The *Official* MSI K8NGM2-FID GeForce 6150 Motherboard Thread

[BernardP]

Originally posted by: raskolnik
Does anyone know of any detrimental effects caused by having ram in DIMMs 3&4 (alone) as opposed to 1&2? I recall reading the the -FID needed a stick in DIMM 1 to boot and run stably. However this doesn't seem to be the case in my experience; am I overlooking something?

The K8NGM2-FID manual says (Section 2-7): "To enable successful system boot-up, always insert the memory modules in the DIMM 1 slots first"

There you have it. Are you saying that you are running your motherboard with modules in slots 3 and 4 only? And if so...Why? To leave more room for a bigger CPU cooler maybe?

 

[bogolisk]

Originally posted by: mrnuxi
Hi there,
Fantastic thread! Thanks to renethx and all others who have contributed. I have read ALL the posts over the last few days. I am close to going with the FID, but I thought I would ask some questions before I do. The K8NGM2-FID seems like the perfect mb for me because I have no interest in games, but would like to use a large hi-rez monitor and always do tons of multitasking. I plan on running some variant of linux as the main OS, and may dual-boot WinXP. I have tons of experience with linux so that shouldn't be a problem. My alternative idea (which I'm leaning toward) is to run linux and then use VMWare to run guest versions of (in no particular order: WinXP, Win98 [for some legacy sw I need], Vista, Solaris x86). So here are my questions:

1. Anyone have experience with VMware on this mb?
2. If so, anyone using VMware with a linux host? Which variant? Most of my experience is with Redhat (many different versions). I would love to use Fedora Core 5, but I don't think that is a supported host OS for VMware.

Here's a list of the planned hardware purchase, in case anyone has suggestions for changes:

MSI K8NGM2-FID
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester Socket 939
G.SKILL 2x1gb DDR 400 memory
AMS CF-1089 mATX Mini Tower case
Enermax Noisetaker EG495P-VE SFMA ATX 485W psu
2 x Samsung SpinPoint P Series HD160JJ 160gb SATA II disk
Pioneer 16x DVD burner
Sony IDE DVD-ROM Model DDu1615/B2s
Scythe S-Flex SSF21F 1600rpm 120mm S-FDB case cooling fan

Thanks for your help,
--mrnuxi

1. I haven't try vmware on this board, I'll try it soon.
2. I have used vmware on Debian and RedHat before, I dont like it because I dont really need any windows apps.

I run Ubuntu 6.06, on mine. I have to disable legacy-usb support in the BIOS for kernel 2.6.15 to boot reliably. Failling to do so will result in Linux getting ACPI interrupts it's ready to handle them and will hang 1 time of 3. The drawback is that disabling legacy-usb in the bios also disable the ability to boot from USB!!!

I enabled C'n'Q in the BIOS and powernowd's nicely scaling my CPU speed up and down according to the current cpu usage.

Other than that everything is working out of the box with Ubuntu 6.06.

% sudo sensors

w83627ehf-isa-0a10
Adapter: ISA adapter
Case Fan: 756 RPM (min = 1205 RPM, div = 8)
CPU Fan: 874 RPM (min = 1704 RPM, div = 8)
fan3: 0 RPM (min = 10546 RPM, div = 128)
fan4: 0 RPM (min = 10546 RPM, div = 128)
Sys Temp: +32°C (high = +45°C, hyst = +40°C)
CPU Temp: +31.0°C (high = +45.0°C, hyst = +40.0°C)
temp3: +40.5°C (high = +80.0°C, hyst = +75.0°C)

% sudo hddtemp SATA:/dev/sda PATA:/dev/hdb

/dev/sda: ST3300622AS: 36°C
/dev/hdb: Maxtor 6Y120P0: 26°C

As you might have already known, the NB fan connector on this mb seems to have only power but no monitoring input or control output. (gnome's sensors applet can display real-time RPM/temps on the panel)

The north bridge is running quite HOT: 55C according to my thermal panel. The south bridge on the other hand is very cool: 27C.

The IGP is quiet capable, playing HD 1280x720 XviD very smoothly. It also have hardware acceleration for MPEG2 so playing DVD would use very little CPU.

My machine:

Athlon 64X2 4200+
MSI K8NGM2-FID
RAM: OCZ 2x1G
Silverstone TJ08 mATX case
Seasonic S12 420W
Seagate 7200.9 300G sataII drive (noisy seek)
Sony internal multi-card reader
LiteON lightscribe DVD-burner.
HSF: Scythe Mine
Exhaust fan: Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E 120MM
Intake fan: Nexus 120MM Real Silent Fan
fan controller: Sunbeam DTC-3.5-BK

Video: onboard
GigEthernet: onboard
HD sound: onboard

OS: Ubuntu Linux 6.06

The box is ultra-quiet, it's right on my desk and only thing I hear is the little hum from the HDDs.

 

[bogolisk]

Originally posted by: mrnuxi
MSI K8NGM2-FID
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester Socket 939
G.SKILL 2x1gb DDR 400 memory
AMS CF-1089 mATX Mini Tower case
Enermax Noisetaker EG495P-VE SFMA ATX 485W psu
2 x Samsung SpinPoint P Series HD160JJ 160gb SATA II disk
Pioneer 16x DVD burner
Sony IDE DVD-ROM Model DDu1615/B2s
Scythe S-Flex SSF21F 1600rpm 120mm S-FDB case cooling fan

For the PSU, if you're looking for a silent system, then:

1. 
   1. PSU: I'd highly recommend a Seasonic S12. The Enermax PSU seems to be far surpassed by others review on silenpcreview.com
   

   The Enermax NoiseTaker has fallen far, from a star on our recommended list two years ago to a sub-par performer today. The change is not Enermax' fault so much as the result of higher expectations and stiffer competition.

   
   2. HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 seems to be the current silent champ among the large capacity disks.
   

   For once, a hard drive has lived up to its marketing claims. The 500 GB Caviar SE16 is the quietest 3.5" desktop drive that we know of on the market today. Not only is it quieter than all of the other high capacity drives that we've looked at, it also beats the Samsung Spinpoint P80 and gives the venerable Barracuda IV a run for the money.

   
   3. CPU: the stock HSF will be noisy, probably the noisiest component in your system. If you went for the X2 4400+, then you'd get the 4-heatpipes stock HSF which is very good. I've opted for a 3rd-party HSF because of the price difference between the 4200+ and 4400+.
   
   4. Case: for the same CFM, a 120mm fan will be much more quiet than a 88mm fan. If posible, find a case that you can use non-restrictive fan grill. The mb has 4-usb connections for the fron-panel. your case only has 2. so can use a 3rd party panel for extra usb connections or/and card reader like the mitsumi panel

Burner: I dont know about the new Pioneer but my old pioneer while very good at burning DVD is piss-slow at burning CD. In fact, it takes almost the same amount of time to burn a 4.3G DVD to burn a 700MB CDR.

 

[HermitGuy]

On flashing the bios, can it be done with a usb flash drive? I have no floppy drive installed, and I don't think I want to try the windows method as I have Vista beta installed on this board.

 

[raskolnik]

Originally posted by: BernardP

Originally posted by: raskolnik
Does anyone know of any detrimental effects caused by having ram in DIMMs 3&4 (alone) as opposed to 1&2? I recall reading the the -FID needed a stick in DIMM 1 to boot and run stably. However this doesn't seem to be the case in my experience; am I overlooking something?

The K8NGM2-FID manual says (Section 2-7): "To enable successful system boot-up, always insert the memory modules in the DIMM 1 slots first"

There you have it. Are you saying that you are running your motherboard with modules in slots 3 and 4 only? And if so...Why? To leave more room for a bigger CPU cooler maybe?

Sorry for being so vague; the answer is yes to both. I am rather enamored by this new heatsink from Zalman; apparently it likes to take up a dimm slot or two. I have been running the board with ram in slots 3 & 4 only and without out even a hint of strange or unstable behavior (BIOS 3.40) for 3~4 days. However I'm waiting for some more reviews of the HSF's performance (or an LED spin-off version) before I buy it and was hoping to get a heads up/expert advice on the DIMM slot #1 issue.

 

[renethx]

Originally posted by: HermitGuy
On flashing the bios, can it be done with a usb flash drive? I have no floppy drive installed, and I don't think I want to try the windows method as I have Vista beta installed on this board.

Date Posted: 03/22/2006 05:15 AM Posted By: RjG
It for sure boots off USB. I boot mine off a CF card when I make ghost images, no problem
The CF card comes up as a 128 MB a: drive
My USB dongle comes up as a C: drive if I boot off that one though. Not sure why the difference.
Might be how they are formatted. My CF card has boot files from a floppy image.

I have flashed the bios back and forth booting from there too. It worked nicely.

 

[HermitGuy]

Thanks Renethx for the info, and for the exhaustive research on this motherboard.

 

[mmx1]

Interesting on the Ubuntu Problems. I'm running Kubuntu Breezy Badger (6.06), and I had not ACPI problems as commonly reported. I did have to disable the MAC LAN bridge in the bios to get the ethernet to be recognized by forcedeth; and installing the video drivers was a bit of a pain that involved a lot of googling. It's running flawlessly now.

 

[clom]

Have just received this board and build a system with it. One problem: it won't boot... After pressing the power button case fan and cpu fan start to spin (so there must be some power going through the board if the cpu fan is spinning right?), and the HD led lights for half a second - after that the fans just keep spinning and nothing else happens. No sounds, nothing on the monitor...

I haven't found anything on post codes (beep codes) on this board or any other troubleshooting guide for that matter. Does this board give beep codes? There isn't a case speaker connection on the board - if things go wrong with this board how does it let the user know? And in my case, I get no text on the monitor what so ever. Have unplugged drives, usb, sound card etc., changed memorystick all to no avail. Only thing I can't test is the cpu as my other board is a socket A. If there were a problem with the CPU on this board, would it POST and give an error on this?

Or to put it this way: is my board dead,DOA or what??

EDIT: Never mind, I am now officially a moron. Problem fixed, funny thing really... it turns out that socket 939's need a seperate 4pin power plug to power the cpu. Which is a strange thing when you're used to socket A... Doh!!

 

[bogolisk]

Originally posted by: mmx1
Interesting on the Ubuntu Problems. I'm running Kubuntu Breezy Badger (6.06), and I had not ACPI problems as commonly reported. I did have to disable the MAC LAN bridge in the bios to get the ethernet to be recognized by forcedeth; and installing the video drivers was a bit of a pain that involved a lot of googling. It's running flawlessly now.

Breezy Badget is 5.10 isn't it? Dapper Drake is 6.06. On usb-legacy, it all started after I installed the (3.5 bay internal) card reader. I dont recall ACPI problem at boot with just the USB mouse.

With Dapper, other than tweaking the BIOS, I didn't have to do anything in the OS to get things going. Networking, surround sound, thermal/fan monitoring, etc. all work out of the box. Cool'n'Quiet must be enabled in the BIOS before powernowd can start doing its magic. Installing the video driver was:

% sudo aptitude install nvidia-glx
% sudo nvidia-xconfig

Dapper's nvidia-glx contains the latest nvidia driver (1.0.8762) so there was no need to get it directly from nvidia.

 

[RjG]

What does the bios "Mac Lan Bridge" setting do?

 

[HermitGuy]

Bios successfully flashed to ver.3.40 from usb drive booting as A:. Thanks again Renethx for the support!

 

[mcpfrid]

Hi Renethx,

I noticed you have a geforce 6600 on your board. Is there enough room for vidio card and cards in both PCI slocts? I'm considering a MSI NX7600 GS with fan for my board but don't want to lose the use of a pci slot.

Thanks in advance for any information or feedback.

 

[renethx]

Originally posted by: mcpfrid
I noticed you have a geforce 6600 on your board. Is there enough room for vidio card and cards in both PCI slocts?

Yes (if I don't use Zalman VF700-AlCu).

 

[renethx]

FYI, EVEREST Ultimate Edition 2006 (version 2.80 or later) supports the motherboard sensor chip. It's a very nice program but it's not free ($22.46 till July 14, 2006).

 

[thePhallex]

Hey guys, I'm new here, so I appologize if this has previously been brought up. I found this forum topic thru Google, trying to solve a problem of mine. Maybe you guys can help out or point me in the right direction...?

I have the MSI K8NGM2 board, as you can see from my sig.

I recently purchased my PCI-Express video card -- the Asus EN7600GT -- from ZipZoomFly.com.

I plugged it in, and Windows XP didn't find it via Plug-n-Play. I tried to use the included Drivers CD, but I think they gave me the wrong one. It kept telling me that it "couldn't find the required hardware!"
I opened up the setup.ini file, and it listed all of the Asus GeForce video cards EXCEPT mine. So I downloaded the correct EN7600 drivers from the Asus Global site, and tried to install them.

Again, I got the "Can't find required hardware!" on BOTH of the installation programs.

I'm not sure if it's the Mainboard I bought or the Video card. The fan is currently spinning on the card, but it's not being recognized in Windows OR the BIOS. I've gone into the BIOS and selected the "Disable onboard video if PCI enabled" option, and it still boots up to the onboard video.


Again, sorry if this was already solved, but any help would be GREATLY appreciated!


Thanks for your time
~Alex

 

[mrnuxi]

Originally posted by: bogolisk

Originally posted by: mrnuxi
Hi there,
Fantastic thread! Thanks to renethx and all others who have contributed. I have read ALL the posts over the last few days. I am close to going with the FID, but I thought I would ask some questions before I do. The K8NGM2-FID seems like the perfect mb for me because I have no interest in games, but would like to use a large hi-rez monitor and always do tons of multitasking. I plan on running some variant of linux as the main OS, and may dual-boot WinXP. I have tons of experience with linux so that shouldn't be a problem. My alternative idea (which I'm leaning toward) is to run linux and then use VMWare to run guest versions of (in no particular order: WinXP, Win98 [for some legacy sw I need], Vista, Solaris x86). So here are my questions:

1. Anyone have experience with VMware on this mb?
2. If so, anyone using VMware with a linux host? Which variant? Most of my experience is with Redhat (many different versions). I would love to use Fedora Core 5, but I don't think that is a supported host OS for VMware.

Here's a list of the planned hardware purchase, in case anyone has suggestions for changes:

MSI K8NGM2-FID
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester Socket 939
G.SKILL 2x1gb DDR 400 memory
AMS CF-1089 mATX Mini Tower case
Enermax Noisetaker EG495P-VE SFMA ATX 485W psu
2 x Samsung SpinPoint P Series HD160JJ 160gb SATA II disk
Pioneer 16x DVD burner
Sony IDE DVD-ROM Model DDu1615/B2s
Scythe S-Flex SSF21F 1600rpm 120mm S-FDB case cooling fan

Thanks for your help,
--mrnuxi

1. I haven't try vmware on this board, I'll try it soon.
2. I have used vmware on Debian and RedHat before, I dont like it because I dont really need any windows apps.

I run Ubuntu 6.06, on mine. I have to disable legacy-usb support in the BIOS for kernel 2.6.15 to boot reliably. Failling to do so will result in Linux getting ACPI interrupts it's ready to handle them and will hang 1 time of 3. The drawback is that disabling legacy-usb in the bios also disable the ability to boot from USB!!!

I enabled C'n'Q in the BIOS and powernowd's nicely scaling my CPU speed up and down according to the current cpu usage.

Other than that everything is working out of the box with Ubuntu 6.06.

% sudo sensors

w83627ehf-isa-0a10
Adapter: ISA adapter
Case Fan: 756 RPM (min = 1205 RPM, div = 8)
CPU Fan: 874 RPM (min = 1704 RPM, div = 8)
fan3: 0 RPM (min = 10546 RPM, div = 128)
fan4: 0 RPM (min = 10546 RPM, div = 128)
Sys Temp: +32°C (high = +45°C, hyst = +40°C)
CPU Temp: +31.0°C (high = +45.0°C, hyst = +40.0°C)
temp3: +40.5°C (high = +80.0°C, hyst = +75.0°C)

% sudo hddtemp SATA:/dev/sda PATA:/dev/hdb

/dev/sda: ST3300622AS: 36°C
/dev/hdb: Maxtor 6Y120P0: 26°C

As you might have already known, the NB fan connector on this mb seems to have only power but no monitoring input or control output. (gnome's sensors applet can display real-time RPM/temps on the panel)

The north bridge is running quite HOT: 55C according to my thermal panel. The south bridge on the other hand is very cool: 27C.

The IGP is quiet capable, playing HD 1280x720 XviD very smoothly. It also have hardware acceleration for MPEG2 so playing DVD would use very little CPU.

My machine:

Athlon 64X2 4200+
MSI K8NGM2-FID
RAM: OCZ 2x1G
Silverstone TJ08 mATX case
Seasonic S12 420W
Seagate 7200.9 300G sataII drive (noisy seek)
Sony internal multi-card reader
LiteON lightscribe DVD-burner.
HSF: Scythe Mine
Exhaust fan: Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E 120MM
Intake fan: Nexus 120MM Real Silent Fan
fan controller: Sunbeam DTC-3.5-BK

Video: onboard
GigEthernet: onboard
HD sound: onboard

OS: Ubuntu Linux 6.06

The box is ultra-quiet, it's right on my desk and only thing I hear is the little hum from the HDDs.

Thanks for the input -- quick question for you: did you have any problems on install with kernel 2.6.15 and SATA? I am leaning toward CentOS 4.3.

thanks again,
--mrnuxi

 

[mrnuxi]

Originally posted by: bogolisk

Originally posted by: mrnuxi
MSI K8NGM2-FID
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester Socket 939
G.SKILL 2x1gb DDR 400 memory
AMS CF-1089 mATX Mini Tower case
Enermax Noisetaker EG495P-VE SFMA ATX 485W psu
2 x Samsung SpinPoint P Series HD160JJ 160gb SATA II disk
Pioneer 16x DVD burner
Sony IDE DVD-ROM Model DDu1615/B2s
Scythe S-Flex SSF21F 1600rpm 120mm S-FDB case cooling fan

For the PSU, if you're looking for a silent system, then:
[suggestions snipped -- i'm learning :=)]

Bogolisk -- thanks for the excellent suggestions! I will look into all of them and probably make the switch.

--mrnuxi

 

[renethx]

thePhallex,

If you select

• BIOS Setup > Advanced Chipset Features > Primary Graphics Adapter: [PCI Express]
• BIOS Setup > Advanced Chipset Features > OnChip and PCIe VGA selection: [Disbale Onchip VGA if have PCIe VGA]

and if your system boots into onboard video only (no signal from the PCIe card), then BIOS failed to recognize the PCIe card. Possible causes are

• The card does not sit firmly in the PCIe x 16 slot.
• The card is defective.
• The PCIe x 16 slot of the motherboard is defective.

Try another PCIe card. If it works, the problem is your card. RMA it. If another card does not work, your motherboard is defective. RMA it.

 

[renethx]

The current chipset drivers are:

ForceWare Version 91.31, Release Date: June 23, 2006
nForce 430/410 Driver Version 8.26, Release Date: June 22, 2006
ALC 880 Driver R1.40, Update Time: 2006/06/21

 

[avi85]

I have a strange problem with my DVD reader (Slave secondary IDE channel, burner is master) whenever I try reading a Disc I get a BSOD within a few minutes (sometimes a few seconds), but my burner is fine with reading everything. also when I have any type of disk (not a boot disk) in the DVD reader when I boot up it won't get past the DVD drive in the boot order, sometimes it won't even show the POST screen I'll just have this black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner after it shows the video BIOS. To make this wierder if i put in say memtest86 it will boot it fine and run for hours (I think that's cause it loads it into the RAM though).

Point is, this drive was fine on my last computer and suddenly the day I plug it into this one, things go haywire.

Please help!!!!!!

 

[bogolisk]

Originally posted by: mrnuxi
Thanks for the input -- quick question for you: did you have any problems on install with kernel 2.6.15 and SATA? I am leaning toward CentOS 4.3.

thanks again,
--mrnuxi

None, SATA works out of the box.

 

[cka]

Originally posted by: avi85
I have a strange problem with my DVD reader (Slave secondary IDE channel, burner is master) whenever I try reading a Disc I get a BSOD within a few minutes (sometimes a few seconds), but my burner is fine with reading everything. also when I have any type of disk (not a boot disk) in the DVD reader when I boot up it won't get past the DVD drive in the boot order, sometimes it won't even show the POST screen I'll just have this black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner after it shows the video BIOS. To make this wierder if i put in say memtest86 it will boot it fine and run for hours (I think that's cause it loads it into the RAM though).

Point is, this drive was fine on my last computer and suddenly the day I plug it into this one, things go haywire.

Please help!!!!!!

Is the drive secure on the IDE channel (eg, no loose connections on either end of the IDE cable, sufficient power getting to the drive, etc.)? Have you tried running it on the primary IDE1 channel? Is your drive set as pri/sec via jumpers, or does it use cable select mode? I run my LiteON SOHW-1633s as Primary on IDE1 (via CSEL jumper settings) and have yet to have any issue with it. Also, apparently there's some kind of bsod/data corruption problem if you use the nVidia IDE driver with a RAID setup (its something similar to that, but I can't remember the specifics -- I'm sure its documented somewhere in this mammoth thread though) so that may be causing your issues.

 

[RjG]

Originally posted by: cka
...Also, apparently there's some kind of bsod/data corruption problem if you use the nVidia IDE driver with a RAID setup (its something similar to that, but I can't remember the specifics -- I'm sure its documented somewhere in this mammoth thread though) so that may be causing your issues.

Many pages back, several of us tested quite a bit with the nvidia raid drivers on SATA. It worked quite well, actually, no problems.
Personally, I spent the better part of a day coping up to 80 gig files back and forth to a raid with 2 x 300 gig sata 7200.10s and doing binary file compare.
No problems at all.

 

[akassam]

Help!

I just got this board for my new HTPC. I'm also using the AMD Athlon 64 3200 with it.

Everything was going fine until I tried to overclock it. I followed the Overclocking Venice 3200+ under the Quick Recipes on page 1. After setting the Advanced Chipset Features, saving and rebooting, my system will not post.

I can't enter the BIOS to reset it. I've tried to hold down the DEL key on reboot. I also tried to reflash the BIOS using the BIOS Recovery Feature (I don't have a floppy so I burned the image on a CDRW and tried to boot up that way).

Any suggestions? Thanks for any help.