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

[Dyaxler]

TIP: Cpu fan header must be connected, if not the pc could experience boot problems

This TIP came from: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=46730

Just wondering if this might be an issue at higher FSB settings. At my current setting, 237Mhz, it doesn't give me any problems. Just wondering what the deal is with this. Some kind of a hardware bug? BIOS bug?

/cheers

[TMM]

never had that problem, even at 360fsb . Use the two sata ports near the CPU. never use the other ones when overclocking, even without raid.

[mdm]

If someone’s interested I flashed a Platinum bios to my Neo2-FX-works, then putted in it 1.C final Mod by sideeffect-works! Also no problem getting HT 1000 and HTT 380 (and above?) even if it’s a nF3 250Gb inside. Question: Since I have, X800XT AIW should keep 1.C or flash to 1.C3 Mod – advice?

[Dyaxler]

never had that problem, even at 360fsb . Use the two sata ports near the CPU. never use the other ones when overclocking, even without raid.

Thats where my problem is more then likely. I disabled all the SATA ports and used an IDE drive last night. I was able to push my FSB up. It's stable as high as 280 FSB but stops posting after that even with a 2x HTT, CPU cranked down, and the memory divided up six ways from sunday. I'm seriously beginning to think my PSU, which is two years old btw, might not be putting out the power that I need to get it up higher.

Making an educated guess here but I've read that you shouldn't use SATA ports 1 & 2 because they arn't locked. Meaning, the speed goes up with the FSB? Is that why my data was getting corrupted when I was using those ports? So even if I'm using Ports 3 & 4 for my RAID 0 volume, the data on my 200gig drive will get corrupt if I put it on port 1 or 2? Just making sure I fully understand why. Sorry, I would like to know why I can't and not just that I shouldn't use SATA ports 1 & 2.

Thanks

[Dyaxler]

If someone’s interested I flashed a Platinum bios to my Neo2-FX-works, then putted in it 1.C final Mod by sideeffect-works! Also no problem getting HT 1000 and HTT 380 (and above?) even if it’s a nF3 250Gb inside. Question: Since I have, X800XT AIW should keep 1.C or flash to 1.C3 Mod – advice?

My poppa always said... "If it ain't broke, dont' fix it..." Wise words.

If your current bios works just fine, dont change it.

/cheers

[[XC] 4X4N]

Dyaxler, you wont get anything stable with sata 1&2. No post and bsod's, even with a mild overclock. I'm using a hitachi 160gb sata, and also the same bios as you. I never could get raid to work worth a damn with this board. Here are memory settings. I just have some corsair pc3200, about 208 is the max for them. Hope this helps. It can't believe how this thread just never goes away.

[Dyaxler]

@4x4

Thanks for the screenies. I was going to compare my A64 Tweaker settings with yours to see if I could rule out a possible bottleneck.

To get the RAID to work properly on this board you have to Slipstream Service Pack 2 into what ever flavor of XP you have then include the newest nForce drivers so you can bypass the F6 option. Make the CD bootable then away you go. Took me 3 days to figure that one out! :P Works great now...

As far as using SATA ports 1 & 2, originally I was using them and I did manage to get a stable overclock but was limited to a 1:1 - 237fsb setting. (setup in my current signature). If I went above 238, I would get data corruption. As I was saying earlier, I unpluged all my SATA drives and used an IDE drive to see how far I could push my hardware. Currently I can get a "windows" stable install and boot at x3 HT, 10x cpu multi, 280fsb, and using a 166mhz(ddr 333) divider on my memory. Overall it gives me 2800Mhz CPU, 233Mhz mem, & 840Mhz HT freq. Unfortunatly it's not Prime95 or SuperPI stable. Vcore voltage is max, and Mem voltage is 2.8.

Tonight I'm gonna try uping the cpu multi to x11 and lower the fsb then kick it up from there to see how high I can go and possibly get it to run stable at 2.8Ghz which is my goal. If I can't get anymore then a 250Mhz fsb setting then I can at least kick up the HT to 4x, kick up the mem back up to 200 and tweak the crap out of it and call it a night.

Wish me luck...

[Special_K]

Dyaxler - from your sig, it seems you are using 3 SATA ports (2 for RAID + 1 for storage) which will not allow you to get your max OC for the reasons posted above =/

265x11 was the most K's Neo2 would do (24/7 BF2) stable - 266x11 would randomly crash while idling in Windows =/

the Neo2 is dependent on the chipset place of manufacture (don't remember where they are, but one would allow high HTT and the other wouldn't) so it's luck of the draw with Neo2's =/

[Dyaxler]

I must have gotten a good board then because I pushed up my FSB to 297 with the HT set to 3x, CPU Multi to 7x and used a 166Mhz (DDR333) divider on my memory. Ran stable for 7+ hours on Prime95. I narrowed down my problem though after all that. Basically, I won't ever know how high I can push my proc unless I get a new power supply. At 2662Mhz (cpu) - 4x HT - 11x Multi - 242Mhz FSB & 200Mhz (1:1) on the memory I can get a stable over clock across the board. Prime95, SuperPI, 3DMark03 run over night on a loop... all good. But, here's the problem I noticed. At my current setting, with and without SATA drives, the Vcore voltage is stable and CPU-Z shows it at 1.58v (+/- .02v). At around 250Mhz FSB the voltage starts to go nuts! At 260fsb the Vcore drops to 1.52v and skips between 1.51v-1.56v. So I'm seeing some significant voltage variants that I shouldn't be seeing. Gets worse the further I push up the CPU/FSB. Doesn't matter where the FSB is or what CPU Multi I use, as the resulting CPU Freq goes up, the worse the Vcore voltage variant gets. Doesn't surprise me really considering that the PS is 2+ years old and it's only a 550w continuous. I should have a 750w if I'm going to push the CPU up that high. To confirm my suspicions I hooked up a volt meter and measured the variants. Without boring you guys with a technical analysis suffice to say, my CPU is starving for power. I'm not really complaining... 2.6Ghz is respectable and my computer does what I need it to do. Run WoW in 1600x1200, max graphic settings and averaging 60-65fps. So yeah, I'm not complaining.

Thanks for the tips guys. Love using this site for a sounding board.

/cheers

[Dyaxler]

Dyaxler - from your sig, it seems you are using 3 SATA ports (2 for RAID + 1 for storage) which will not allow you to get your max OC for the reasons posted above =/

Oh yeah, forgot to respond to that point. Sorry for the double post.

Yes, I'm running (2) 36gig SATA drives in RAID0 on ports 3&4 and (1) 200gig SATA drive on port 2. After all my testing last night using an IDE drive, if I was able to get a stable over clock above my 238Mhz barrier I would have dumped the 200gig and bought two new and bigger WD Raptors. *sigh* but alas, I can't get anything higher then 2.7Ghz stable so why waist the money on the larger HD's. Besides, I would have to get a new Power supply too. Forget it. I'm good.

/cheers

[TMM]

the Neo2 is dependent on the chipset place of manufacture (don't remember where they are, but one would allow high HTT and the other wouldn't) so it's luck of the draw with Neo2's =/

Yep the Korean chipsets did better on the early revisions, and after that pretty much all of them hit 300 and above no matter where they were made .

@Dyaxler: just get a cheap PCI sata card for your 200GB drive .

[Dyaxler]

@Dyaxler: just get a cheap PCI sata card for your 200GB drive .

I thought about that but I would still have to get a new Power Supply in order to run the CPU at a higher Freq stable. After tweaking my system last night I ran PCMark05 and I can't remember my score, currently at work , but in comparing my results with "similar systems" I ranked #2 which surprised the heck out of me. 3DMark03, 05 & 06 I scored in the top 10 among "similar systems" so again, I am not complaining. It should be a good system until I'm forced to upgrade.

Haha... I just remembered that I can login to Orb from here and see my scores. I'll update my signature if anyone is interested.

/cheers

[Elite_Athlon]

TIP: In the bios press and hold Shift+F2 and then press ALT+F3 to unlock "hidden" features within the BIOS

I can't seem to get that screen to show up. Is it only with older bioses?

[RaWsHaRk]

I have had 4 of these boards, and couple weeks ago bought a used one for my x800xt aiw, this one goes 3x htt 344mhz, running a 144 opty at 9x344 on Big Typhoon, none of the other boards ran like this with same 1C modded bios

guess I will play with this for a couple weeks before can afford a 8800 gts, then I will change to a pci-e board again..

[charlie]

wow 4300 posts in this classic thread! One of my fave boards EVER.

[Console]

Can you guys get more than 1.55v ? no matter what setting i try 1.55 is the max volts that shows up in bios any ideas ?

[Elite_Athlon]

Yeah 1.55 is the max for me also,

But i don't care because i've been undervolting mine :p

[TiTaNiUm]

If im not mistaken, if you max out the V in the Bios then use the Utility that came with the board, you can get 1.65-1.7...

In the Very first post by Charlie, in the Blue Tips section it tells you how to reach 1.9 vcore...i was close

[Console]

Yea but will a bios that old work with a x2 ?

[-TooL]

Anyone have a Dual Core Opteron running on this board?

Im thinking about getting an Opteron 165 Denmark to replace my 3000 winnie(@2160mhz). I dont know if its compatable, and I hope it can achieve the same overclock or greater with both cores.

[Console]

Yes it will work

[deton8]

Does anyone know if the pic on page 77 shows the correct place to measure vcore from? According to DMM, 1.35 + 5% actually pumps 1.5v through my cpu, which swings up to 1.65ish under load!

Speedfan and BIOS report almost 0.1v lower (1.45 idle, 1.5+ load) than the DMM, but the weird thing is, vdimm is bang on - 2.65v just like I set it. WTF

Is this something this board is known to do, or do I have something wrong with my PSU? Rails looked stable when I measured them...

[_G_]

Anyone have a Dual Core Opteron running on this board?

Im thinking about getting an Opteron 165 Denmark to replace my 3000 winnie(@2160mhz). I dont know if its compatable, and I hope it can achieve the same overclock or greater with both cores.

did a 3000venice -> 165 upgrade on this board a while back
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=109371
I was happy

[gsan]

Actually, in my case I experience this quite further... Maximum "bootable" vdimm I get using DDR Booster is 3.9v (I set it while sitting on the BIOS screen). After setting it to 4.0v the system boots but can't load Windows.

Yes, just find your maximum too... Set e.g. 3.4v while in BIOS and then when you're in Windows you are free to raise it higher Be careful....

Good luck

I'm wonder that any vdimm reading in the BIOS ?

[ArmyGreen11]

Anyone have a Dual Core Opteron running on this board?

Im thinking about getting an Opteron 165 Denmark to replace my 3000 winnie(@2160mhz). I dont know if its compatable, and I hope it can achieve the same overclock or greater with both cores.

I'm running a 165 right now at 300x9 prime stable 18hrs+. Luv it.