Help with unstable system K8N Neo4 Plat /X2 4400

[VanShania]

Or according to MSI, you may have to download the files if you didn't get a
floppy. Also, if you have 8 sata ports on your board, you will have to
install both the "nVidia Series(XP)and the Silicon Image" drivers(2 disks
plus 2 backups, call MSI to be sure which ones). If only 4 then just nvidia.
These drivers must be installed during the XP setup by pressing F6 I
think.(check, XP setup tells you when/what). Also, did XP recognize your
large drive or are you just working with 130 gigs? if so, those raid drivers
will enable XP to see all of the drive. Make sure you have your stuff backed
up in case you decide to do a reformat and fresh install again.

--
Sapphire X1600 Pro 512mb AGP
MSI Theater 550Pro TV Tuner
Thermaltake LanFire Midtower(4X80mm fans),Antec 550 Watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
Viewsonic A91f 19in Moniter
2XSATA WD 320gb Raid Edition, PATA WD 120Gb HD
Pioneer 110D Dual Layer burner
Logitech MX 310 Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
Cheap computer speakers with Sennheiser HD 477 Headphones

3DMark05Free-Overall-3134 1024X768, 4XAA/8XAF 6.4Drivers
Cpu - 4405
3Dmark2001 - 8702 4XAA/8XAF 1280X1024

Games I'm Playing- IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV, Warhammer 40,000 Gold

Hmm, now that is interesting, the raid drivers came on a floppy right?

I never installed those, as I don't have a working floppy in the system
right now.

 

[Don Burnette]

I have the raid and silicon image drivers that came on floppys.

When I did the clean install of XP Pro, XP recognized my 250 gb hard drives
just fine.
Since I have raid disabled and was not planning on running it, I did not
worry with installing those drivers.
I put a new floppy in the system when I built it, unfortunately I have never
been able to get it to work, it will not
recognize a floppy when it is inserted. I supposed I could pick up an
external usb floppy , just to have one.

So, you are saying, that not having the raid drivers installed, could cause
stability issues?

In another forum, it was mentioned to look at raising the memory voltage. My
ram, was spec'd at 2.75v, and it was only set at
2.6 or 2.65 - I have upped it to 2.8v, and suspect that might have been the
cause of my lock ups. I will need more time
to see, but so far, it has not locked up since upping the memory voltage ...

Thanks,


Don

 

[VanShania]

From what I've seen from my own experiences and also some complaints from
other people here the IDE driver causes problems and I discovered that with
the raid drivers installed, my motherboard does not have any problems that I
and others were having previously. So what I'm saying is with out the raid
drivers and nvidia IDE driver, this causes your computer to lock up. You do
not have to enable raid in bios for this to work. Only enable raid if your
actually going to set it up.
A usb floppy I don't think will be recognized during setup. Remember, a
floppy must be accessed, it doesn't self boot like a CD. And make sure your
IDE cable and power are properly connected to floppy. Simply insert the
floppy and reboot your computer into XP setup. You have about 5 seconds to
press F6(again, check) letting XP know you want to install raid drivers
shortly. Once the raid window pops up, you will have to go into this app
upto 4 times to install all the drivers. Nvidia uses 2 drivers and Silicon
may also require 2 drivers.
To sum up, download the latest motherboard drivers,(Nvidia's website may
have a newer one than MSI's site, check and/or phone MSI), update your bios
using MSI's update utility(they recommend this, and reboot your computer as
required during all this), and then go into XP setup and install the raid
drivers. You can try with out a clean install to see how it works first I
guess. Again, make sure you install nvidia's IDE driver this time.




--
Sapphire X1600 Pro 512mb AGP
MSI Theater 550Pro TV Tuner
Thermaltake LanFire Midtower(4X80mm fans),Antec 550 Watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
Viewsonic A91f 19in Moniter
2XSATA WD 320gb Raid Edition, PATA WD 120Gb HD
Pioneer 110D Dual Layer burner
Logitech MX 310 Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
Cheap computer speakers with Sennheiser HD 477 Headphones

3DMark05Free-Overall-3134 1024X768, 4XAA/8XAF 6.4Drivers
Cpu - 4405
3Dmark2001 - 8702 4XAA/8XAF 1280X1024

Games I'm Playing- IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV, Warhammer 40,000 Gold

 

[VanShania]

What you could do is update your bios first, then use system restore to go
back to your fresh install. Load your raid drivers,reboot, install MB
drivers then DX 9c. and vidcard drivers. Then install your X-fi and load its
drivers and see what happens. I know formatting these big drives is a pain
compared to the old 80/120 gig hard drives, but I would say do a complete
clean install and avoid any more headaches.



--
Sapphire X1600 Pro 512mb AGP
MSI Theater 550Pro TV Tuner
Thermaltake LanFire Midtower(4X80mm fans),Antec 550 Watt PSU
Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
2 Gb Dual Channel PC3200 OCZ Platinum 2-3-2-5 CL2.5
Viewsonic A91f 19in Moniter
2XSATA WD 320gb Raid Edition, PATA WD 120Gb HD
Pioneer 110D Dual Layer burner
Logitech MX 310 Optical Mouse
Microsoft Sidewinder Precision 2 Joystick
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard
Cheap computer speakers with Sennheiser HD 477 Headphones

3DMark05Free-Overall-3134 1024X768, 4XAA/8XAF 6.4Drivers
Cpu - 4405
3Dmark2001 - 8702 4XAA/8XAF 1280X1024

Games I'm Playing- IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV, Warhammer 40,000 Gold

 

[Don Burnette]

Thanks for all the good info Van!

I may very well try that, but for now, as I mentioned, since upping the
memory voltage my system has been stable.
I am knocking on wood, as I need to give it more time though. It was
previously locking up at least once a day, so far, it has gone a couple of
days without locking up.
If it starts locking up again, I may just go for a clean
new install and go ahead and install the raid drivers you mention.



Thanks again,

 

[Nom]

That certainly would be an easy thing to try.

I noticed, anything at 2.75 and above shows in red as " not recommended ",
is setting it to
2.8 fairly safe?

Yes - you can run your memory at 2.8v without any risk. Note that most modern
DIMMs are specced to run at 2.7v-ish anyway, so it's only a tiny overvolt !

 

[Don Burnette]

Yes - you can run your memory at 2.8v without any risk. Note that most
modern
DIMMs are specced to run at 2.7v-ish anyway, so it's only a tiny overvolt
!

Yes, when I looked up the ram I have, I noticed it was spec'd at 2.75v. My
bios, at default, had set it up
to run at 2.65. ( and I think, it originally was at 2.6, and I had at one
time upped it to 2.65).
I upped it to 2.8v on Saturday, and so far, knocking on wood, have not had a
lockup.
Keeping fingers crossed...


Thanks,

Don

 

[tdprado]

I'm sure you'll be right now from reading your last feedback. It took me a
few days to figure out the voltage problem too when mine kept playing up.

What interested me by the whole thing was how my system would run MemTest
overnight on the lower voltage without errors. It seems MemTest isn't the
definitive test package for memory problems.

 

[kony]

I'm sure you'll be right now from reading your last feedback. It took me a
few days to figure out the voltage problem too when mine kept playing up.

What interested me by the whole thing was how my system would run MemTest
overnight on the lower voltage without errors. It seems MemTest isn't the
definitive test package for memory problems.

You might be right, but then again it might instead depend
on other factors like system load (relating to created heat,
the ambient temp over which the memory temp is higher), or
load modulated ripple on the motherboard reduing the quality
of the memory power... or, it could just be as you
suggested, some errors Memtest86 won't catch. Personally I
always overclock the memory bus some when testing, AND
manually set (to be sure they stay the same instead of the
motherboard bios automatically adjusting to a different set
of ...) timings so I'm testing at a higher memory bus rate
than the system will use. Doing so attemps to provide more
margin, and if it failed at the higher speed I'd make
whatever changes necessary to gain that margin even if the
stock speed seemed stable.

I'd rather spend more time, money or lose a few %
performance to be as sure as possible that there are no
memory errors on any serious work system. The gaming system
is another matter, I don't want errors but if there were any
yet the game didn't crash, I might never care.

 

[liaM]

It might be a problem with the memory connectors. Take your dimms
out and burnish the gold contacts with a plastic (not gum) pencil
eraser.
Spray a bit of WD40 on a kleenex and do a dry run over the contacts
(that's if you don't have some "Stabilant 22a" *).

Replace the dimms in their sockets and hope for Xmas to come early
this year..




liaM
* Stabilant is a wonder contact rejuvenator which, however, has priced
itself out of contention for day to day use. 15ml of a diluted
solution of
it costs 50 euros/ 65 dollars. WD40 acts in a similar manner, I
believe,
sealing contacts in such a way as to prevent microsparks.