend they can find for their given cpu. Especially when they are both free for the taking.
Did a bit more reading, it appears AutoGK is the only difference between your article and hardocp's usage. You should NOT be using this for AMD if it throws away a 20% victory and hands the lead to Intel. Nobody would do that at home. That big of a margin is akin to throwing away 3-4 cpu speed grades these days! I'd further say you shouldn't be using it for Intel either. It appears to slow them down compared to Xmpeg (who even link to Intel on their website).
With all of these being free, why wouldn't the user want to pick the fastest for their chosen cpu? I see no reason why you couldn't run the same chapter with the same settings on each frontend for the different cpus. It's not like your adding a test, you're just changing a frontend for ONE of the tests. Right now, you're showing us a situation none of us would come home and run. We'd all take the faster route with different front ends for BOTH cpus.
Divx 5.1.1 is NOT heavily optimized for Intel or they would win no matter the frontend. Using this codec and DVD2AVI as a frontend Intel loses by 20% (as shown at hardocp's article). Clearly it's more about the frontend in this case than the codec.
thebluesgnr - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - link
I think this review is very well written. Only disagree with one thing:"The locations of the SATA connectors are a huge improvement over the locations on the nF3-250 Reference Board."
I think this location is the opposite of that. On the reference board it's probably harder to install SATA drives, but this is something you do once or twice; the location used by EPoX makes it impossible to use the SATA ports with some graphics cards.
Term - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - link
#26, are you 100% positive that Doom3 requires DX?If i remember correct I don't have DX installed and it runs just fine.