any one oc with msi k8n?

R

Roy

Just wondering if anyone else out there has oc'd with this board and what
settings they are setting in the bios.

My setup:
--
AMD 64 3000+ Athlon 64 939 90nm Winchester 1800mhz
ThermalTake Silent Tower CL-P0025
MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum
OCZ PC3500 512x2 2.5cas (dual channel)
BFG Nvidia GeForce FX 5900xt OC
Lian Li aluminium case PC-V1000
MGE 500w power supply psvg-500 rtl
Maxtor 160GB ATA133 x 2 (Raid - 0)
LG Combo drive
HP L2335 flat panel monitor
WinXP
DX9.0c
 
G

Grew

Maybe you want a little help. If so, to start off, you might try the
following

First download ClockGen and CPU-Z from CUPID
http://www.cpuid.com/clockgen.php

Plug any SATA drives into sockets 3 and 4 since these are locked

In BIOS
*Set AGP to 67 (they say it locks agp)
*Set DRAM to 166
*Note the timings for 215MHz and manually put these numbers in (I think they
are 2.5 - 3 - 3 - 7)
*Set HT to 4 (note - use the pgup and pgdn keys to change these values) If
going above 250HTT reduce this to x3 since HTT bus max is 1GHz.
*Set Mem voltage to 2.85v
*Set CPU voltage to 1.5v

Now reboot into WinXP
Run ClockGen and click on 'get values'
Down the bottom are two sliders
Increase the HTT a little and clsoe the program. The value will stay until
the next boot when the BIOS-set values will take over.

Go here too (LDT means HT)
http://www.dugu9tweaks.net/guides/a64oc/index.html

Good luck
 
R

Roy

Grew said:
Plug any SATA drives into sockets 3 and 4 since these are locked
Click to expand...

no SATA for me yet. Just bought two Maxtor 160 PATA 133 IDE 8mg 7200 rpm
drives (not bad for around $85 each) set in raid 0 config. running win xp
pro.
In BIOS
*Set AGP to 67 (they say it locks agp)
*Set DRAM to 166
*Note the timings for 215MHz and manually put these numbers in (I think
they are 2.5 - 3 - 3 - 7)
*Set HT to 4 (note - use the pgup and pgdn keys to change these values) If
going above 250HTT reduce this to x3 since HTT bus max is 1GHz.
*Set Mem voltage to 2.85v
*Set CPU voltage to 1.5v
Click to expand...

ok, I did exactly what you said to try but I'm just not having any luck.
The system will post but won't boot to windows. I changed everything back
to the way it was before and windows booted. I tried changing settings one
by one but each time I changed something, windows failed to load. Everyone
else seems to have no problem getting 2.5ghz out of it no matter what chip
they use. When I first got the board I put one stick of memory in it and
then flashed the bios to 1.3 before I added the other stick or did anything
else. I'm using slots 1 and 2 (one purple and one green - everything shows
up as dual channel like it is supposed to). The raid works fine too. I
wonder if I got a bad board or if I'm just too dumb to oc an A64! I've oc'd
my t-bred for almost two years with decent results but the A64 is a
different animal. I don't know if its the board, the cpu or the ram. All
of the components seem like they would be good for a decent overclock and
all the reviews for all of the components were good, especially about the
board. Am I missing something?

AMD 64 3000+ Athlon 64 939 90nm Winchester 1800Mhz
ThermalTake Silent Tower Model CL-P0025
MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum Model 7025 Bios 1.3
OCZ Performance Series PC3500 DDR 433 512MB 2.5-3-3-7 x 2 (dual channel)
BFG Nvidia GeForce FX 5900XT OC
Lian Li Silver Aluminium ATX Mid Tower Case PC-V1000
MGE Vigor 500 Model PSVG-500 500w Power Supply
Maxtor 160GB 7200 RPM IDE ATA133 Model 6Y160P0 x 2 (Raid - 0)
LG Electronics Model GCC-4521BB 52x32x52x16 Combo Drive
HP L2335 23" Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor
WinXP Pro
DX 9.0c
 
H

Harvo

slacken your ram timings say 2.5 or 3.0 cas 3-3-10 or 4-4-10
to see if you can boot to windows voltage wise i use cpu in bios
my ram is set to 200 and not auto
1.500 and cpu vid +10% to give 1.62 my ram is 2.75 HTT x4
10 x240= 2412mhz but can go to 265 fsb x 9=2430mhz HTT x4
ram at 166mhz my psu is 400w sparkle and sata maxor 200 gb
on sata 3 and ibm primary ide with OS on ide1
winxp pro sp2 ati pro 9800 not clocked agp setting 67
all doing on stock cooler in lian li pc 7 case
hope this helps ya
 
G

Grew

Set your memory speed =166, HT = 3 and multiplier = 5 (or other lower values
if your memory will go higher) in the BIOS. Then use ClockGen to test your
memory's overclockability. Do a little at a time and test using MemTest86.
The aim is to keep the cpu and HT bus out of the way. Next try HT = 3
multiplier = 9 mem = 166 to test the CPU overclock - again a little at a
time..

Armed with both you then need to juggle them to get the best oc always
trying to keep the HT bus at about 1GHz (HT x HTT = HT Bus).. You OC from
the BIOS by setting the memory to say 166 (set also the timings for your
memory of course you can loosen them if need be) and overclocking the FSB
which is really the HTT.

This board is quirky. You need to get all the parts set for it to work. I
found that the memory will not lock at 200 in the BIOS - 166 locks but not
200. I found too that using CG can slow the machine and can cause crashes.
Only use CG to try out then set the values manually in the BIOS.
 
R

Roy

thanks man
I am going to try again tomorrow. I think part of the problem might have
been the bios flash to 1.3 I think others have had probs with it too so I'm
going to try 1.36 or 1.37 or 1.41 I understand what to do and how to do it.
I guess I just need to fiddle with it some more to get it to work. I'll
post results when I finally get this thing to work. I've noticed that my
temps seem to be really good. 39 to 40 at idle 37-38 in the bios and max
I've seen is 47 after about 24hrs straight of playing flight sim 2004 (I
left it running after setting unlimited fuel and autopilot and came back
after a day to check on it. FS2k4 maxes out the cpu and it is pretty much
the only intensive thing I really use the computer for. Well that and URU -
ABM.)
 
R

Roy

And there was great rejoicing!
Now running stable at 2.5Ghz
First thing I did today was flash the bios to 1.41 (beta version floating
around in cyberspace)
Then I tried changing the agp to 67. Rebooted. Windows loaded!
At this point I'm thinking that the 1.30 bios was causing all the problems.
Then I did exactly what I did yesterday and Friday.

agp - 67
dram - 166
timings - 3, 3, 3, 7 (loosened cas because I planned on pushing the ram to
around 230ish)
ht - 3
mem v - 2.85
cpu v - 1.5

Windows booted just fine. I also ran Flight Sim for a while.
At this point I KNOW that the old bios was to blame because I hadn't done
anything differently.
So I get a little daring.
The first thing I try is htt = 258 since I know my ram is rated to do 215 at
least.
Success. Now running at 2.3Ghz rock solid.
Highest temps are 47c.
Now my goal starting out was to hit at least 2.5 so next I try htt = 278.
Success. Now running at 2.5Ghz rock solid. Ram is at 232.
Highest temps still 47c. Mission accomplished. Not bad for my second try
at overclocking the Winchester.

settings for now

agp - 67
dram - 166
timings - 3, 3, 3, 7
ht - 3
mem v - 2.85
cpu v - 1.5
htt - 278
ram - 232
fsb? - 278 x 3 = 834

Now I'm starting to wonder
I'm almost positive I could do htt = 300, but at 166 (5/6) my ram would be
running at 250 and I'm not sure if I could push my particular memory that
far.
I've only heard of people doing around 230ish.
But with the timings set to 3, 4, 4, 8 and some more voltage, it may be
possible to get 250.
I'm going to hold off on trying anything like that until I've seen others
that have tried it first with the OCZ 3500 Performance series.
But if I went down to 133 (2/3) then running htt = 300 would mean my ram
would be running at 200.
Keeping the multiplier at 9 would = 2.7Ghz
(Now that would be nice but would the lower ram divider hurt overall
performance more than just keeping it at 5/6 and running 2.5Ghz.)
Dropping it to 8 would = 2.4Ghz
Now I'm not about to start fooling with half multipliers or anything, so 8.5
and 2.55Ghz is out of the question.


AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 939 90nm Winchester 1800Mhz oc'd to 2502Mhz
ThermalTake Silent Tower CL-P0025
MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum Model 7025 Bios 1.41 (beta)
OCZ Performance Series PC3500 DDR 433 512MB at 232Mhz 3-3-3-7 x 2 (dual
channel)
BFG Nvidia GeForce FX 5900XT OC 128MB
Core Clock 430Mhz (vs 390Mhz standard)
Mem Clock 735Mhz Effective
RAMDAC Dual 400Mhz
322 Million vertices/sec
23.5GB/second mem bandwidth
Drivers 66.93
Lian Li Silver Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Case PC-V1000
MGE Vigor 500 PSVG-500 500w Power Supply
Maxtor 160GB 7200RPM 8MG IDE ATA133 6Y160P0 x 2 (Raid - 0)
LG Electronics GCC-4521BB 52x32x52x16 Combo Drive
HP L2335 23" Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor
WinXP Pro
DX 9.0c
 
G

Grew

Congratulations! I know how you feel :). I saw the 1.41 bios knocking about
but thought I'd wait until others have tried it out... :) I am using the 1.3
bios and mostly it seems okay. Indeed, it was installed in the board when I
got it - so clearly someone had it before me. Still, it works, it's
installed and I can't be bothered to push it.

Looking about the various forums, I can see many people with very similar
setups having different problems with this bios or that setting or ram or
whatever. There are so many variables and the board, as I said, is quirky
anyway. The odd thing is that most manage do get it working and overclocking
too. In a perverted sort of way it is fun to struggle with it then tame it
like some wild beast. I read of someone the other say complaining that it
takes two to three weeks for some to get the board settled in - but that's
the fun.

Now all I have to do is find out why UT2004 does a BSOD when I exit it.
During the game all is well for hours but leave it and BSOD. Other games
like Farcry and Doom3 cause no problem whatsoever. I un/reinstalled UT2004
and it happened again. I thought the hard bit was to get the overclock to
work during the game not when it's done. Maybe nios 1.41 will solve that for
me.
 
R

Roy

weird. I have the same problem with Uru: the complete chronicles. I can
play it for hours and hours, but as soon as i go to exit I get a bsod and
reboot. and if i step in water sometimes the game will freeze and i have to
reeboot.
 
G

Grew

I have found the solution, at least for me. It was the Nvidia drivers. I am
now using 67.02 and the problem has disappeared.
 
R

Roy

I'll have to give the new nvidia drivers a try.

I have finally settled on htt at 280 for now. Running at 2520Mhz very
stable and cool. I'm thinking of getting faster ram though if I can sell my
current ram.


Grew said:
I have found the solution, at least for me. It was the Nvidia drivers. I am
now using 67.02 and the problem has disappeared.
Click to expand...

Roy wrote
 
G

Grew

I should add that since then the problem returned :(. However, :) I found a
permanent solution. Instead of playing UT2K4 full screen, play it in a
window, or play full screen and revert to a window on the desktop before
exiting. In that way, no BSOD - the window simply closes. I have been using
it for a week now and had no recurrence of the exit issue.
 
R

Roy

I tried ctrl-alt-del and that worked. Then I just kill the process. Might
not be the best way to exit the game but at least it doesn't blue
screen/crash/reboot.
 
R

Roy

I decided to try something new. First I lowered timings.
timings - 3, 4, 4, 10
left these settings the same
ht - 3
mem v - 2.85
cpu v - 1.5

agp - 67
dram - 166
then I raised the htt.
htt - 289
fsb? - 289 x 3 = 867
289 x 9 = 2601Mhz
Not bad.
I may try selling my ram and cpu. I'd like to see what I could do with
PC4200 and a 10x multiplier.
 
G

Grew

I tried that way some time ago but found it still crashed. The only way I
have found successful is the using a window on the desktop. Maybe beta bios
1.41 would allow that - I am still using 1.3. I'll update and see.
 
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