Phenom 9500 w/ MSI K9A2 Platinum

[Daveburt714]

Just an Update for those interested...

I installed the 1.54 beta bios tonight, and so far things are going pretty well.

Finally, the 1066 Memory mode works from Bios!! Although it does set the timings really loose, you can set them back to Mem SPD settings and they still work!

These are very preliminary results, but I gained 50Mhz on the CPU Core, and the NB/IMC, without having to raise voltages...

There is No NB/Multi (like in 1.1b3) but I've had pretty good luck upping the HT Ref clock to 221...

The end result is 221x13x10x9 or (2873 CPU x 2210 IMC/Nb x 1990 HTT)...

Just my opinion, but this may very well be the best bios since 1.1B3!

I'll keep you folks updated, but so far it definetly offers an improvement...

[bouboudream]

Just an Update for those interested...

I installed the 1.54 beta bios tonight, and so far things are going pretty well.

Finally, the 1066 Memory mode works from Bios!! Although it does set the timings really loose, you can set them back to Mem SPD settings and they still work!

These are very preliminary results, but I gained 50Mhz on the CPU Core, and the NB/IMC, without having to raise voltages...

There is No NB/Multi (like in 1.1b3) but I've had pretty good luck upping the HT Ref clock to 221...

The end result is 221x13x10x9 or (2873 CPU x 2210 IMC/Nb x 1990 HTT)...

Just my opinion, but this may very well be the best bios since 1.1B3!

I'll keep you folks updated, but so far it definetly offers an improvement...

Hello Dave!

Iam very interesting by 1.54 beta bios for 1066 ram, where it is, in msi.be ?

thanks

edit: ok i download it in msi.de, this 1.54 beta bios is very good, accept 1066 mod no problem and it have option TLB FIX " disabled " or " enabled " !!! very very good.

Thanks Dave

[MagnumMan]

I blew a MOSFET under a water cooled VRM on the K9A2 Platinum, at 1.5V on the CPU with a 9850BE. Now I am running at 1.45V and it has been stable for a while, see specs below.

I think what bothers me the most about MSI and this board however was their willingness to put something into the BIOS like PCIe frequency selection, and then tell me later it would never get into the production BIOS. And forever now I had asked for a Northbridge selector (hell, just tie it to the HT mult!!!) because the 9850BE has a 10x NB/HT multiplier, which limits overclocking a bit... bit as you can see below I have done ok. I would prefer to run my memory at rated speed or better with is DDR2-1000, however the lack of a NB multiplier selector in the BIOS makes this impossible. I also feel they used cheap parts like the coils and MOSFETs to save money (the board is cheap, the Promise SAS controller standalone edition costs as much as the board alone and it's damn fast 150MB/s with 2 drives RAID0). I would have liked to see MSI take a Gigabyte stance on the components, or go to a Digital VRM like DFI did.

And before you razz me on the power supply, I did record 1010W draw with a Kill-a-Watt so I have a Thermaltake Toughpower 1000W now which will be going in this week along with a real drain port on the rear... and yes I have 4x 3870 at 1000/1225... unfortunately so far, I tried 3dMark Vantage just once and everything was all messed up graphically. The CrossfireX drivers still need work.

[Ben_Brown]

I blew a MOSFET under a water cooled VRM on the K9A2 Platinum, at 1.5V on the CPU with a 9850BE. Now I am running at 1.45V and it has been stable for a while, see specs below.

I think what bothers me the most about MSI and this board however was their willingness to put something into the BIOS like PCIe frequency selection, and then tell me later it would never get into the production BIOS. And forever now I had asked for a Northbridge selector (hell, just tie it to the HT mult!!!) because the 9850e a Thermaltake Toughpower 1000W now which will be going in this week along with a real drain port on the rear... and yes I have 4x 3870 at 1000/1225... unfortunately so far, I tried 3dMark Vantage just once and everything was all messed up graphically. The CrossfireX drivers still need work.

Not to get off topic, but I had the same issue with Vantage as well. Could not get it to run correctly at all. However, something does not seem right about your 3DMark06 score. I would assume you would be in the 16000s bare minimum with 4 3870s, especially overclocked like that. Just seems odd to me.

[SocketMan]

Socketman, is that one of the first revisions or a later one.

I thought MSI quite fixed the issue, if this is about a later one then.

Ver. 1.0

Maybe all the "good components" go to P45 mobos and what's left to the
AMD's 7xx
The board is made in Taiwan and not China like all my other ones,not enough QC?

[KeZzZu]

Hey folks, been while posting in this thread... but any successes with new biosses? havent't checked them for while, gonna do some re tests with my old 9500.

[MonsterMash]

Hi
from AOD i can change NB VID (at 1.3V default value) and NB Core voltage (at 1.1V default value), but in the bios the only present is the NB Core voltage. Which is the defference between them? Which i have to overvolt to keep an higher NB clock?

Thank you all.

Bye

[Daveburt714]

I'm not sure if any MSI tech people are watching this thread anymore....

But the 1.54 Beta Bios is VERY good! Finally 1066 Ram support, and most benchmarks improved to some extent. The only thing missing is NB/IMC multi control, seems like most enthusiast are moving to the Asus M3A which has the ability to change the NB multi.

I know the board is capable, I have no clue why you don't give us this option..

I'm still running 1.1B3 just so I can change the NB multi (through P-States), even though I would prefer running 1.54B.

If you are watching, take the 1.54B bios, add NB Multi control and post it as the new 1.5 release version! The K9A2 is a nice board..

Please give us this option!!

[demonkevy666]

I'm not sure if any MSI tech people are watching this thread anymore....

But the 1.54 Beta Bios is VERY good! Finally 1066 Ram support, and most benchmarks improved to some extent. The only thing missing is NB/IMC multi control, seems like most enthusiast are moving to the Asus M3A which has the ability to change the NB multi.

I know the board is capable, I have no clue why you don't give us this option..

I'm still running 1.1B3 just so I can change the NB multi (through P-States), even though I would prefer running 1.54B.

If you are watching, take the 1.54B bios, add NB Multi control and post it as the new 1.5 release version! The K9A2 is a nice board..

Please give us this option!!

someone else on here said they wouldn't have that because they could never getting working right.

I hope they find a way to get working right the would be the best.

[TheOtherDave]

New bios .155 posted on the msi-forum.de site.

Anyone crazy enough to try it..I won't for a while because I just loaded 1.54b onto my machine today.

[Daveburt714]

Alright OtherDave, I'm Buzzed/Crazy enough to try it...

Hopefully I'll be able to give ya some results tonight.

If ya don't hear from me for a few days consider me a dead Guinne pig...

I have beer courage dammit!! Hehe....

[Daveburt714]

OK, double post.. But I feel it's somewhat worthy.

The 1.55Beta is NOT a machine killer (thank Cod!)

I haven't really had time to to play with it, but at least on my machine it hasn't caused any major problems (see Sig). 1066 Mem mode still works quite well... (you still need to tweak timings).

Guess the only real info I have on this Beta Bios is... It shouldn't kill your board or chip (which is a good thing )

Just my brief testing, but it seems to have decent potential.

Here's a SS using 1.55 Beta:

[TheOtherDave]

OK, double post.. But I feel it's somewhat worthy.

The 1.55Beta is NOT a machine killer (thank Cod!)

I haven't really had time to to play with it, but at least on my machine it hasn't caused any major problems (see Sig). 1066 Mem mode still works quite well... (you still need to tweak timings).

Guess the only real info I have on this Beta Bios is... It shouldn't kill your board or chip (which is a good thing )

Just my brief testing, but it seems to have decent potential.

Here's a SS using 1.55 Beta:

Is it letting you tweak cpu and memory voltages in the BIOS. That is my biggest problem with 1.54b. They are grayed out for me.....

[demonkevy666]

Is it letting you tweak cpu and memory voltages in the BIOS. That is my biggest problem with 1.54b. They are grayed out for me.....

can you scroll over them

hit the + /- buttons thats how you change them

it's not in the motherboard's book for some reason it says read only.

[vfx]

OK, double post.. But I feel it's somewhat worthy.

The 1.55Beta is NOT a machine killer (thank Cod!)

I haven't really had time to to play with it, but at least on my machine it hasn't caused any major problems (see Sig). 1066 Mem mode still works quite well... (you still need to tweak timings).

Guess the only real info I have on this Beta Bios is... It shouldn't kill your board or chip (which is a good thing )

Just my brief testing, but it seems to have decent potential.

Here's a SS using 1.55 Beta:

Looks like its just a promise firmware update.

Taken from the DE forums: Update Promise-Rom von "PDC42819-v2.8.1030.0024" auf "PDC42819-v2.8.1030.0032".

[cdawall]

my new toy showed up today

[Daveburt714]

my new toy showed up today

Geez, thats an old one CD! It might be a smoker...

If your gonna run an older bios with it just be sure to use Sam2008's TLB disable patch...

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=180338

Looks like a good canidate for the 1.13 beta bios to me.

[cdawall]

Geez, thats an old one CD! It might be a smoker...

If your gonna run an older bios with it just be sure to use Sam2008's TLB disable patch...

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=180338

Looks like a good canidate for the 1.13 beta bios to me.

no idea which BIOS i have as f right now (ill check on reboot) but it clocked to 2.8ghz without much work

EDIT:

ok im on BIOS 1.1 right now according to everest and here is the highest clock i have hit

[jonspd]

congrats dave for still being at it. If MSI would get off the but and make a 1.54 or so with the nb option I to might would try for a bios flash

[charged3800z24]

I'm not sure if any MSI tech people are watching this thread anymore....

But the 1.54 Beta Bios is VERY good! Finally 1066 Ram support, and most benchmarks improved to some extent. The only thing missing is NB/IMC multi control, seems like most enthusiast are moving to the Asus M3A which has the ability to change the NB multi.

I know the board is capable, I have no clue why you don't give us this option..

I'm still running 1.1B3 just so I can change the NB multi (through P-States), even though I would prefer running 1.54B.

If you are watching, take the 1.54B bios, add NB Multi control and post it as the new 1.5 release version! The K9A2 is a nice board..

Please give us this option!!

MSI K9A2 Platinum .. change the NB multi by changing the HT Ratio in Bios
then take a look in CPU-Z and AOD it will show NB Increased.

[RhoXeD]

New here, also using the K9A2 platinum.

I have a phenom 9850BE @ 2.88Ghz (240x12) - Stock Vcore
http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=387194

I also have a 9550 in a ECS A780GM-A @ 2.8Ghz (255 x 11) - 1.3 V
http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=385588

Now, what is very weird, i tried the 9550 in the K9A2 yesterday. It got to 2.85 before it was too much on the NB (cannot change in this BIOS)
BUT i use G.Skill DDR2 800 in both machines, in the ECS, ram able to reach DDR 1066 speeds without problems.

With the 9850BE i am only able to get to around 480 before i get BSOD's, but with the 9550 in the same MSI K9A2, i was able to boot at 1066 RAM with no problem, yet with the 9850BE in the mobo, the ram will not boot at 1066 nor overclock the MEM as far.

I have tried the same exact settings for the 9550 OC on the 9850BE and it just cannot get stable (255 x 11) With the 9850BE i cannot go over 240HTT



WHERE ARE YOU SB750!?

[cdawall]

you can change the NB in the BIOS on the K9A2 set the HT link higher or lower and it changes the NB





now im curious i have these in my BIOS but have no idea what they do

[RhoXeD]

those are the options i want!

what bios VER is that?

[cdawall]

those are the options i want!

what bios VER is that?

v1.1

[Daveburt714]

congrats dave for still being at it. If MSI would get off the but and make a 1.54 or so with the nb option I to might would try for a bios flash

Wassup Stranger...
Yeah, like a pitbull, I'm pretty tenacious.

I finally settled on the 1.5 release version (for now). It doesn't have the NB Multi option but you can clock the HTRef higher than my chips NB will handle so the effect is the same if you play with it. If your running a B3 you might want to give it a shot, you can always revert back.

charged3800z24: That HT/NB thing looks interesting, did you run any benchies to verify if it was real or just a fluke? Oh well, I'm kinda bored. I'll do a little testing on it and see what I come up with. Thanks for the tip!