MSI 975X Platinum PowerUP + Conroe

[pcdoc1]

I'm not a fan of starting similar threads that waste space and/or duplicate info. After reviewing pages of the original MSI 975X thread, it's clear that Conroe issues with this board aren't reflected if you're not running a conroe processor.

Additionally I'm not certain that this thread will have a long life as the current bios issues may just encourage most users to spend a few hours testing and return the product to the supplier, or as I have done, put it on the shelf to see if MSI can fix it...

[dogsx2]

Two hours of prime at 400 fsb @ 1.4 w/ 6300 is rock solid. Room temp still 83F with a tower 120.

You were right that once it's set it's a solid board. I have a fan on the memory so some of it blows on the nb. Checked it just before stopping prime and it wasn't even warm. There must not be much juice to it. I got a Tt spirit ll but it isn't worth putting on.

The real question is will MSI be quick on a new bios or be like they have in the past. There are some good things about the board and the fact that Kentsfield seemed to do well on it is a +.

That said this is not a $200+ board. I was lucky and got one of the $179 shipped ones from Ewiz. They will have to make some major improvements to the bios for it to be a $200 mb.



You are right on that any cpu other then Conroe doesn't mean a thing about what a Conroe will do on it.

[Sumanji]

Man, this is the only board that matches my requirements for layout, features etc... why does it have to suck

[dogsx2]

Man, this is the only board that matches my requirements for layout, features etc... why does it have to suck

What cpu were you going to use? If they get on the stick and get a new bios out it won't be a bad board.

[Sumanji]

Conroe E6600 with some OCZ PC2-6400 Platinum XTC (already got this). I'm still clinging on to hope for this board, but from what I hear MSI ain't great with BIOS releases

[ssnseawolf]

Ugh. I have this board en route. This is what I get for being an early adopter.

[Crankybugga]

Id say give it a whirl before you form a conclusion, i dont feel the limited response thus far paints a true picture. Using the base 975X chipset will enable MSI to imitate other manufactuars parameters when updating bios codes imo. After a while nearly all 975X will behave the same when bios's have matured imo again .....or wishfull thinking

[Lestat]

thats big time wishful thinking
ask yourself this..
when have you ever seen the same chipsets perform the same from different baord manufacturers
the answer....
simple

never

[dogsx2]

Id say give it a whirl before you form a conclusion, i dont feel the limited response thus far paints a true picture. Using the base 975X chipset will enable MSI to imitate other manufactuars parameters when updating bios codes imo. After a while nearly all 975X will behave the same when bios's have matured imo again .....or wishfull thinking

Why don't you buy one? That's poorest answer I've heard today. I didn't want to judge the board before I tried it so I didn't. Now that I got it I can say it will wear you out if you want to oc with it. I thought the Gigabyte boards I had we bad but at least they kept giving out new bios quickly. If either one of the Giga boards would have worked for me I would not have been with this one. I was smart enough to send back tha Abit board when I saw it wasn't any good.

I'm talking about basic things that should have been fixed before putting it out. You have to power off or it won't reboot after going into the bios. If you load something that requires a reboot, it turns off and powers back on but nothing. Fans spin but that's it. F1 has to be hit everytime to boot. Stuff like that.

It's easy to tell someone just try it when you don't have to fight it yourself.

[NickS]

I'm a member @ MSI's Global Site because I registered my Neo4 Plat there, and I have contacted them with this letter...

Dear MSI,
The whole enthusiest and overclocking community at many online forums such as XtremeSystems.org are eagerly awaiting a new BIOS for this board, as they believe as do I that this motherboard has some serious potential, but overclocking is severely limited at the moment because of a very buggy BIOS. Could you shed some light on the situation? Are new, better BIOS' in development? Thank you,
Nick

I'll post back any responces.

[dogsx2]

Hope it does some good. Thanks

[speedyaxon]

I'm a member @ MSI's Global Site because I registered my Neo4 Plat there, and I have contacted them with this letter...

Dear MSI,
The whole enthusiest and overclocking community at many online forums such as XtremeSystems.org are eagerly awaiting a new BIOS for this board, as they believe as do I that this motherboard has some serious potential, but overclocking is severely limited at the moment because of a very buggy BIOS. Could you shed some light on the situation? Are new, better BIOS' in development? Thank you,
Nick

I'll post back any responces.

Thanks!

[rodman]

Yes, thanx Nick Oh, and about my fsb reset..I was talking to my wife tonight and she mentioned using the PC that morning and when it was powered on it just hanged. She left and when i found it the board had reset itself back to default FSB. I later found that using a 4:5 ratio above 360fsb causes the board to hang. Furthermore if I use less than 2.2 volts on my memory I get a system hang as well running 900mgz. To clearify the boot hang, you can set FSB to 360, reboot and be fine, it's when you power off and power back on you get the hang. However using a 1 to 1 ratio I have yet to see the limits of the fsb as my cpu will not boot stable over 3.9 ghz. Without something to change multi (I have to play with clockgen and cpuid) I have no way of finding the boards max fsb. The vcore adjust screen shows .2-.3 higher than actual vcore, so say you set to 1.53 you actually get 1.51. I'm starting to understand this board more and more, hell i may keep it since 3.6ghz and 900mhz memory speed is more than I thought i would get out of any stable gaming rig.

[NickS]

Yeah I hope more people keep teh board. They must understand it's a brand new board (2 weeks its been out about.) I'm sure they're working on new BIOS' like nuts @ MSI. Give them some time .

There really is no perfect Conroe board out yet, but what if this ends up being teh board to have when a few more BIOS' come out? Don't sell it yet or you may regret it.

[Haltech]

This board was looking to be a real winner too. Sorry to hear about the let down there PCDoc.. perhaps NV and ATI have something better to offer us in the coming weeks.

[Crankybugga]

Why don't you buy one? That's poorest answer I've heard today.

Firstly its not an answer..its my opinion as stated. My opinion was in response to someone who has the m/b in transit...not deciding to buy it!!
Why would i buy one when guinea pigs like you exist?

It's easy to tell someone just try it when you don't have to fight it yourself.

If you read my post at all, you would see im referring to updated bios's in future to fix current 975X probs, you stating i dont own m/b now is correct, if MSI drop a good bios that may change

[Crankybugga]

thats big time wishful thinking
ask yourself this..
when have you ever seen the same chipsets perform the same from different baord manufacturers
the answer....
simple

never

ummm... NF2 comes to mind, Epox, Abit and Asus are a few

[NickS]

No? Not all nF2 boards were created equal.

[Sumanji]

I'm a member @ MSI's Global Site because I registered my Neo4 Plat there, and I have contacted them with this letter...

Cool, thanks dude I guess by the avatar you're a bit of an MSI fanboi?

They must understand it's a brand new board (2 weeks its been out about.) I'm sure they're working on new BIOS' like nuts @ MSI. Give them some time .

Oh yeah I totally get this, but the general concensus seems to be that MSI are painfully slow with BIOS updates (if they ever some out at all), and that seriously dampens my hope!

[kman540]

I tried flashing to the 711 bios, and the system froze, now it won't even post. I did a little searching and found this:
http://www.msi.com.tw/html/support/bios/note/boot.htm

I can't get all the files to fit on a floppy, and I'm not even sure it would work, it doesn't even try to boot from A: because I tried with a normal boot disk.
I pulled the battery reset the bios, all that crap. Does anyone know how to get this board to post, or should I just RMA it, kick the cat and grab a beer.

[Sumanji]

975X beta BIOS "testers", please PM me for beta 714 BIOS link...

Anyone able to get hold of this and try it out?

[dogsx2]

I tried flashing to the 711 bios, and the system froze, now it won't even post. I did a little searching and found this:
http://www.msi.com.tw/html/support/bios/note/boot.htm

I can't get all the files to fit on a floppy, and I'm not even sure it would work, it doesn't even try to boot from A: because I tried with a normal boot disk.
I pulled the battery reset the bios, all that crap. Does anyone know how to get this board to post, or should I just RMA it, kick the cat and grab a beer.

I just used winflash and it worked great. I haven't used a floppy to flash in years.

[kman540]

I just used winflash and it worked great. I haven't used a floppy to flash in years.

Thats what I was using.

[NickS]

Cool, thanks dude I guess by the avatar you're a bit of an MSI fanboi?

Hmm, you could say that.

[pcdoc1]

This board was looking to be a real winner too. Sorry to hear about the let down there PCDoc.. perhaps NV and ATI have something better to offer us in the coming weeks.

OT:
Maybe NV, I'm not as confident as others here on the ATI… I’m currently running A8R32-MVP on the AMD side and it’s fine but never has measured up to all the hoopla surrounding it. Nvidia is clearly the right choice on that side… IMO

Of course we haven’t seen and real challenges to Intel chipsets so I’m thinking we’re just have to wait for these bios issues to get resolved. With that said, I’d surely welcome a solid alternative…