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

[xgman]

farthest one from cpu

huh? How's that possible? It wouldn't fit next to the slot next to it if you are running dual channel ram. Dual ch is either all green slots or all purple slots right?

edit: Oh, I looked at the manual and see that MSI uses both colors for dual, so 1st green and 1st purple for dual ch ddr400 and that leaves 2 open slots together so the booster fits in the last one and the board still operates in dual right?

[JNav89GT]

yes, it's corny how they color them, very confusing

[xgman]

so again, what is the max vcore/vdim that bios 1.36 will allow?

[`schr0et]

Got the board yesterday, got CPU today got my ASUS X800 PRO vivo today. Hooked everything up and first boot was no go, I figured it was probably temp realated since I booted with GT. So I plugged in my rear fan into the CPU fan header and it booted. Used bottom two ram slots with my TCCD and installed windows.

Weird thing I was watching it instal windows and I look over and the chipset fan wasn't running, I flicked it with my index finger and it started running? Was like some haunted ride where you touch something and it screams at you.

Kind of annoyed at the board right now though, because of the screw placement I can't ever close the side panel of my PC75 now cause the tube sticks out. Bah so much for easier assembly :P

My board came with bios 1.2 stock, Gonna flash it to 1.35 once I'm done installing everything.

Someone mentioned something about "secret" options menu I was sitting in bios pressing CTRL + F2, CTRL + F3, ALT + F2, ALT + F3 and nothing happened so I just gave up.

Any how I'm going to look through this thread for a link for the MSI K8N NEO2 1.35 Beta Bios if its not posted can someone post a link for me please? Thanks!

Will post updates.

[p4z1f1st]

@ GigaByte-boards the "secret" menu is @ Alt+F1 afaik....or strg+F1

[xgman]

Weird thing I was watching it instal windows and I look over and the chipset fan wasn't running, I flicked it with my index finger and it started running? Was like some haunted ride where you touch something and it screams at you.

I have heard several cases of this. I think I'll replace mine with something better.

1.36 bios:

http://www.maksys.biz/comcentral/showthread.php?t=128

I think it is alt-f1

[cowpuppy]

`schr0et It's shift-F2 then alt-F3 while holding shift+F2 place your curser on cell in the bios when you get it right it will move over to the left.

OCZ timmings were set at Auto CL3 -3-2-8-11-16

The only thing that bothers me about this board is the temps bios says from 40c to 113c and with my Temp display not working on my Promi all I have to go by is the temp probe from my Koolance attached to the backplate. MM also displays the same temps as reported from bios.

Some of my bios settings, I'm not sure wich version bios I'm using at this moment, it's the one I posted earlier from onepage.

Aggressive Timmings... Dis
NV/ATI..Enabled
Drive Dram Streangth... Normal
Dynamic OCing...Dis
HT Freq...3x
Coll-N-Quiet...Dis
PCI Auto Detect...Enabled
AGP Freq...67
Mem Volts 2.85...... booster to 3.1/OCZ.........3.3+/BH-5
AGP voltage 1.65
Vcore 1.8

Mem setup
200.....1T......Auto on all Timmings
mem is located in the 2 slots closest to cpu with booster in farthest slot=Dual chanel

All ports are off along with all the SATA Drives and On board sound
USB ports are on.

[charlie]

cowpuppy,
looks like it's treating you well... great tips, too.

thanks

C

[`schr0et]

THe damn chipset fan is annoying me to no end! Everytime I shut down and restart the damn fan won't turn on!

Is there a fix for this?

I just downloaded the 1.36 bios I'm doing the floppy flash, post back in a second.

Is there anyway to get the MSI board bios to report atleast half decent temps?

[d]g[ts]

THe damn chipset fan is annoying me to no end! Everytime I shut down and restart the damn fan won't turn on!

Is there a fix for this?

I just downloaded the 1.36 bios I'm doing the floppy flash, post back in a second.

Is there anyway to get the MSI board bios to report atleast half decent temps?

Have not heard of chipset fan acting up like that. and as far as temps go Tis best to just ignore them. Unless that 1.36 fixes em.

[`schr0et]

sigh just restarted comp again and what'dya know stupid chipset fan didn't start. Maybe I should get a big stick to poke the chipset fan whenever I shut down and restart the PC

I just tried working 1.36 and it was no good for me, whenever I tried to change the HT it would show a blank box and wouldn't let me close it or exit bios I would have to CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart the comp.

I'm going to flash back to 1.35, and 1.36 doesn't fix temp issue still showing really off temps.

[`schr0et]

WOW I HATE this board! Everytime I try to go into the HT options it gives me a blank blue box and freezes bios, I tried this with 1.35 and 1.36 and both are giving me this.

Add to that it takes about 10 minutes for the stupid bios to get out of post mode, and then windows now takes another 10 mins to boot, I have to clear CMOS for it to boot normally.

I don't know what the heck I did here but this board has issues.

Holy hell, most half assed board I used. And to think I'm still using stock clocks and volts! Oh and look the stupid chipset fan stopped running out of the blue. I think some gasoline on this board would make it work better.

[cowpuppy]

My 1st 3dMark run at over 3ghz vcore 1.88. I still havn't tried any reall kind of vcore with this FX, it would be sweet to run 3ghz 24/7.
Some 3Dmark03 runs have tested that the OCZ is beating out my Bh-5, now if I could only get some OCZ EB that would do 300+ that would be sweet

[JNav89GT]

WOW I HATE this board! Everytime I try to go into the HT options it gives me a blank blue box and freezes bios, I tried this with 1.35 and 1.36 and both are giving me this.

Add to that it takes about 10 minutes for the stupid bios to get out of post mode, and then windows now takes another 10 mins to boot, I have to clear CMOS for it to boot normally.

I don't know what the heck I did here but this board has issues.

Holy hell, most half assed board I used. And to think I'm still using stock clocks and volts! Oh and look the stupid chipset fan stopped running out of the blue. I think some gasoline on this board would make it work better.

Mine does same thing, just use your +/- key to change the HT instead of entering sub menu

[`schr0et]

Mine does same thing, just use your +/- key to change the HT instead of entering sub menu

/takes back some of the flames and goes to bios to try what you said.

Do you have a solution for the 10 minutes it takes for the board to get past post?

Guess I really needed to fully utilize the statement "The board is really picky but once you get it working it works great"

[`schr0et]

EDIT: Posting when angry = not smart. I'm going to keep going at it with this board and hopefully get it working. I still got hopes (notice I'm happy, I just got my ASUS X800 PRO VIVO to XT PE working 16 pipes after 10 tries )

EDIT TWO: Got it to stop taking its dear old timing posting and booting to windows, my secret is not being a jackass and changing everything in bios at once.

I'm leaning towards messing with AGP volts as reason for it slowing down like that.

In any case with 1.73V its not stable @ 235x11 wtf?

Ram settings:

2.5-3-3-8 1T Max clock 200 mhz
2x512 OCZ TCCD @ 2.65V

CPU V; 1.55 + 10% = 1.705V

Side band addressing = disabled
AGP Aperature = 256MB
Set PCI Clock = enabled
AGP clock = 67

What should I be messing with here? Thanks

[drunkenmaster]

well, i think as dudes said, 3xhtt for this board and any kinda overclocking.

WHich is crap tbh, all other 939 boards have chipset/htt voltage options, and all seem to go way way further than this one in overall htt speed. Try that first.

I'm still playing around with it, still gotta try the 3x htt and see how far i can get, cpu cooling could be it, plain volcano 12 on it right now, or venus 12, forget what its called, TT heatsink. 3600+ is mighty fast though, very weird chip, very early week for an ath 64, CG stepping though, and on crap cooling in a very hot room is doing at least 2.5Ghz without much extra voltage.

Been getting to drunk and feel to bad day after to mess around with it, freshers week ++

[:PopCorn]

I got this board the week they came out and I hated the freakin thing. Unstable and generally a huge pain in the ass when trying to overclock, especially compared to my Asus A8V which is stable and cooperative.

Now, I didn't have the luxury of having all the many tips that I'm reading about now around the net. It seems through Bios updates and people learning how to tame the board, it seems a little more attractive, although I'm in no hurry to mess with it again. It's sitting in half built box and there's no way I'm putting it back in my main gaming rig. Yes, it pissed me off that bad. It's probably going to serve in as my HTPC, as at stock speeds it was o.k.

Better luck to all of you sincerely, but I almost shot mine with a 12 Gauge. Don't even get me started on the Clear Cmos jumper, which I needed to access often because of how flakey the board was when tweaking ram settings.

I'm really not a negative person, but I think all of us have had hardware that made us want to pull our hair out. The Neo2 was mine.

[`schr0et]

I got this board the week they came out and I hated the freakin thing. Unstable and generally a huge pain in the ass when trying to overclock, especially compared to my Asus A8V which is stable and cooperative.

Now, I didn't have the luxury of having all the many tips that I'm reading about now around the net. It seems through Bios updates and people learning how to tame the board, it seems a little more attractive, although I'm in no hurry to mess with it again. It's sitting in half built box and there's no way I'm putting it back in my main gaming rig. Yes, it pissed me off that bad. It's probably going to serve in as my HTPC, as at stock speeds it was o.k.

Better luck to all of you sincerely, but I almost shot mine with a 12 Gauge. Don't even get me started on the Clear Cmos jumper, which I needed to access often because of how flakey the board was when tweaking ram settings.

I'm really not a negative person, but I think all of us have had hardware that made us want to pull our hair out. The Neo2 was mine.

Good thing you didn't read my post before I edited it, I think I was more pissed off last night than anyone could imagine, I was getting close to ripping the board out of the case and lighting it on fire lol.

But I could it working half decent now, can boot in and run SiSoft in windows @ 260x11 2.5-3-3-7 1T but not stable enough to even run Super Pi 1M

[`schr0et]

so again, what is the max vcore/vdim that bios 1.36 will allow?

Setting to 1.55 CPU V + 18% CPU VID = 1.9V for me

Vdimm is 2.85

[Onepagebook]

I have been playing with the board for quite some time, and have kinda gotten to know its quirks.

First...this board did not like my BH-5 Mushkin or PC3700EB. The BH-5 would only allow me to do about 210HTT, and the EB would run out quick at 218HTT. I picked up a gig of Crucial Ballistix PC4000 and it's humming at 260 x 10 1:1 with 2.85v. Run the RAM in slots 1 & 2, 3 & 4 will give DC...but it will cause instability.

In order to get the AGP to work, you need to set the freq to 67. Only SATA ports 3 & 4 have working PCI locks.

Within Cell Menu, press Shift F2 & ALT F3 to unlock "hidden" features within the BIOS. It has a couple of neat things, namely a "overdrive" function that works on any ATi or Nvidia card.

I could not get the OCZ Booster to work properly in this board. It causes major instability, even though vTT was tracking right.

two things you might take as a reference:

1. Booster need to be sit in 4th slot
2. All the 939 boards( should not say boards)I think I should say 939 CPU
do not like BH-5 chip
(my MSI doesn't do any mod, cuz I don't know how to mod it!)
I will post some pics later

[`schr0et]

I got the board chugging along pretty nicely, still working on getting 275 though

Onepagebook can you tell me how you got your Core center thing to display those temps? Mines keeps showing 44C-116C so I just uninstalled all the MSI programs.



Bah max file size is now 200KB so I can't put in 348 KB file

[Arnar]

Nice..

So you think this is the best s939 mobo out yet?

Im havint troubles with my gigabyte.. wont get over 205htt :|

Im thinking of just waiting for the DFi board to come out..
Or.. should I just take this one?

[`schr0et]

Nice..

So you think this is the best s939 mobo out yet?

Im havint troubles with my gigabyte.. wont get over 205htt :|

Im thinking of just waiting for the DFi board to come out..
Or.. should I just take this one?

Use F4 bios if you have'nt already.

I'll say one thing K8N NEO2 is not the board for people who want immediate OCability. This board needs A LOT of tweaking.

[Onepagebook]

hi all, here is mine
I love this cpu

Vcore 1.44v
Vdimm 2.65v

Quite stable though!!