Ocing Duron700 / MSI Pro2a, don't understand.

[dirkdaring]

I recently bought a MSI Pro2a and a Duron700. I did the pencil trick using some quality HB mechanical lead. I first tried it at 800, 100 * 8. Boots great, WindowsME is perfect. Zero problems across the board, 32 degrees C is the max it gets. I'm using a Chrome Orb with radio shack thermal paste.

The problem comes when I try and push it higher. If I put it at 8.5 mult and save the bios, the screen blanks out. I no longer even get a signal. I have to reset the bios via jumper and start over. Same with 9 mult. I also tried the same thing increasing the voltage a little, same thing.

Whats wrong? I seriously doubt its the temperature, because its cool one second then as soon as I set the bios - pow. Nothing. I don't understand whats going on. Could it be that the pencil trick only partialy worked? Should I go and buy a conductive pen and give that a try?

My Setup:

MSI K7T Pro2a
Duron 700 @ 800 / 8*100
Chrome Orb / RS HSC
256mb ram
Radeon LE
Enlight 7237 300watt, slot cooler on top of video card

 

[Bakwetu]

You could first try redoing the pencil traces. You could also try running it at 8x multiplier + higher fsb to see if the cpu really can do more than 800 mhz. Otherwise some people have been getting better results when using the defog kit over the pencil trick. You should also try higher voltage if you have good cooling.

edit:Check the other threds on the subject on multipliers and MSI boards

 

[joeblo123]

Dirk,

Go to this thread http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=28&threadid=365782 and look at the reply by Technonut. There is a link that will explain how to fix the prob.

I had the same prob with my MSI K7T Turbo and was able to get past prob with the solution.

PM me if you are still having probs and I'll try to walk you through what I did....I don't want you to have to go through 3 days of agony like I did...(redid pencil 6 times and moved to defogger kit...was ready to redo defogger kit method when I tried this method and it worked)

I'm running my 700@901(105x8.5) and I'm able to change the multiplier between 7-9 without any probs...didn't try anything higher since my HSF is a piece of crap and nearing 50c

Hope this helps

 

[Miraluka]

All your results points to the fact that you didn't properly connect the L1 bridges. Either retry it with the pencil trick, or give up on that crappy method, and go buy a conductive pen, or one of those Loctite Rear Window Defogger Kits(one step)

 

[chexi]

Well, I have the same problem and I am certain My L1 bridges are not crossed and are properly connected with CircuitWriter pen. The power off solution does not work for me either. The answer is MSI is SUCK!

I do wish that the reviewers would not have hyped this board so much without really testing the thing out. The only reasons I strayed from Abit was the stability mantra I read from the reviewers of this board, including for overclocking. Perhaps they had a good board, but the two I've gone through both suck.

I've read about connecting the L7 bridge as a possible solution, but I've already removed and replaced my HSF too many times. I will only do it one more time and that's when I get an Abit. Time to get a real overclockers' motherboard instead of this MSI piece of crap.

Well, I finally connected the L7 bridge to up the core voltage and it still won't overclock. Thanks United Micro for replacing a bad MSI board with a worse one.

 

[Neos]

As you are trying to get your system higher ...try this to keep from opening up your case every time it locks ....and doing the jumper thing.

After it sets there for a minute with a black screen, hold down your control / insert keys together ...push the reset button on the case. When you hear it beep, start pushing the delete key. It will take you back to the bios ...and the only thing needing to be reset will be the CPU/FSB/MULTI settings. All else will stay the same.

Neos

 

[chexi]

Oh... and beware the overclockers bios. I flashed and now I can't boot. What's more, I can't undo it because I get an "unknown flash type" error and can't even boot from a floppy. Nice one MSI. Thanks for wasting a buck and quarter of mine you bed wetters.

 

[osage]

You may want to up the voltage a bit. connect all the L7 bridges to get the max voltage and use the newest OC bios.

I find this mobo to be great, I also have no problems with the OC bios.

Chexi, maybe you should do your homework before you trash these mobos, just because you are having a problem doesn't mean that every mobo made by MSI is suck. But that's just my opinion.

 

[chexi]

Osage,

You are right. Just because I am having problems does not mean these mobos suck. The reason they suck is because a ton of people are having these same problems. Nearly everyone has had to do some work around, only some of whom have been successful. Even you had to connect the L7 bridges. All these workarounds would be fine if the board weren't intentionally sold as an overclocker's motherboard. When you don't have to go through all this crap with Abit but you do with MSI that means that is the text book definition of SUCK!

Oh, and the fact that the keyboard controller died on my first board after a week does not improve my opinion of this board either.

On the brighter side, I was able to finally boot the stupid thing. I had to disconnect my Iomega Zipcd for some reason. Then after reinstalling the 2.4 bios it now boots. Of course I'm stuck at my stock 700 speed. I'm not about to remove my FOP38 one more time to try to get this stupid board to do what it was hyped, but apparently not very well designed, to do.

 

[osage]

would you be interested in selling it to me ??

 

[Miraluka]

I have yet to experience any problems with 3 different systems running MSi's K7T Pro2-A mobo. One with Duron 800 o/c to gig, one with Thunderbird 1gig, one with Thunderbird 1.2 gig. All are just as stable as Anandtech had said. The only problems come from Windows ME and 98se being crappy. The Win2k has yet to have problems.

I will continue to purchase MSi products, if i need to. (oh yeah...no probs with VIA either).

 

[chexi]

To clarify...

The MSI board is stable. I have no problems with it (other than the one I had to rma for a bad keyboard controller that wouldn't post). I just cannot overclock it.

Osage... PM me if you are serious. I am not willing to take a huge hit on it because it's on my spare machine (I have a abit kt7a-133 for my main machine), but I am willing to part with it for less than retail. I realize this isn't a for sale thread, so PM me if you are interested.

 

[Kp99]

I have the same setup, same MSI mb and a Duron 700. I unlocked mine using the pencil trick, I can hit 900 stable by uping the voltage to 1.70 x9 running at 35C on a Super Orb. I can up it more but I dont want to oc the FSB. Im using the latest regular bios. I think its 2.4. I havent tried nor so i plan on using the OC bios...hearing to many bugs with it. Let me know if you need any help.

 

[greenbird750]

i got the same mobo (MSI K7T Pro2-A) and I had one problem with the multiplier settings, but I dunno, it jsut went away.. I have a green core t-bird 750, I penciled in the L1 bridges with a normal HB pencil and I am now running this green core at 1050 at 1.80v, not too shabby..