neo4 and dividers

[dimitris]

none of the dividers are working on my K8N Neo4 Platinum. I have cpu multiplier way low (7) ldt (3) and FSB @240Mhz. If I set the ram (Crucial Ballistix PC4000) at 200Mhz (1:1) all is well. If i set a divider, everything is screwed, no signal on monitor, must reset bios ....

anyone else have this?

 

[arswihart]

I've heard some of that type of RAM PC4000-4400 really runs better at high freq.'s and is actually worse than decent PC3200 RAM at lower freq's, which you would be at with the dividers at mem133/166. Whether its enough of an issue to actually cause the inability to boot you are having is the question I guess, but with you're RAM, you should run it at those higher freq's anyway, right? Why else did you buy it?

Try using a FSB of 300 and mem166 (ratio 5/6), so your RAM is like 250 mhz. Does that work? Relax the timings as well to 3-4-4-10, how about now?

 

[dimitris]

no no of the dividers work

i was using my mem 1:1 @ 200Mhz (stock) for a day all was well.

when I set my FSB @240 and divider 5/6 (so mem would be again @200) no boot...

it feels like my board has some problems with dividers

 

[ilikemovie]

Hi dimitris,
I have exact same proble with Neo4 as well. I decreased my mem to 133 (i have pc3200), decrease my cpu multiplier to 7, increase fsb to 240. NO GO !! I dont know what is the deal. In my case, I am not overclocking the memory or the cpu. I dont know why it would not work. Anyone?

 

[arswihart]

in your other post about going above fsb 299 in the BIOS, you state you got your fsb to 330 and ddr220, thus you were obviously using the dividers just fine

 

[arswihart]

you guys realize that you're trying to run the memory at 160 mhz, right? Thats really low, and there's no need to be setting it that low for any reason.

 

[Jeraden]

I have mine running 250 FSB and using the 166mhz memory timing (5/6 divider) and everything works for me. It shows memory running at 205mhz

 

[dimitris]

@ilikemovie,

sounds exactly like me .. maybe the board is at fault ? i don't know what to say. No divider works stably .. either logical or unlogical.

@arswihart,

if you read carefully you'll see that i mentioned that a rare few times they do work but most times they do not let me post. Oh and for your last post, there is reason for dividers since I want to run my cpu at 8x300 and my mem at rated DDR500 with divider 166....

 

[ilikemovie]

arswihart,
I set the devider to really low to see how high i can go with the fsb.

Jeraden,
what is the version of your bios?


Thanks

 

[dimitris]

@jeraden

1T or 2T ? By testing I saw that using dividers i post about 10% of the times i try with 1T and about 60% with 2T. not that 60% is acceptable ... but it's better...

maybe i should return the board ?

 

[dimitris]

@ilikemovie

me 2 .. same reason

my board came with 1.1

 

[arswihart]

dimitris - "8x300 and my mem at rated DDR500 with divider 166...." Thats 250 mhz and thats fine, I was really referring to ilikemovie who was going for 160 mhz, read below...

ilikemovie - "I decreased my mem to 133 (i have pc3200), decrease my cpu multiplier to 7, increase fsb to 240" <- Thats what I was responding to dimitris. Have you ever considered you memory is actually unstable at such a low frequency? I understand the use of dividers guys, please! Just try going up more aggressively on the fsb to like 300 like I said (or a little less if you like), along with the mem166 divider, so you're memory is at the 250 mhz its rated at, just loosen the timings on the memory so you're sure its not holding you back.

 

[dimitris]

@arswihart

i know it's DDR500

no, as i said before either non-logical values (way down) or logical ones (close to official ratings) do not work stably...

bummer

 

[arswihart]

i have no idea what you're problem is, you continue to contradict yourself, you don't seem to be getting anywhere, and I have no idea what you are referring to in your last post

I'll be getting an Epox 9nda3+ anyways

 

[dimitris]

after further testing :

divider 180 works!! .. whatever i put there pc boots. but divider 180 is not recognized either in cpu-z or clockgen .. i have FSB @296 Mhz so mem is @266 with divider 180 but clockgen shows mem at -296. .. cpu-z doesn't show anything

divider 166 DOES NOT WORK !! either with FSB 250, 280, 300, 330. when you set divider 166 and then press F10 to save changes, upon reboot pc hangs. I installed MSI's bracket and it shows that the lockup occurs in "Processor Initialization", which is weird as I have tried 8x250, 9x250, 7x280, 7x300, 8x300 ... DIVIDER 166 DOES NOT WORK !!

anyone else with this on neo4 ?

 

[dimitris]

after extensive testing, I can now confirm that no multiplier except 180 works with my Neo4 Platinum. All others lock up in boot and MSI's diagnostic module shows "Processor Initialization" and just hangs there.

do you think I should RMA ?

 

[Jeraden]

Mine is bios version 1.1
Running at 1T, and 166mhz dividor is working.

What slots do you have your memory in? Dumb mistake I made was following the manual instructions which say put them both in the green, which doesn't let you run at 1T. Have to do 1 green/1 purple. Probably obvious, but the manual tricked me.

 

[dimitris]

i have the mem in first 2 slots closer to the processor (correct ones)..

on my board only 180 works , none other ... all others do not boot with MSI's diagnostic showing "processor initialization" ..

guess I have to settle for 296 FSB, 888 HTT, 2664 CPU, 266 Memory (180 divider)

bummer. ..

do you think I should RMA ??? I hate the waiting and i will only gain an extra 50-80 Mhz on the CPU

 

[Jeraden]

I posted a pic to show me getting the 166mhz divider, to show I'm not making it up.

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/Jeraden/cpuz.JPG

250mhz FSB * 166 / 200 = 208mhz for memory

 

[arswihart]

The K8N neo4 BIOS has a 180 divider option?
Very odd that the others don't work, maybe the BIOS needs fixed. Then again, I can still quote you from your earlier post where you said you were running 330 htt and 220 memory, meaning you had the 133 divider working just fine somehow.

 

[dimitris]

@jeraden,

nobody said you did ! must be my board .. did your's come with v1.1 also or did you update ?

@arswihart,

yes it does. after EXTENSIVE TESTING i can report that the working dividers on my board are : 100, 133, 180, 200 ... that's it

all others available (120,140,150,166) are not working !!! selecting them will render pc unbootable and you need to reset bios through button on motherboard....

oh .. and 133 doesn't work all the time ..

 

[arswihart]

OK then. In the past couple hours, 3 more dividers have magically started working for you. Maybe some more will start working in the next few minutes of "extensive testing."

 

[dimitris]

i don't believe i've contradicted myself. I'll grant you that my very first post was premature but it was only because I really care about the dividers 180, 166 and 150 that I hadn't tested the others. I didn't see any reason to test 100 since before I've tried 166 with no success...

anyway the situation is constant and nothing has magically started working... I hadn't done extended testing at first and maybe my first post was a little ill-written (english is not my native language btw) but the situation is as is...

100,133,180, 200 work others don't...

thing now is to decide whether I should RMA or just keep the board and run 180.

 

[imported_scoobydoo]

I got:

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (obviously)
3000+ Winchester (0451)
Kingmax DDR433 2 x 512MB

I'm having some serious issues with overclocking this setup! The problem is that the board doesn't seem to follow any set pattern with regards to what settings work and don't work. I've so far found that my memory reaches somewhere in the region of 245 7-3-3 2.5 (which has surprised me!). With regards to the dividers, I've found that 100MHz always works regardless, then 166MHz seems fine too, but anything inbetween seems fubar'd.

There are some strange goings on with the HT multiplier for me. x3 doesn't seem to work above 240MHz, but x1, x1.5, x2, x2.5 and even x4 works(!) I can get up to 295MHz on a x4 HT!! But it doesn't seem to be too stable and it corrupted my Windows install. I'm just this minute restoring it to figure out what the hell to do. I realise that the HTT must stay ~1000MHz, x3 would be perfect, but it don't work!


Also, it seems that sometimes to get things working, you have to go down a fair bit with the settings and work your way up again slowly. It can be quite frustrating doing it this way! However, I've found a little tip in case of you cooking your settings a bit too much and where you end up with a black screen. What you have to do is to hold the 'home' and 'insert' keys on the keyboard down on the keyboard, whilst holding down the power switch on the PC (for 4 secs to turn it off). Then release the keys momentarily, but then push them back down whilst you turn the PC back on. This will boot the bios in safe mode, with the old settings so you can go back to where your normal settings were. Hope this helps someone!

I'm trying to go for 2.5GHz, but it seems that maybe I have quite a poor chip. I've so far managed to get around 2350MHz stable, but anything above that seems a bit flaky. This is with bios v1.1. I reckoned that I needed some more volts, so I got hold of the beta bios 1.21, which allows a bit more. I'm running a watercooled setup btw.

 

[dimitris]

i don't know what to make of it .. maybe a batch of these boards that came with 1.1 have a series of issues .. maybe a new bios from MSI will resolve these... Until then I sit tight at :

FSB : 295 Mhz
CPU : 2655 (9x)
Ram : 265 (180 divider) 2.5-3-3-8 1T
HTT : 885 (3x)

this is perfectly stable with max load 45 degress (s&m running full one hour)...

volts are :

mem : 2.85 (official rating for my ram)
cpu : 1,425 +8.3%
chipset : 1.55 (0.05 more than default)


oh and yes on me too 100 and 200 work and I have 180 and you have 166 .. it's getting funny