Another K8N Neo4 Platinum Happy Build

Just built another setup using the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum, 7125-010. The build went very smoothly and I am very pleased with the results. Used the following components:
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum 7125-010 came with Bios V1.A
MSI NX6600GT TD128E
1GB module of Crucial DDR400 PC3200 CT12864Z40B running @ 3-3-3-8 1T
Rosewill R203A Case
Rosewill RV500S PSU ( +3.3v=30a, +5v=45a, +12v=26a )
AMD64 3700 SD @ 2.211
2- 92mm Silverstone case fans
1- WD 40GB Sata HD
1- Liteon DVD/RW SHM-160P6S
1- Sony 52X CD-Rom
1- Sony Floppy
System Temp @ idle = 30c, CPU Temp @ idle = 33c, GPU Temp @ idle = 43c
I did notice some slight changes in the Bios setup features that have been added since purchasing the same board 2 months ago. MSI has very good products and I am very happy with the results of all 3 machines built in the last 18 months. Just wanted to post something on the positive side today.
:smiley:
Regard's; Pop's

Quote from: workknot on 29-December-05, 00:40:46
Just built another setup using the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum, 7125-010. The build went very smoothly and I am very pleased with the results. Used the following components:
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum 7125-010 came with Bios V1.A
MSI NX6600GT TD128E
1GB module of Crucial DDR400 PC3200 CT12864Z40B running @ 3-3-3-8 1T
Rosewill R203A Case
Rosewill RV500S PSU ( +3.3v=30a, +5v=45a, +12v=26a )
AMD64 3700 SD @ 2.211
2- 92mm Silverstone case fans
1- WD 40GB Sata HD
1- Liteon DVD/RW SHM-160P6S
1- Sony 52X CD-Rom
1- Sony Floppy
System Temp @ idle = 30c, CPU Temp @ idle = 33c, GPU Temp @ idle = 43c
I did notice some slight changes in the Bios setup features that have been added since purchasing the same board 2 months ago. MSI has very good products and I am very happy with the results of all 3 machines built in the last 18 months. Just wanted to post something on the positive side today.
:smiley:
Regard's; Pop's
Yep I do like Neo4 plat After seeing the way the board runs, I try use them more on builds

Similar Messages

K8N Neo4 Platinum rig build opinion

I am putting together a multi-media rig and want your opinions.
It willl be used for audio, video and photos for a hobbyist friend:
MSI "K8N Neo4 Platinum" NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra
AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 2.2 GHz, 512KB L2 Socket 939
eVGA nVIDIA GeForce 6600 Video Card, 256MB DDR, 128-Bit, DVI/TV-Out, PCI-Express, Model "256-P2-N369"
Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model WD740GD
Western Digital 250GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model WD2500JD
Corsair Value Select (Dual Pack) 184 Pin 512MBx2 DDR PC-3200
Corsair XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, (Twin Pack) 184 Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200, Model TWINX1024-3200C2P

I'd go with Crucial Ballistix instead of Corsair. I've read too many reports of Corsair memory being DOA lately and I like Micron chips anyhow. I verified my memory with MemTest86+.
Make sure whatever video card you get has a relatively quiet fan. The 6600 and 6600GT series cards with 60mm fans are much quieter than the ones with the dinky 40mm fans. I'm very happy with my Leadtek. I believe MSI's cards have 60mm fans? The 6600GT is MUCH better than the 6600 for games.
Try to get a Winchester-core (90nm) Athlon 64. Lower power consumption. More expensive though. Arctic Cooling's Freezer64 works very welll for me but I suspect their cheaper Athlon 64 CPU cooler would be good enough and do a better job of cooling motherboard components. Depends on how militant you want to be about quiet. Of course, you'll definitely want a tube of Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound.
Seagate's 7200.8 300GB and 400GB drives rock. Tough to find a good price on the SATA version though. I'm using mine for HDTV PVR storage so I wanted the BIG drive. Ditto everything said about the Raptor.

New build: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum + maxtor 300gb = problem?

Got these 2 products included in a order:
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939)
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 300GB
While checking up on the MB on the MSI site, I noticed a version of the bios (1.2) that says 'support for 300gb maxtor drives'
That's the same HD one I have coming with my order >.<
If the MB I get hasn't got that version of the bios already installed will I have trouble installing the drive?!
I downloaded the bios and it says in the readme not to install it from a floppy disk, so I guess you need a system up and running to make that update in the 1st place. No Idea how to go about this, if the need arises.

Quote from: Supershanks on 19-May-05, 21:45:00
Hi drjugears,
Welcome to the forum.
Many people are runnimg ok anyway as dope says.
But it's not an issue you can update the bios via floppy b4 connecting the maxtor.
See Flashing the BIOS for Users using NON FAT file system This is a guide written by msi. Strictly speaking if you folow the instructions you aren't flashing from a floppy the actual update is done on a virtual drive in memory.
if you need a floppy boot disc see Why no floppy for bios flash?
luck with build
Thanks very much for the welcome and info.
Unfortunately I'll have to wait a while to see...I installed everything....but need some adapter for the 6pin connecter on the ATI card. The power supply came with some 8 pin one. So I need a 4 to 6 pin adapter. Doubt If I'll find one local, so will probably have to wait until monday now to try it out.

New K8N Neo4 Platinum build. Help, Nforce4 driver question?

I am building a new K8N Neo4 Platinum system (see my sig). I wanted to get the latest Nforce4 drivers, before installing XP. I noticed on the Nvidia website a 5.10 Unified Driver download and a 6.66 AMD download. Which should I use? It looks like the versions in the 5.10 Unified Driver are actually older than what is in the Nforce4 drivers, from the MSI site. If I use the 6.66 AMD drivers, should I make a SATA Raid Driver floppy, from them, to use during the XP install? Any advice is appreciated.

just do it from a floppy, LiveUpdate is crap
and yes you HAVE to F6 these drivers on Windows install if you plan on using SATA or you cannot boot from SATA
unfied drivers are NOT FOR NFORCE 4. You MUST use the NF4-specific 6.66 (or earlier)
Unified Drivers are specific only to nForce 1/2/3. AMD and Intel each have specific and unique driver sets for nForce4.
download 6.66, extract and explore the folder
go to IDE->Win2K->SATARAID and copy everything in this folder to a floppy
make two floppies just to be safe
you cannot use CD, you MUST use floppy because Windows will look in a: only
as soon as Windows install starts you will see a screen that says "Press F6 to install third party SCSI or RAID driver"... hit F6 and insert floppy and after a few minutes, you will get a screen that says"
"Press S to install other drivers..."
press S
next screen comes up, first select and install "nVidida Raid class driver (required)" -->hit enter
back to "Press S to install other drivers..." screen
press S again
screen wil come up again, this time choose and install ""nVidia nforce storage controller(required)"
one more time back to "press S to instal other drivers...", this time just hit ENTER
now you're good to go

Building system for friend with K8N Neo4 Platinum

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice (ADA3200CGBOX)
CT2KIT12864Z40B (2x1GB)
eVGA 256-P2-N516 (7800GT)
WD2500KS (250GB SATAII HDD)
ATXA9N-SS/500 (Case)
Aspire 120MM
Aspire 80MM
ND-3550A (DVD-RW)
TG-480-U22 (PSU)
Can anyone recommend BIOS and drivers I should preload to a CD? I would rather not install from retail CDs only to download new ones.
Are there any other concerns or things I should know of?
Thanks!

Quote from: Kwea on 10-January-06, 23:21:38
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice (ADA3200CGBOX)
CT2KIT12864Z40B (2x1GB)
eVGA 256-P2-N516 (7800GT)
WD2500KS (250GB SATAII HDD)
ATXA9N-SS/500 (Case)
Aspire 120MM
Aspire 80MM
ND-3550A (DVD-RW)
TG-480-U22 (PSU)
Can anyone recommend BIOS and drivers I should preload to a CD? I would rather not install from retail CDs only to download new ones.
Are there any other concerns or things I should know of?
Thanks!
You can use CD drivers (if needed to get connected to net) and update. because of the item on CD will be out dated
I'am using V1.09 BIOS, Nforce 666, GFX 7772 works good for me

K8N NEO4 Platinum the boat anchor from hell!

I just asembled the following:
MSI-7100-030 K8N NEO4 PlatinUm SLI
Geoforce 6800 PCIE
2 Gig DDR400
2x200Gb WD SATAII drive
2x80GB Seagfate SATA drives
2x80GB Wd IDE drives
I get terrible performance.
Takes One hour to copy a 6Gig file to another drive or folder.
Multi tasking is almos nonexixstant.
I got this board as a white box [oem].
No software or manuals.
So I Dl'd the system & raid drivers from MSI.
As i did not run well I then got updated drivers form Nvidia & from Silicone Image.
No better.
I ran a benchmark program (Passmark Perfomance Test) and was very unhappy.
Has anyone had similiar issues?
Would anyone download a copy of this software from:
http://www.passmark.com/download/pt_download.htm.
Please run the "Run All test Sequentially" icon [second from end of tolbar].
Save & email me the results at [email protected]
Should take no more than 5 minutes.
Please specify your system build for comparison.
Thanks & happy newyear!

selkov,
you don't appear to have a CPU or PSU in your system, can you tell us what they are please?

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI sound needs -5V; newest Antec 550W has no -5V rail

I came within a whisker of ordering a non-returnable 3700 Venice, MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI mobo and an upgraded Power Supply, Antec's newest 550W PS the TP2-550 EPS12V ($117). This has dual 2x24pin 12V 19A rails and is touted as the new V2.0 EPS12V/ATX12v compatible power supply for high performance SLI systems. By accident I came across a page at MSI for this mobo
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mai...ail.php?UID=641
At the end is this warning: MSI Reminds You...
• For this model, you must use a Power Supply which has a -5V pin supply. Also, the users manual which I downloaded on Pg 2-10 says the same thing
The above Antec PS specs do not show a -5V rail, nor does an Enermax 600W I looked at. The V2.0 specs for ATX12v which added 2x24pin 12V rails dropped -5V rail from the spec and it appears MSI is not conforming to the spec (See Antec response at end) None of the web sites selling these PS & mobos contain any warning. I vaguely recall from a forum a while back it may have something to do with the Soundblaster system in the mobo.
http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=22551 (click specifications)
Isn't this a major showstopper which is going to cause a lot of grief for those of us upgrading to SLI systems using this mobo and upgrading our PS to the newest & best power design? We won't know the PS won't work until we build the system.
Regards, Ron
Antec reply to me:
>>>>Thanks for the link. Since MSI's website does state the motherboard needs the -5v, the True550EPS12V will not work with this motherboard. The Standard (http://enhanceusa.com/documents/atx12v_v2.01.pdf) has removed the use for the -5v rail and it is no longer needed. MSI has not manufactured that motherboard to the Standard. Finding an ATX12V v2.0 power supply with the -5v might be hard to find. You should contact MSI for a compatibility list of power supplys that were tested to work with the K8N SLI Platinum.

Quote from: ccve3 on 21-May-05, 07:27:40
Wow!! syar2003 thanks for that post. I've spend an hour going through it & fasteddies links. Now I are a power expert. The dual rail argument is enough for me to go back to the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI with one of the single rail PS -5V units listed by fasteddie. The only question left now refers to computerpro3 recommendation on ultra power supplies for SLI
>>I quite simply wouldn't dream of putting anything else in my machine. Keep in mind, this section is for 2x 6800 models, not the 6600's which most any good psu will handle (like Antec Neopower, ocz 520, etc). . Pc Power and Cooling 510 Deluxe SLI edition (refer to list)
2. Zippy/Emacs 550-700w models
3. OCZ 600w (personally I would get the pcp&c for the price, but it's been proven here, so I'll be fair...).
These are really high end, expensive and only 3-4 choices. Since I'm getting one 6800GT and eventually another & possibly eventually a 4800 X2, I was hoping the OCZ 520W would do it but computerpro3 says Powermaster 520 isn't good enough for SLI. I found that there is an OCZ 600W ATX12 dual rail which surprisingly has a -5V rail needed for K8N Neo4 SLI Soundblaster. Will this meet computerpro3's preference for a high end PS for SLI systems even though I'm losing the 1 rail advantage. Maybe the 600 Watts just overwhelms the 1 rail/2 rail question.
Thanks again for the teriffic help
Regards, Ron
Wondering what you settled on. I got the Antec TP550 and it's flawless on the board. I even have the older 20pin model which works perfectly (including sound). If you really wanted what I would consider to be a top dog (pcpower and cooling), and find the -5v rail missing, all you have to do is place a phone order and request they add a -5v rail. It's a minimal cost and a total solution for having everything. Just my $0.02

No Post - K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI - any help would be awesome

Ok here it goes. I recently bought a K8N neo4 SLI and set everything up, hit the power button, and nothing happened. So i figured it was DOA and i sent it back. got another one, hooked it up and nothing happened. Tested the PSU and power switch on a different machine and they work fine. But with the K8N i have nothing, no fans, no lights, nada. I am a relatively experienced computer builder and haven't had this one happen to me yet. I've read every troubleshooting guide on the MSI site and i think everyone in the forums but the dang thing still won't turn on. Here the specs:
K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI
Athlon 64 3200+ 90nm
512 x 2 Geil Ultra Platinum DDR 533
Seagate SATA HD 7200 RPM 160 GB
Chaintech 6600GT
Ultra X-connect 500W with the 24-pin adapter
Got a bunch of other junk too but thats all thats hooked up now. just going for the bare minumums so i could at least get some response. Please give me some ideas of what could be causing this are maybe something dumb i forgot. I know my power suppply blows but i've seen others get it going with that and since i only have barebones hooked to it, i'd think it would go. Thanks in advance.

I had an interesting thing happen to me yesterday, that sounds exactly like your problem.
I'm looking for ways to reduce my gpu temps, so I'm playing around with case fans, round wiring, etc... One of the cables I replaced ran to one of my PCI-E cards. aparently it had a short or something in it. I spent hours trying to get my computer to start up again, I was afraid I had fryed the board....no power, no fans, tried a different power supply, etc..... One wire, well two, because it's one of those that takes two molex plugs and turns them into a Pci-e plug.
What a pain....
Chack your wires, check for a short. If you're having the same issue with a second mobo chances are it's not board related. Could be you have the srews attaching it to your case to tight and have shorted it out there.
Hope this helps.
Good luck!

Single Channel Dual Channel Question, K8N Neo4 Platinum

Just putting together a machine for the Daughter. Using MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum board 7125-010, MSI NX6600GT PCIE 128 Video card with AMD64 3700 CPU SD and a 1 GB stick of Crucial dual sided memory, CT12864Z40B, DDR 400 3200. The rest of my parts arrived and just got it all together and booted into the Bios. The boot screen tells me the memory is DDR Single Cannel, 64 bit running at 3-3-8-3 and 2T timings. I have been into the Bios setup, but had let the memory boot at Auto settings. Is what I am seeing on this screen OK because there is only one stick of memory installed? Or am I just confused as normal? I was thinking it should read Dual Channel, but I am hoping that is just my backwards thinking at times. I wish all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks in advance for the guidance.
Pop's

JayBee; Thank you very much for the quick response. The Daughter decided to go with the 1GB stick to begin with so as to possibly add another 1GB stick later. I don't think she will need it myself, judging by her computer use. She does no gaming or multi-tasking, so there probably will be no need to add more memory in the future. I was just wondering if there is any noticable performance hit by using a single stick vs a pair of matched 512's?? I used the same MB as in my sig, but noticed the new one has an upgraded BIOS. I hope it is an improvement, because I have yet had no problems with my machine which has the V1.6 BIOS. This new one which is about 2 months newer than mine has a BIOS V1.A in the bios screen. At bootup it is identified as ( 6A61FM49C-OO ) what ever that means. I read the forum daily and have noticed you are very active and consice in helping folks out. I very much appreciate your time and effort that you give freely. Hope you have a very safe and happy holiday season and SANTA is very good to you. I think we as a group need to get SANTA up to speed on gift giving in the computer upgrade department.
Regards; Pop's

K8n neo4 platinum with tagan 480 PSU NO SOUND from onboard realtek 850 :-( Help

I've hit a brick wall.
my sound card does not work and i have the amd 64bit 3500+ with msi-7125 version X.1.
Can anyone help as my next option is to go back to crapy yoyo tech who recommended and speced the solution knowing that there is an issue with the diamond model of the motherboard as you need -5 v for sound to work :-( nice!
I've tried triders from nvidia (forceware stuff) and got latest amd driver + msi live update.
Have not connected the front panel speaker connections either.
Thanks in advance peeps.

here's the article for n e 1 that needs it:
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threadid=69730
summary:
install amd cpu driver from amd site (extract the zip and do it that way through device manager)
Also from AMD the core cpu tool for cool n quite
install msi's live update and most drivers + tools you like EXCEPT the audio ones
Install the nvidia 6.14 audi drivers manually and the audio util to configure speakers
See the following article:
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=73804.msg519824#msg519824 for all the links
Happy building :-) - note this is for the msi k8n neo4 platinum (NOT SLI) but has pci-e

MOVED: k8n neo4 platinum with tagan 480 PSU NO SOUND from onboard realtek 850 :-( Help

This topic has been moved to AMD64 nVidia Based board. Please pay attention to what area you post in if you want help.
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=73850.0

here's the article for n e 1 that needs it:
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threadid=69730
summary:
install amd cpu driver from amd site (extract the zip and do it that way through device manager)
Also from AMD the core cpu tool for cool n quite
install msi's live update and most drivers + tools you like EXCEPT the audio ones
Install the nvidia 6.14 audi drivers manually and the audio util to configure speakers
See the following article:
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=73804.msg519824#msg519824 for all the links
Happy building :-) - note this is for the msi k8n neo4 platinum (NOT SLI) but has pci-e

Another K8N Neo4, 3800 x2 Problem

Before I start here are the specs
Amd x2 3800 with stock cooling
Msi K8n Neo4 Platinum
2 gb OCZ Dual Channel Platinum Link
eVGA 7800gt
Ultra Xconnect 500watt psu
2 160 gb Hitachi Deskstars in Raid 0 on nvidia raid controller
2 Ide Hard drives
Problem: Complete lockups in games.(no sound, no mouse, no keyboard, no screen activity) Mainly Counter-strike Source. Battlefield 2 sometimes freezes but it always happens with CS:S. I have tried installing the AMD x2 driver, Microsoft hotfix, the registry tweak to activate the MS hotfix, reverting to the 7x.xx forceware, trying multiple forceware beta drivers, setting affinity to 1 cpu, updated bios to 1.b, formating multiple times trying different forceware drivers etc. When I install Windows before I do anything I am doing a full windows update installing everything until there are no critical updates left and also installing the latest directX.
I ran prime95 on both cores for 7 hours and nothing was found. I ran memtest for 4 hours 30 minutes and nothing was found.
As of right now I should be recieving a Amd 64 3800+ (non x2) tomorrow from newegg and seeing if that works. Here are pictures of my bios settings.
Couldn't get the very last line so heres another pic that includes the Nf4 voltage.
edit: Forgot to add this
Memory Timings
Incase imageshack links die/slow heres an alternative http://urlx.org/dmservers.com/064b

I switched the ram to the 2 slots closest to the cpu and it then allowed me to change it to 1T. The ocz guy sent me a whole list of settings which I did but then when I saved and restarted it didn't post. So I tweaked them a bit and now it works fine. According to Everest I am now above the benchmarks compared to the other x2 3800+ on the nforce4 ultra.
1 thing I did notice was that every now and then I would lock up in the bios for some reason. As in I would be changing some settings and then I couldn't use the arrow keys to move at all. I wonder if its because I am using a wireless keyboard or maybe the usb to ps2 adapter is messing it up?
edit: heres screenshots. I know I am big on screenshots.

BSOD's on my x64 K8N Neo4 Platinum based PC, Any ideas what's wrong? Help!

Over the past few month I've been getting BSOD's. There is no real pattern to their occurence and it's not something which is constantly happening (It happened around 5 times in the past 2 months), but I've really grown to hate them. You see, after getting one what has happened in the past is that when I go to restart my pc after getting a BSOD, I find I need to re-install my whole OS! What happens is that after booting (which oddly enough doesn't work well after a BSOD, It freezes on the boot screen and I need to restart several times), a black screen appears telling me that certain files in the C:Windows\ direcotory are corrupt or missing.
So the real problem is that the BSOD's cause me to re-install my whole OS. One will happen, then it will be ok, I turn the system on, log into windows, then it might happen again, after which I'll need to re-install. The files that go missing are always different too, and when I run scan-disk (after plugging in my main drive into another computer) it finds corrupt files and deletes them.
At first I thought it was Azureus (p2p client) which was causing the problems because it seemed to happen when I was runing that. I stopped using it, and the BSOD's still occured...sometimes randomly when browsing...etc. I figured that since files got deleted and corrpupted, it must be a problem withthe Hard Drive....So I bought a new one, and I've still had the BSOD error (although files haven't been deleted yet).
So yeah, I really need to solve this problem as it is taking away from my productivity and causing me to re-install far too often. I will post the BSOD info as well as my system info below (and a screen shot):
Quote
MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION
*** STOP: 0x0000009c (0x0000000000000004,0xFFFFF80000113BC0, 0x00000000B2000000, 0x0000000000070F0F)
I looked that up on the net, and it seems the first part seems to indicate, or at least COULD indicate overheating. I checked CPU and System temps and they seem acceptable.
I am running Windows XP x64 Edition with the following hardware (please note that all of the hardware drivers I'm using are written for x64, MSI is so good:)). I have had this PC before it started having these problems, it could be related to using x64 I guess, but the error doesn't show that does it?
Quote
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0 GHz Socket 939 (Venice Core) w/ stock heatsink/fan
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum S-939 nForce4 Ultra
OCZ PC-3200 DDR400 Premier Series 1GB (2x512MB) Dual Channel Kit CAS 2.5
Ati Radeon x800xl 256MB gddr3, PCI-E
LG 17" L1720B LCD monitor 16ms, 1280x1024
Western Digital Caviar 120GB SATA
Western Digital Caviar SATA II (WD1600JS) 160GB 7200RPM 8MB Buffer
Western Digital Caviar SATA II (WD2500KS) 250GB 7200RPM 16MB Buffer
Pioneer DVR-109 DVD-RW
Pioneer DVR-110D DVD-RW
Antec Sonata II Mid tower ATX black power supply 450 Watt ( ATX12V 2.01 )
Creative I-Trigue 2.1 L3450 speakers
Sony 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive
Microsoft multimedia keyboard and Microsoft optical mouse (PS/2)
My OS and drivers are fully updated. As for my BIOS I've been running the version I'm using now forquite some time and I believe it is version 1.5. Also in another bad turn of events, my northbridge fan seems to be on its way out of this world (this just happned so I don't think its related to the BSOD). I haven't been able to find a replacement, and since its not spinning very fast, and sometimes stops...It's causing the heatsink to get quite hot. I need to get a new one, and I can't find them anywhere...I wonder if thats covered under warranty... I looked into getting a different heatsink, but my Graphics card is so colse to this heatsink, that theres no room for a bigger one at all.
Do you think this problem is motherboard related, I cannot understand what the technical info the BSOD gives me means, can anybody understand it? I don't think its my HD's, or Ram, or CPU...could it be a motherboard problem? And if so, its under 1 year old, can I get an RMA?
Thanks for the help in advance.

At one time I had a weak 450w psu that had only 18a on the 12v rail. When I overclocked my cpu and gpu, I was getting bsod's every once in a while and couldnt figure it out until I read a similar post like yours on this forum. I decided to upgrade my psu and havent had that problem since.
Power supplies can be deceiving. I now have a 480w psu but its has 30a on the 12v rail. So what we need to know is the ratings of your psu (see my sig) just to see if your psu is the culprit. Just my 2 cents.

K8N Neo4 Platinum, how to move MBR to sata (make it drive #1)?

I am not sure I am phrasing the question correctly, so bear with me. I have a K8N Neo4 platinum with the SiI3114 controller and sata ports 4-8 (I believe its what they are calling PCB 1.x) with bios v1.D. I moved the board to another box and installed winXP on it. I was running it with IDE hard drives. Everything was working great but the OS was running really slow so I bought a SATA 300 mb/s drive and pluged it into SATA1 (I read about using ports 3 and 4 for raid but I do not want to use the NVraid at all, it is disabled). Then I proceeded to reinstall win XP. In the setup, I deleted the original C partiton and created one on the sata drive and rebooted so that there would be no "C" drive confusion by the winxp setup (have had that problem before and this keeps it from happening). Went through the setup and the sata was correctly reported as "C". Told windows to install itself there but it told me that it needed to write to MBR on the old c drive but that, since I had deleted the partiton, it couldn't and had to format it. So I knew that something was wrong.
So I rebooted and disabled the ide bus that contained the old IDE drive and just left the CD ide bus enabled. WinXP installed fine with no complaints. Then it rebooted and I re-enabled the ide bus in the bios. It wouldn't boot into the partiton I just installed winxp on! To get it to boot, I had to use F11 (the bios boot menu) and select the sata drive. Went through the whole setup winXP thing and rebooted. Same problem, it wouldn't boot the sata drive. :(
As long as that ide bus with the old ide drive is enabled, it won't boot the sata drive! I have rearranged the boot order on the bios every way possible. I opened up the box and moved that ide chain with the old ide drive to the ide2 port and put the dvd drive on ide1. I made the old drive slave and the prior slave master. That didn't fix it either. How do I tell this motherboard that the 1st drive is the sata drive? How do I tell it the MBR should be there not on the old ide drive? How do I fix this? Thanks!

Thank you for your replies! Hans, thank you I will give it a go again doing full formats all the way. I usually use the full format when installing winXP but I did things in a different order than you instructed so I will definately try it.
Aicjofs, thank you, There are 3 hard drives in this system currently. There is the ide hard drive that used to be the "c" drive (a western digital 160gb ata133 7200rpm 8mb cache) and a second ide hard drive that is an extended partition with 1 logical drive with data on it (western digital 300gb ata133 7200rpm 8mb cache). Then there is a sata hard drive in sata1 port with 2 partitions one primary and one extended. The extended partion does have data on it as I moved stuff there after I got winXP up the 2nd time (western digital 250gb sata II 7200rpm 16mg cache). Right now, I have the ide drive with data on it as ide2 master and the old "c" drive as ide2 slave and it is unformatted and contains no partion information (I deleted the partition after I installed the SATA drive and installed winXP). XP won't boot. What happens is that, if I take the winxp cd out, it gives me a "no system" error. If I leave the WinXP cd in it boots that disk. However, if I use "f11" and choose to boot the sata drive, winxp comes up just fine. If I disable the ide bus with the two ide hard drives, it boots winxp just fine.
Edit: bios is v1.D. It feels like this mobo is telling windows setup that the master ide drive is the first disk and to ignore everything else. It feels like if I can just tell the mobo that the sata drive is the first disk then everything will work . It is late night where I am now, and I've been fighting with this since the afternoon so I might have to goto sleep but I will be back at it tomorrow and will go though what Hans instructed. If anyone has any otehr ideas, I'd really appreciate that as well.

Constant HDD access (K8N Neo4 Platinum)

Hello all, this is my first time posting on these forums.
A couple of days ago I put together a new system for myself, with the following components:
* Athlon64 3200+ processor
* MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum motherboard
* 1Gb RAM
* Gigabyte 128Mb GeForce 6600GT graphics card
* 2x Seagate 250Gb 7200rpm SATA drives
* LG IDE dual-layer DVD-RW drive
* Apacer 7-in-1 internal USB 2.0 card reader
* Thermaltake "soprano" ATX midi-tower w/ 400W PSU
The two hard drives I have connected to ports SATA5 and SATA6 on the motherboard and set up in a RAID1 configuration (using the on-board Silicon Image SiI 3114 RAID controller). I then installed Windows XP Professional, which went on fine. The only problem I have now is that the hard drives are being constantly accessed by the system, even when I'm doing nothing on the system. This isn't just an occasional access once every second or so, the little HDD LED just flickers away merrily the whole time. I have run both filemon and diskmon on the system, and found that while no particular files appear to be being accessed, there is almost constant write activity being performed to the hard drives.
I have narrowed it down to somehow involving the Windows XP RAID drivers. If I boot from the Windows XP install disk and load the third party drivers for the SiI 3114, I get the constant disk access when sitting at the first screen of the install process ("Welcome to Windows XP" text-only screen). If I do the same without loading the drivers (thus Windows does not recognise the RAID drive), no disk access. I have tried updating the RAID controller drivers under the Device Manager (now up to version 1.2.0.0), but it does not fix the problem. I have done a full virus and spyware scan (bearing in mind that this is a clean install), with no results. I have checked all running processes and services (including making sure Indexing Service is not running), but have been unable to find anything that could be causing this constant activity. I have yet to try actually breaking the mirror and running the drives off the normal SATA controller. I will be trying that tonight when I get home if no other solution presents itself, but obviously I would rather get it behaving properly in RAID1 if at all possible.
It's driving me crazy. There doesn't appear to be any actual issues with the performance of the machine, but the constant hard disk activity can't be good for the drives long-term. I have searched these forums for a possible solution, and while some people have had similar problems, none of the suggested solutions have worked for me so far. If anyone can help me with my dilemma, I would be Eternally Grateful(tm).

Yes! At least I'm not alone... constant disk ticking is driving me nuts too.
I have same issue with a newly built system - different board but Sil3114.
My C: is on the NF4 SATA interface, but I have 4 250GB Seagaets on the Sil3114, intended for a RAID5 array. Having installed XP, I've become distracted by the constant disk access and have been trying everything to eliminate it before proceeding with the rest of the build - nogo. Your post gave me the clue - boot with Sil3114 disabled = no disk activity; boot with enabled = constant disk flogging.
I've got the Sil driver up to 1.2.3.1 but no better. Suspect it may be the Sil3114 BIOS that needs upgrading but seems no way to flash it - have you got anywhere with your debugging?
Appreciate a solution before I go crazy with the tick, tick tick....

Another K8N Neo4 Platinum Happy Build

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