Question for all you MSI A64 Motherboard owners..

ViperVenoM

now ive got my watercooling kit up and running i fancy a little overclocking...well ok a lot of overclocking

now, id like to know where i stand to start off with even though ive been told it will automatically lower itself if it gets too hot, but id still like to know wot temp im at

so my question is - have any of you guys got a BIOS that fixes the dodgy temp readings yet, because with my brand new spanking WC set up i have a temp of 56 degrees at idle, with a relatively cool waterblock/tubing, so i know thats lying for starters...

also..say im at 35, i could overclock so it went to ...15 - 50 degrees no problem

me being stuck at 56 if i overclock so i get 15 more degrees im gonna be attacked by shut down beeps to prevent overheating and crap...which i dont need :rolleyes:

so..please say someones got a working one!

BKtje

I believe the latest officials have it fixed for most people. Mainly newcastle owners. You can disable (or raise) the temperature warnings in the BIOS tho.

(im assuming your talking about the msi k8n neo plat).

If you got a sata drive you wont be able to ov erclock as far. Also use Bios to get as far as you can then use software to push it the rest of the way. I got an extra 200mhz odd outta the software overclock. (/me fluffle col loki)

ViperVenoM

yep plat and no satas for me \o/

hmm ill get looking for the latest "offical" ones then since i think im on the 1.43b's

after hearing peoples flash fail, even though ive done it 3 times on this board already im rather worried about doing it this time :rolleyes:

as i dont have a floppy, i just use the tool that came with the update..what options do i have if it decides to go wrong! :eek:

naitkris

yeah, i get 64 degrees C with a nice Zalman 7000 fitted - though that's with 100% CPU load... i get 49/50 with lower loads (2/3%)... i think it's way dodgy readings though. i hope so anyway...

naitkris

ViperVenoM wrote:

as i dont have a floppy, i just use the tool that came with the update..what options do i have if it decides to go wrong! :eek:

burn a CD/DVD and boot to it, would that not work?

also download Ultimate Boot CD 2.4 at http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ - a great help for when things go wrong, is for me anyway, or if you are into Linux - KNOPPIX works wonders also (Linux distro bootable direct from a CD).

ViperVenoM

!

great stuff !

ive got this file downloading as we speak, so if i backed my bios up onto a disc, how would these 2 work together....as this disc wont obviously know wot bios i have or it certainly wont have a back up for me....?

sounds great though thx

Azza

B-K-DzR what you mean by sata drives holding back overclocking. Is it when its gets to a certain stage they don't work or is it they just cause the system to be unstable.

BKtje

as i dont have a floppy, i just use the tool that came with the update..what options do i have if it decides to go wrong!

Msi actually recommend you use the windows tool (however they suggest turning off all other aps, and having ur pc at stock settings.) Basically if your pc is stable then you shouldnt have any problems bar a power outage.

In a worst case scenario a floppy etc wont work. Bios are the very first instructions a pc runs while booting up so basically it will turn on (i think) but wont do anything. What you'd have to do is order a new cmos chip from msi and replace it. (i know if u **** up a gfx card flash u can use a pci card to flash the agp gfx card, dunno if there is a work around for you main bios tho, have never had the problem )

B-K-DzR what you mean by sata drives holding back overclocking. Is it when its gets to a certain stage they don't work or is it they just cause the system to be unstable.

Well im not 100% sure but what i understand is that SATA has more bandwidth and options so if you up the bus speed the sata controller comes under more pressure and in the case of the Neo Plat it can easily corrupt data on the sata drive (has happened to me 3 days ago).
Not only can it corrupt data more easily but it wont allow u to overclock as far as the controller gets put under more pressure and hangs at a lower speed. I believe this is mainly a problem with the msi k8n neo plat (i dont think its as prominent with other mobos tho probably does happen). Apparently with later bios's the problem becomes less but seeing as im on the latest beta bios i dunno. Maybe the officials are more robust.

The above may be mis interpretation from my end so dont take it as gospel.

ViperVenoM

well

ill close everything, put everything at stock and give it a go using WinFlash in the live update folder...

downloaded 1.4, i know having dodgy temp readings aint good, but its better than having a bust motherboard, how much are thes cmos chips, and wont 1 of the options in winflash save me at all?

i see 2 CMOS options, what are they for?

stevenmu

If you're worried about messing up the flash you should really be doing it from a dos boot disk, surely one of the machines in your sig has a floppy drive ? Create 2 boot disks with the flash utility on both of them use one to backup your current bios and then setup the autoexec.bat on it to automatically flash you old bios back on. Then you can have the other disk to boot without auto-flashing and use it to flash any other bios versions you want such as the 1.4 (which took about 10 degrees of my temps btw, I'm hoping the next update will knock another few off too but I think that's just wishfull thinking).

ViperVenoM

lol believe it or not not 1 comp has a floppy :rolleyes:

i got rid a while back before i was into building my own and needing to do stuff that actually "needed" a floppy, so i just removed em all :rolleyes:

probably a quite silly thing to do but now whenever i try to plug 1 in in any of my comps not 1 will work ...so i just give up....cant u boot from a removable device dammit!...ive got a 256mb mem stick here, why cant you just do that, whats so good about a floppy

ViperVenoM

ohhhhh bugger it!

i hate this board, i though screw it, and just did it with winflash anyway

i actually thought it had failed it got to verifying block then stopped at 47 and minimized..i almost **** myself :eek: ..but then it said completed

so after a reboot i currently have a system temp of 46..and a cpu temp of 46...yet ive got my side window off with a thermomemter sitting inside at 19 degrees :rolleyes:

bloody thing..

stevenmu

I get similar temps with the side off my case, they drop quickly though with the side back on. I know it depends a lot on what case you have and where any fans are but it can mess up the airflow over the chipset, and I'm guessing that's roughly where the system temp comes from, not the actual air in the case.

BKtje

i believe the system temp is actually taken from the northbridge which will get quite high as its passively cooled.If you wanan find the northbridge just check you manual

Think a pasivley cooled NB is a bit silly personally

ViperVenoM

hmm nevertheless, my cpu temp is defo wrong!..53 idle ..no i dont think so

as for the northbridge, well id stick a fan on it but a) ive heard the little heatsink can be a bugger to get off, and b) its damn close to my vid card to get anything on it thats any bigger than the current heatsink...bah i hate MSI's lame bios, i know its prob not a great indication but the little heatsink aint even warm to touch...