THE EPOX EP-58MVP3C-M MOTHERBOARD
Last updated: 07/29/03
Other things that got my attention...
 Plenty
of apparently high-quality 105°C electrolytic capacitors and an ample number
of bypass, etc. capacitors in the middle of the CPU socket. A tantalum
here and there...
Connectors
for both Baby AT and ATX power supplies.
The
board has Winbond W83781D hardware monitoring chip and temperature sensors
for both the CPU and the system. You can see these temperatures
changing in the CMOS setup. There are connectors for a CPU fan (3-pin)
and a second case fan on the motherboard. You can see real-time RPM
values for these fans in the CMOS setup. The user can set a temperature
ceiling in CMOS which will cause an alarm. If the CPU fan quits, causing
a hot CPU, you will hear a siren-like warning.
Epox has recently released a beta version of their Unified System Diagnostic
Manager (USDMTM) for the W83781D
which allows you see these parameters and set alarm thresholds from Windows
95/98. Click here for details..
The
motherboard manual is simple, short, well organized, and easy to read. A
very good diagram of the motherboard is immediately followed by a single
page showing the CPU multiplier, bus clock, core voltage settings in clear
and understandable terms. The next page shows all of the front panel
connectors. There is no hunting back and forth through the book
between the motherboard diagram and the jumper settings, etc.
One
thing I dislike are short or missing I/O cables. The printer and serial
cables supplied with this board are fine at 10 inches. The hard disk
and floppy cables are pretty much "standard," but I would prefer
a longer hard disk cable with a longer distance between the master and slave
drive connectors (this a problem in most cable sets I've seen). The
literature for the motherboard states that the PS/2 mouse connector is optional;
however, the motherboards I have received have it. A real negative
was the lack of a USB cable set. My supplier didn't have one. This
is going to be a problem when USB becomes more common place, like soon.
Well, how does it run? Installation
was a snap with the first computer I built with this motherboard. The
only problem I had was faulty PC100 memory (check Epox's
WEB site for recommended memory). It ran ok at 66 Mhz, but locked-up
at 100 Mhz. I replaced it and the board ran fine at 100 Mhz--rock solid.
It was unpleasant and quite time-consuming
when I replaced my trusty Abit TX5 in my computer. The motherboard
and Windows 98 couldn't agree on what interrupt to assign my Kingston plug
'n play network board. The result was a locked-up computer. After
trying everything without success, I took my hard disk back to bare metal--something
I really didn't want to do. But, this was the third motherboard I had
installed with the current Win 98 installation and I thought I had mixed-up
set of incorrect motherboard device drivers, etc. lingering in the system
and causing the problem. Alas, the fresh Win 98 install didn't remedy
the problem. The fix turned-out to be VIA's IRQ Routing Mini-port Driver
which is available from Epox's WEB site. When
Installing Windows 98, I recommend that you omit/remove all expansion boards
from the system except the monitor adapter, install 98, install the Mini-port
driver, and then install any additional boards one-at-time.
New. Epox recently released
a Bus-Master UDMA hard disk driver for Windows 95/98 which significantly
increases the performance of a computer built with this motherboard. Click here for
details.
Larry
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