K9A2 Platinum v2

Question

This K9A2 Platinum v2 of mine has a lot of wierd issues.
-The board never been 100% stable during a week under XP SP2 or under SP 3 (like my KT3Ultra2).I always had to try different drivers for the video,mobo,sound and different timings for my ram modules.
-My Geil Ultra(golden plated) DDR 800Mhz with 4-4-4-12 at 2.1V  ,timings specified on the sticker ,never worked properly though Memtest and Prime 95 tests passed without problems.They werent stable with BIOS 1.2 not even at a lower frequency.The modules are reported by Everest with the name DDR 800 4-4-4(without the 12 like on the sticker).Acording to the web reviews this modules should of worked at 3-3-3-9 2.2V\2.3V without problems not to say about 4-4-4-12.
-To be able to boot under 60 seconds i had to put the hard drive to SATA I.
-My USB Logitech G5 laser mouse(last revision) had some kind of lag while entering games,more preciselly there was a delay of 20 seconds before the sensitivity tweaked in the mouse utility was available like it had to grow from 0 to the disired value during those 20 seconds or so.This lag was eliminated when the hard drive was lowered to SATA I transfer speed.
-The sound loop lock ups while gaming cooled down when i was using Forceware 175.16 but not totally.This happened with the onboard audio and with the X-fi too.
-2 days ago i updated the BIOS 1.2 to 1.5 with the hope of having a more stable system under XP SP 3(once i updated to SP 3 i got some blue screens so i considered that maybe is really needed an update).The update went smooth but after the update i wanted to install a "new" SONY floppy drive,i installed it using the cable supplied by MSI.At boot i observed that the Floppy unit led was ON ,light that normally is on when a floppydisk is inserted and used.The floppy drive was recognized by Windows but every time a floopy disk was inserted a message with no disk inserted appeared.I thought then that there is something wrong with Windows so i tested a workable bootable disk and the system refused it though using the F11 boot menu.Then installed the Floopy disk into the old computer thinking that the drive is defective.KT3Ultra 2 worked properly with the drive no problems what so ever and the light was working only when diskette inserted.The standby voltage doesnt apply here the led is of when computer is off.
-Then, with BIOS 1.5 observed that in the BIOS when trying to set tRAS manually to 12(with the 1.2 BIOS it worked) , Memset ,CPU Z and Everst were reporting always a value of X+2(if i set 14 in BIOS the value read by the info programs was 16).A similar behaviour for tRAS was not observed with BIOS 1.2 but it was observed with another timing more insignifiant that i dont remember that one at this moment.
-When clearing the CMOS i observed another undocumented thing(along with leds under the ram modules), near the Clear Cmos jumper(between the Cmos jumper and the Fintek chip) there are 2 terminals of another jumper,what is that for?The manual is silent.
-At this moment ,with BIOS 1.5(without the unnecesarelly floppy) with Windows XP SP3 and with timings 4-4-4-18 the board seems stable but my questions is if this board is defective ,or if this model is prone to engeenering flaws or I just hit into some BIOS incompatibilities with the components i bought?

Answer 1

Check the SPD with CPU-z, AMD's use the JEDEC timings.
EPP timings are only suiteable for Intel's with nVidia chipsets, you can not use them with AMD as the path is too short.
All your problems can be explained by this.
I'm very sorry, but I care less about the numbers on the stick, I only care about the number IN the stick.
Else post the SPD programmed timings, I bet that the timings written on the stick are EPP and NOT JEDEC.
This is NOT a motherboard problem as the memory controller is INSIDE the CPU and not like Intel in the chipset.
Many people make this mistake and try to set too tight timings, with unstable/slow results.
The ATI board is better and faster board then the nVidia, even that, it still uses the JEDEC timings as the CPU can't use EPP.
As for the floppy, complain to Microsoft please, they don't allow non-floppy install (if you don't slipstream), has nothing to do with MSI or any board at all.