MSI K8N Neo Platinum - progress report

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DarkSide A/8

n00b
Joined
Jun 18, 2004
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23
Got the mobo and my A64 3000+ and 2 Corsair Value Select 521 mb dimms of PC 3200 over the weekend.

First thoughts - mobo design / layout very good. The manual is good as well. Very easy to put it all together and get installed in the case. One note of warning - my case doesnt have mounting points towards the front, and I found that you had to be careful not to flex the board plugging in the floppy and HD / CDROM cables.

Despite that - the easiest sys to put together (physically) that I have done, and I really like the mobo layout.

I have a DVDRW, CDRW, 2 Maxtor HDs, & floppy all connected - sys found them all no problem.

Bios is straitforward as well. CPU Temp @ 61 degrees celcius with the case open. Set the boot to Floppy, then CD & get ready to partition.

Save and exit and lets roll.

Then the weird started to happen.

Whether I used the floppy that came with my old Maxtor or the CD that came with the newer one, neither would format and partition my drives. One froze upon starting, the other got far enough to identify the hardware -then froze. After futzing with that for a while, I gave up and moved on to try my WinXP Pro disc.

That worked to a degree - at least I was able to repartition (although it only recognizes 130gb of a 200 Gb drive) and start loading the OS.

Bingo, were cruizing now - time to start loading up all the drivers.

Fine again until a horrible device driver conflict slogged the whole mess. I think it has something to do with the Realtek onboard sound fighting with my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz PCI card. Had to dump the whole mess (several hours work) and reload OS and drivers again - which is why I think its sound cards conflicting - it crashed while loading the Santa Cruz drivers this time.

By that time, I had to go to work, so I am a little frustrated.

Something weird - may be because I didn't have all the drivers up, but the windows scrolling seemed VERY sluggish / jumpy at first.

Anyway - preliminary thoughts while I am in the process of setting up the comp. I still think the mobo. proc, and mem are fine - just gotta look into the rest.

Let me know if you have any solutions for the problems I've encountered.

Tanks.
 
1) I think your heatsink might be mounted incorrectly.

I have heard something about an issue with CPU temp on another forum, but since the issue didn't impact me I didn't read it closely. I have the same board with a 3200+ and I can't get the CPU temp over 46C even if it's under a full load (Prime95+SuperPi) and my CPU is overclocked to 2200MHz. If yours is breaking 60C with no load and a lower clock speed something sounds wrong. Since you've had other strange issues maybe this is related.

2) You should have deactivated onboard sound from the BIOS before you started loading Windows if you're using a PCI sound card.

B
 
Another issue - Does the Gigabit lan work as an ethernet card?

I couldn't get the sys to recognize the internet was waiting just beyond my cable modem until I hooked up my old ethernet card. Now I can get to the web, but I had kinda hoped to see if the onboard lan would be faster...

Thanks for the heads up on the heatsink - I'll check that first thing when I get back home.

Also wish I had known that about the soundcard ahead of time - another thing to deactivate... Does that also apply to my use of the ethernet card?

tanks again
 
Why are you trying to format with a floppy? If you're installing WinXP, you can do that in the setup menu.

The gigabyte lan will not make your internet connection faster. There is no ISP that is running that fast.

Temps are currently reported incorrectly for Newcastle CPU's.

Check the MSI forums for some more info, and help on the board.
 
Try to only install the devices you need to get the system up and happy. Then start to slowly add the additional devices.

Hope you get this up easily.. I'm getting the same setup with a 3400 this week :D
 
230FSB.JPG


Those are load temps, I grabbed the shot within 2 minutes after running 3dmark2001. Thats with a X800 Pro at default speeds. 3400+, and 2x512 HyperX PC4000 with beta bios 1.25.

Havent really played around with the board that much. Just got it last Friday. It does 1:1 much better than my old VNF, at stock speeds the boards are within 1% of each other after some testing. This K8N seems to overclock better so far, and as I said, keeps 1:1 much farther. My VNF would only keep 1:1 until around 215 FSB. This K8N reads temps much higher than my VNF does, hard to say which is right.
 
cute kids :)
outstanding job there Fallguy. goodlord those 16pipe err 12 cards kick utter ass. i will have something to go against when i get mine this week. Ill be gunning for your scores. :p
 
You probably didn't get Ethernet working because you hadn't loaded the NForce3 drivers from the CD. After you do that, it'll pick up the Ethernet connection and you can download a newer driver if need be.

B
 
Gotta admit I am learning a lot from doing this. My previous upgrade was 4 years ago, from a Win 95 Pentium 333 to an AMD Athlon 1Ghz running Win 98. About a year ago I uploaded WinXP. Thus when I tried to partition and format the HD's I went with what I knew from before (from the 98/95 days...). Everything was much smoother with the WinXP CD. Anyway, the potential improvements from a 1 Ghz Athlon to an AMD A64 3000+ seem pretty cool...

Things seem to be clicking along fine now (after the 2d format/OS load).

I've got the drivers loaded and am having zero problems, so much of it was probably user error.

I've disabled the onboard sound - but have to trace down a conflict -- the game controller on the sound card wants to use resources that something else is using.

Temps seem to be fine. I had temp issues with my original Athlon and stock HSF that would lock up the comp, and this doesnt seem anything like what I experienced before. (Also, I forgot to check the temps when I got home last night (and I am at work now...), but my wife surfed the web for several hours, played music and did some work with no problems.) So, the temps may be reading high but the sys is running fine.


Fallguy - do you like the cool n quiet thing? I haven't loaded it yet, but seeing your post I guess I will have to... Also going to have to load up and run 3dMark to compare your points to mine. I'm certain your scores will crush mine, but I will have to console myself that you have a better graphix card and a 3400 with its fullsize cache and done some tweaking. Nonetheless, cool post!

M4tt - "Try to only install the devices you need to get the system up and happy. Then start to slowly add the additional devices." -- I should have done that, but was too lazy - and aside from the one glitch in the beginning, I had no problems. This board seems to forgive headstrong idiots like me, so you should have no probs either! It picked up everything right away, but like someone said, it is probably better to load up the NForce3 drivers first before you start adding components. Do disable the onboard sound tho, if you have a better card...

Last thing for now - Those of you who have this mobo - is there anything on the driver disk you would say NOT to load? There seem to be a lot of utilities, but what is crap and what is not I don't know...

Semper Tanks
 
I don't recall anything on the CD that was worth loading, from a utilities perspective. I did load core center but I have other utilities that I prefer for those things (temp/voltage monitor and adjust).

B
 
This board seems to forgive headstrong idiots like me, so you should have no probs either!
Click to expand...

ya but- what bout an idiot like >ME< :p Im not your average idiot mind you... im special :D
 
Sepal said:
ya but- what bout an idiot like >ME< :p Im not your average idiot mind you... im special
Click to expand...


Then I shall enlighten you with the best advice given to me on my other post when receipt of my Mobo, chip and memory was but a dream. I believe you will find it especially helpful to one as "special" as you...



...



... :rolleyes:



...



QUOTE from Pixeleet "Don't drop it :eek:


otherwise it seems fairly idiot proof
 
Is anyone using the Core Center utility? (Fallguy, despite your post, your screen grab shows cool n quiet there...) If so, can you give me any recommendations?

I checked the temp (through the bios again) and it does show 60 degrees celsius. Should I be concerned? That's not under load as far as I know - just a restart and check under the bios. I am not using any thermal paste, but can't see how that would make much difference when the HSF combo is right up against the proc.

Anyway, I was able to do some gaiming in the Jont Ops multiplayer demo and FarCry - with the processor making up for my GeForce 4 4800 Ti by enabling me to play at all!.

So from a total duffer, I think its a great board.
 
It says its capable of it. I do not use it, its disabled in the BIOS.
 
DarkSide A/8 said:
. . . I checked the temp (through the bios again) and it does show 60 degrees celsius. Should I be concerned? That's not under load as far as I know - just a restart and check under the bios. I am not using any thermal paste, but can't see how that would make much difference when the HSF combo is right up against the proc . . .
Click to expand...

Use thermal paste because the there is no good contact between heatsink and processor; all little voids are now filled with air; the temp will go much higher with load; I think you may get 10-15ºC less during load if you do.
 
If you used the retail heatsink/fan that came with the retail CPU, then unless you cleaned it off you're using a thermal interface material.

If you are using an aftermarket heatsink then you should definitely use some Arctic Silver or equivalent. You are really learning the hard way!

B
 
brentsg said:
If you used the retail heatsink/fan that came with the retail CPU, then unless you cleaned it off you're using a thermal interface material.

You are really learning the hard way!

B
Click to expand...

You aren't kidding! It has been very interesting, however.

I surfed a lot of posts regarding the heat issue - which has been my biggest concern, as everthing else seems rock solid now...

I am using the retail HS/F, and so I didn't need anything else - no thermal interface goop necessary.

So when I still got readings of 60 degrees celsius, I did my own test - by touching the heatsink - which would have burned the sh*t out of my hands on my old Athlon sys.

No heat. In fact it felt rather cool.

So it must be a misread from the bios.

One thing I can advise anyone else having a similar problem - be careful if you do decide to touch the heatsink (with the computer on) that you don't inadvertently stick your finger in the fan.

Not that it will hurt you or the fan, but it can hurt your pride when your wife has wandered in to see your big ass sticking out from under the desk, and as you stick your finger into the guts of the computer asks, "do you know what you're doing?"

And after gruffly answering "of course" you yelp like a child, bang your head on the desk and curse profusely because the grabbing/buzzing/zinging sensation wasn't you being electrocuted or hurting your computer, just your big dumb finger going where it shouldn't...

And your wife then wanders out giggling like a loon...

At least you can console yourself by playing a few hours of FarCry with the detail maxxed out and have fun killing tons of badguys.

Good luck to any other duffers out there!
 
DarkSide A/8 said:
I am using the retail HS/F, and so I didn't need anything else - no thermal interface goop necessary.
Click to expand...

That's a large, very large mistake. I bum around the MSI forums hard - Ruckus17 over there.

You you ever have any problems with an MSI board, head over there, tons of knowledagable people and I havn't ever encoutered a problem I couldn't solve.

Some advice about MSI boards:

Dont use CoreCenter, it sucks, I reccomend Speedfan 4.13 (google it)
Use thermal compound, lol.
Other than that, you're set to go! I hope you love your MSI board as much as I do!
 
the thermal compound that comes with the a64 retail hsf is not a bad thermal compound. i heard from somewhere that it is a varaint of shin etsu. and i tried to see to see if there was a diff from the retail stuff and as5 and as-ceramique. no diff whatsoever in temps.
 
Most people that get better temps with AS5 then stock stuff get there because they read up and applied the AS5 correctly, whereas they had jsut gooped on the stock stuff not paying attention to proper coverage/thickness. I never got better temps with AS3 then the stuff that came with my vantec TMD hsf setup on this machine.


BUT back to topic - USE THERMAL PASTE! Apply a thin layer, IE: if its white paste just a thin enough layer you can *almost* still make out the color of the core, you just hafta fill in any grooves big enough to store air, not soak it, nor form a complete seal...

And fallguys screenshot only shows core center, which while part of the cool'n'quiet system, is mostly just a gui for reading temps, it doesn't show whether he's using the fanspeed control functions in that shot.
 
Speefan is not just a fan controller, but a voltage monitor, temp monitor, etc. Corecenter is very buggy.
 
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