*** Official MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (nForce4 Ultra chipset) Thread ***

[alkemyst]

there is a new bios available 3.11 at msi. Only notes say CPU ID update.

 

[rdtx2005]

Hi,

Neo4 Platinum user here with some questions:

1. what is the model number of our mobo? MS-7100-020?

2. I currently have 2 IDE drives and want to add a SATA2 drive (Seagate 250GB). Plugged in the SATA2 drive but it does not detect in Windows. Detects fine on the POST screen. I would like to know what I could be doing wrong?.. I have updated the SATA drivers from the MSI site to no avail.

Please help!

 

[ironk]

Anyone have a OC guide specific to this mobo?

I have this:

Neo4 plat (non-sli) PCB 1.0
3800+ X2 Manchester Rev BH-E4
Corsair Value Ram 3200 (2x 512Mb)
6600GT Chaintech Video card
CoolerMaster TX2 heatsink
Thermaltake 400W PSU.

Thx.

there is a new bios available 3.11 at msi. Only notes say CPU ID update.

Where? I don't see it.

1. what is the model number of our mobo? MS-7100-020?

Download CPU-z, it'll tell you that info in its "Mainboard" tab.

2. I currently have 2 IDE drives and want to add a SATA2 drive (Seagate 250GB). Plugged in the SATA2 drive but it does not detect in Windows. Detects fine on the POST screen. I would like to know what I could be doing wrong?.. I have updated the SATA drivers from the MSI site to no avail.

Did you enable SATA support in BIOS? If so, go into windows Device Manager, right click the "Disc Drive" and highlight "Scan for Hardware changes". That should let windows detect it.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: ironk
Anyone have a OC guide specific to this mobo?

I have this:

Neo4 plat (non-sli) PCB 1.0
3800+ X2 Manchester Rev BH-E4
Corsair Value Ram 3200 (2x 512Mb)
6600GT Chaintech Video card
CoolerMaster TX2 heatsink
Thermaltake 400W PSU.

Thx.

Just the normal A64 o/c guide in the CPU forum is good.


Don't bother with US sites for just about any motherboard...I always find the overseas ones are much better at getting new drivers and the like to you faster.

www.msi.co.tw the motherboard is just ms-7100 when searching.

http://global.msi.com.tw/index...incat_no=1&prod_no=169

I have not tried this BIOS...I am curious if it fixes the 2T timing issue with the San Diego chips.

I have a custom BIOS by afjos.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Man this thread is old, I remember reading it daily back a couple years ago, hopefully one of you can still help me on an issue I'm having with my board and trying to install a new CPU.

I already posted my situation in the CPU forum so hopefully no one cares that I'm double-dipping using this thread as well to explain my problem as well, but I think posting in this thread has a good possibility of bringing out someone who is/was in my situation, so here goes..

I'm upgrading the processor on my MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum mobo and so far had 2 new processors not work on me (computer will not boot with them plugged in). One is the highest Athlon 64 chip my board is compatible with (4000+) and the other is the highest Opteron chip my board is compatible with (Opteron 180). At first, the 180 did get me past the BIOS screens, but then quickly bluescreened before getting to Windows and every subsequent attempt to boot with it in there does not even get me to my BIOS logo screen now. Once I plugged my old chip back in (a 3200+) everything was gravy.

CPU Compatibility chart directly from MSI

The only thing I can think of to fix this is a BIOS update, something I'm not very fond of doing. On the MSI website I notice the "Since BIOS Version 1.D" value which seems to be the latest BIOS version available for my mobo (latest meaning back in 2006 apparently). Should this tell me that the chart being presented here is only compliant with if my mobo has this BIOS installed? I mean, what happens if I bought this board back in the day with a 4000+ instead of a 3200+? I would be screwed, which is why I think it's silly a BIOS update should be needed for CPU compatibility. But anyway, here's a capture of my current BIOS information:

BIOS Version Nvidia - 42302e31
Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Date 09/09/05
BIOS Web Page http://www.award.com
BIOS Vendor Phoenix Technologies, LTD
Version 6.00 PG
Release 09/09/2005
BIOS Size 512 KB
Characteristics - supports booting from ATAPI ZIP drive
- supports booting from LS-120
- supports legacy USB
- supports ACPI
- Multi Processor supported by BIOS
- supports INT 10 CGA/Mono video services
- supports INT 17 printer services
- supports INT 14 serial services
- supports INT 09 and 8042 keyboard services
- supports INT 05 print-screen
- supports INT 13 3.5-inch/2.88M floppy services
- supports INT 13 3.5-inch/720K floppy services
- supports INT 13 5.25-inch/1.2M floppy services
- supports INT 13 5.25-inch/360K floppy services
- supports Enhanced Disk Drive specification
- BIOS ROM is socketed
- supports selectable boot
- supports booting from CD-ROM
- allows BIOS shadowing
- upgradeable (Flash) BIOS
- supports APM
- supports Plug-and-Play
- supports PCI
- supports ISA
DMI Version 2.3 @000F0BE0

Doesn't look like it's the "lastest" BIOS MSI offers, in fact I can't even see a correlation between anything in my BIOS info that matches "Version 1.x". Looking at the BIOS date and comparing it with BIOS version for my board HERE leads me to believe this is the "Version 1.9" BIOS, certainly not the latest and greatest but is at least the 9th update to this family of BIOS(es).

Now, I'm willing to flash my BIOS if I must, but I hate having to fix things that just aren't broken and don't see why a motherboard that is compatible with these chips won't work without an update.

Can somebody shine a light on my situation and tell me what I should do to try and fix this? Is a BIOS flash really necessary for my situation? Am I at the point where it "doesn't hurt to try"?

TIA

 

[nefariouscaine]

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage
Man this thread is old, I remember reading it daily back a couple years ago, hopefully one of you can still help me on an issue I'm having with my board and trying to install a new CPU.

I already posted my situation in the CPU forum so hopefully no one cares that I'm double-dipping using this thread as well to explain my problem as well, but I think posting in this thread has a good possibility of bringing out someone who is/was in my situation, so here goes..

I'm upgrading the processor on my MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum mobo and so far had 2 new processors not work on me (computer will not boot with them plugged in). One is the highest Athlon 64 chip my board is compatible with (4000+) and the other is the highest Opteron chip my board is compatible with (Opteron 180). At first, the 180 did get me past the BIOS screens, but then quickly bluescreened before getting to Windows and every subsequent attempt to boot with it in there does not even get me to my BIOS logo screen now. Once I plugged my old chip back in (a 3200+) everything was gravy.

CPU Compatibility chart directly from MSI

The only thing I can think of to fix this is a BIOS update, something I'm not very fond of doing. On the MSI website I notice the "Since BIOS Version 1.D" value which seems to be the latest BIOS version available for my mobo (latest meaning back in 2006 apparently). Should this tell me that the chart being presented here is only compliant with if my mobo has this BIOS installed? I mean, what happens if I bought this board back in the day with a 4000+ instead of a 3200+? I would be screwed, which is why I think it's silly a BIOS update should be needed for CPU compatibility. But anyway, here's a capture of my current BIOS information:

BIOS Version Nvidia - 42302e31
Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
BIOS Date 09/09/05
BIOS Web Page http://www.award.com
BIOS Vendor Phoenix Technologies, LTD
Version 6.00 PG
Release 09/09/2005
BIOS Size 512 KB
Characteristics - supports booting from ATAPI ZIP drive
- supports booting from LS-120
- supports legacy USB
- supports ACPI
- Multi Processor supported by BIOS
- supports INT 10 CGA/Mono video services
- supports INT 17 printer services
- supports INT 14 serial services
- supports INT 09 and 8042 keyboard services
- supports INT 05 print-screen
- supports INT 13 3.5-inch/2.88M floppy services
- supports INT 13 3.5-inch/720K floppy services
- supports INT 13 5.25-inch/1.2M floppy services
- supports INT 13 5.25-inch/360K floppy services
- supports Enhanced Disk Drive specification
- BIOS ROM is socketed
- supports selectable boot
- supports booting from CD-ROM
- allows BIOS shadowing
- upgradeable (Flash) BIOS
- supports APM
- supports Plug-and-Play
- supports PCI
- supports ISA
DMI Version 2.3 @000F0BE0

Doesn't look like it's the "lastest" BIOS MSI offers, in fact I can't even see a correlation between anything in my BIOS info that matches "Version 1.x". Looking at the BIOS date and comparing it with BIOS version for my board HERE leads me to believe this is the "Version 1.9" BIOS, certainly not the latest and greatest but is at least the 9th update to this family of BIOS(es).

Now, I'm willing to flash my BIOS if I must, but I hate having to fix things that just aren't broken and don't see why a motherboard that is compatible with these chips won't work without an update.

Can somebody shine a light on my situation and tell me what I should do to try and fix this? Is a BIOS flash really necessary for my situation? Am I at the point where it "doesn't hurt to try"?

TIA

I remember my fond days of playing with this motherboard - I loved mine & would still have it but after I went C2D it just kinda collected dust...now i wish I'd kept my 939 gear and some DDR

I 100% would say to get the most up to date bios on this board. There was significant differences in cpu support on that board with bios revisions and that is still something that comes up on boards today - just cause it might be listed on the MSI site unless they refer to a specific bios they are referring to the most current one.

Alas I'm a huge advocate of updating the bios on that board - I'm going to need to do a little more research but I used one of the modified bios for this board that unlocked some of the extra memory multipliers
PM me if you're interested in learning more about the modified bios

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: nefariouscaine
I remember my fond days of playing with this motherboard - I loved mine & would still have it but after I went C2D it just kinda collected dust...now i wish I'd kept my 939 gear and some DDR

I 100% would say to get the most up to date bios on this board. There was significant differences in cpu support on that board with bios revisions and that is still something that comes up on boards today - just cause it might be listed on the MSI site unless they refer to a specific bios they are referring to the most current one.

Alas I'm a huge advocate of updating the bios on that board - I'm going to need to do a little more research but I used one of the modified bios for this board that unlocked some of the extra memory multipliers
PM me if you're interested in learning more about the modified bios

Thanks for explaining this, and I would definitely be interested in a modified BIOS down the road but for right now I just want to get my computer up and running with the new chip installed.

My only problem with flashing is all of my drives are NTFS, and if I flash under DOS none of them will be read, correct? I do have the ability to boot from a USB drive though, should I make this drive bootable and flash the BIOS using it instead of a floppy disc?

 

[nefariouscaine]

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage

Originally posted by: nefariouscaine
I remember my fond days of playing with this motherboard - I loved mine & would still have it but after I went C2D it just kinda collected dust...now i wish I'd kept my 939 gear and some DDR

I 100% would say to get the most up to date bios on this board. There was significant differences in cpu support on that board with bios revisions and that is still something that comes up on boards today - just cause it might be listed on the MSI site unless they refer to a specific bios they are referring to the most current one.

Alas I'm a huge advocate of updating the bios on that board - I'm going to need to do a little more research but I used one of the modified bios for this board that unlocked some of the extra memory multipliers
PM me if you're interested in learning more about the modified bios

Thanks for explaining this, and I would definitely be interested in a modified BIOS down the road but for right now I just want to get my computer up and running with the new chip installed.

My only problem with flashing is all of my drives are NTFS, and if I flash under DOS none of them will be read, correct? I do have the ability to boot from a USB drive though, should I make this drive bootable and flash the BIOS using it instead of a floppy disc?

it might be advised against but I did use the windows flash utility for doing flashes - the MSI live updater can do the update IIRC (its made to do so) - other than that I would suggest using a floppy if you have access to one - there is a step by step guide included in the download from the MSI site

 

[imported_forgetful]

I hate to be a thread necromancer but I am trying to find out something about this board. Does it fully support ECC memory?

I know that ECC memory will work in it. I have some in now.

I know that ECC support is in the memory controller of my AMD X2 CPU.

But I don't know if the motherboard is passing ECC info to the CPU. Some boards "support" ECC by just ignoring it. I don't remember seeing any ECC options in the BIOS which makes me suspicious!

 

[cypherth]

guys i have se huge problem with me mobo....
every time it restarts does cmos!!! i dont know what is the reason doing this, because i havent changed anything in my hardware. i didnt changed anything in the bios or overclocked something.
what can i do? i have the latest firmware something 1D, it is very stupid, every time i restart windows i must enable cool n quiet that is disabled by default and change the boot priority in order to boot because i have many hard disks...and in windows i have to change time and date!!!

(tried to change both rams, nothing happened, also change battery to a new one, again nothing happened)
do you have any idea?

 

[chetansha]

Originally posted by: cypherth
guys i have se huge problem with me mobo....
every time it restarts does cmos!!! i dont know what is the reason doing this, because i havent changed anything in my hardware. i didnt changed anything in the bios or overclocked something.
what can i do? i have the latest firmware something 1D, it is very stupid, every time i restart windows i must enable cool n quiet that is disabled by default and change the boot priority in order to boot because i have many hard disks...and in windows i have to change time and date!!!

(tried to change both rams, nothing happened, also change battery to a new one, again nothing happened)
do you have any idea?

did u try to change the small battery ???

 

[seawolf06]

I bought a MSI K8N board used. How can I tell which one it is?

Figured it out...

 

[mr_element]

Hello everyone.

I am so sorry to revive this thread but I am in dire need that is driving me crazy. I only registered to this forum because it has a separate thread just for this kind of motherboard which is hard to find.
I am going to pass my current rig to my mother as I am in the process of buying a new machine for myself. Before I do that I wanted to make sure that it works as it is supposed to, and it's not. I get shutdowns. Weird shutdowns and reboots without any profound reason. These shutdowns mostly take place whenever I am playing a game , an HD movie , or a flash-based video/game.

What I have done so far is check my CPU and GPU. The stress-test was a success no weird behavior/results whatsoever.

I also checked my RAM DIMM(s) using memtest86+. For 10 passes no errors showed up.

Finally I checked my hard drives using RiteSpin and everything seem normal as well.

So all in all my rig seems to be ok hardware-wise but STILL I am getting those inexplainable shutdowns and reboots out of the blue.
I have read so many things about this peculiar motherboard. To name a few incompatibilities with SSD drives , incompatibilities with Corsair RAMS , incompatibilities with any RAM-amount larger than 2GB , power-supply issues. I'm wandering in forums reading stuff for about a week now trying to find a solution to my problem.

I am officially desperate. If someone old-time has/had or even knows what could be wrong I am placing my faith in him/her. My last bet is that it's a fault of how my hardware is set up or a fault of my BIOS (maybe something is not tuned correctly).

This is my current setup:
*CPU : AMD Athlon 3200+ 64bit
*MOBO : MSI K8N Neo4
*RAM : 2x1GB DDR Kingston KVR + 2x1GB DDR Corsair ValueSelect
*GPU : ATI Radeon HD5670 Sapphire 512MB
*SSD : OCZ Agility3 - 120GB - C: \ - Windows Only
*HDD : Seagate Baracuda - 130GB - D : \ - Programs Installations/File Holder/etc.
*HDD2 : Western Digital - 1TB - E: \ - HD Movies Only
*HDD3-External : Western Digital myPassport - 160GB - H: \ - Various Backup Files/Projects/Music/Videos/etc.

Kind regards,
George. :'(

 

[nerp]

Likely aging/leaking capacitors. Check for bulges. The board may just be dead.

 

[mr_element]

Thank you for your fast response!
Just one of them is leaking bad. The others are healthier than me! :$
But the leaked one is like this for years! The pc worked fine (with the exception of this one capacitor) and started all this weirdness after I installed extra RAM and an SSD.

:\

 

[SonicIce]

Uninstall and reinstall the video card driver, especially since you said shutdowns whenever you are playing a game, an HD movie, or a flash-based video/game. Better yet, format and reinstall windows from scratch. I've had a PSU with leaking caps that worked fine for years, but I wouldn't recommend it. Wat PSU and OS are in it?

 

[mr_element]

Uninstall and reinstall the video card driver, especially since you said shutdowns whenever you are playing a game, an HD movie, or a flash-based video/game. Better yet, format and reinstall windows from scratch. I've had a PSU with leaking caps that worked fine for years, but I wouldn't recommend it. Wat PSU and OS are in it?

Hi, thanks for your reply.
Although I have uninstalled and reinstalled the video drivers countless times I will try it once more.
My PSU is a Thermaltake around 500-600W (I do not remember exactly but no les than 500W) and my windows installed is Windows 7 Professional Service Pack 1 32bit Edition. All legitimate and fully updated since my university provides me with an authentic copy downloadable from Microsoft's MSDNAA Center.