Epia 5000 weirdness

[El Gordo]

I bought the above board s/hand about a year ago and then forgot all about it until a few weeks ago. When I powered it up I saw this:




So I thought I must've fragged it at some stage and damaged the onboard video. Oh well! So next I hit Ebay and snagged another one cheaply. It arrived today and when I connected it up, guess what? Exactly the same video output, is what.

Now I've cleared the cmos on both boards and am still getting the same weird screen output. I've linked up to a different screen and nothing changes.

So I'm stumped, I've not got a clue as to what to try next. Can anyone help me out at all?

[Steve B]

could be anything really, have you tried running it with no memory?

[El Gordo]

Yep tried it with:
1. No Memory. Didn't even post and heard only a single long beep repeated over and over.

2. 1*512mb pc133. Gives the screens seen above. Occasionly won't post and gives the single long beep as above. (actually tried it with another 512 with the same results too)

3. 1*64mb pc133. Won't post single long beep repeated.

Now normally I'd say it's the board but as I have a second board that gives the same results it knid of rules this out don't you think?

[Funkstar]

very very strange problem.

I'd tend to think the same as you if i had two identical boards.

You might get more ideas on an Epia specific forum. Just a thought

[joshwa]

The video ram comes from the RAM you put in it, so my guess would be the ram you are using is faulty or incompatible with the board. With an old board like the 5000 you might be best with a known good stick of 128 or 256 rather than 512mb...

[Funkstar]

thats a point. Could there be an issue with the memory density on th modules you have tried?

these are the specs of compatible memory
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/list...spx?model=EPIA

[Steve B]

ill give my 5000 a kick with no ram in it and see what happens tomorrow, let me get back to you

[El Gordo]

The 64mb of sdram actually came with the first board that I bought s/hand so if anything was expected to work that'd be it.

Anyone care to suggest a good epia forum to check out please?

[elneckio]

Unusual problem, as everyone says it does look RAM shaped.

Have you connected the memory always to the same (original) board first ?
I can't think exactly how but if this is the case maybe that board is toasting the ram somehow.

Only other thought I have is power - have you tried a different PSU ?
By swapping board you have eliminated pretty much everything else

For epia specific sites :

http://epiacenter.com/
http://sudhian.com/
http://linitx.org/forum/

[El Gordo]

I've not had anychance to do any more on this what with work shifts and the hell that is xmas shopping but......

I'm actually looking forward to christmas this year as it's a long weekend and it'll finally give me the time to really hack away at this.

I'm going to test the ram in a mates 1.3 Athlon rig. And I think I have a old psu lurking about here. So we'll see what happens then.

[Scott]

Im sure the 5000 ones only support single sided Dimms, i think mine never used to post or gave me numerous errors when i used double sided dimms.

[El Gordo]

I finally had a chance to test all the ram on a mates old machine. It seems like the 2 of 512 are well fragged, but the 64Mb passed all the tests with flying colours.

Next up: trying to get the board to like the 64Mb again.

If I can't get any joy out of it I might be persuaded to give up on the 5000 and get some new kit. I like the look of the Jetway J7F2 as I'd be looking for a passive setup again.

Any thoughts on either topic?

[Funkstar]

Interesting looking board that Jetway one, not seen it before.

any idea what "Support 2xAD Connector With Expansion Daughter-boards" means in the spec?


There are four odd connectors, two beside the PCI slot, one on the other side of the north bridge and one between the backplate sockets and the power connector.

Depending on what you can use these for and how available the "daughter-cards" are, this could be a very interesting board.

Edit: Another thing, there isn't a huge amount of connectors at the back, so you should be able to make a nice clean install with it too. Possibly lower profile too, depending on the cooling.