a really slow poster.. what could it be? Epox 8k5a3+

[sghindc]

So I trade up my Epox 8kha+ ( maybe a mistake) to an Epox 8k5a3+. My motives were the onboard LAN and USB 2 ( I know, I can get all these on PCI cards... trying to free up some room in my case.!)

The 8kha+ was super fast on booting up. Board ID, memory count and IDE identification all happened so fast I could barely see it. Now this 8k5a3+ seems to take 5 seconds to get through the board ID..and then it pauses, then another 5 to get through mem count, and then IDE check takes another 5 seconds or so.. How disappointing!

I can't seem to find anything that would control this in Bios.. what gives?
Epox now has this goofy graphic that shows some sort of Epox Porche on boot up. This seems to consume the same amount of time if its enabled or disabled.. and it was up there for 5 seconds or so it seems.

I've also disabled the Raid settings for now until I get another matching 100gig wd drive.
For the life of me, I can't get the Via USB2 enhanced driver to load. ( which is why I bought the #$@&*^ thing in the first place!)

I've got AthlonXP2200+ with DangerDen waterblock and radiator
1 x 512 pc2700 and 2x512 pc266 = 1.5 gig
onboard LAN enabled
onboard sound disabled
Raid disabled
3com PCI
Geforce 4 4200 MSI
and a soundblaster 5.1

The same components worked perfectly on the other board ( already given to a friend!)

I've got a RMA to Bunta, for the USB and slowness, but I'm worried that they aren't going to think that is sufficient reason..


Any Ideas or experiences would be welcomed!

Thanks!
Steve in Washington, DC[COLOR=darkblue][COLOR=blue]

[JealousMidget]

Oh Dude, you sound so screwed!
I don't ever recall reading any good reviews of people dealing with Bunta. A lot of people don't ever get the stuff that they order, so that puts you ahead of the game. As far as their customer service, it sounds like they don't have any. Good luck getting them to respond.

For future purchases, might I suggest checking this thread and checking their Bizrating .

Again, Good Luck
JM

[bigjackusa]

Some or all of the slow boot could be default bios settings. Here are some you might want to check and what I think they should be:
Quick boot = enabled
First boot device = ide0
Floppy drive swap = disabled
Floppy drive seek = disabled
Primary graphics adapter = AGP

As far as the USB drivers, did you have the latest chipset drivers loaded first? What error do you get when you try to load them?

May be there is something here that will help.

[sghindc]

Thanks for your response,
In the world of Epx's bios Lingo:

Quick power on Self test = Enabled
First Boot = HDD0
Init Display First = AGP

Then there is the on screen logo (which I timed.. It's between Power On and that Award bios display. it's 6 seconds with or wiithout it enabled..
Its called Full Screen logo Diplay = Enabled/Disabled
Does this give you any ideas?
Thanks!!

[bigjackusa]

The logo display doesn't have any effect on the boot time because it is just a coverup for the post screen. Some builders would rather have you look at their logo during post; some don't want you to see the post screen and bother them with questions about what you don't understand; most people find the post display to be meaningless anyway and seeing it would just re-afirm for them that computers are complicated. So it's only displayed long enough to hide all that "computer stuff". Turning it on or off should have no effect on boot time as it is going to do the same amount of stuff whether you can see it doing it or not.

[Potatoe2]

Well, well. I just fixed my posting problem that was pretty darn close to what you are experiencing. I had a conflict with my ide bus. Did you change around any of the positions of your equipment ( the location in respect to their connection on the ide cable)? I found that when I removed my cdrom off of the primary bus and onto the secondary bus my hard drive, which was still on the primary bus and jumpered to master, was hanging up my bios post. I changed my jumper setting to cs (cable select) and made sure that it was using the last plug on the cable and zoom. I also have an epox board so maybe your problem is similar. My hd works fine in my other system when set as master. It has something to do with the epox board and not my western digital drive.

[sghindc]

I rushed home from work and tried it, because it sounded so plausible. I actually have only a single drive on the Primary IDE. I have a CDRW and a DVD lined u on the Secondary IDE.. but I enthusiastically unplugged both of them, in hopes that something in the cd\dvd chain was wonky.. No luck.. slow boots as usual.

Thanks for the idea though!!

Steve in DC

[Potatoe2]

I think maybe you misunderstood. I am only guessing but set your two drives on your secondary bus as master and slave, just like normal. However; on your primary ide take your HD and change the jumper to cs. It is important however to make sure that your HD is plugged into the correct position on the cable or the mobo will select it as a slave and you will have the same problem ( or some problem closely resembling it). I like my epox but it is quirky about the ide busses.
I just had an Idea (maybe not a good one). Try unhooking your secondary bus and just have your hd on the primary. See what that does. If it works fine, you can narrrow down the problem. If it doesn't, set your hd to master and add your cd rom as slave and leave your secondary disconnected. If you still have the same problem then I doubt it is your ide bus. Check all of your cables again, believe it or not but I have had my floppy drive ribbon installed upside down and it took me days to figure it out. If you push hard enough you can make anything fit.