The OFFICIAL MSI K8N Neo2-939 tips and tricks guide thread

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Originally Posted by 4rory

Ok, My name is rory and I have a problem.

A while back when my computer was running fine, I came on the forums and seen some new bioses, so I gave one a shot it was the tccd one, ok I had probleems right from the start, so I flashed back and ever since, everytime I touch my computer ie add a drive to back up or change some hardware My bios goes nuts, I've flashed back to 1.80modrev3 3 times already.

Anyways what happens is I try to boot and bios just keeps restarting, trying to get inot bios setting usally results in feezing as soon as I see the bios menu if I even get there or after a few (2-3) keystrokes every once and a while it will tell me cmos error f1 to contiune del to enter setup and sometimes it makes it to the raid checking screena dn realtec, very rarely do I see the dyi pooldate or something alone those lines, I have to reboot about 40 -70 times befor I can get to windows!

This has happed about 4 times now, today I bought a western digital 250 sata 2 harddrive and went to install it and boom. I am now in windows without the newhard ware after about 2 hours or trying everything I cleared cmos many times and took out battery let it clear for hours blah blah blah lol, this is really something else man, I'm thinking my bios chip has gone to :banana::banana::banana::banana: from to many flashses probably about 25, I flashed it again right now it can't be badly writen, I dont understand this.

Here are some pics. this happens sometimes when I'm in the bios menu or when it's just botting up this will happen about 10 out of 70 restarts sometimes i see werid things also like smiling faces, and sh-T it's werid.

Some one help me, I want this new drive running and want to get rid of this problem, it's also not the overclock just when i reset cmos everything goes abck to normal. specs are in sig. :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

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Hi Rory, The 1.A or 1.B is a completely different bios to the 1.8. When you install it you have to clear cmos and often you have to unplug psu to make sure nothing is left behind from older bios.

Sounds to me like when you flashed back to 1.8 bios some of the roms remained. Download winflash from Here Unzip it and add the 1.8 official bios to the same folder then open winflash and open the bios inside winflash. Click on options and tick update bios all and also tick clear cmos. Then click file and update bios.

After the bios has flashed turn off pc open up case and move the clear cmos cap thats postioned under the last pci slot from pin 2/3 to pin 1/2. Leave it for 5 seconds or more then move pin back to original position. Take the power supply lead out of the power supply for 10 seconds or more you will hear a sound of power leaving the motherboard.

Then plug the psu lead back in and start pc. It should now work fine.

sideeffect, Yeah thats what i did the first 2 times I flashed back to 1.8mod used the windows based flasher with bootblock rewerite and clear cmos and then i would have to clear cmos cuz it would have a password :S This is something else, I've flashed 1.8 many times now and this isn't going away.

xxmod

Check out that link its a german translate it has a xxmod which adds support for entering disk setup and changing passwords that might have been applied.

XXMOD = XMOD + ATAsecurityROM

more information about ATA security rom is here

im burning in my 3800 X2 at 2600 1.41Vcore right now. One bad thing is the X2's memory controller doesnt like 2X1GB to go too high. I can either run a divider or use 2T and its perfectly stable. I know its not the Ballistix cuz i ran them with my San Diego all the way up to 270 and they were fine. This board runs the X2 great though! I have hit 2700 already, but im burning in to get my Vcore as low as possible. I also tested my Neo 2 Plat by itself. I took it all the way up to 300FSB and it was still stable, great board, definately the best NF3 board out there. All this with 1.B Modded by Syar.

Temps dont even hit 50C at this speed!

well it seems that my mobo is showing higher cpu temps, this is a second venice cpu first was e-6 and this one e-3 that are idleing around 40 and load almost to 60 without stability problems (both maxT is 57).........this is with XP90 that was keeping newcastle at 1.7 volts up to low 40c at load.........ah ya and im sure that the hsf is on there good and AS5 applied good


ps: im using 1.a3beta moded atm are 1.8 better for e-3 venices than 1.b and is there any bios that is the best for BH5 2x512 or are they all the same after 1.36?

thanks

i must say that this gtu2 bios has really helped my card. i couldn't really get it higher than 385/1.05 for a long time (although i had it higher with my nforce2 board). this bios has helped me run stable at 410/1.09. i also re-seated my nv5 on the card, and i also very recently got an antec p-180, so those could also have something to do with it. :)

Hello everyone. I have built a pc for a friend with this board (non platinum) and for the life of me i cannot get the nvidia lan working! It installs fine, and i can change ip and see status etc, even cable plugged into my router lights up, but no good. It just sends poackets all day, cannot receive. i have tried different bios, different ethernet drivers, reinstalling windows, everything. I'm going out of my mind here, and I need to get this workign by the end of the week or i eat a $800 computer :( Please offer any help you can, 3000+ venice and 2x512mb corsair valueselect cas2.5.

if it's not working get a external lan from your money (in the last and critical situation) and you will know that is not the board itself (20% to be the nvlan the problem)..The first thing is i don't really think the NVlan is the problem.I think the mac of your board must putted in the router mac list because if you don't do this the router will drop your packets.Pls explain your network topology and the equipement you use for it..More details.Thx

i done some tests and it's pretty weird..In my opinion the results are a little bit low than the equivalent systems..I want your impression and maybe some other results from equivalent systems.
My rig:
-A64 3000+ no oc or fsb or something else
-768MB ram with two Kingmax Super ram (just changed the No-name one) modules in this specs: 1x 256 333 working perfectly at 400 and a 512mb Ddr400 The system is working at this timings 2.5,4,4,9 and is perfectly stable)
-9550Xt gecube
-MSI K8N NEO2 with Sideefect bios 1.B with memory timings setted to auto except the 2.5 that is setted manual..
Thx..

my router is a netgear WGT624 108g. It is set to assign ip's automatically via dhcp, and does so for other pc's on my network and my mac laptop (pos). I am not using the mode that requires registered mac addresses...i bring pc's home all the time and plug them in and troubleshoot etc. I believe a netstat showed my mac address as ff.ff.ff.ff etc so i believe it is in fact a mac address problem. How can I change/repair the mac address issue? Thanks.

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Originally Posted by Losphoron

i done some tests and it's pretty weird..In my opinion the results are a little bit low than the equivalent systems..I want your impression and maybe some other results from equivalent systems.
My rig:
-A64 3000+ no oc or fsb or something else
-768MB ram with two Kingmax Super ram (just changed the No-name one) modules in this specs: 1x 256 333 working perfectly at 400 and a 512mb Ddr400 The system is working at this timings 2.5,4,4,9 and is perfectly stable)
-9550Xt gecube
-MSI K8N NEO2 with Sideefect bios 1.B with memory timings setted to auto except the 2.5 that is setted manual..
Thx..

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Using a 939 motherboard and not running dual channel is just pointless. Whats the point of tweaking it even for a few points when your only using half the bus width.

The most important timings for memory on athlon 64 are trcd and trp you want those as low as possible. Because yours are at 4 thats why benchmarks will be low.

Dual channel ram at ddr 400 will get about 6000 mb/sec in sandra.

Guys could you answer me one question. I am new to this board and this thread is very long. Which Bios including Beta's is best for overclocking the Neo 2 plat with a Venice core 3000 A64 and Geil Ultra Platimun PC4400. Can you flash teh bios using winflash? Thanks for any help you can give me.

I'm really getting tired of this board, it'll lag in windows out of no where, mouse moves slow as hell and if I'm browsing a site it'll just start scrolling up and down, totally odd, anyways this happened to me twice when i got home so I decided to reboot except now it wouldn't want to post :mad: so I had to reset the cmos just to boot, ugh can't wait for an nf4 board :/

first of all apparently this 1.B bios removed the nvidia lan's MAC address, so i fixed that problem. This is a request out to sideffect - could you make a 1.B mod bios with 150 divider working? i noticed 183 is there, but where 150 should be, its a blank spot. i selected it, and it acted like 133. 150 would be so perfect for this system im working on for a friend right now, thanks a lot for your great work!

The blank space in between 133 and 166 is the 150 divider. I cant add text in there but it still works. It really is the 150 divider. Dont trust what the bios tells you it shows all maths wrong past 250 HTT. Use cpu-z in windows to tell you the ram speed.

A couple of quick questions here. First, are there any mosfets or pll chips on a Neo2 that get hot enough to benefit from RAM sinking? I felt every one I could find with my fingertips and didn't find any that were even remotely warm to the touch. Second, are there any bioses out there that have a working 216 MHz divider? I would love to try one out given the fact my RAM overclocks so much better than my CPU. Thanks.

well, yes, it does in fact work. but there are problems with it i guess, thats why i thought it just didnt work. this cpu is fine 267x9=2.4, with 133 divider tho the ram suffers around 170mhz. 150 divider would bring me to a perfect 200, or darn close to it. the best i can get is 240htt with the 150 divider, giving me around 180mhz on the ram. 245x9 with 150 divider will not boot. i tried 240x9 to windows, same 180mhz ram, tried using clockgen to bump up, at 243mhz hard lock. i guess this 150 divider still has many issues, or my cpu just doesnt like it. Any suggestions? Thanks.

what ram are u using, some ram (like old CH5) cant boot at 166 divider when mems speed is around 200mhz.....like htt 240 mem 200 - no boot but htt 200 mem 166 boots

its corsair valueselect, 2.5-3-3-8.its weird, even at 250htt and 150 divider it wont post... :( illtry more voltage maybe later tonight, but i guess this wasnt the best choice in cheap ram.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Losphoron

i done some tests and it's pretty weird..In my opinion the results are a little bit low than the equivalent systems..I want your impression and maybe some other results from equivalent systems.
My rig:
-A64 3000+ no oc or fsb or something else
-768MB ram with two Kingmax Super ram (just changed the No-name one) modules in this specs: 1x 256 333 working perfectly at 400 and a 512mb Ddr400 The system is working at this timings 2.5,4,4,9 and is perfectly stable)
-9550Xt gecube
-MSI K8N NEO2 with Sideefect bios 1.B with memory timings setted to auto except the 2.5 that is setted manual..
Thx..

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you need two MATCHED sticks of ram is slots 1&2 or 3&4 to run dual channel which will boost your sandra memory score to 5000+

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Originally Posted by Raillex

A couple of quick questions here. First, are there any mosfets or pll chips on a Neo2 that get hot enough to benefit from RAM sinking? I felt every one I could find with my fingertips and didn't find any that were even remotely warm to the touch. Second, are there any bioses out there that have a working 216 MHz divider? I would love to try one out given the fact my RAM overclocks so much better than my CPU. Thanks.

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There is one chip just under the ide slots that gets very hot. I used a ram heatsink on it.

No 216 divider doesnt work yet. Maybe MSI will fix it maybe not :p

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Originally Posted by sideeffect

There is one chip just under the ide slots that gets very hot. I used a ram heatsink on it.

No 216 divider doesnt work yet. Maybe MSI will fix it maybe not :p

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I poked my finger on every chip in the general vicinity of the IDE slots and still couldn't feel anything warm. I don't have any IDE HDs hooked up so that could explain it.

Are you aware of any other mobos that have working 216 dividers?

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Originally Posted by TMM

you need two MATCHED sticks of ram is slots 1&2 or 3&4 to run dual channel which will boost your sandra memory score to 5000+

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you mean 1&3 and 2&4 ...is clear in the book and on the mainboard..the colors must match to work..My mb is working by the book..If i put like you said i just end up in beeps..I tested..

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Originally Posted by Losphoron

you mean 1&3 and 2&4 ...is clear in the book and on the mainboard..the colors must match to work..My mb is working by the book..If i put like you said i just end up in beeps..I tested..

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I dont know about your mother board but the book is wrong. Maybe MSI has changed it, but dual channel works NOT MATCHING COLORS on my board. I have had mine since bios 1.3 :)

@UNIACID I also had a problem with my board and the mouse i was using. I would try another mouse and i bet the problem goes away. Especially if you are using a logitech driver. Last week i was using a logitech mouse on my brothers pc and it was making the screen shake and scroll like crap, as soon as i removed the driver it worked just fine with the native windows drivers. Those logitech drivers are usually old :( i dont know why they dont make newer ones and better ones more often. :toast:

Guys i REALLY REALLY need help..........

does anyone know of an alternate place pin for the VIO=VDIMM mod

i had the mod on but i wanted to redo it and when i checked how well it was soldered on the cap leg i twisted it a bit and took the pin off all the way to the pcb i tried soldering to the pad left but i couldnt. I know that i could replace the cap but im not up for that since i dont think my soldering iron is up for that.

so is there any place else that i could solder the 3.3 rail to since i got 3 sets of 2x512 BH5 and with 2.9v that the bios gives me they are horrid

this is what im thinking if anyone knows is its safe to solder the vio to one of the pins on the actual dim sockets like its done on some boards and not to the capacitor

thanks for any input by bh5 is hurting at 210