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

the 4th phase, yes.

4 phases is better then 3 right?:D But I guess It not really that much of differnce, well at least for normal users, is this why msi doesn't use it? How much better is it?

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Originally Posted by Hoot

With all due respect, that is not the best place to read the Vcore, though it is convenient. It would be more accurate to read it on the load side of the toroidal inductors (donuts with wire wrapped around them), AKA Chokes. If you look in the picture on Pg 77, below those inductors is the array of electrolytic capacitors that filter the Vcore. You will see one of them is missing. MSI probably saved $.50 omitting that capacitor. :rolleyes: Anyway, where it belongs are two plated through barrels from the Vcore and ground planes. Those two pads are the best compromise between accessability and accuracy to take the reading. There is a half-shaded-in circle silk-screened on the motherboard where the cap belongs. The pad in the shaded-in half it positive and the other pad is negative. As for Vdimm measurement, again you want to be as close to the load as possible. Again, MSI omitted a capacitor in that circuit. Up near the top of the board, to the right of the fan header, you will see a missing electrolytic capacitor that filters the Vdimm. Take your Vdimm reading from the two pads where the cap belongs. Again, the shaded-in pad is positive. FWIW, I tried adding a low ESR electrolytic capacitor to each of the two missing ones and it didn't increase stability, so don't bother pondering that one. MSI already figured that out.

Hoot

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Hoot any chance you can get a picture and point arrows to these spots to make it clearer?

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Originally Posted by sideeffect

Hoot any chance you can get a picture and point arrows to these spots to make it clearer?

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I second that question :D (thanks for pointing it out sideeffect :thumbsup: )

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Originally Posted by sideeffect

Hoot any chance you can get a picture and point arrows to these spots to make it clearer?

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Unfortunately, I'm at work today, but I'll be happy to when I get home. Perhaps I can rework other pictures available online and post them.

Hoot

Many people requested no temp BIOSes. So here they are:

Link

thanks NFM :)

Thanks NFM. I can't speak for everybody since I'm new to these forums, but I'm sure the rest of us really appreciate your time and effort as well as putting up with all our requests. Thanks again! :toast: :toast: :toast: :toast:

hey guys, is the 1.9 bios good for winchesters as well? I have 2x256mb gskill and a 3500+ winchester, and im still using the 1.36b bios. should I give 1.9 a try?

Hamster yes the 1.9 should work fine for the winchster also but never forget. If it aint broke dont fix it.
the 1.8 should actually be more appropriate for your winchester as reading across many forums people are showing similar issues as what are stated here. not many issue but its enough to cause most not to use it. But then again people with san diego's and X2's i think are seeing things better for them while the rest of us ae seeing issues.

if your 1.36 is working good and overclocks are good then there isnt a reason to update.
1 thing i'll note is that for me atleast when i moved to 1.8 my HTT is able to reach 370mhz but with 1.9 i cant even hit 250. and with others 300mhz is an issue. so if you havent tried 1.8mod try it see what you think.

hoot if possible please throw us some picks i for one am interested in anything that gives me more accuracy.

*note of interest*
i put in my 2nd stick of ram and my vdimm instantly shot up to 1.96v instead of the 1.55v it was. (it actually showed 1.57v on the board)
vdimm went back up to 3v also. where it was showing 2.89 (bios is 2.85)

so something about 2 dimms really messes up this mobo's voltage regulation.

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Originally Posted by Lestat

wouldnt you suppose that considering that sideeffect gave me pictures on the previous page that im doing the right spot
the wrong leg ? please dude, i leg shows 1.xx and the other shows well... a whole helluva lot more than that. same with vdimm 2.85 in the bios and 3.x on the mobo... the 2nd leg reports over 7volts.
ground ? no i have a wire connected to a 5 foot pole i have shoved in the ground.... yeah guy the thing is grounded properly. if its not grounded your not gunna get a reading with a dig. meter.

issues with a flakey board sure.. but you might wanna go searching around on the results for the Ultra-D AGP version. the EXACT same thing.... ..... massive overvolting on the motherboard when metering it.

im not saying there is anything wrong with this board either stability wise. But this board is severely lacking and has been since the day it was made. There was only 1 build date of this board that came out that has superior strengths to the other boards and its a highly sought after version of the neo2, ill have to check with :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:breaker,, he knows the one cuz he has one.

you speak as if im the only one here having this issue and yet im the only one who has actually reported metering the motherboard. maybe sideeffect did i dont recall.
look around this is a highly known issue

and 1.45 + 10 is 1.6 1.50 + 8.3% = 1.625 the system reports it as 1.58~1.6


what seens to be really funny is the fact that core center can adjust the voltages allt he way from defualt to 1.7 so how does it do that when the bios cant ? or is flakey at best.
well other than direct interaction with the chip at a software level.

well anyways there is no user level errors you can be darned sure of that.


I would dare you to prove that you removed the 4 phase off that motherboard and still had a full functional board. you can't simply remove a phase of electricity on an item like a motherboard and still have a functional board. just like attempting to run a 4phase or 3phase motor on non 4 or 3 phase electricity... just aint happening guys not without changing 1 wire inside the motor. which i suppose could be possible with this board but again im not aware of any mot removing the 4 phase as you would be dumb to do so, the loss of that 4th phase ,,ehh yuck,, why even think about it. your not gunna see it unless your into some heavy overclocking. thats where the 4th phase shows its colors.
unless your referring to something your changing in the bios or a jumper, which the board is 4 phase always ther eis no on off switch for it.
Unless there is and i just havent paid enough attention to those dfi boards to hear about it.
im sure you didnt do this as an experiement so if you care to provide me with some proof or reading materials on how to do this with this board and still make the board functional id find it interesting reading. (yes i mean that seriously i would indeed find it interesting to read about)

again i encourage you to research the neo2's the flakey voltages are a well known issue with the venice's and even the boards themselves... you not knowing this indicates to me you been building systems but not knowing about the hardware your using. or maybe you just deal more with dfi than the neo2.(as i did at one time)

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I'm sorry that you're still uptight about your board....you should take a laxative and relax a little. I asked how you were using the meter because your voltage readings are wonky. You can use almost anything as a "ground"...."ground" is relative. If you have ever done a 7v mod for a DC fan in your case, you'd know that you replace the ground wire with the 5v line. The 5v line becomes the "ground" for the fan's circuit. The "ground" is nothing but a reference point....in the same manner, you can "boost" the 12v to the fan by using the -3.3v line as a ground. This would result in about 15v to the fan. Not all powersupplies "like" this though and often end up malfunctioning.

As for providing documentation on adding and removing components to complete the 4th phase, I can only say that I'm not going to be doing that again any time soon. I've experimented and have found that the differences are too small to be useful for me. If you're using phase change and are pushing over 1.75v through your chip, then the 4th phase might be useful to stabilize voltages a bit. I am only watercooling and I refuse to push over 1.65v through my chip for 24/7 use. The 4th phase will help to remove "ripple" from the voltage supplied to the chip/board. If you're not experiencing voltage fluctuations, I wouldn't recommend attempting to add it. (Some others online have reported the same as I have regarding the 4th phase on the K8N Neo2 Platinum.)If you are intersted in a few mods that require a bit of soldering, you may be interested in this page: http://www.hardwaredome.nl/reviews/view/18/ I find that the cap mod helps the most for stabilizing fluctuating voltages.

As for not knowing about hardware, I can only laugh and point in your general direction. :ROTF: :slap: It's not like a technician with an engineering degree knows anything about computers or discrete technology....right? As I've said before, I hope that you resolve your MB issue. :toast:

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Originally Posted by sideeffect

Hoot any chance you can get a picture and point arrows to these spots to make it clearer?

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Sorry to take so long. My dog ate some of the neighbors grass that had been treated with 2-4-D and I spent the evening at the animal hospital, the cost of which would have bought me my choice of NF4 boards. :rolleyes:

Here is the Vcore metering point:

http://www.frontiernet.net/~hill195/ne2p/vcore.jpg

And here is the Vdimm metering point:

http://www.frontiernet.net/~hill195/ne2p/vdimm.jpg

Hoot

i like those mods but Cap mods really on serve their purpose on extreme overclocking.
but wouldnt hurt on low or midrange overclocking. Any extra punch that the system takes for power will be backed up by more cap's. Think of it as when you have anice car stereo and when the bass hits your headlights dimm. throw a 1 farad cap on your positive line to your amp and no more problems!. (of course a bigger alternator helps also). same thing here more power stored for use when the system needs it.
The vdimm mod where you run 1 wire from the 3.3v line to the vdimm line is a quick and painless mod for people who have ram with a sweet spot around 3.3-3.5v. Me personally i get nervous thinking about running my 3.3v line on my 600w Powerstream upwards of anything above 3.5v.
Personally if i were to do it i would run it to the 5v line and put a adjustable resistor on it so i could adjust it as high as needed. but then again i wouldnt want to turn the dial the wrong way when i first power up the system... ouch! you'd be sending up some serious smoke signals.
the htt mod is interesting for sure as MSI didnt give us HTT voltage adjustments. ggrrr. but alas he was right higher htt multipliers dont give any more performance. infact from 2.5x to 4x ive never seen anything increase or decrease.


Again if you do come across some materials on the 4 phase removal on the dfi board or discussions about it let me know, it sounds like an interesting debate. Just something that sparks an interest in my mind and i wanna do some learning also.
but again its been shown that the DFI boards "power" in overclocking and such comes from the 4 phase power. but then agian the boards themselves are some impressive work with or without that 4th phase.

My neo 2 and me have no need to take any type laxative. My gripes are not with stability, my system hasnt run better. its with the "how's" and "why's" and "what do i do now" when it comes to this voltage going thru the roof when i put in 2 dimms.

There has to be a pin on the back of the CPU socket (rear of the mobo) that gives a 100% reading of voltages. seriously there has to be the voltage is fed TO the cpu via one of those pins so taking a reading from it ... thats the best spot.

Hoot do you know or seen anyone do this ? or know where i might find out ?
One thing that would be cool would be a schematic or several pictures showing exact locations on the mobo of all known testing spots.

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Originally Posted by Hoot

Sorry to take so long. My dog ate some of the neighbors grass that had been treated with 2-4-D and I spent the evening at the animal hospital, the cost of which would have bought me my choice of NF4 boards. :rolleyes:

Here is the Vcore metering point:

http://www.frontiernet.net/~hill195/ne2p/vcore.jpg

And here is the Vdimm metering point:

http://www.frontiernet.net/~hill195/ne2p/vdimm.jpg

Hoot

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Many thanks Hoot hope the puppy feels better.!
Although that vcore check point is only 1/2 inch from the other one readings arent going to be much different but yes its closer to the CPU so a more accurate reading should take place.
the vdimm one i would assume would give a way better reading since it is right up by the dimms.



Edit

just checked and voltages are exactly the same so they are no different.

Vcore 1.94
vdimm 3.56v that is impossible....( the other leg is over 7v ). the bios is set to 2.85 and frankly i can tell you from experience that this ram wont even BOOT at anything over 3.2. at least my last set of this same ram wouldnt. Again if this particular ram was volted that high then i would be getting better overclocks this this on the ram.

Dude, I think your dmm might be going wacky, I have one there the has gone wacky and reports off voltages like that, I checked those spots and the other spots in the pervious picks, and I get less then 50mv from what bios reads vcore as.

Your chip would be dead by now, test ur dmm on something like ur house outlet, should be 110-120.

now see the whole thing is that with 1 dimm in the dimm slots the voltages are exactly spot on. and i dont mean just vdimm i mean vcore and vdimm. but since its an ondie memcontroller adding the 2nd dimm ... well... i could see how it might adjust voltages to comensate.
the voltages only are reported fooked up like this when i use 2 sticks of ram.

I wish i still had my newcastle to test things with.

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Originally Posted by Lestat

Many thanks Hoot hope the puppy feels better.!
Although that vcore check point is only 1/2 inch from the other one readings arent going to be much different but yes its closer to the CPU so a more accurate reading should take place.
the vdimm one i would assume would give a way better reading since it is right up by the dimms.



Edit

just checked and voltages are exactly the same so they are no different...snip

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Was that while running Prime95 Torture Large FFT's or BurnK7 ???

I see a little voltage drop across the toroids. Remember, there is literally 7 or 8 inches of wire wound around each of them and even though it's fairly large gauge, it does offer a little voltage drop when a lot of current is passing through it.

Were you getting those odd voltages with both your positive and negative probes on the capacitor pads, or did you cheat and put the negative on say, chassis ground and only use the positive pad? If so, you can't do that as you add ground loop currents to the measurement, which can add up to as much as .1V error. :)

Hoot

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throw a 1 farad cap on your positive line to your amp and no more problems!. (of course a bigger alternator helps also). same thing here more power stored for use when the system needs it.

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Sorry, but car audio caps are bandaids mostly.

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There has to be a pin on the back of the CPU socket (rear of the mobo) that gives a 100% reading of voltages. seriously there has to be the voltage is fed TO the cpu via one of those pins so taking a reading from it ... thats the best spot.

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You might get something off one of the SMD capacitors under the metal backplate, but other than that there are only the legs of the capacitors near the vcore mosfets and the torroids.

Best to use 2+ wires if you can for the 3.3=vdimm mod too.

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Originally Posted by Lestat

Again if you do come across some materials on the 4 phase removal on the dfi board or discussions about it let me know, it sounds like an interesting debate. Just something that sparks an interest in my mind and i wanna do some learning also.
but again its been shown that the DFI boards "power" in overclocking and such comes from the 4 phase power. but then agian the boards themselves are some impressive work with or without that 4th phase.

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Sorry if I wasn't clear, I added the 4th phase to the K8N Neo2 Platinum and then removed it. I wouldn't dream of removing the 4ht phase from a DFI board. I simply meant that after adding the 4th phase to the Neo2, that I saw next to no difference. So I've stuck with the cap mod until I want to upgrade to a PCI-E board. I found that the cap mod on the site that I linked to worked quite well. If your board is out of warrantee and you want to attempt a mod, the cap mod is the one that you should try first. It helps with fluctuating voltages especially when you're pumping 1.7v+ through your CPU. ;) (I run what's in my sig 24/7 though.)

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Originally Posted by Lestat

My gripes are not with stability, my system hasnt run better. its with the "how's" and "why's" and "what do i do now" when it comes to this voltage going thru the roof when i put in 2 dimms.

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I've never seen the voltage jump like that when 2 DIMMS were installed, but anything is possible. If I were you, I would write to MSI and try to get the board replaced. :shrug: Do you know where your chipset was made, and week/year? (Taiwan or Korea?) I know that some of the early Taiwan chips seemed to have issues with high HTT's. I've heard that the Korea chipsets run at a slightly higher voltage than most of the early Taiwan's which could help obtaining high HTT's, but I haven't verified this for myself yet. I have a Korea 0450 and have had no problems hitting over 300HTT with any of the bios's that I've tried. *knocks on wood* (1.36mod through 1.9, including betas) I actually found that 1.37mod bios gave me higher voltage fluctuations and temps, but that's with software reporting.....and you konw how "accurate" software monitoring utilities can be. :rotf: :zombie: I'm actually impressed that the board has lasted this long in today's market. It is a really good board, but 64bit technology has matured, and there are better options available if you're buying into the 64bit market for the first time.

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Originally Posted by Lestat

My neo 2 and me have no need to take any type laxative.

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Sorry if I appeared to be grumpy......I haven't had much sleep lately. I've been trying to ressurect my 9800pro that recently "drowned" when my cpu block threw up on it. :stick: I think I'm going to have a new R350 keychain pretty soon though, as things aren't looking good. :brick: On the bright side, I'm happy with the x800xl. :p: :woot:

Anyone have issues with the 1.90 bios? I finally got mine flashed and the bios menu was totally different, and after a short amount of time the CPU Fan would spin down, i reverted back to 1.80

I was attempting the 1.90 Release, not a modded version

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Originally Posted by d1c1ple

I was attempting the 1.90 Release, not a modded version

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In the "Plain Vanilla" 1.90, Cool-n-Quiet is enabled. Set it to off and see if that makes your fan run full speed all the time. I disable all the temperature related features out of necessity since my thermal diode is routed off the motherboard, so I'm not speaking from personal experience, just a hunch.

Hoot

thx - i'll try again and see

whats going on guys, just thought I'd say I received an FX53 as a replacement for my 3700 SD since AMD was out of stock of any SD's, its a clawhammer and I believe this is what it said for the model: CAAXC 0433MPMW I took pictures but they didn't come out as clear as I wanted, anyways I'm burning it in with p95 right now and was wondering if there was any suggestions as far as burning in goes? thanks.

Try Sen's Burn-In Technique

Link

Good luck with that chip i think you got a good deal really as long as you can keep the thing cool.