Fully recapped EPoX EP-8K7A+ with Panasonic Low ESR Caps!

    Hey all

    At first i would love to thank Backfire for performing a full recap for my20 year old EPoX EP-8K7A+ with Panasonic low ESR Capacitors from Japan :)
    Here the mainboard before the recap:

    And here after it the change is massive and the stability of the system is rock solid thanks to this :)

    it all looks amazing and like new again :)
     

    Here the system from the inside so far with both Matrox Parhelia AGP 256MB DDR Rev.A 5103 & 3dfx Voodoo5 5500 PCI Macintosh 64MB Rev.A1 2900 installed:



    And here with the side fan installed :)


    RA2 works great too!


    As everything else runs very well on both the Parhelia & the Voodoo5.
    This was all worth it in the end :)

    Edited once, last by Gold Leader (September 19, 2021 at 1:36 AM).

    Here some pics of it's Graphics cards which are these two:

    Matrox Parhelia AGP 256MB DDR Rev.A 5103
    3dfx Voodoo5 5500 PCI Macintosh 64MB Rev.A1 2900

    And as final touch I added my Lufthansa Boeing 747-430 with the cards dedicated to Backfire for all the work he put in my V5 to bring it back to life :respekt:

    Boeing 747-430i

    Lufthansa "New Livery 2018-Present"
    D-ABVM "Kiel"
    Scale 1:200
    Herpa Wings / Built by JC Wings

    Enjoy the photo's :)

    Thank you for the praise.

    If I really have time, I will continue to make a mainboard fit again.

    In the meantime, however, the voodoos became so much that I simply didn't have the time for PSUs and mainboards. But every now and then it fits - so dear people, go ahead and ask. Even though I have recently refused to fix a few others.

    I'll do what I can do...


    Ger.:

    Danke Dir für das Lob.

    Wenn ich wirklich Zeit habe dann mache ich auch weiterhin mal ein Mainboard wieder fit.

    In den Zeiten aber wurde das mit den Voodoos so viel, das ich für PSUs und Mainboards einfach keine Luft mehr hatte. Aber ab und zu passt es - daher liebe Leute fragt ruhig. Auch wenn ich letzter Zeit einige andere abgelehnt hatte in Ordnung zu bringen.

    Nehmt es bitte nicht persönlich... Ich helfe wo ich kann.

    - Backfire -

    Personally just stick to 3dfx Graphics cards since you do sound cards now as well don't do too much.
    That would be me tho, can't do everything I'm like.

    So far I only had great experiences from your work even though when new things come up, I'll DM you anytime.
    And if I need to wait so be it, I won't mind 8)

    Oh yea I removed the Matrox Parhelia, so I gotta make a new wallpaper with the Lufthansa B747-430i and the V5 PCI Mac then lol
    So the system is like this now and all is great now :)


    Played UT GOTYE 1999 for 3 hours and an other 2 hour RA2 game no issues at all also during my 2 hour time at my parents it ran Quantum3D Open GVS Nelis demo for 2 hours nonstop at 1024x768x16 in 3dfx Glide API at 122 to 152 fps constantly :)

    No crashes fine just rock solid performace.

    Edited once, last by Gold Leader (September 19, 2021 at 10:41 PM).

    Quote from Bier.jpg

    Nice System GoldLeader, but do something about the Cables, please.

    Yeah well Arthritis holds me back alot sadly the Addtronics 6896A isn't a pleasant case to work with despite it's all I got for this system the cables are a shite show to see you got that right tho.

    Just building PC"s stand alone is very painful for me physically that being,as for the cables yea may have to relook in to that some day.

    Quote from Bier.jpg

    Ahh sorry :(

    Oh it's fine I just gotta wait till the pains are gone because you are right it is something I will have to try and fix, It will happen at some point, the system is dead stable that is something nice of it it's fun seeing this card reach 109 to 131 fps in Unreal Tournament Game of the Year Edition 1999 @ 1024x768x16 with Glide API, it runs all my games very well tho :)

    Only when using OpenGL i get a strange crackling noise in my audio, if using Glide & Direct3D this does not happen, but if enabling V-Sync it is a lot less, strange might be the PCI bus then again the card won't fit in the other slots due to the poor layout of the EP-8K7A+.

    And being a NTFS guy all along, operating systems like Win98SE & Me are really not my interest only Win2K pro + SP4 & WinXP Pro + SP3 for me, they do all I want them to , as for the crackling noises yea new to me tbh.

    Quote from Gold Leader

    Only when using OpenGL i get a strange crackling noise in my audio, if using Glide & Direct3D this does not happen, but if enabling V-Sync it is a lot less, strange might be the PCI bus then again the card won't fit in the other slots due to the poor layout of the EP-8K7A+.

    Concerning your crackling noise:

    As far as I have seen on the fly, you've got a mixed board with AMD 760 northbridge and VIA VT82C686B southbridge. Right?

    The VIA 686B southbridge is known for problems as soon as heavy load occurs on the PCI bus.

    Have you already installed VIA 4in1 driver package?

    If not, choose version 4.43 for Retro chipsets. This should be the best one for your chipset. Don't use Hyperion Pro Driver Package.

    >>> Make sure that you only install those parts related to the southbridge (i.e. IDE, USB, and so on).

    Don't install AGP GART as this is for VIA nothbridges whereas your MB uses an AMD northbridge! <<<

    If this doesn't help, you can also try PCI Lantency patch 0.20 BETA built 21.

    >>> Warning! This does not install on Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), or on Windows 2003, due to
    increased security on those versions. <<<

    Ich werde mich von keinem einzzzigen Prozzzessor trennen.
    Jedoch lockt es mich beinahe, ihn Dir zu überlassen, nur um zu sehen, wie er Dich in den Wahnsinn treibt :evil:

    Meine Begehren

    Hey thanks man I will surely give this a look in to! :respekt:
    And yea I used Hyperion 5.56 as SWZSSR aka Declan told me to, so yea that is something I will surely get fixed I will try VIA 4in1 4.43 as you advised otherwise that other one, many thanks for telling me this as this is new info for me OS I use is WinXP Pro + SP3.
    And you right my Northbridge is the AMD 761 and my South Bridge is the VIA 686B :)

    All in all it's the first time I have this Chipset, overall performance and stability is rock solid now tho that I finally fixed the Parhelia + Voodoo5 problem :)

    So what I did was extract the September 2003 driver package 1.5.0.107 in the matrox-mga folder
    And then I extracted the May 2007 driver packahe 1.13.0.158 to that folder.

    After this I installed the September 2003 driver like you'd always do it via it's installer

    Then I did a reboot, then I went to the device manager and via that I manually updated the Parhelia 256MB to the May 2007 driver and this gave me way more options in the 2003 control panel like 6 different OpenGL options and still all the ones you'd normally lack with later control panel versions so this kind of was the solution for best of both worlds new and old.

    Here some screenshots of the driver control panel and all the extra options it offers

    This is where you can change sertain 3D settings and ote the siz different OpenGL options this setup gives!


    Here the 2D options and the V5 PCI Mac running Geiss 2 with some Yotto, Progressive Trance :)


      Tweakstone thanks for the parhelia driver tips you apssed on this driver combo is really amazing for Descent2+ D2X Rebirth 0.58.1 + D2X Retro 1.3a as well!

    Here some screens from Descent2 using D2X Rebirth 0.58.1 + D2X Retro 1.3a played at 1024x768x32 max in game settings:

    Now that is done I will do the chipset next :)

    Many thanks for finding this out for me tho :)

    I will let you know how it all goes :respekt:

    As for the PCI latency patch, I had to grab that from Vogons
    http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=876&menustate=0

    it does make it somewhat better with V-Sunc enabled but it deosn't remove it completely only OpenGL games are affected.
    So basically nothing much changed despite it being less if only using the V5 PCI Mac, if using the Parhelia the problem does not appear at all.

    Edited 2 times, last by Gold Leader (September 21, 2021 at 1:13 PM).

    Here Sveta 2002 with her Ukrainian Flag and some new pics as well :)


    And full specs:

    Sveta 2002

    AMD AthlonXP 2200+ Thoroughbred-A, 1 Core @ 1.8Ghz

    EPox EP-8K7A+ AMD 761 Chipset with Via 686B SB

    2x 1GB PC-2700 Kingston @ PC-2100 266Mhz DDR

    Matrox Parhelia AGP Universal 256MB 256Bit DDR Rev.A 5103

    3dfx Voodoo5 5500 PCI Macintosh 64MB Rev.A1 2900 + PC Bios 1.18_DVI

    Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro

    Mitsubishi Electronics LS-120 F200 Super Floppy Drive

    1x Seagate Barracuda V 80GB 7200 RPM Main disk

    1x Seagate Barracuda V 120GB 7200 RPM Game Disk

    Belkin 5 port NEC USB 2.0 PCI Card

    3-Com 3C905C-TX-M PCI Ethernet Adapter 10/100Mbit

    LH HD-DVD Drive 16x / 40x

    BTO Plusdeck 2c Cassette Tape Convertor/Player/Recorder Drive

    Antec True Power 550 Watt PSU

    Addtronics 6896A Entry Level Server Tower

    Compaq S710 17" Blackshade CRT from 2001

    Reso @ 1024x768x32 ! 85Hz | 0.22.5 Dot Pitch

    1995 Roland E-14 Keyboard

    WinXP Pro USA + SP3

    Matrox PowerDesk-HF 1.13.0.158 from May 2007 with Control

    Panel 1.50.107 from September 2003 for Parhelia AGP

    SFFT Alpha 41 Modified by ps47 & myself from 2008 for V5 PCI Mac