MSI K8N Neo4 nForce4 Ultra Socket 939

[Lurker1]

Running XP Pro, and it is showing the "Safely Remove" button, even though it's booting just fine off of the SATA drive, and not the IDE one that's also in there.

I think this has to do with MS drivers. I haven't installed any of the SATA drivers that came with the drives, as I never do that. Maybe I should in this case? Or it's time to update the nForce drivers again. (It's been a while). Machine's pretty rock stable with only a single unexplained shutdown in months, maybe it got too hot?

 

[kenton]

Yes. This is normal. I have an nForce3 machine with a SATA hard disk and it has the disconnect device in the taskbar.

This is normal.

 

[uallas5]

Originally posted by: Lurker1
Running XP Pro, and it is showing the "Safely Remove" button, even though it's booting just fine off of the SATA drive, and not the IDE one that's also in there.

Wouldn't that be tied into the hot swap capabilities when nor running in IDE mode?

I went to order this last night and it's out-of-stock but was in stock earleir when I was still at work. Hesitation is paid for in skin I guess.

 

[Towermax]

Those of you with your SATA drive listed in the "Safely Remove Hardware":

Go to Device Manager, open up the drive, and on the "Policies" tab, check whether the drive is set for "Optimize for quick removal" or for "Optimize for performance"?

Mine is set for "Optimize for performance" and no drives appear in "Safely Remove Hardware".

 

[GeezerMan]

Mine is set for "Optimize for performance" and also appears in the "Safely Remove Hardware".

 

[Modular]

Originally posted by: glassvial
Not using SATA, yet, but you did load the latest Nforce4 (AMD) chipset drivers, right? 6.86 I believe is the latest as of this posting.

Ah sweet, sweet success!

I downloaded the 6.86 drivers, uninstalled my old nVidia drivers (all except the display driver), booted into safe mode, installed new nForce drivers (all except the audio and the IDE) and wala! My HDD no longer appears in the Safely Remove Hardware tray icon, and I no longer have the Error # 51 that I was getting.

I've rebooted about 10 times since and all seems to be well. Thanks for the tip. I guess it can be something easy every once in a while

 

[glassvial]

Excellent. Forgot to mention to not install the audio drivers, as these boards use the Realtek 850 chipset, and not nvidia's audio. Glad you got it sorted out, and that it's not a failing drive!

 

[Toad21]

I managed to argue MSI into shipping me another Neo4 board after they 1st denied my RMA.

FYI for those who are thinking of returning.

 

[freshspace]

i have two of these boards and A64 4000+ waiting for me to stop going to work and play with the darn things! Hey guys, is the Opty 165 or 170 worth it? I'm thinking about picking up 2gigs of pc3200 with it. Darn, the price is adding up. Maybe should have gone C2D from the beginning? Too late, too bad. What do you think? Should I get Opty 170 and 2 more gigs? I welcome the opinions of all those who are financially savvy and/or are computer addicts. I love this thread. Keep on posting as I need the help as I start my little project. Thanks.

 

[glassvial]

Ok so you've got 2 boards and 1 CPU? No memory at all or ? How about 2GB of ram for the 4000, then sell the other mobo and build a c2d, have the best of both worlds

 

[freshspace]

I have a gig of kingston hx running with my a64 athlon 3000 oced to 2.5gigs.

glassvial, so you are recommending that I build a c2d system and not buy opty 165 or 170. correct?

 

[glassvial]

Well, I'm saying weigh your options. How much is a opty CPU + mem + (insert misc expense here??) going to cost to get another mobo going, and what kind of performance are you going to get, vs. a C2D CPU + mem + mobo (I assume) factoring in next month's scheduled C2D price drops as well. I think you need a pros and cons list, or a mathematical breakdown or something to help you decide what your budget is and where you want to go and when and etc etc etc. I had a gameplan in mind when I picked up 2 cheap 4000+'s, and 2 of these boards cheap. So far the gameplan is going ok except finding a good video card deal, other than that, I'm upgrading 2 of my boxes on the cheap and migrating a fair amount of my hardware (memory for example). However, if I was only planning on doing 1 box, I would have gone C2D after the April price cuts.

 

[Showtime]

Originally posted by: glassvial
Well, I'm saying weigh your options. How much is a opty CPU + mem + (insert misc expense here??) going to cost to get another mobo going, and what kind of performance are you going to get, vs. a C2D CPU + mem + mobo (I assume) factoring in next month's scheduled C2D price drops as well. I think you need a pros and cons list, or a mathematical breakdown or something to help you decide what your budget is and where you want to go and when and etc etc etc. I had a gameplan in mind when I picked up 2 cheap 4000+'s, and 2 of these boards cheap. So far the gameplan is going ok except finding a good video card deal, other than that, I'm upgrading 2 of my boxes on the cheap and migrating a fair amount of my hardware (memory for example). However, if I was only planning on doing 1 box, I would have gone C2D after the April price cuts.

I have a refurb k8N and a 3000+ as my multimedia/silent rig and it runs fine, but I am also wondering if I should sell it off. Go C2D or keep it and grab a dual core 3800+ +1 more gig of ram. Intel price drops hit in a little bit so we'll see how much AMD discounts to keep pace.

Frys has that 7900GS ko on sale for $120 after MIR. Tax and shipping, and people are reporting that it's available in store this time for the same price.

 

[glassvial]

Originally posted by: ShowtimeFrys has that 7900GS ko on sale for $120 after MIR. Tax and shipping, and people are reporting that it's available in store this time for the same price.

Yeah that's not bad. I'm waiting for a 7900GT to hit the sub-$100 mark. They've come ver close so far, after rebate, just haven't quite gotten there yet, but I can wait

 

[foxt]

Apologies in advance for the short novel ....

I was here a week or two ago, looking for help in getting this board running with an opty 165. Several folks were very helpful (geezerman, abem3, a few others that I can't recall). I was having trouble getting the opty/kingston hyperx beyond stock settings. I swapped psu's (up to a nice ocz gsx 600). I tried different ram (didnt have alot of options, but tried some kvr and some ocz gold). Flashed and re-flashed bios. None of this was getting me anywhere.

So in frustration, I swapped similar components I had in a dfi nf4 ultra d running at 2880 stable (opty 165 at 320x9, same model kingston hyperx using the 3/5 divider on the dfi, a fsp psu), to see if I could get these components to work in this board. The MSI (with the 1D bios) won't even post beyond a cpu freq of around 220, using a 166 memclock and a cpu multi of 8.

I really wonder about the voltage stability of the board (cpu-z reports vcore rambling quite a bit even with the gsx installed), and the sensitivity to ram. I'm not willing at this point to spring big bucks for a psu thats better than the ocz gsx 600 (if there is such a thing with a meaningful difference , but I am interested in trying more ram options (I picked up two of these boards because I had spare cpu's and ram, thought it's be an easy way to put them to use).

Geezer, I think you were using Ultra ram with infineon chips, right? Anyone else out there with a good opty overclock care to help a guy out and share their ram make/model/settings? Will have my hands on some TCCD(ocz plat rev 2) in a week or so, hoping that helps shed some light on this. What else are people oc'ing successfully with an opty 165?

 

[kenton]

Geezerman and I actually underclocked our RAM. I believe his was running at 185MHz and mine at 193.5MHz. Double that for the DDR-rating.

He, 2.6GHz stock vCore, me 2.7GHz 1.42. No amount of voltage would let me Orthos for 24hr at 2.8GHz.

 

[foxt]

Thanks Kenton. Just to confirm, you were using the Ultra too, right?

 

[GeezerMan]

You can read some of my ram experiments on page 21 of this thread. Not all of the Ultra ram is the same, since they used many vendors. I got lucky and received high quality chips.

 

[foxt]

GeezerMan, Thanks. I did try to replicate your results, but my mid-expensive kingston hyperx won't do what your great-deal-after-rebate-ultra does. I just missed another rebate deal on the ultra, no telling what chips I would have gotten though. I've tried a slight underclock on the hyperx, no joy here. So I was wondering what ram other folks have had success with so I can decide what stick to buy next

 

[kenton]

Yes, I was using the Ultra. My chips were made by "Liberty", truth be told -- I bet Geez's Aenon could run around 225MHz or so

 

[Modular]

Did anyone get Cool n' Quiet to work on their board? I'm going to look through the BIOS again and make sure that there isn't a setting in there. I have the .1D BIOS now and I am running a 3400+. I installed the driver and restarted the PC, then changed my power options per the AMD instructions, but CPU-Z is showing that the CPU is still at 2.2ghz with nothing open but the program. This is my media PC so it will be running 24/7, having the proc slow down would be great.


Edit: Found CnQ in the cell menu, enabled and all is working well.

 

[chunfok]

I just got one of these boards, but it does not seem to be working. I read through this thread (all 45 pages), and saw that there were a couple of mentions about similar problems. I have tested the vid card, ram, hard drive, dvd rom and power supply in another system and they work fine. When I plug the power cord in it turns on automatically, but i don't see anything on the screen. the light on the monitor stays yellow. all the fans are spinning and i hear the harddrive. i dont hear any beeps since there is no way to plug in the speaker. any ideas??

 

[rip]

try some different ram. good ram to one board might not be good to this one.

 

[Boobers]

Clear CMOS, then (with video working) flash to latest 1D BIOS.

Try another video card (maybe PCI if you have one) if clearing the CMOS doesn't help.

 

[chunfok]

Every time i try to clear the CMOS nothing seems to happen. I am probably doing it wrong. Can someone give directions to clearing CMOS for this board?