Computer Assembly - How To Assemble A PC
Install the Motherboard Chipset Drivers
The EPoX 8RDA+ uses the motherboard chipset drivers known as the nForce Unified Driver Package. While a number of motherboards use this package, many do not. It's very important to install the motherboard chipset drivers since otherwise computer performance is dramatically reduced. Here are links to where you can find the drivers for the most popular motherboard chipsets.
The CD-ROM that comes with the motherboard includes a copy of the motherboard chipset drivers. These should be fine, but they will naturally be somewhat out of date. Here is the splash screen presented by the drivers CD-ROM that came with my EPoX 8RDA+ motherboard. It shows it to be version V1.15.
There's no telling how old that is. Maybe not that old since I purchased my motherboard in January of 2003 and the BIOS has a December 2002 date. That's quite excellent. Frequently the BIOS has a version six months prior to the date I purchased the motherboard.
I recommend downloading the latest version of the motherboard chipset drivers. The EPoX 8RDA+ nForce Unified Driver Package is a huge download, about 13MB (megabytes) for the version I retrieved. The reason the EPoX 8RDA+ nForce Unified Driver Package is such a huge download is that there is great deal to it. For example, it also includes the sound drivers and the video card drivers, although installation of the video card drivers is automatically skipped if you're not using an NVIDIA based video card.
Here is how I did the install. As usual, better drivers than what are provided on the CD-ROM are available on manufacturer's web-site. The drivers can be retrieved from the EPoX web-site. Here is how I navigated to find them, which may look different today, but it should still give you the idea.
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Click on "USA".
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On the "Download" pull-down menu, click on "Drivers".
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Set the "File type" to "Driver/Software".
Set the "Model" to "EP-8RDA+".
Set the "Driver" to "NVIDIA nForce Unified Driver (XP/2K)".
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Click on "Download Windows XP/2000 v3.13".
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Click on the "Save" button.
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Specify where the file should be saved and click the "Save" button.
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Wait for the download to finish".
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The motherboard chipset drivers in the downloaded file can now be installed. Navigate to the location of the downloaded file.
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Double-click on the file.
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If you get a "publisher could not be verified" message then you can ignore it by clicking the "Run" button.
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Antivirus software has not been loaded yet, so click the "Yes" button".
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Respond to the License Agreement window and click the "Next" button.
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I left the default location for the save files, shown circled in red, unchanged and clicked the "Next" button.
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The files from the download are unpacked (decompressed) and saved into the directory specified. This does not install the drivers, but just places them in a directory structure in preparation for the install. After the files are done being decompressed, the InstallShield window automatically appears.
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Click the "Next" button on the InstallShield window.
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Click the "Yes" button to accept the license agreement.
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The install begins.
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About midway through the install, this information window about the NVIDIA IDE driver appears. Click the "Next" button.
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You're given the option to install the NVIDIA IDE SW driver. Click the "No" button. See "Common Problems" for more.
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The installation resumes.
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The final screen of the install appears. Leave the "Yes, I want to restart my computer" now option selected and click on the "Finish" button. The computer begins to restart.
Now, for the first time as the computer shutsdown and again when the computer restarts and reaches the desktop, you will hear your new computer. Windows XP will play the shutdown and startup fanfares. They've been playing it all along, but it couldn't be heard until now because there were no sound drivers. You'll hear it assuming, of course, you have the speakers connected and turned on.
Checking the Device Manager once again it shows that all the device conflicts have been cleared up. Excellent!
Common Problems
Since I'm using sound capability built into the motherboard, I now have both the hardware and software drivers for the sound installed and should be hearing sounds produced by the computer. Assuming your computer building is similar, if you have the speakers connected and powered on, but you're not getting any sound or you're having other sound problems such as cutting out, sounding scratchy or sounding faint then this How To Trouble-Shoot Sound Related Issues from Microsoft Technical Support may help.
Now about that NVIDIA IDE SW driver thing. It's pretty weird that it would prompt for something like that in the middle of the install, but whatever. I did first try responding "Yes" to have it included in the install. But after the install was complete and the computer restarted, it would get stuck continually restarting. Shortly after the BIOS screen, I would get this screen stating "Windows did not start successfully" and that "A recent hardware or software change might have caused this".
Well thank goodness for GoBack. I just restored the hard drive to the point before installing the drivers. I got this same error on two different versions of driver, v3.13 and v5.10. Then I read the NVIDIA IDE SW informatory window box carefully and noticed it says things like "The NVIDIA IDE SW driver replaces the ATA drivers (that come with windows) with drivers that are optimized for nForce2-based desktop computers", "The NVIDIA IDE SW driver is not a requirement for your operating system to work", "The NVIDIA IDE SW driver is provided as-is to the end user", and "The NVIDIA IDE SW driver may contain design defects or errors....". Hmm, this isn't sounding so great. What happens, I wonder, if I do the install without including the NVIDIA IDE SW driver. Oh, it all works. I guess that part about the "...defects and errors..." is right on the money.
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