having some problems with MSI k9n platinum

[Skip]

haven't posted here in a long time, but from what i do remember everybody here is pretty knowledgeable with troubleshooting hardware.

the reason i haven't been here in a while is becuase i basically j ust set my old pc to stock and only played games and gave up overclocking and benchmarking.

but i come back now t hat i built a new pc where i moved because i'm having some problems here!

Specs of system are

coolmax psu 500, stable voltages i wouldn't worry about it

MSI k9N platinum nforce 570

AMD 3800 orleans

Pqi turbo 667 ddr2 2x1gb 4-4-4-12 advertised timings (spd via cpu-id says 5-5-5-18 or something though

x1800xt


So here is what i have done, i set it on 667 speed with the 4-4-4-12 timings and ran memtest test #5 over night, not a single error, yet when i run prime95 or do a superpi 32m calc it will fail pretty quickly. it also randomly locks up and turns off games by minimizing and closing the game. I've run s&m fpu test and the cpu isn't overheating at all.

Memory errors would most likely end up in a BSOD from what i experienced, while cpu and MB errors will have random lockups. i clocked the cpu down to 2.2ghz and still got same problems. and am currently running the memclock at 200mhz and its going through prime95 just fine for about 30 minuets as i'm typing this.


This is my first venture into ddr2 and this whole memclock thing is confusing me, how is it i can just set the memclock at 333 (667) and also be able to adjust the fsb? i'm thinking maybe either my motherboard bios is being stupid or the motherboard itself doesn't like my memory.

But if someone could explain to me how the memclock works and how it functions in relation to the HTT values i would greatly appreciate it and it would also help me further diagnose my issue here!

TIA!

[ozzimark]

the memclock thing is actually a ratio... which will set the memory divider based on the cpu multi:

memory divider = ceiling( cpu multi / memory ratio )

where x in cpu/x is the memory divider.
333mhz is... 5:3, so if you have a 10x cpu multi, the divider is 10 / (5/3) = 6

so when you bump up the htt such that the cpu is now at 2.2ghz, the ram is at 2200mhz/6 for 366.67mhz :D


also, be sure to lower the HT Link multiplier when overclocking, preferably to 3 or 4.. stock is 5 :D

[faruquehabib]

be sure you disable all 3 of the spread spectrums. in bios, go to cell menu, and it is the last thing listed. hit enter and there should be 3 different types of spread spectrum. disable all of them.

[Skip]

okay, i have done disabling the speed spectrums and it did help with the crashes a bit, i was able to complete a full superpi 32m doing that.

i still experienced some stability issues though.

also these problems are coming not even from overclocking at all, i haven't even tried that yet, or i may not even at all.

there is also no htt multiplier in this bios at all.

i've crashed with memclock on 200, 266 and 333.

note: i also installed a new bios and it still crashes.

i am going to RMA the board, i'm completely fresh out of ideas other than the motherboard is just faulty.

ugh, my policy is usually let the boards be coming out for a few months then buy, just so the chipsets can mature a little bit. and get the kinks get ironed out.

thanks for the responses :)

[ozzimark]

there is also no htt multiplier in this bios at all.
yes there is. you obviously can't give up if you haven't even found it. look under chipset options ;)

[DPGX]

Ok as dumb as this sounds give it a shot because this fixed my instability. Try setting the command rate to 1t. At 2t my system was unstable and crashing constantly, couldnt get through setup, pushed it to 1t and dropped the ram voltage to 1.8v and guess what, total stability.

[Skip]

yes there is. you obviously can't give up if you haven't even found it. look under chipset options ;)

just so used to dfi's bios set up =(

[Skip]

okay i found the htt multi thing, in this bios it isn't a multiplier which is why i didn't recognize it immediately. It says mcp55 to am2 bus or something, then says 200, 400, 800, 1000, if u take it off auto and set it to manual. so i lowered it to 800 and i still locked up during prime 95.

oh well. i'm just glad newegg has good customer service :(

i also tried setting my timings to 1t and i couldn't even get into windows, i had tried it before and i was getting memtest errors too, but figured i would try it again.

which i could have just brought the PC in my signature when i moved lol.

[ozzimark]

just so used to dfi's bios set up =(
yeah, i had the same exact problem, the msi bios takes some.. getting used to :(:(

so lowering it to 4x didn't help. hmm....

which memory slots are you using?

[Skip]

using slots 2 and 4 right now, i had them in 1 and 3 to begin with and didn't have much luck getting windows installed even.

also something to note, the msi board doesn't come with the sata driver floppy, so if u are planning on buying the board, make your own floppy with the drivers, or slipstream them into windows xp using nlite.

i thought for maybe a second it was the HD itself, but i had a spare usb drive and i still couldn't get windows even loaded using it.

also a side note, i couldn't even get out of the bios startup using 220 fsb. which is pretty weak, my old dfi and msi 939 boards were able to do much better than that. 320 for my dfi, and 280 or so for my msi 939 board.

[faruquehabib]

sounds alot like time to rma that board. my k9n platinum sli is at 255 right now, but that is because my ram is at 455. i had the fsb up to 315 stable. i guess its hit and miss with these msi boards for am2.

[Zebbo]

Good and stable board if you plan to do no overclocking (who does that?) but once you start playing around with voltages and clocks problems starts showing.

VDIMM seems to overvolt about ~0.13V, Vcore is steady and very stable but somehow more volts than 1.5V seems to active sort of an "overvoltage protection". Motherboard cuts the power off when rebooting, sometimes when saving CMOS & Exiting BIOS gives same symptons too. Another weird thing is that motherboard gives only 1.1V of Vcore during the POST process.

[Skip]

oh NO!

just bought an ABIT KN9, and i'm bsoding right as it says entering windows setup after all the drivers are loaded off the CD!

goddamit i think its the harddrive!!!!!!!!!!!!!! crap

[Skip]

this is weird, i bsod'd with 667 memory, but going to 533 memory i am almost done with windows installation, i hope it doesn't lock up and i can start doing some tests on it to really isolate my situation here.

i was gettig tons of tons of memtest errors at 667 memory speed. wasn't even getting that with the MSI board.

[faruquehabib]

this is weird, i bsod'd with 667 memory, but going to 533 memory i am almost done with windows installation, i hope it doesn't lock up and i can start doing some tests on it to really isolate my situation here.

i was gettig tons of tons of memtest errors at 667 memory speed. wasn't even getting that with the MSI board.


so this whole problem might be the ram, and not the motherboard?

[Skip]

no, i remember leaving memtest on all night long with 4-4-4-12 667 2.0v and it had zero errors over the course of 10 hours on the MSI board.

and the system was stable on the ABIT with 533 and 400.

the abit might not have liked my ram, i got it from fry's and it was a used board anyways, somebody before probably had the same problem.

i actually think its the HDD now. i found this really great utility called ultimate boot cd, i really think it should be stickied somewhere.

it has a bootup prime 95, and other cpu stress testers, and also bootup memtest and memtest +

and some random hard drive and boot tools for like linux and stuff.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

i am running prime 95 in bootup mode, my HD isn't even hooked up, and so far its been solid.

if my theory proves to be true, then the HD can actually be the source of prime 95 errors? i never ever knew this or heard of this before :(

i'm gonna leave it running until i get an error or about 5 hours of stress testing, then when i go to bed i'll leave memtest to run and see the results.

that right there will be able to eliminate, cpu, memory, motherboard, psu for that matter, and will leave the HD as the only culprit for this matter.

i know i said before i wasn't able to get windows installed using a usb hard drive, but that could be because that HD was goofy to begin with. i can't even get that sucker to be recognized to format it in a windows environment.

headaches... ah the fun of building and screwing with pc's.


edit: i've never seen memory problems that are't associated with bsod or random restarts if u don't have your system set to halt on errors and actually show the blue screen. can random computer locks be memory problems?

also say i fail prime or cpu burn in. could it really be that i got 2 bad boards in a row, 1 from msi and abit! could that 10 hours of prime stability just have been a fluke? i'll really be left dumbfounded if it fails now. i might just return the whole damn thing!


editing again because i don't want to bump ;)

solid as a freaking rock in prime95 using UBCD, no HD installed. i'm really glad i found this prime 95 boot up tool. this really help isolate my problem.

now to call up newegg and explain i don't want to RMA my MSI board after all.......... good thing they are top customer service EVER! woot.

[Skip]

final update.

this is so weird. i'm about to go to sleep and i just feel compelled to try installing windows again, as when i assembled the MSI board again it felt like the stock heatsink went in a lot easier, so i figured maybe i was pinching the CPU with my first mounting on the MSi and ABIT boards. so i go to install windows, and when it goes to analyze my drive for install, it hangs. i go darn, and i touch my harddrive as it sits in the case, boom it sees it.

i'm like okay... i start to install windows, it completes the files on first try, so i reboot in windows environment and it begins to do the final processes in the install in windows. it doesn't start for like a minute, i touch the drive again, and this time it slips a bit, i only had it installed on 1 screw because i'm lazy, and suddenly the drive starts whirring and windows gets installed.


can you guys believe that!

that is exactly why computer cases are evil! but i'm forced to use 1, i would prefer having my custom made shelf system back at home i used when i overclocked, but oh well :(

windows install did lock up though. so apparently damage was done, or maybe it was just a fluke that touching the HD worked lol!

[faruquehabib]

final update.

this is so weird. i'm about to go to sleep and i just feel compelled to try installing windows again, as when i assembled the MSI board again it felt like the stock heatsink went in a lot easier, so i figured maybe i was pinching the CPU with my first mounting on the MSi and ABIT boards. so i go to install windows, and when it goes to analyze my drive for install, it hangs. i go darn, and i touch my harddrive as it sits in the case, boom it sees it.

i'm like okay... i start to install windows, it completes the files on first try, so i reboot in windows environment and it begins to do the final processes in the install in windows. it doesn't start for like a minute, i touch the drive again, and this time it slips a bit, i only had it installed on 1 screw because i'm lazy, and suddenly the drive starts whirring and windows gets installed.


can you guys believe that!

that is exactly why computer cases are evil! but i'm forced to use 1, i would prefer having my custom made shelf system back at home i used when i overclocked, but oh well :(

windows install did lock up though. so apparently damage was done, or maybe it was just a fluke that touching the HD worked lol!

you just have the loving hard drive touch :p:

[Skip]

yup, i tore apart my USB hard drive and got windows to install perfectly.