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

[blimey]

Does anybody know who/what dept. to bug at MSI to get an I/O shield for the MSI K8NGM2-FID? The last board I bought didn't come with one and I've had no luck getting one from email or phone calls to MSI.

Note: If anybody has a spare I/O shield (backplate) for the K8NGM2-FID, I will trade any of the other accessories that come with the motherboard in exchange for the I/O shield. Send me a PM if you have one to trade.

 

[Basilisk]

Sent back the 3D Fuzion 7600GS.

Rcvd a BFG 7600GT, and have used it one hour. No problems installing it, but I wanted to bring up nView (3 monitors) and it took most of that hour to download latest drivers & manuals. Finally realized one must install the drivers w/ the onboard chip disabled; later one can re-enable the onboard chip. Everything works now, though I've hardly run anything -- no GPU exercising toys.

On power-up the BFG sounded like a vacuum cleaner; before I got nView working with the three monitors, it shut down to a quiet level. Now that I'm two monitors off the BFG, however, the noise stays unacceptibly high for my once silent PC. 'Probably lower than that initial vacuum cleaner, but way too high for any bedroom or HTPC. And this is w/o anything more taxing than editing a forum posting on one! Sigh.

Conclusions:
1. I'll damn that 3D Fuzion on this m/b as there were no problems with the BFG. But I can't say there aren't -some- 7600GS's out there that are compatible.
2. The BFG 7600GT is not acceptible in any near-silent PC, judging by its noise under negligable load. Elsewhere some folks had posted it was noisy, while others found it surprisingly quiet. The latter may be deaf.

I'm interested in any replacement cooling solutions which do not take up a second slot or extend above the card. Or, in other quiet card experiences/successes. While I apprecitate & respect avi85's suggestions, the 7600GS was the low end of what I'd like in GPU power. Then again, maybe -that- cut-off has to be reconsidered!

PS: Still amazes me how many typographical errors have consequential effects in Windows! Something I typed a few minutes ago -published- this note well before I was finished. Not as many bizarre moments in FireFox as in Word, but... always a surprise or two....

 

[Aveli]

Hi, Blimey,

Thanks a lot for your post. From newegg, it seems that the biostar card with 512M just needs a 300W PSU as Minimum Requirements. And lots of 7600GS cards with 256M memory require 350W. That is confusing for me since I am not sure that 305W in my dell E521 is enough or not. (This desktop is still on the way. )

Could you tell me some information about your PSU? Thanks.

 

[blimey]

Originally posted by: Aveli
Hi, Blimey,

Thanks a lot for your post. From newegg, it seems that the biostar card with 512M just needs a 300W PSU as Minimum Requirements. And lots of 7600GS cards with 256M memory require 350W. That is confusing for me since I am not sure that 305W in my dell E521 is enough or not. (This desktop is still on the way. )

Could you tell me some information about your PSU? Thanks.

Hi Aveli. I'm using the Cooler Master RS-600-ASAA power supply. It is a continuous 600W power supply. It's not silent, but it has a 120mm dual ball bearing fan and it is much less noisy than most PSUs in its class. It's a little pricey ($95 after rebate), but I'm very satisfied with it.

The Biostar V7602GS51 7600GS is super quiet. The nvidia tools report idle temp around 42C, and it got up to 51C after an hour of playing the frycry demo that I downloaded today.

 

[avi85]

Originally posted by: Basilisk
Sent back the 3D Fuzion 7600GS.

Rcvd a BFG 7600GT, and have used it one hour. No problems installing it, but I wanted to bring up nView (3 monitors) and it took most of that hour to download latest drivers & manuals. Finally realized one must install the drivers w/ the onboard chip disabled; later one can re-enable the onboard chip. Everything works now, though I've hardly run anything -- no GPU exercising toys.

On power-up the BFG sounded like a vacuum cleaner; before I got nView working with the three monitors, it shut down to a quiet level. Now that I'm two monitors off the BFG, however, the noise stays unacceptibly high for my once silent PC. 'Probably lower than that initial vacuum cleaner, but way too high for any bedroom or HTPC. And this is w/o anything more taxing than editing a forum posting on one! Sigh.

Conclusions:
1. I'll damn that 3D Fuzion on this m/b as there were no problems with the BFG. But I can't say there aren't -some- 7600GS's out there that are compatible.
2. The BFG 7600GT is not acceptible in any near-silent PC, judging by its noise under negligable load. Elsewhere some folks had posted it was noisy, while others found it surprisingly quiet. The latter may be deaf.

I'm interested in any replacement cooling solutions which do not take up a second slot or extend above the card. Or, in other quiet card experiences/successes. While I apprecitate & respect avi85's suggestions, the 7600GS was the low end of what I'd like in GPU power. Then again, maybe -that- cut-off has to be reconsidered!

PS: Still amazes me how many typographical errors have consequential effects in Windows! Something I typed a few minutes ago -published- this note well before I was finished. Not as many bizarre moments in FireFox as in Word, but... always a surprise or two....

I also have a 7600GT and I also hated the noise so I got the zalman vf900-cu and it is much much quieter and it keeps my card cooler than the jet engine that was on it before, although if you want to save some money you could get the vf700-AlCu (on froogle the prices seem to be a little over $25 after shipping at the reputable dealers)

 

[BernardP]

Originally posted by: Basilisk
The BFG 7600GT is not acceptible in any near-silent PC, judging by its noise under negligable load. I'm interested in any replacement cooling solutions which do not take up a second slot or extend above the card. Or, in other quiet card experiences/successes. While I apprecitate & respect avi85's suggestions, the 7600GS was the low end of what I'd like in GPU power. Then again, maybe -that- cut-off has to be reconsidered!

If you are not too much in a hurry, you can wait a few days, at most a couple of weeks, for the new GeForce 7650GS. It is to be built on 80nm process, hence possibly faster and cooler. You might be able to get a single-slot model with passive heatsink.

If you want to get a card right now, I am not aware of any 7600GT that will meet your criteria. There are passive models from Asus, Gigabyte and MSI (no longer seen on Newegg), but they are double-slot. The Zalman replacement cooler makes you card double-slot. The 7600GS would be your best bet for quietness. My two favorites models are:

Gigabyte with Zalman-designed passive heatsink

MSI with low-speed fan

I also like the heatsink-fan design of the Biostar 7600GS ,and am very confident that it is quiet, but I don't know about Biostar's support in the USA. Their cards are not widely available.

 

[Aveli]

Hi, Blimey,

Thanks for your reply. I will consider whether I should buy 7300GT instead of 7600GS. But I may still try 7600GS first.

 

[Spelljammer]

Quick question about memory for the K8NGM2-FID

I've currently running a couple of sticks of PC2100, Kingston KVR266X64C25/512. During post I'm getting 3 short beeps (high pitched, low pitched, then high pitched again). I'm getting some random freezes of the computer the past few days. I found a page listing AMI post beep codes and 3 seems to correspond to "Base 64K memory failure - A memory failure has occurred in the first 64K of RAM. The RAM IC is probably bad." I've tested the memory with memtest x86 (3 passes) and it doesn't find any errors. I've got all the memory settings set to 'Auto' and the NB/SB speeds are at 1000/800. I was wondering if the problem could lie in that I'm using PC2100, and not PC2700/PC3200. I used the same 2 sticks in a previous machine with no problems for a couple of years...

Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[renethx]

"Auto" means memory clock 200 MHz (= DDR 400 = PC3200) in BIOS v3.5. Select Memclock Mode: Limit and select Memclock Value: 133 MHz (but to do so, you need a PC3200 memory stick!). Or use BIOS v3.20.

 

[Spelljammer]

I've made the chages in BIOS you've recommended and hopefully that will stabilize things in windows.

I've discovered however (by complete accident with my mobile phone unplugged from the USB port) that my mysterious short beeps disappear when I unhook any devices connected to any of the USB ports. Unplug all USB devices, get the normal one beep for a sucessful post...plus any USB device back in, get the extra beeps. It will chirp/beep once if I plus any USB device in say while in the BIOS setup screen or while it's sitting at the f11 boot menu popup.

Has anyone come across this type of situation before on these boards??

Also, does anyone happen to have the 3.71 BIOS that I have read about in the various posts previeously in this thread. I'll grasp at any straws that might help with these odd beep codes :disgust:

Thanks!

 

[comdw]

Great thread. I've not seen much talk of Wake on LAN though, is that because it works fine for everyone?

I can't get it to work at all and I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction.

I've enabled the BIOS option, and the three "Wake on" options in the device advanced properties, plus tried checking the "allow this device to bring the computer out of standby", but I still can't get it to wake using the magic packet. I've tried sending the packet on port 7, 9 and 32767.

I have another motherboard that has an nForce4 chipset and to get WOL to work on this required beta versions of the network drivers, might the same be the case for this board?

If you have WOL working please can you let me know your driver version and settings?

 

[dtube]

Originally posted by: comdw
Great thread. I've not seen much talk of Wake on LAN though, is that because it works fine for everyone?

I can't get it to work at all and I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction.

I've enabled the BIOS option, and the three "Wake on" options in the device advanced properties, plus tried checking the "allow this device to bring the computer out of standby", but I still can't get it to wake using the magic packet. I've tried sending the packet on port 7, 9 and 32767.

I have another motherboard that has an nForce4 chipset and to get WOL to work on this required beta versions of the network drivers, might the same be the case for this board?

If you have WOL working please can you let me know your driver version and settings?

for WOL to work, the computers have to be on the same subnet.
There are free programs such as mc-wol.exe and fusion wol which are very easy to use.
Google for those.
mc-wol.exe is a command line util, you specify the MAC address of the other computer, it will send the magic packet and wake the machine up.
I've done this in the past with various network cards and it worked well.

 

[comdw]

Originally posted by: dtube

for WOL to work, the computers have to be on the same subnet.
There are free programs such as mc-wol.exe and fusion wol which are very easy to use.
Google for those.
mc-wol.exe is a command line util, you specify the MAC address of the other computer, it will send the magic packet and wake the machine up.
I've done this in the past with various network cards and it worked well.

Sorry, to clarify I do know how to use WOL I just can't get it to work with this motherboard. I am waking other PCs on the same subnet just fine using a command line utility that sends the magic packet.

Have you got WOL to work properly with your K8NGM2-FID?

 

[dtube]

Originally posted by: comdw

Originally posted by: dtube

for WOL to work, the computers have to be on the same subnet.
There are free programs such as mc-wol.exe and fusion wol which are very easy to use.
Google for those.
mc-wol.exe is a command line util, you specify the MAC address of the other computer, it will send the magic packet and wake the machine up.
I've done this in the past with various network cards and it worked well.

Sorry, to clarify I do know how to use WOL I just can't get it to work with this motherboard. I am waking other PCs on the same subnet just fine using a command line utility that sends the magic packet.

Have you got WOL to work properly with your K8NGM2-FID?

I personally did not test it with the K8NGM2-FID and the computer has been taken apart.
When I finally put it together, I will test it out and will let you know. In my previous post, I did not imply in any ways that people do not know how to use WOL. If my message came across that way, please don't it that way.

 

[blimey]

Am I somehow overlooking the setting, or does the AMI BIOS for the FID motherboard not have an option to set numlock off at bootup?

 

[invaderrizz]

I love this thread. I've been watching it since about April, and it influenced my decision to buy a whole new rig and replace my aging Socket A system. Set up couldn't have been easier, even using the same harddrive, and this thread has answered a lot of my questions just by lurking, which is why I hadn't made an account until recently. renethx, all of you guys that post here, you're awesome. *bows*

Now, a question. I'm probably not going to be upgrading my video for a bit (I AM on a college budget), and sometimes the northbridge gets uncomfortably hot to the touch when I'm gaming or recording TV (especially when I'm doing both >.> ). Has anyone found a good cooler that fits the board and is relatively silent?

 

[BernardP]

Originally posted by: blimey
does the AMI BIOS for the FID motherboard not have an option to set numlock off at bootup?

What I would really need is a way to disable the useless but always-in-the-way CAPS LOCK key :thumbsdown:

 

[Basilisk]

Originally posted by: BernardPWhat I would really need is a way to disable the useless but always-in-the-way CAPS LOCK key :thumbsdown:

Pop the key off, liberally apply adhesive, re-attach cap.

 

[Mark9]

A couple pages back I listed a problem:
----------------------------------------
Two of my systems use K8NGM2-FID boards. One functions perfectly. The second board will not start on the first start, instead I get the "Reboot and select proper boot device, or insert proper media.... etc" message.

I have all bios settings set the same on each board. I've swapped C: drives - yet the second board will always fail to start on the first try. When I get the error message I'll do a Ctl-Alt-Del and the board always starts on the secong start.

There have been no other problems with the board. Both use the 3.5 bios along with 3800+ Athlons, 1gig matched memory sticks, all peripherals are identical. Memory timings are identical, etc...

Anyone with a suggestion??? Thanks for any help!!
--------------------------------------------------
The board in question was a replacement for the original board that wouldn't support two devices on the primary IDE channel. Rather than go through the hassle of doing an RMA - AGAIN, I donated the board to a neighbors boy and installed a Foxconn 6150K8MA-8EKRS. Basically the same board and it runs great. But then again, so does my first K8NGM2-FID that's performing well.

I've never used Foxconn boards before but I'm very impressed by this current one (ease of set up, all services work well, etc). If anyone is still trying to find a hard to get K8NGM2-FID, you might consider the Foxconn 6150K8MA-8EKRS as it's basically the same board. It does use the AC97 Audio chipset (8 channels) - BUT - when I replaced the MSI board with the Foxconn I couldn't tell any change in the audio quality. Incidently, the Foxconn board is still available at Newegg ($56.99 after rebate, $6.13 shipping).

 

[blimey]

Originally posted by: Mark9

I've never used Foxconn boards before but I'm very impressed by this current one (ease of set up, all services work well, etc). If anyone is still trying to find a hard to get K8NGM2-FID, you might consider the Foxconn 6150K8MA-8EKRS as it's basically the same board. It does use the AC97 Audio chipset (8 channels) - BUT - when I replaced the MSI board with the Foxconn I couldn't tell any change in the audio quality. Incidently, the Foxconn board is still available at Newegg ($56.99 after rebate, $6.13 shipping).

Apparently Foxconn has some new socket 939 6150 motherboards; the 6150K8MD-8EKRSH, and the 6150BK8MC-KRSHN2.

The 6150K8MD-8EKRSH seems even closer in feature set to the MSI K8NGM2-FID.

 

[Basilisk]

6150K8MD-8EKRSH is very interesting! Claims to drive DVI or VGA on the DVI interface: i.e., it has separate clocks for vGA and DVI ports [ref: user manual "Rear Panel Connectors" description]! Our FID only drives DVI on that port. Also, it has its PCI-e x1 slot between the x16 and the PCI's -- like most boards, and unlike the FID. Depending on your expected uses of PCI and -e cards, this may or may not make double-width video cards more acceptible.


6150BK8MC-KRSHN2 is a Business Platform certified, and ain't of interest to most folks.

Didn't see anything identifying the Realtek chips used.

 

[Mark9]

The Foxconn 6150K8MD-8EKRSH is listed as using a Realtek 5.1 channel audio (per Foxconn's site). You're right - it does have a DVI connector, something that I didn't need on the system that the board went into. Also, for me anyway, Newegg didn't stock this board - and I'm to the point where I trust few othewr suppliers. So I went with the 6150K8MA-8EKRS which was in stock.

I might add that I love having 4 SATA-II ports available (another nice attraction). I set WINDOWS up on this board using a Seagate SATA drive; and the install went perfectly, something that my first MSI board balked at for whatever reason.

 

[Aveli]

Could anyone help me with this problem?

I bought a 7300GT (zogis oc) from newegg and tried to put it in my dell E521(with 6150 on board video card). But it just gave me the blank screen except for the first time, there were some chars such as 7300GT... but those were distorted. And the LED of dell 521 showed that there was "possible graphic card problem".

I do not know whether this is due to the 305W or this video card is bad... I can not find another computer to test the video card so if anyone had experience on this, please help me.

Thanks a lot in advance.

 

[Turin39789]

Originally posted by: renethx
ABIT NF-M2 nView (Global site) or ABIT NF-M2 nView (USA site) looks good.

• Memory: DDR2 800/667/533 ECC and non-ECC, un-buffered memory, max 8GB
• Audio: ALC883 7.1 Ch. HD
• No onboard TV-out connector
• Back Panel: 1 x VGA and 1 x DVI. No parallel port. Instead it comes with 7.1 Ch. HD audio connectors and optical S/PDIF in and out.
• BIOS: Adjustable CPU External Clock, K8<->NB HT Speed, NB<->SB HT Speed, CPU Core Voltage, DDRII Voltage and Chipset Core Voltage
• Accessories: unknown
• AMD LIVE? ready

If you don't need analog TV-out (all newer TVs have DVI-in), the board may be ideal for HTPC.

Any idea when we should start seeing this show up in stores? I'm not building a HTPC, just a budget box for photoshop that doesnt need a nice video card. I'm looking for something that will be stable, am2, and has dvi for the monitor. I don't know how much overclocking I will end up doing but the option would be nice. I've had a lot of luck with abit in the past so I'm interested in this.

 

[renethx]

ABIT NF-M2 nView is on sale in UK (Univeral abit USA Forums). We may see it in US soon.