[overclockin] Msi K8n-Neo

BKtje

For those of you who feel they are having trouble reaching the boards full overclocking potential i'd suggest you try the 1.55 beta bios. Ive just gotten a whopping increase in max core speed.

Basically before this Bios the max Bios overclock i could get was 2.5ghz wihtout a sata drive and about 2.35 with (more or less 100% stable). Highest post would have been about 2.58.

Tonight was bored so decided to load up 1.55 and i wasnt expecting much to be honest. I was well surprised when i managed to storm through 2.4, 2.5 2.6 and finally to 2.7ghz without a problem posting. I thought that posting is all well and good but will it run windows at that speed. 2.7 wouldnt load windows as much as i expected, neither would 2.68 however 2.65 would load windows but was fairly unstable. Its now purring away at 2.63 and thus far has survived a few 3dmarks and been fairly stable. A nice 32% overclock

Too say im delighted is an understatement so i would suggest anyone who's having problems overclocking the msi k8n neo plat to give this BIOS a go. (go to beta and then 1.55)

I believe that this is MSI's first real go at giving the overclockers a few more options as the vcore is much more adjustable now and they seem to have fixed the problem with the Sata ports.

wootage

ViperVenoM

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:


!!!!

time to ditch the 1.52 beta tomorrow and get round to this new 1!

god 2.63ghz would be a rather large improvement of..er..nothing at the mo

thx for this advice, im gonna try that asap !

TacT

am trying to decide what mobo I want for my A64 atm so that looks promisign

BKtje

Word of warning after reading the thread on the msi forums is that this bios doesnt seem to be great for everyone. A lot of people have reverted to 1.52 as it was better for them. 1.52 was useless for me so go figure. At least they (seem) to be making headway.

Only major gripe i have thus far with this BIOS is that it wont cold boot for me at 2.63, i had to clear cmos and restart, stick it back up to 2.63 and it was grand again. Also u can now only overclock the vcore to 2.75 instead of 2.85. Not that an a64 needs all that juice. 2.75 may even be overkill.

GL vipervenom and Tact when this board works it seems to be very very good. Finding that spot tho where it works is like puling hairs outta your chin. You get one but another seems to take its place. Still theres been a lot of good feedback from the 1.5* betas thus far.

Azza

If you want a decent socket 754 athlon 64 board get the DFI Lan Party Infinity. Blows all competition out of the water. The memory overclocks I have seen 308fsb DDR 616 ......rocks to be honest.

ViperVenoM

true..but a bios flash is free!

and after checking my statement from the bank today..free is the only option!!! :eek:

also - havent got round to trying 1.55 yet...im still doing my c# program for uni :rolleyes:

TacT

I'm gonna go for a s939 chip instead, new winchester core 3200+ on 90nm fab. process and an Asus A8V Deluxe, MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum or the Abit AV8-3rd Eye mobo, it's a toss up between those 3 at the minute for me. Ram will be the Crucial Ballistix series. Everything else will be kept from my current rig but I am tempted to change case in the process too as I don't fancy faffing around with this windowed case again and I'd like to switch to 120mm case fans for noises sake, I'm not going to go the WC route yet but have been tempted
Have been eyeballing the Antec Super Lanboy and the Sonata piano black so far on the case front. Decisions, Decisions.. time to check out some more Lian Li cases but the Super Lanboy is in the lead so far as I do want a side window.

Azza

Yeah I opted for the superlanboy nice case and very light. Also opted for Abit AV8 3rd Eye Motherboard read excellent reviews and a friend highly recommends it. However I've seen on his machine that the sound drivers waste 5% of the cpu on that board. MSI are alright but I really hope DFI bring out a socket 939 board if its anything like the 754 one it will rock.

Incidently anandtech tested the 3500 and 3000 0.09 chips and overcloked both of them to 2.62Ghz. As both chips where got from 2 different scoures it may the rough of air cooling for the these chips. I have heard phase cooling reach 3.0Ghz. Finally with the exception of the 3500 I believe the 3000 and 3200 0.09 chips are going be like gold dust. Memory wise I opted for the OCZ EL Dual channel Rev2.

Going have to wait a few weeks for me cpu I reckon though.

BKtje

Yer that memory looks well good azza. Good choice. I must keep an eye on the socket 939 platform. If it reaches 3ghz on phase then i may be tempted in the future when the prices drop a bit.

Incidentally theres a new beta bios out 1.56. Get it from the same link as above. I aint tried it yet tho as im fairly happy with this one

Woden

B-K-DzR wrote:

Basically before this Bios the max Bios overclock i could get was 2.5ghz wihtout a sata drive and about 2.35 with (more or less 100% stable).

just wondering did you ever look into the effect of why the s-ata was affecting your overclock?

not that well up on the new board but is it a agp/pci lock issue, thought that was all fixed?

i've used an s-ata drive on my nforce 2 setup since i got my rig and overclocked with that accordingly but i never thought the hdd would be affecting the overclock due to the nforce 2 having a lock

BKtje

not that well up on the new board but is it a agp/pci lock issue, thought that was all fixed?

No its not an agp/pci lock problem as ive got numerous programs to ensure that it was indeed locked.
Apparemtly this is a common enough issue on the sata 1/2 ports while 3/4 seem to be locked (1/2 are unlocked apparently). Changing from 1/2 to 3/4 never made a difference for me however until this BIOS. However i aint tried 1/2 with this bios as basically i would prefer not to corrupt this

Very high fsb's ( talking 290+) still corrupt the sata drive no matter what port you using according to the msi forums (generally tho there are people who aint having any problems which is weird).

try the sata drive on 3/4 instead of 1/2 (ie the ones nearer the cpu) and see if it can be pushed any further.

ViperVenoM

B-K-DzR wrote:

No its not an agp/pci lock problem as ive got numerous programs to ensure that it was indeed locked.
.

hmm programs eh?, i wouldnt mind something TELLING me the lock was activated instead of me doing whats "suppose" to lock it then presume its locked...what do you suggest?

BKtje

well clockgen was one. I checked the pci and agp speeds . They were at 33 and 67 respectively.

ViperVenoM

hmm sounds good ill get that and flash to 1.56...about ..now

actually do you use winflash, what do you tick down the left side, you know clear cmos..something to do with dmi ..and other things...i just leave whichever one is ticked but ive heard other people who use it tick them all..so what about you..if you use it, or anyone else

BKtje

i just use whatever its set at. Personally i dont think it makes a blind bit of difference. Lemme know how 1.56 is as i aint tried it yet (and not sure if i will )

o and yer i use winflash

ViperVenoM

ok can u or anyone link me to the msi forum thats got loads of sections about overclocking and bios and stuff..its got a blue background and someone there has a sticky with all the bios on for this board

its pissing me off now firefox decided to...lose my favourites somehow and i cantt for the life of me remember what the hell the page was

BKtje

is this it?

ViperVenoM

oh bloody hell

why the hell wouldnt it work with "msi forum" in google..unless i had it set to uk only or something..god dammit thats been driving me spare

cheers! ill flash it nowww

ViperVenoM

bugger

i was hoping updating the bios would solve this problem i got from the 1.52b

the HT x1 x2 x3 x4...that one when u click your meant to get a list aint you..well i click and theres sod all there and then it crashes ..which is slightly annoying, if i could get into it to set it to 3 i could quite happily see what it will do for me..but no i wont even try with x4

bah..ive tried clearing the cmos multiple times and that aint working either, does anyone know why it has remained after a bios flash...?

BKtje

i had that with 1.52 iirc. Just hit page up/down as this will shift between em without 'loading; it

ViperVenoM

oooh!

nice 1, gonna push this chip tonight and sooo hope ..otherwise i think ive got a crap chip

ViperVenoM

interesting!

changed the htt to x3 ..ta for the page down up hint

put here to 11x220 just to see if it would run near enough stock..seemed to be ok..

hmm 11.5x220...2530mhz or so..booted fine...for once, ran 3dmark01se ...22k my best yet...sweet sweet...wonder if it can do anymore

12x220...sweet baby jesus it posts...and here i am typing away at 2640mhz!!!...and to my shock the temp read out is the closest to accurate ive ever had...31!!!!!!!!!!!!!

im mighty impressed i think ill run a few more benchis at 2640..run prime95 for a bit then try...12x225 i guess, maybe loosen the timings off..ive kept em at the stock 2.5-4-4-8 for now...give em 2.85v and just left it..also with the cpu CPU VID (cant think what it stands for but must represent the default)..thats set at 1.500 and ive got it flashing at the last red...with is a 10% increase ..so really ive only got 1.65v running throught it..i couldnt get 2640 stable before with 1.75!

2.7 is my goal but if this is gonna be stable then im rather impressed goooo 1.56b!!

BKtje

Glad to hear it m8

ViperVenoM

BSOD!!!!!

happily typing away ..and i got beginning of memory dump blah blah..reset it..changed the CPU VID to 1.550 then gave it 10% so it would be about 1.7v or so but not having it....

reset it back so ive got 1.65v going through it again and 2530mhz ...130mhz overclock...sigh this chip is a pain in the arse...still its slowly getting better!

Col_Loki

Quite possible your Ram had something to do with that, why not use a divider so you can eliminate it from the overclock? And then work around whatever your CPU can hit.

BKtje

i agree with loki, take the ram outta the equation.

ViperVenoM

i set the ram to 3.0 cas and where it says what speed changed auto to 200..and it refused to work at 225fsb ..i didnt try the ram at the 200 divider when it was at 220fsb tho...hmm ive had this ram to 240fsb rock solid before...i think this bios doesnt like my ram..or vice versa..ill keep plugging away though

im slaughtering my mate at 3dmark01 with a p4 3.2ghz by 3000 ..i need more..more!!!

Col_Loki

Mate in fairness , still use a divider.... its no trouble and you can tell for sure that the ram wont get in the way. Its far better than changing timings and thinking it should be ok!!

Youre making it very hard for yourself if you dont do the basics TBH.

Azza

I will get back on the overclocking trail soon. Just waiting on new CPU and a new motherboard for the first computer.

ViperVenoM

right rams at its default timings for now..set it to 1t tho

ive used the set speed thing to 166mhz...multi is at 11.5 and ht fsb is at 225fsb..just ran pcmark04 and prime95 for a bit ..seems to be ok

so im currently at 2587mhz..and the rams at 184mhz..i know using a divider limits the performance so at what speed would i need the htt to justify using a divider so i still get a good performance boost?

ok ive tried 11.5x228 giving me 2621 or something rams at 188 so i tested 3dmark01 to compare it to my last highest score which was at 2.5ghz with ram at 220fsb....that was 22316, this run was 22361! so i think i may have struck the line where using a divider is giving me a performance boost? ..hope i can get more out of it the rams got 12 more before i even hit the stock!

BKtje

Only thing using a divider does is allowed you to overclock your cpu more without putting the ram as a bottleneck. A64's run better at tight timings than at increased bandwidth which is maybe why you've seen a performance inrease.