GA-K8NSNXP-939

[cbns]

alright thanks

 

[theslug]

Althought my BIOS temps on the k8nsnxp-939 are wrong like everyone elses', the nvidia system utility reports the "CPU die" as 70 C and System as 67 C. Is this right?? Seems awfully high. I'm not overclocking and using the amd 64 stock hsf.

 

[KaRRiLLioN]

Where can you set the CAS latency and such for RAM in the BIOS on this board? I've been reading the reviews where they set that stuff and I can't find it in the BIOS. Or do you need another program to do that?

 

[Ballistyx]

Originally posted by: KaRRiLLioN
Where can you set the CAS latency and such for RAM in the BIOS on this board? I've been reading the reviews where they set that stuff and I can't find it in the BIOS. Or do you need another program to do that?

Press CTRL+F1, and then select the Advanced Chipset Configuration menu item.

 

[KaRRiLLioN]

I have two sticks of Crucial Ballistix RAM, but one of them is bad, according to the tests I ran with Memtest86. So right now I'm just running 1 stick (512MB). Should I mess with memory timings at all to match what Anandtech used in there reviews of the mobo's, or wait to RMA my other stick?

I have two 512MB sticks of Corsair 3200, both of which I know are good, since I thoroughly tested them with memtest86. They worked fine in my Asus A8V mobo, but when I tried running them in this one, I started getting BSOD's with a PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA. This is typically a RAM error. I guess this mobo is pretty picky with the RAM.

I just hope my Ballistix will work when I start running them dual channel.

 

[Zoomeez]

got lockup probs at mo - will try suggestion above to ramp up voltages

however - how do i manually set my motherboard to 2-2-2-5 for memory pls?

managed to set memory to 2-2-2-5 but it refuses to run memtest unless I drop to 333 :<

Bit of advice peeps - I had the XP3400 Athlon64 CPU and K8TNeo ViaK800 board - loads of peeps reported memory errors on the MSI forum

apparantly we are not alone with the memory issues

Bear in mind the AMD64 Memory controller is now onboard the CPU - You cant blame the mainboard for not liking the ram its the CPU :<

all i gots to stop now is the constant bombing out of doom3 and intermittant restarts - might RMA the board.

 

[secreed]

got the board yesterday together with all other parts for my new gaming pc, i can see im not the only person with the same problem. soon as i put 2 sticks on dual chanell i get BSOD, got it down to 333 and it's working fine. Now talked to Gigabyte support they send me by e-mail new bios F4p, didn't help me, they also told me to increase voltage on sticks to 0.2 which i did, it was stable running like that for maybe 15-20 min. Now maybe i did wrong thing but i got RMA from new egg, waiting on ballistix's which should be here tomorrow.

 

[savoybc]

I have this board too. Bios version F3.

Other stuff include AMD Athlon 64 FX 53 processor, Corsair XMS 2048 TwinX DDR400 in dual channel mode.

Installation of OS went fine. When running Memtest86 there are no errors. However when using Prime95 torture test it works for about 1-2 hours then I get errors. However when playing games such as Doom3, UT2004, etc. I have no problems.

Edit: I should list my system specs.

AMD A64 FX-53
GA-K8NSNXP-939
Corsair XMS TwinX 2GB DDR400
2x74GB WD Raptor 10K RPM on SiI 3112 RAID0
nVIDIA GeForce 6800GT 256MB

 

[pantner]

Originally posted by: secreed
got the board yesterday together with all other parts for my new gaming pc, i can see im not the only person with the same problem. soon as i put 2 sticks on dual chanell i get BSOD, got it down to 333 and it's working fine. Now talked to Gigabyte support they send me by e-mail new bios F4p, didn't help me, they also told me to increase voltage on sticks to 0.2 which i did, it was stable running like that for maybe 15-20 min. Now maybe i did wrong thing but i got RMA from new egg, waiting on ballistix's which should be here tomorrow.

the only think i can think of is to loosen your RAM timings....how does memtest and prime run????

 

[imported_Hornswoggler]

Originally posted by: secreed
got the board yesterday together with all other parts for my new gaming pc, i can see im not the only person with the same problem. soon as i put 2 sticks on dual chanell i get BSOD, got it down to 333 and it's working fine. Now talked to Gigabyte support they send me by e-mail new bios F4p, didn't help me, they also told me to increase voltage on sticks to 0.2 which i did, it was stable running like that for maybe 15-20 min. Now maybe i did wrong thing but i got RMA from new egg, waiting on ballistix's which should be here tomorrow.

That is almost starting to sound exactly like the problem I have...

http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showtopic=23410

Ugh, I have tried different memory, different motherboards, different power supplies, different hard drives, ... only thing left is the CPU and since the memory controller is on-die, I would not be surprised.

Seriously, what does a K8 motherboard have to do with dual channel memory anyways? I can think of two things: 1. detect SPD timings, and 2. Trace lengths. Being that I have problems on the MSI motherboard, I am really starting to suspect a batch of bad CPU's :-(

[edit]
ok, three things... provide voltage to DIMM's

 

[savoybc]

Well, what can I say.

I set the memory to +0.2V and enabled 2T in the BIOS and ran Prime95 again. Right now it is at the 3rd hour into Prime95 and no error have been found. I will let it run longer. This is in dual-channel mode too.

Previously it would only run at an average of 54 minutes before it would give an error.

I hope it will not generate any errors.

 

[Coldrum]

Hi All,

Well I've just built a new PC with this motherboard and I kind of wish now that I had done some searching around the net before laying out for it.

Here's the system I'm running:

AMD ATHLON64 3500+
GA-K8NSNXP-939
ASUS AX X800PRO/TVD
CORSAIR TWINX3200 1024MB DDR400
ANTEC TRUEBLUE 480W
2X 200GB SATA SEAGATE HDD (plugged into the SII sata connectors near the pci slots operating in RAID 0)

I can't even load up windows to run diagnostics! It's a new build, so installed winxp pro and then driver disc but now every time i try to load up windows i get a blue screen with the following:



A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check for viruses on you computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

Technical Information:

*** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF7C4F640, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)



Has anyone else had a similar issue and if so does anyone have any ideas on how I might fix this? I'm currently running the F3 bios and have sent an email off to Gigabyte, to which, I haven't heard back as yet.

All the voltage stuff is still fairly new to me so if you have an idea on how i might boot windows, please give me some instructions.

Thanks,

Robin

 

[Coldrum]

Also forgot to add that when I first tried to start the pc up and I had the two hdd's plugged into the SB SATA slots between the cpu and agp slots it didn't even register them and wouldn't let me into the raid menu to create a raid set before installing windows so I had to use the SII ones.

Thanks,
Robin

 

[Ballistyx]

Coldrum, here is your answer:

http://support.microsoft.com/d...x?scid=kb;en-us;316401

I assume that you used Silicon Image's (www.siimage.com) driver when you did the install, and not the one included on the CD? If not, when you do the install, use their driver and not the one included on Gigabyte's CD (when you press F6 at install time to install an undetected device's drivers).

 

[Ballistyx]

BTW, here's the direct link to Silicon Image's 3x12 RAID driver:

http://12.24.47.40/display/2n/kb/article.asp?aid=10469

 

[Ballistyx]

Originally posted by: Coldrum
Also forgot to add that when I first tried to start the pc up and I had the two hdd's plugged into the SB SATA slots between the cpu and agp slots it didn't even register them and wouldn't let me into the raid menu to create a raid set before installing windows so I had to use the SII ones.

Thanks,
Robin

Humm... Do you have nvidia RAID enabled in the BIOS? That'd be about the only thing I can think of that would prevent it from not working.

 

[Coldrum]

Ballistyx,

Thanks for the quick reply.

So at that MS knowledge base article, basically what it was saying is do a reinstall?

This was a fresh install of MSxp but I will do another one, this time using the drivers from SImage instead of the ones on the CD. Have people had problems with those drivers on the cd? As that is what I used.

BTW, couldn't get http://12.24.47.40/display/2n/kb/article.asp?aid=10469 to work, but did find from

http://www.siimage.com/products/sataraid.asp the link - http://12.24.47.40/article.asp?article=10469&amp;p=2

I think the first one was missing the last URL variable.

I am going to try a re-install of win xp now using that new driver.

I'm glad that it only takes about 10 minutes for a full install and format lol.

I'll get back as soon as I have done the re-install to let you know if the blue screen has disappeared.

Cheers,
Robin

 

[Coldrum]

also, what's the setting in the bios called to enable the nvidia raid? Nothing lept out at me but I may have been looking in the wrong section?

 

[Ballistyx]

Originally posted by: Coldrum
Ballistyx,

Thanks for the quick reply.

So at that MS knowledge base article, basically what it was saying is do a reinstall?

This was a fresh install of MSxp but I will do another one, this time using the drivers from SImage instead of the ones on the CD. Have people had problems with those drivers on the cd? As that is what I used.

BTW, couldn't get http://12.24.47.40/display/2n/kb/article.asp?aid=10469 to work, but did find from

http://www.siimage.com/products/sataraid.asp the link - http://12.24.47.40/article.asp?article=10469&amp;p=2

I think the first one was missing the last URL variable.

I am going to try a re-install of win xp now using that new driver.

I'm glad that it only takes about 10 minutes for a full install and format lol.

I'll get back as soon as I have done the re-install to let you know if the blue screen has disappeared.

Cheers,
Robin

Pretty much. You might have something else going on though. If the nvidia SATA controller isn't working, it might be the reason for the BSOD. That's just conjecture on my part though.

The reason I said to try the Silicon Image drivers is that they're probably more up to date than the one's on the CD. Besides, it wouldn't surprise me if the drivers on Gigabyte's CD didn't work. EasyTune4 (included on the CD) flat out doesn't work on my system. I wouldn't put it past Gigabyte right now for their SilImage drivers not to work either.

I have to get back to you about the settings in the BIOS to enable the nvidia SATA controller though (gotta reboot to check it). You could try just wiping the CMOS (remove the battery and the PSU power cord for 30 seconds), and see if resetting it to defaults turns it back on. I've currently got two 72GB Raptor HD's hanging off the nvidia SATA controller (not in RAID mode though), and two 120GB WD SE HD's on the SilImage controller.

 

[Ballistyx]

OK, go into the BIOS setup screen, and press CTRL+F1.

Look under "Intergrated Peripherals".

Near the top of the list, you should see SERIAL-ATA 2 (Internal PHY). Make sure it's set to ENABLE.

At the very top of the list, you should see a sub-menu related to the IDE RAID funtion. Go into that, and that's where you can configure what drives will be available to use under the RAID configuration (I think... haven't used it myself yet). I have this setting set to DISABLE, but I have the SERIAL-ATA 2 setting ENABLED, so I can use it for my SATA HD's.

 

[pantner]

I used the drivers off the CD and they worked perfectly (i have done Win Update, i am running

A68 3800
K8NSNXP-939
1024mb PQI DDR400
2xSeagate SATA 200Gb on Silicon Controller RAID 0

I think i was lucky and had some RAM that works with A64 CPUs (even though it isn't listed by AMD) and i haven't had a BSOD in about 2 weeks (that wasn't my own fault )

and the RAID menu that says "Press F4 or CRTL+S To Enter RAID Menu" or watever, is ONLY for the Silicon RAID, thats why your drives didn't show up on the NVIDIA controller....and its supposed to be better to run them off the Silicon controller anyway....

 

[Coldrum]

Ok, so that did the trick and at least I can now boot into windows and use it.

I did some stress testing, 3dmark01 ran through its test fine, the torture test in prime95 ran for 5 minutes or so before i got impatient with it and stopped it. I also ran Sandra through it without getting any errors.

Weirdest thing though, at other times, like when opening ms word or just for random reasons i get the same blue screen of death that are reported by many others but it quickly flicks through to the restart before i can write any of the info down.

I've scoured as many forums as I can find on the subject, has anyone come up with a way to make this board reasonably stable as yet or are we waiting on Gigabyte to come up with the goods?

Thanks for all your help,

Robin

 

[Ballistyx]

Originally posted by: Coldrum
Weirdest thing though, at other times, like when opening ms word or just for random reasons i get the same blue screen of death that are reported by many others but it quickly flicks through to the restart before i can write any of the info down.

Right-click on MY COMPUTER, and select PROPERTIES in the menu that appears.

Click the ADVANCED tab, and then click the STARTUP AND RECOVERY button.

Under the heading "System Failure", UNcheck Automatically Restart (and if it's selected, UNselect "Send and administrative alert" No sense broadcasting an alert message if you're the only PC on your network. ).

Now when you get a BSOD, you'll be able to read it.

I suggest trying what Savoybc did (at the top of page 4). Set the memory voltage to +0.2, and enable 2T timmings in the BIOS. Enabling 2T timmings made my system rock stable, where before it'd BSOD when I had all four DIMM sockets filled. It might be all you need to get your two DIMMs working stabily.

-B

 

[Ballistyx]

Originally posted by: pantner
and the RAID menu that says "Press F4 or CRTL+S To Enter RAID Menu" or watever, is ONLY for the Silicon RAID, thats why your drives didn't show up on the NVIDIA controller....and its supposed to be better to run them off the Silicon controller anyway....

He mentioned that the drives weren't being detected when he had them attached to the nvidia controller. So, I was going by the assumption that he wasn't seeing the drives appearing at the very first BIOS screen, where it shows all the devices attached to your ATA controller. On my system (F3 BIOS), it shows all the devices attached to the Parallel ATA controllers (like my CD drives), and then shows both my Raptor HD's attached to the nvidia SATA controller. The screen then clears and shows the nvidiai RAID configure option, followed by the Silicon Image RAID configure option (where you press CTRL-S).

Actually, I read the opposite is true. The SilImage controller is attached through the PCI bus, but the nvidia controller isn't. It's supposed to be faster on the nvidia controller, since it isn't limited by the speed of the PCI bus. Then again, two SATA drives are going to be hard pressed to saturate the PCI bus just by there lonesome selves.

 

[secreed]

Originally posted by: pantner

Originally posted by: secreed
got the board yesterday together with all other parts for my new gaming pc, i can see im not the only person with the same problem. soon as i put 2 sticks on dual chanell i get BSOD, got it down to 333 and it's working fine. Now talked to Gigabyte support they send me by e-mail new bios F4p, didn't help me, they also told me to increase voltage on sticks to 0.2 which i did, it was stable running like that for maybe 15-20 min. Now maybe i did wrong thing but i got RMA from new egg, waiting on ballistix's which should be here tomorrow.

the only think i can think of is to loosen your RAM timings....how does memtest and prime run????

wish i could try and run memtest, my pc is fried now, i can load BIOS and soon as it starts loading windows i get error /windows /system32/config file missing, now normaly i could try and reboot in safe mode but nope can't do it, this happen after updating my pc last night. The only thing that might screwed up windows is that microsfoft.net framework update. could anybody help me here, i just don't know what to do now, memory is my last problem i just wish i can boot in safe mode or from cd.