Thread: Com Ports not working in WinXP on EPIA-M

Just letting everyone know...I got the replacement MB back from idot.com and all works now.

I must say that dealing with idot.com has been nothing short of a great experience. They are very helpful and more than willing to work with you and your problems. I would recomend them in a heart beat.

Originally posted by m3rdpwr
Hey Defiler, can you see how hot your southbridge gets?

Mine DOES get hot but not with the heatsink on it...I don't have any temp measuring equipment BUT I have read more than once it is known to get hot enough that you can't keep your finger on it without getting burned.

Originally posted by m3rdpwr
Thanks Defiler.

Picked it up for $15.75 which included tax. SWEET!

Good deal...That's about what I paid after shipping myself.

Originally posted by m3rdpwr
The one with the fan looks too big to fit without trimming the tabs. I'm not too woried since the cpu isn't even warm to the touch. Sound right to you?

No. You don't have to trim them, BUT it would look cleaner, I guess. Mine was a little off center, you really had to look at it to notice, but NEVER got hot always stayed warm to the touch.

Originally posted by m3rdpwr
My XP load times including WinAmp startup were ~45 seconds.
Did you get to time yours before sending the board back? Can't get it to load any faster no matter what tweaks I do. Could be the Seagate III 7200RPM 20GB. Couple years old, but I'd hate to throw my WD SE 120GB, 8MB Cache in it...

I got my new board and my times are about that as well. I'm using a brand new 4700 RPM 40Gig. IBM Travelstar and 256 Meg PC2100 of RAM. I'm looking into how I can tweak things a little.

Now comes the hard part of this post...

OK. My first MB, I thought, had bad COM ports...Lets start from before I got my MB with when I borrowed, because I didn't have a spare, ATX power supply. I didn't construct the one I am using in the car yet and borrowed one from a friend that was "sitting under his desk and couldn't remember why..."

I used this PSU to install the OS, etc. I think the COM ports are bad, get an RMA, send the old one back, get the new one and the same F'in thing happens...no COM ports upon booting. This was getting too wierd and I needed to figure it out!!! I ran to the local CompUSA picked up the cheapest, I'm gonna retun it anyway, PSU and came home. What do ya know the FRIGGIN' COM ports WORK NOW!!!

PLEASE DON'T FLAME ME FOR THIS...

I have never seen a PSU partially work before in my life...Anyway, I called my friend and reminded him why the PSU was sitting under his desk. And then threw it in the trash.

Live and learn, I guess.

Sorry for all the people I PMed asking if they had the same problem.

Mine does the same thing...

I contacted VIAVPSD.com about it through the tech support online. If you guys do the same they might see this as a more serious problem and handle it quicker. I also mentioned the beep during POST.

After the post screen is when the video drivers take over. Sounds like a driver problem to me. Look through the advanced settings in your video properties. There should be options to turn on and off all of your video outputs. Try uninstalling the video drivers. You might be able to limp your system along in 640x480 mode with the composite video out working in the car until the fix comes out. maybe...

mike