Neo4 Platinum HTT topping out @285

Hi my MS-7125 Neo4 Platinum with the v1.6 bios is topping out at 285 HTT. Anything higher and it freezes immediately. This is true both using bios adjustments and clockgen. For testing HTT my bios settings are:
100 mhz divider.
3-3-3-8 timings 2t
5x cpu multi
3x HTT multi
stock NF4 voltage (raising didn't help 1mhz)
Will updating to the v1.9 or v1.b bios help? I'm looking at picking up an opty 144 or 146 and I would like the extra htt headroom. My day to day OC is 267 HTT 3x HTT multi, 150 divider, 9x CPU multi, 1.42v vcore.

Quote from: Stick on 14-March-06, 17:28:58
well, first of all if you were running at 285 with a 9x multi, it might be your CPU that is topping out and not the mobo. try lowering the CPU multi to let's say 5, and then try to go to 300. also, don't forget to up the voltage to the chipset and a bit for the CPU.
As my original post says I tested for max fsb with a 5x cpu multi. I tried with the cpu and chipset at about +.1v but that didn't help. I didn't even get 1 mhz over 285. This is what leads me to believe it could be a bios issue. I think if I were reaching the limits of the mobo, then raising voltage slightly would give me a few more mhz. No matter what I try, the thing is 100% stable right up to 285, but when I bump it up any more, it instantly freezes.
I only have one s939 processor at the moment, so I haven't tested with any other cpu. I accept that 285 may be the limit of my board and thats just the luck of the draw, but I'm hoping its something else.
What bios version are people generally most successful overclocking with?
Thanks for your help.

Similar Messages

My feeble attempt at a MB comparison - Asus A8N-E vs MSI Neo4 Platinum

Hi all,
I just thought I'd share a post I just finished submitting at the Asus forum. Here's my experience, in a nutshell, with both the Asus A8N-E and the K8N Neo4 Platinum:
I've decided to give up on the A8N-E and Asus (for now) in favor of the MSI Neo4 Platinum. The layout of the Asus board is top notch, but there are some significant issues with it.
The CUSL2 turned me into a huge Asus fan, but no more. After a week of playing with both here's my review:
Asus A8N-E (v2.0)
Pro's
-Superior Layout - See Neo4 cons below. However, there are two electrolytic capacitors on the back end that had to be nudged out of the way to install my 6600GT.
-No superfluous features.
-Stable
-Performance on par with other nF4 mobos.
-I love the Ctrl-Esc wake up feature and will sorely miss it.
Con's
-Will not run 2225 OCZ Gold Dual Channel RAM any faster than 2325 (bios must be reflashed).
-Quirky recovery features. You need the mobo CD or floppy disk. Also, there was one instance where it failed to post (due to 2225 memory timings) while running v1008 and I kept getting a BIOS checksum error when reflashing with v1008. Had to reflash with v1006. Also, one time I didn't get a checksum error, just a lot of beeps. Clearing the CMOS proved troublesome as shown in the next issue.
-Cheap battery terminal. IMO you should not pull the battery when clearing the CMOS with the Jumper (even though the manual says you should). It doesn't have a lever to eject the battery (just two little teeth holding it in) and my battery lost contact with the terminals when I put it back in. Afterwards, when I unplugged the PS the settings in the BIOS were reset.
-Somewhat limited instruction manual.
-Asus LiveUpdate failed to connect to a server on several repeated attempts. It never connected successfully.
-There was no Mobo installation CD in my box!
-This forum software and layout is really limited and frustrating.
-It's been three days now and still no reply to my tech support inquery regarding 2225 memory timings.
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (v1.0)
Pro's
-Runs 2225 OCZ Gold Dual Channel RAM at 2225, no issues whatsoever.
-More reliable Bios/System utility. There's a button to load BIOS setup defaults in case of problems. Autorecovery feature flashes factory BIOS version embedded in mobo Core Cell chip.
-Packaging is simply beautiful. Obviously not a big reason to buy it but trust me, it's exceptional.
-Extensive instruction manual, test report, and large fold out color diagram of layout.
-Add-on module with diagnostic LED's.
-Stable
-Performance on par with other nF4 mobos.
-MSI version of LiveUpdate worked flawlessy on every occasion.
-Cheaper than A8N-E with rebate.
-Firewire port
Con's
-Inferior layout, although still better than others (ie Epox 9NPA+ and ATX power connectors). SATA connectors get in the way of my HDD's. x16 PCIe socket sits below x4 PCIe and x1 PCIe slots. This orientation causes my long 6600GT card to get in the way of the back end of one of my HDD's.
-Who need's DUAL Lan? And the ability to run 8 SATA devices is overkill IMO.
-CPU Heatsink Fan mount backplate is GLUED to the backside of the PCB. Had to remove it with a credit card and a hair dryer to make room for my Zalman.
As I'm sure most of your would agree the Memory timing issue with the A8N-E was the deal breaker. I'm sure in time Asus will get around to fixing this with a bios revision. The faulty battery interface was also a downer.
For now, so long Asus! Good luck A8N owners!
Jason

One big pro for the MSI you forgot to mention is this forum. This is by far one of the best forums for any motherboard manufacturer (if only ATI would get the hint ).
IMO I like the 8 SATA ports. I have 4 hard drives in my system, and I am desperately needing more. I have one more SATA slot to fill before I am out. Some people are absolute packrats (like me ) and they need the additional hard drive ports. The other benefit is you can end up using this as a low end server board (which I will be doing in the next couple of weeks). It is by far cheaper then getting a system with opterons. Instead I can just get an X2 for alot less, plus I don't have to spend the extra to get registered memory.
The dual lan can be really help who use ICS. This way they don't have to purchase a router.
Both of these I don't see as cons, as they really don't cause a problem. For you I just wouldn't list them as pros.
But thanks for sharing your ideas, hopefully this can become helpful to others who are determining what mobo to buy.
Have Fun
Jeremy

Neo4 Platinum failed to cold boot?

when power up the system, power LED is lighted, the CPU fan is running, everything seems to be ok, but no screen, no BEEP sound--> hang
need to press RESET button many times, then it will boot to OS without any problem, and system is stable
what's the problem?
thanks for any advice!!!
MB: MSI Neo4 Platinum, BIOS: v1.2
RAM: 512MBx2
CPU: K8 3200+, overclocked to 240x10

Hi all, 1st post here.
System specs:
AMD 3000+ CPU Winchester CBBID
MSI K8N Neo4 SLI Platinum with latest bios
MSI NX6600GT video card
OCZ PowerStream 420 PSU
2 x 256mg OCZ Gold rev 3 dual channel set
Asus DVD-Rom E616P2
Maxtor 80 gig SATA pluged in on SATA #4
Floppy drive
WinXP Pro SP2
I am also affected by this cold boot issue when overclocking. Anything above 229 will give me this issue.
The PSU I am using was running 6 months on an Intel rig without issues and the memory is memtest stable upto 250 at stk.
On top of the cold boot issue I was getting a BSOD sometimes when booting into winxp after the Core Center loads. I noticed I had a jumper on the hdd set to master, so I removed it and the blue screens have stopped ... so far. I was told by a friend that I should plug the HDD into #3 or #4 Sata connector which I did.
Vcore 1.45v + 3.3%
NF4 1.6v
Memory 2.7v on auto according to cpuz128 2.5,3,3,8 1T
HT 3x
CPU ratio 9x
I am able to reach 250 HTT speed (FSB) by using clockgen and it passes windows memtest and is OCCT stable.
However, the only way I have found to pass the 229 barrier in the bios and not have a cold boot, is to set the HT multi to 2x or 1x.
Anything more will produce a cold boot.
Since I removed the jumper from the HDD The system has been running without issues at 226 HTT speed (FSB).
I tried to OC past 229 again and got a cold boot at 230 ... again.
I was using a K8N NF4-F before and had the same cold boot issue however, it would not go over 229 unless the HT multi was set to 1x.
If it doesn't post do the following:
If system is on with a black screen, shut down by holding the start button until it does.
Turn off monitor, speakers and switch off on power supply.
Remove the power cord from power supply.
Push the start button until nothing lights up when you do. This will drain any juice left in capacitors.
After doing this you can reconnect the power supply, turn on the monitor, then the switch on the power supply. I have noticed many times that when you turn on the power supply switch the system will start up without pushing the start button.
If it's still dead, do all of the above again and add this extra step:
After you have pushed the start button to remove any power left in capacitors, push the CMOS clear button on the board and hold it about 1 second.
Then reconnect etc etc.
In the countless times I have done this I have never had to remove the battery but that would be the last thing I would try if all of the above doesn't work for you.
If you cleared the CMOS you will need to enter the system time, date and any other settings you had.
I hoping MSI will address this issue.
The only work around so far I found it using clockgen.

Neo4 platinum fan removal

The fan on my neo4 platinum used to vary between pretty silent and very loud. When it was loud it was like the fan was out of balance or something. Now, it is always loud. I want to get at the fan to see if I can oil it or replace it, but I would like to know if there is a way to remove and replace the fan with only access to the top of the motherboard. If anyone knows how to remove the unit without taking out the entire motherboard, please let me know.
Thanks!

Copied from Arioch´excellent guide on chipset and GPU cooling modifications:
Quote
Removing the original chipset cooler
The first thing we need to do is to remove the original chipset cooler. This requires that you have removed the board
from the case, and have access to the back of the board. The coolers is held in place with two pushpins and some
adhesive thermal padding that is tougher than dried chewing gum.
In order to remove the pushpin, you need a steady hand and a pair of flat pliers to gently squeeze the barbed end on
the back of the board. This allows the pushpins to be pulled back through their mounting holes. Be very gentle since
if you slip, your pliers might damage the tiny traces on the circuit board, which will probably ruin your motherboard.
Once you have got the pushpins through, you need a hairdryer. Set it to a rather high setting, aim it at the cooler, and
gently wiggle it back and forth while you heat it, until it comes loose.
You might want to read the whole guide, as it is very detailed and a great help.
Jens

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

Memory Timings on Neo4 Platinum???

I noticed on my Neo4, most memory settings are set to "Auto" by default.. Being I like to fool around in the BIOS, I tried setting the timings to relatively relaxed settings. The system wouldn't POST... Cleared the CMOS and tried again. This time I used the Windows based program A64 Tweaker to see what "Auto" was... All settings seemed fine, but different then what I tried....
I then went back into the BIOS and set the memory timings to what the A64 Tweaker displayed, and rebooted.... The system POSTed and I went into Windows to recheck what I had set...
Much to my suprise, the A64 Tweaker displayed about 5 settings that were different then what I had set. I rechecked this several times. ...
It must be that the A64 Tweaker is wrong, I thought,... so I reset up my Neo2 Platinum and did the same test. This time the Tweaker agrees with the BIOS, exactly.... Now I'm really confused... So back to the Neo4 to recheck the settings and the Tweaker display of memory timings...The settings were set with the system at all BIOS defaults
What I found is that many timings set in the BIOS, were different then the A64 Tweaker showed...!
The following timings come out "1 number" setting higher then the BIOS setting:
Trc
Trfc
Trrd
Trtw
The following timings come out "1 number" setting lower then the BIOS setting:
Twr
I also noticed that "Max Async Latency" is set to 6ns, but the A64 Tweaker shows 8ns....
As a sanity check, the A64 tweaker was tried on other 64 bit systems and the BIOS settings agreed with the A64 Tweaker readings, exactly ....
Has anyone had any luck setting the memory settings...?
Specs:
Neo4 Platinum
1.3 BIOS default settings
Winchester 3000 Retail HSF
PCX 5750 Video Card
WD 40Gig HDD
Tagan 480 Watt PSU

That is what I'm trying to do, but the BIOS settings and the Tweaker never agree on the 5 timings I listed above.
On the Neo2, they are exactly the same every time... I just don't understand why the Tweaker and the Neo4 BIOS don't agree... On 5 other nF3/nF4 boards they are all exactly the same...

Memory not recognized on MSI Neo4 Platinum SLI

I just installed another 512mb of RAM on this system:
MSI Neo4 Platinum SLI
2 x 512mb Corsair XMS XL PRO
1 x 512mb Corsair XMS XL (the one that doesnt work)
IDE HDD
Windows XP PRO
BIOS, and every program i run that can see system specs shows that the infact all 3 Sticks
are recognizable. Though...Windows and a program that shows me my physical memory max both
point out i have only 1 gig of RAM!?
It's there, just not being used?
Now the only difference with the XL version and the XL PRO version is the heatspreader,
everything else is the same....so nothing should be conflicting.
Since the computer somehow knows all my part's details..im thinking just because
the new ram doesnt have PRO that it may not be recognized to work together.
Even so...ram should downclock etc with this motherboard...so this stupid little name
issue shouldnt cause the computer to ignore the ram!
I tried switching DIMM slots, no luck.
Any ideas?

It's a AMD64 dual memory channel system motherboard/CPU.
Valid memory populations are
1.stick in one of the channels .(single mode 64bits)
1.stick in each channel .(dual mode 128bits)
2. sticks in one of the channels.(single mode 64bits)
4.sticks ,2 in each channel.(dual mode 128bits)
3 sticks is n/a.
The population on memory controller , it's initialization and modeselection , single/dual mode is chosen by the A64 cpu.
It's been said that later rev.E cpus can autoselect unmatched population between channels (of e.g 3.sticks) and
set the whole memory pool in single mode.
But i have never seen anyone successfully test/run it .

MSI Neo4 Platinum with MSI GF6600GT PCI-e Freezes on games

I'm having this serious problem that my new build system freezes on games. Sometimes I can play for a few hours and sometimes I can play only a few minutes before the system freezes completely. Only a hardware reset helps in this case.
This is my hardware setup:
MSI Neo4 Platinum
MSI GF6600GT PCI-e
2 x 512MB DDR400 memory(in dual mode)
AMD 3200+ 64-bit processor
Sound Blaster Audigy
DVD Writer
Floppy
I'm using Windows XP SP2
What I tryd:
Tested with other RAM modules, same trouble
Reinstalled windows xp, same trouble
Tryd all kind of driver versions, same trouble
Flashed bios to 1.9, same trouble
Put a Zalman Cooler on the Video card (temperature now between 40 and 60 degrees in games instead of 80-100 degrees), same trouble
This is where my questions come:
There are two hardware components I cannot switch to try:
The mainboard and the Video card. Whitch one is most likely to be broken??
I have read in the manual of the mainboard that the PSU should have at least 18A on the 12+ signal. My PSU only haves 15A there. While I doubt this results in problems like this I still like to know if it does!
Please help me out on this one!

Have tried older drivers for you GFX, I find the late 6XXX work better for most games. You mite want to check the system is stable with:
Prime95, Memtest86, 3D mark 03 & 05.
You mite be having the same problems as "easlern", his games would lock up. This was due to to a problem with onboard sound Sound Blaster.
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=84328.0
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=84328.msg603340#msg603340
Quote
At that moment I didn't even know what was actually on my board, but I knew it was a generic card I was probably never going to use anyway, and I didn't recall getting any sound card updates for this board. So I looked in device manager, and bingo: AC97 device under multimedia devices. I immediately did two things to completely eliminate the rascal: updated the driver for it and promptly went to BIOS and disabled the sucker. Also disabled SATA group 2 (slots 3 and 4), the Marvell LAN because I only use one ethernet anyway (the nVidia one, which from what I was reading, was probably the more robust of the two), both RAID controllers (actually I had disabled them earlier to skip the annoying RAID setup screen), and put the PCIe bus back to 100MHz (rogue: I was wondering about possible damage over time with this too high too, so I was glad to try setting it back to normal!) Also ran Driver Cleaner to rip out the detonators even though I was putting in another nVidia, and then put in the 6800GT and installed drivers. (In case you were interested, my 3dMark05 score went from 3511 under the 6600GT to 4939 under the 6800GT! I now run in 1280x1024 at max effects and I'm completely spoiled in one night already! )
Anyway, one of these myriad, desperate attempts must have worked because I get neither audio stutters (should have been a freaking clue in the first place, duh!) nor lock ups.
Since this is the first PC I've built, I was certain I had to have screwed something up hardware-wise or found some combination that had incompatibilities. If it WAS just the freaking sound card driver I'm going to leave this place in shame and never post again! In my defense, the MSI Update utility didn't show any updated sound drivers for me, and I had assumed it was being pre-empted by my SB Live in any case.
I was convinced this problem was (if it is indeed gone) a video card issue but I can't say it ever was without putting the 6600 back in and running for several hours. I'm going to bet it was the AC97 though because nVidia boards have always been fantastic for me, I haven't had any actual motherboard issues, my RAM and CPU are just fine, and Win2k has never let me down.
Don't assume anything, though, I've learned.
One thing to note: when I was checking out the AC97, I noticed it was *sharing* IRQ 20 with the nForce NIC detector (might have a different name, I can't remember right now). Apparently this is a capability of Win2k to share IRQs but it kind of added to my suspicions anyway.
I'll let you know how the next few sessions go and whether this issue is still an issue

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.

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.

Firewire/1394 devices are not auto-detected with k8n neo4 platinum

I am unable to detect firewire/1394 devices to my PC through my K8N Neo4 Platinum. That is, I plug in the device through the firewire port and windows doesn't detect that a device has been plugged in.
I have tried:
-2 firewire devices, both are Canon digital camcorders (ZR10 and ZR25MC)
-2 different firewire cables
-reinstalling windows, got all windows updates except
(Microsoft Base Smart Card Cryptographic Service Provider Package: x86 (KB909520))
-patch from microsoft, discussed here
(https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=81749.0)
-both firewire devices using both cables connect just fine to a test computer
-both my computer and the test computer have Windows XP Pro SP2
Windows doesn't make the noise "bah-dum" that it has detected a device, nor does it display the dialog that gives me options of what programs to use. Once in a while, if I leave it connected for a while and come back, windows will eventually find it...or windows might bog down and get really slow. It speeds up again instantly once I unplug the firewire device. Strange, I know. Also there are NO conflicts in device manager.
Could it be?:
-bios misconfiguration
-need to use an older chipset driver (i am using most recent from nvidia.com)
-onboard audio or front audio needs to be disabled
-the k8n neo4 platinum simply has connection problems with some firewire devices
(i hope not)
Bob

Built2Last: (good questions!)
I tried your suggestion by removing PCI cards and made FURTHER progress. I found out that my firewire card, the Syba NEC1394-P3, has some compatibility issues with my other PCI cards. I found this out because:
1. it worked fine after I placed it in a non-comm (orange) slot and removed my soundcard (X-Fi) and Belkin wireless modem, and
2. a tech support representative from Syba told me that that particular firewire card has compatibility issues
Quote
Also, SD-NEC-4F is our older model firewire card.
Our new firewire card (SD-PCI-4F) is using VIA VT6306 chipset and no customer complain about any installation issue so far.
If the SD-NEC-4F still giving you trouble, I'll suggest you to return it and exchange for the SD-PCI-4F firewire card.
At least he is honest and wants to help, so I remain impartial towards Syba.
So I figured out the firewire card, but not the onboard firewire. Ok, but check this out! When the Syba card was working, I could plug in BOTH the external hard drive AND either of the Canon camcorders to the Syba firewire card. Windows all three devices just fine. Again, the onboard firewire would ONLY detect JUST the external hard drive, but would not detect either of the Canon camcorders. It seems as though the ball again is knocked back into MSI's court on this issue. Any ideas?
syar2003:
As for drivers, I checked for drivers for: onboard firewire, add-in firewire card, and Canon camcorders.
-I cannot find where there is an MSI firewire driver for my onboard firewire port. I originally guess that it was part of my chipset driver installer, but the README doesn't say anything about it. It is also not an additional download on MSI's website. But since it detects an external hard drive I figure I must already have it.
-The add-in firewire card does not have drivers. I repeat, they do not exist. The manual and Syba's website both state that drivers for the card are included all versions of Windows back to Windows 98.
-Canon's website has a driver/software download page but it also appears that drivers do not exist for the Canon camcorders.
Yes the camcorder is set to VCR mode.
Yes the IEEE1394 is correctly installed, since external hard drive connects okay.
I tried two DV cables and both are connected fine.
The camcorders do not support USB as far as I can see, and if they do, I'm not using it.

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

MicroStar K8N Neo4 Platinum 54G - nForce4 Ultra Avilability in CZ

Hi all,
does anybody know when M/B MicroStar K8N Neo4 Platinum 54G - nForce4 Ultra will be avilable in Czech Republic (Europe)??? I'm waiting two months for it...

Not really (maybe AC97 Controller = Auto was the closest). But, I tried now to switch the LAN cable to the upper RJ-45 slot instead of the lower one, and it seem to have stopped the power on peculiarity. Now only if I could pinpoint what's the broken component that causes the boot screen freeze and what causes the 35-45s idle time at the Win-logo loading screen.
The freaky boot screen freeze happens something like this:
1. the mother board model number is shown
2. the CPU information is shown (or sometimes this is skipped and not shown)
3. here it may or may not freeze and usually it produces this terrible out of sync mess (and monitor has to be switched off to get it back to normal)
I don't see any connection to overheating, I never touched any overclocking settings (or any other settings for that matter, it's a 2-day old installation).

Lan issues with the K8N NEO4 Platinum NF4U 939 Motherboard

New K8N NEO4 Platinum NF4U 939 Motherboard.
After three or four hours the connection started to get unstable. I am a high end gamer and any net slowdown I see and feel.
Using my "Ping Plotter" program i saw the issue. The first hop to my router was going from 0 to 47ms. On all of the other conputers on this network hop one stays at 0.
In looking at the over all ping to my game server I noted that when hop 0 went to 47 it messed up all of the other hops and made the connection to my game server unstable.
The odd thing is I bypassed the onboard nic's and installed a PCI nic and it did the same thing.
I got with MSI and they had ne updare the NVIDA drivers. This lowered the swing to 0-17. I removed the PCI lan and am now back with the onboard nic. I have replaced the DSL modem, cable and removed the dlink and the issue is still the same.
This is my first computer with XP and at this point I do not know if this is an XP issue or a driver issue.
In installing a pci nic some of the network control is still done on the motherboard so that does not rule out a motherboard/chipset driver issue.
I have set up a web site that shows screen shots of the ping plotter. Please take the time to look at them and tell me what you think.
http://webviper.com/LanIssues.htm
Thanks for your help.
Regards,
WebViper

Hello !!
Please give more information about your system specs.
But i would try the following:
Download the latest nforce and vga drivers from nvidia ( if you are using nv VGA card ? ). Google for "driver cleaner" and download it.
Restart system and press F8 to enter safe mode. Now uninstall all nvidia drivers(chipset & VGA), and run Driver Cleaner after it. Select the nvidia tabs and remove them....
Now reboot, when prompted to install new drivers cancel this process. And start nvidia chipset driver setup, install all drivers but do not install the IDE driver from nvidia, you will be prompted for this.In first attempt you should not install nvidia firewall. Restart and install VGA drivers. Now test again your network connection. I hope it helps....
Greetz

Neo4 Platinum HTT topping out @285

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