ultimate S939 mainboard guide - tweaking guide ,known bugs, and fixes

[`schr0et]

Er lets get something cleared up I don't mean to say the K8N NEO2 is a bad mobo, just the annoyance I've had with mines steered me away, I wanted a closed case setup with my GT and I can't have that with the K8N NEO2 and I didn't like the chipset fan but also didn't have one laying around to switch up, I can have a closed case setup with the ASUS and there's no chipset fan on the ASUS so that elminates the annoyance with the K8N so thats my reason to going back to the ASUS.

Although I've never been fond of the Via chipsets, the K8T800 Pro is a very good offering from Via (surpisingly compared to the regular K8T800).

Benching / Ocing wasn't an issue once I figured how to work the motherboard so my beef wasn't with the performance of the board just the layout of it.

[mdzcpa]

Well, I certainly wasn't directing my post towards you. I was just answering the original post that "all 939 mobos suck"....something I don't agree with the NEO2 as a decent option.

Also, don't misunderstand me either. I'd certainly prefer a quirk free mobo. Right now, though, they just don't exist.

[bypolar]

Soltek makes a 939 board Based on the KT800 chipset. It has all the Voltage options but from what Little I have read the Locks do not work and the Vcore Max is 1.55V.

it is funny how all the Naysayers where sayiong 754 socket is almost dead. That might be true if we had the same amout of chioces on the 939 platform. But as long as 939 boardmakers stagnate, socket 754 will go on.

[Radelon]

My EB 2x512 works great in my MSI K8N Neo2. 3-2-2-9 @270 works just peachy. 1.36b of course. As for the board. This is my first AMD since T-Bird 1.4, yes even before PR rated cpus, been on P4 rigs ever since. It took me about 1 day and I got this Neo2 w/ 3000+ 90nm to 2.56ghz 8x320 with no problems at all. Everything on the system is USB, I don't use lan ports or anything. This board is far better than anything I had on the Intel Platform. That's saying a lot since I had a Asus P4C800ED that took my air cooled 2.4c to 320fsb. I would recommend the MSI to everyone wanting to go 939, just look around, read posts, get 1.36b bios, and learn a little.

I would prolly classify myself as a veteran overclocker as I've been overclocking for almost 8 years now, I've never done anything extreme like the big dogs though.

Heck I was told that the board slowed down over 300fsb but man, I've not seen that. This board works great with the 3000+ 90nm and at $303 shipped from newegg for the pair, you just can't go wrong with this setup. Fact is you never know until you try it yourself. As for getting it to run well "some can, some can't" we all know that story.

[HKPolice]

Whoa, what voltage? Active cooling on the dimms?

My EB 2x512 works great in my MSI K8N Neo2. 3-2-2-9 @270 works just peachy. 1.36b of course. As for the board. This is my first AMD since T-Bird 1.4, yes even before PR rated cpus, been on P4 rigs ever since. It took me about 1 day and I got this Neo2 w/ 3000+ 90nm to 2.56ghz 8x320 with no problems at all. Everything on the system is USB, I don't use lan ports or anything. This board is far better than anything I had on the Intel Platform. That's saying a lot since I had a Asus P4C800ED that took my air cooled 2.4c to 320fsb. I would recommend the MSI to everyone wanting to go 939, just look around, read posts, get 1.36b bios, and learn a little.

I would prolly classify myself as a veteran overclocker as I've been overclocking for almost 8 years now, I've never done anything extreme like the big dogs though.

Heck I was told that the board slowed down over 300fsb but man, I've not seen that. This board works great with the 3000+ 90nm and at $303 shipped from newegg for the pair, you just can't go wrong with this setup. Fact is you never know until you try it yourself. As for getting it to run well "some can, some can't" we all know that story.

[hollywood]

Yeah...My MSI Neo2 sucks...

[blinky]

Probably figured out which chip controls OVP and put a VR on it to pull down the signal.

he hints somewhere thats its very similar to the SK8N OVP mod. anyone have that mod?

[Mongoose420]

well ive got a locking asus a8v 1.02, scores in sig, thats far from horrid and mine is the only one ive heard of that undervolts vdimm!. 275htt capable, 246 1:1 3-2-2-10 3d stable with only 2.7v on my 3700EB and it liked both gigs of bh-5 i threw at it.

Ive also recently picked up the epox 9NDA3+. Very happy with it also, just got it today but ran 3dmark01se at 300HTT(yet to try more) DDR400 3-2-2-10 with my 3700EB and got a run at 252x10 3-3-2-10 1:1 with my 3700EB. ATX connection placement sucks, as does the cmos battery placement. Havnt yet had to clear the cmos tho and ive failed about 3 or 4 overclocks before i ran 300HTT =p. According to bios vcore overvolts by about .05v and vdimm is hang'n around 2.8~2.81 where it should.

EP-9NDA3+ info and some prelim benchmarks with clock for clock comparison to the a8v dlx can be found here.

[Kane]

Ditto....I just think folks have sour grapes 'cause they expect an easy OC each time.

It took me a good 2 weeks of playing with different combos to find the one that my Neo2 liked. Once I got the Bios straight and the right mem...I've had zero issues.

Most Neo2 problems can be attributed to folks not having enough patience.

(Except `schr0et's NB fan problem...however that could of been easily fixed.)

I have the MSI K8N Neo2 card. Since you guys say that it takes alot of tweaking in the bios to get it stabile, maybe you could help a mate out

I'm currently using 1.36B bios, and a brand new 4000+ (sample) I got at work. Before that I used a 3500+. I've tried it with both 2x512MB OCZ3500EB and 2x512MB Geil Ultra X. Over to the problem. I can't get more than 200MHz overclock, and even then it is not stable. This is with both the CPU's. I can play games for hours and hours, but Prime95 won't go for more than a couple of minutes. Is there some special thing you guy's do to make it stable I've tried everything from 12x217 to 10x260. Hopefully you guys can give me some hints. Another thing. At what temps do usually these CPU get unstable. I'm using a CoolerMaster Hyper 6 w/ 2x80mm to cool it, but it rises to about 55 degrees under load. I'm also using the OCZ 520w PSU. Hoping for some good suggestions from you guys.

- Jim

[hollywood]

I have the MSI K8N Neo2 card. Since you guys say that it takes alot of tweaking in the bios to get it stabile, maybe you could help a mate out

I'm currently using 1.36B bios, and a brand new 4000+ (sample) I got at work. Before that I used a 3500+. I've tried it with both 2x512MB OCZ3500EB and 2x512MB Geil Ultra X. Over to the problem. I can't get more than 200MHz overclock, and even then it is not stable. This is with both the CPU's. I can play games for hours and hours, but Prime95 won't go for more than a couple of minutes. Is there some special thing you guy's do to make it stable I've tried everything from 12x217 to 10x260. Hopefully you guys can give me some hints. Another thing. At what temps do usually these CPU get unstable. I'm using a CoolerMaster Hyper 6 w/ 2x80mm to cool it, but it rises to about 55 degrees under load. I'm also using the OCZ 520w PSU. Hoping for some good suggestions from you guys.

- Jim

Try the following for the 3500+, adjust the multi a bit lower for the 4000+.

Also...try the MSI 1.3 release bios through live-update.

Mem: 2.5,3,6,3 1T 2.80v 1:1
HT: 4x
FSB: 260Mhz
CPU: 9.5x 2470Mhz 1.60v



Mem: 2.5,3,6,3 1T 2.80v 1:1
HT: 4x
FSB: 255Mhz
CPU: 10x 2550Mhz 1.60v



Mem: 2.5,3,6,3 1T 2.85v 1:1
HT: 4x
FSB: 260Mhz
CPU: 10x 2600Mhz 1.65v

[Radelon]

My eb was at 3.3v no active cooling.

[WildKard]

I have the K8N Neo Platinum(s754) and it was a pain in the ass to get running, but once youve figured out all the ins and outs of the boards its great! I am sure the Neo2 is probably exactly the same way... to get going but once its there it really shines, we have just been spoiled over the years with some awesome board that require little no skill in overclocking and now we just "expect" every board to be a miracle board and push all of our components to the limits and lots of people have lost patience in trying to make things work right

[dav]

i have k8nsnxp-939 and a8v deluxe and i would say the a8v deluxe is much better to be recommended.

i think the k8nsnxp-939 was supposed to be a high-end s939 mobo (from its price), but unfortunately all its BIOS from F2 to F4 are really crappy..
1) could not cold boot with high HTT
2) always detect IDE devices even if set to disabled
3) very limited voltage options (max vcore 1.7v vdimm 2.7v)
moreover there are tons of memory incompatible issues with this mobo... i'm rather sad to have spent more than $200 for this mobo..

BTW, gigabyte has a new s939 board... which looks like k8nsnxp-939 without the DPS Gold thing.. not sure what's up with it and waiting for more information from gigabyte. (hoping to replace my k8nsnxp-939 with this newer version :P)

[jjcom]

I have the MSI K8N Neo2 card. Since you guys say that it takes alot of tweaking in the bios to get it stabile, maybe you could help a mate out

I'm currently using 1.36B bios, and a brand new 4000+ (sample) I got at work. Before that I used a 3500+. I've tried it with both 2x512MB OCZ3500EB and 2x512MB Geil Ultra X. Over to the problem. I can't get more than 200MHz overclock, and even then it is not stable. This is with both the CPU's. I can play games for hours and hours, but Prime95 won't go for more than a couple of minutes. Is there some special thing you guy's do to make it stable I've tried everything from 12x217 to 10x260. Hopefully you guys can give me some hints. Another thing. At what temps do usually these CPU get unstable. I'm using a CoolerMaster Hyper 6 w/ 2x80mm to cool it, but it rises to about 55 degrees under load. I'm also using the OCZ 520w PSU. Hoping for some good suggestions from you guys.

- Jim

it seems like 55degrees is a...high temp. I'm not sure, but 55 seems like a unstable temp for Athlon 64s. I don't own one myself but I would say a 52 degree load temp is good

[blinky]

i think as long as the epox doesnt have any major flaws yet to be discovered it could be the top 939 board, from just lookin at mongoose420's post in futuremark forums.

Epox S939
Pure crap, Period.

dont count it out if u dont actually know

[HKPolice]

Onepagebook says it's not worth trying:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...361#post557361

*shrugs*

[Mongoose420]

then dont try it. Im have'n some problems with it achieving the same cpu oc as my a8v dlx but i havnt yet nailed down why. boards good to 325htt and it might just need some vmods to bring out its true potential. Did get a 255x10 1:1 3dmark01se run out of it tho something my a8v never was able to do at any timings.

[Elisha]

I have the MSI K8N Neo2 card. Since you guys say that it takes alot of tweaking in the bios to get it stabile, maybe you could help a mate out

I'm currently using 1.36B bios, and a brand new 4000+ (sample) I got at work. Before that I used a 3500+. I've tried it with both 2x512MB OCZ3500EB and 2x512MB Geil Ultra X. Over to the problem. I can't get more than 200MHz overclock, and even then it is not stable. This is with both the CPU's. I can play games for hours and hours, but Prime95 won't go for more than a couple of minutes. Is there some special thing you guy's do to make it stable I've tried everything from 12x217 to 10x260. Hopefully you guys can give me some hints. Another thing. At what temps do usually these CPU get unstable. I'm using a CoolerMaster Hyper 6 w/ 2x80mm to cool it, but it rises to about 55 degrees under load. I'm also using the OCZ 520w PSU. Hoping for some good suggestions from you guys.

- Jim

your prime errors are not cause of the cpu. could be psu, ram or mobo.

[jjcom]

yep I mainly end up with Prime errors when I clock my undervolted RAM too high. Sure wish DDR400 was within my reach....

[Geforce4ti4200]

it looks like all the mobos are hit or miss and theres no hard and fast choice to choose. one k8n could rock, another could suck. as for high vdimm, ill be happy just running 2.8v with my two sticks of corsair value at like 240fsb. I cant afford a gig of bh5 anyway and even if I could, id need volts for that and its not worth all that for another 200 3dmarks anyway. so the ASUS A8V v2.0 is the best choice if I dont care to do any vmods? whats the max cpu/ram volts?

[trans am]

Back to the DFI 939 nf4 board, I emailed dfi regarding this and they are shooting for a November release date. Ask Oskar Wu, he might know for sure.

[Geforce4ti4200]

will this nf4 have agp? if not its useless for most of us........

[hollywood]

will this nf4 have agp? if not its useless for most of us........

Unless you buy a PCIe video card...

[Geforce4ti4200]

who here with an agp 9800pro, 9800xt, 6800gt, x800pro, etc is gonna spend another $400+ just for pci-e

[rick_fx]

I definitely won't. Just paid 475$ 1 month ago for my evga 6800 ultra.