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

[Roca05]

I reinstalled the cpu with arctic silver 5 and I'm getting exactly the same temperatures!. On thing I noticed though was that the vcore fluctuated from 1.36 to 1.37. I don't know if this is affecting my temps that much but I thought I should let you guys know. Does anyone know if it is possible to lower the vcore?

BTW-does anyone have an Opty with temps in the mid-high forties at idle?

 

[DjPiLL]

Hey there. I have the K8nGM2-FID motherboard. I have an Athlon 4200+ CPU.

Can someone post their recommended overclocking settings for this? I was thinking about upgrading the CPU on this to either a 180 or FX-60. But if I can just overclock my current setup somewhat... that would be ideal.

I want to run a Blu-Ray drive off this PC and I will need all the processing power I can get.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Roca05]

Hi I already returned my opteron 180 cpu for another opteron 180 and it is working great. But now that thats done I would like to upgrade my ram. I'm running BIOS v3.5 and according to MSI's website I can buy ram rated for voltage of 2.5. My question is: can I buy ram that is rated for higher voltage? is there a way to tweak the ram voltage on my version of BIOS??? Or do I have to buy ram that works on 2.5 volts?

 

[renethx]

DDR Voltage is adjustable in BIOS, from 2.50V to 2.90V.

 

[renethx]

______________________________________________________
Playing Back Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD Movies with GeForce 6150!
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

I would like to explain a method of playing back BD / HD DVD movies with the onboard video and Athlon 64 X2, say, 2.3GHz. The result is very good in particular for H.264 movies (no stuttering at all even for very high bitrate movies like 50Mbps). You may see some frame drops for VC-1 however.

What you need

First the OS can be Windows 2000 (!), XP or Vista. The display device need not to be HDCP-compliant.

You have to buy:

- BD and/or HD DVD optical drive (e.g. LG GGC-H20L combo drive, ~$300; it's still pricey!)
- SlySoft AnyDVD HD, ~$95 (another pricey software; if you are going to rip BD/HD DVD in HDD or want to avoid the HDCP requirement, this is an indispensable tool, however)
- CoreAVC Professional Edition, ~$15 (you can use Cyberlink H.264 decoder instead which comes free with the LG combo drive; but CoreAVC is way better for a slow processor, resulting in 20-30% lower CPU usage)

You need the following software (free):

- Media Player Classic. The latest verson 6.4.9.1. Another latest version Home Cinema
- ffdshow
- Haali Media Splitter
- Or all three above are included in CCCP
- MicroSoft Windows Media Player 11 (required to decode VC-1; you don't need to download it if you use Vista)
- Sonic CinePlayer HD DVD Decoder Pack v.4.3.0

Configuring Software

I closely follow the instruction by sarah99 in AVS Forum. I will explain using CCCP (it is already optimized for H.264 decoding). After you intalled all the software, start Media Player Classic. In View menu > Options > External Filters, add the following filters by clicking the "Add Filter" button:

- Haali Media Splitter (AR) - Set Merit 00900000, then Prefer
- ffdshow audio decoder - Set Merit 00700000
- CoreAVC Video Decoder - Set Merit 00900400
- Sonic Cinemaster Audio Decoder 4.3.0 - Set Merit 00805000
- ffdshow Video Decoder - Set Merit 00800000
- Sonic Cinemaster Video Decoder - Set Merit 00700000

In View menu > Options > Player > Format, add

- .m2ts (for BD)
- .evo (for HD DVD)

In View menu > Options > Playback > Output, choose

- Overlay Mixer

(If you choose VMR7/9, you will see lots of stuttering.)

Playing Back Movies

Insert the disc. AnyDVD HD runs in the background and automatically decrypts it in realtime. Start Media Player Classic. In File > Open File > Browse, select

- D:\BDMV\STREAM\00001.m2ts (or whatever .m2ts file) for BD
- D:\HVDVD_TS\FEATURE_1.EVO (or whatever .evo file) for HD DVD

where D is the drive letter of the optical drive. Click "OK".

BTW you can integrate Media Player Classic in a front end such as MediaPortal and create a BD / HD DVD movie library if you have enough storage space. You can use AnyDVD HD (and ImgBurn) to rip a disc in a decrypted format (either folders or ISO image).

Reference

- AVS Forum - HD-DVD & Blu-Ray playback in Media Centre Classic

 

[bigsnyder]

nice post, thanks!

 

[thestain]

Hi,

Changing memory voltage to over 2.6 is causing stability problems.. Renethx, have you ever come accross this?

For example.. with x2 3800 it will post up to 2500, but if I increase voltage to memory to over 2.6 it won't post at over 2300 and won't post at all if memory voltage set at 2.8 or over regardless of speed.. I am shooting for 2400 stable cpu speed, using fsb of 240 with memory set to 166, so about 200 memory speed. When I tried 2.7V's for memory voltage..it booted and then a few seconds later multiple beeps.. and shut it down. Passes memtest at 2480 at 2-3-2-7 @ 2.6V, Memory voltage issue has me worried.. it is a board I got back from rma. Also, slightly off topic, but.. I wanted to have the ultimate boot cd you have recommended to test my various computers. Is there any instructions on how to put an ultimate CD for Dummies out there? I have failed on my first couple attempts.

I tried a couple diffent cpus on this board, for some reason my Opty 185 ran about 10C hotter than the rest with identical heatsink.. I decided I better use in larger case. Is this normal that the X2 3800, Sandy 4000 and X2 4200 would all run about 10C cooler than the Opty 185? I have used the Corsair 520 W or 550W power supplies with other builds, but dropped down to a http://www.newegg.com/product/...x?item=N82E16817103030, Sparkle 350W for this build.

Mike

 

[renethx]

thestain

I usually use memory at default voltage but I haven't seen instability at higher voltage in my limited experience. Do you need to raise memory voltage? Even value DDR-400 SDRAM is able to run at 220MHz at default voltage.

What is exactly your problem with Ultimate Boot CD? I think it's almost straightfoward to use it.

Opteron 185 will run hotter than X2 3800+ obviously.

 

[DjPiLL]

Hey guys. I have a question.

I have a case fan and a cpu fan plugged in to the motherboard. I can view fan RPMs through the BIOS and with Speedfan.

I wanted to swap out my ATI 3870HD fan that was too noisy and not controllable. So I swapped it out with a Zalman VGA cooling fan. I plugged the Zalman into the PS FAN port on the motherboard.

The Zalman is running on the VGA card but I cannot see or control fan RPMs for this third fan in my BIOS or through Speedfan.

Any way to enable this fan on my MB so I can control it (and in this case turn it down). I only want to run it at 50% if possible. I would rather not have to hard wire it for 5v if I don't have to. Thanks in advance.

 

[thestain]

Thanks Renethx!

I am thinking I have separate problem. I also had hard drive issues

Both Changes to voltage on memory or any change to bios after initial set up and problems. This is board I got back from MSI RMA with Bios 3.7 loaded.

I had running ok.. four or five boot ups and changed speed of processor by a fraction and hard drive port #2 vanished from bootable drives. Same had happened when i tweaked voltage.. so.. would flashing to bios 3.5 help? After I make changes to BIOS, when I hit delete.. it does not take me directly to bios, but report diagnostic screen comes up and 3rd Master Hard Drive Error is reported. When I go into BIOS after this, any hard drive on Sata port 2 while visible in Standard Bios vanishes from bootable drives, as well as from Gparted and other applications.

Could this be a corrupted Bios? I will flash to 3.5 and see what happens.

Mike

 

[renethx]

Originally posted by: DjPiLL
Hey guys. I have a question.

I have a case fan and a cpu fan plugged in to the motherboard. I can view fan RPMs through the BIOS and with Speedfan.

I wanted to swap out my ATI 3870HD fan that was too noisy and not controllable. So I swapped it out with a Zalman VGA cooling fan. I plugged the Zalman into the PS FAN port on the motherboard.

The Zalman is running on the VGA card but I cannot see or control fan RPMs for this third fan in my BIOS or through Speedfan.

Any way to enable this fan on my MB so I can control it (and in this case turn it down). I only want to run it at 50% if possible. I would rather not have to hard wire it for 5v if I don't have to. Thanks in advance.

What is "PS FAN"? There are only three fan headers: CPUFAN, SYSFAN, and NBFAN. You can control only CPUFAN and can only see RPM of the others.

Can't you control HD 3870 fan using a utility like RivaTuner?

 

[renethx]

thestain

Not sure. Flashing could fix the problem. Or the mb is defective.

 

[thestain]

Renethx,

I tried flashing back to the 3.5 BIOS, but it still was reported as the 3.73 build date September 2006. I tested hard drives with WD diagnostic tools and no problems with connectors or drives on extended test. I ran memory test at fsb of 242 and it stuck there... had to turn off and on and keep making changes a couple times before it unfroze to lower speed of fsb 234. I replaced the X2 3800 with an Athlon 64 4000 San Diego and put a my hdtv card in it that works best with single core.. I just flashed to originally received from rma bios of 3.73 hoping that maybe this would work best. I noticed that option to power on from usb drive that was at top of section when I got board is no longer there.. but so far so good... appears more stable and will load windows again tommorrow, hopefully no problems.

Thanks for all your help!

Mike

 

[h0mi]

I have some memory I cannot get to work in either the asus or MSI versions of this board (msi k8ngm2-fid and asus a8n-vm csm.) The memory I have is Corsair valueselect vs2gbkit400c3 and it's 2 1gb modules. I cannot get either motherboard to post with 1 or both dimms installed. I RMA'ed the ram to corsair and received new ones last week but the new dimms do not work. Anyone have any suggestions

 

[bigsnyder]

Not sure, I just upgraded to a G.Skill 2x1GB CAS2.5 DDR400 kit. Worked without a
hitch.

 

[Ivan05]

Originally posted by: h0mi
I have some memory I cannot get to work in either the asus or MSI versions of this board (msi k8ngm2-fid and asus a8n-vm csm.) The memory I have is Corsair valueselect vs2gbkit400c3 and it's 2 1gb modules. I cannot get either motherboard to post with 1 or both dimms installed. I RMA'ed the ram to corsair and received new ones last week but the new dimms do not work. Anyone have any suggestions

What slot(s) are you putting the sticks into?

 

[h0mi]

On the asus board, the memory is in the first 2 slots from the left. On the MSI board, it's in the 2nd and 4th slots. On the MSI board, I also have 2 other dimms (PQI memory I think... dont remember the model # at this moment) on the mb, and I have not tried to run this system with just this corair ram. My goal was to have a 4 gig system but so far no dice. If I can't do that, I'd at least like to get it to work in my Asus system. Again, no dice there.

I've tried just 1 dimm in the Asus board and still, it wont post.

 

[Tikker]

seems to me that the MSI board needs to have ram in the 1st slot to POST

 

[Roca05]

Hi, I have a quick question:

Has anyone been able to put an 8800GT in their MSI K8NGM2-FID motherboard? I want to buy one but I'm not sure it is compatible as MSI tech support says the PCI-E port on the motherboard is 1.0, and I read in wikipedia that it had to be 1.1 in order to work. Is this true?

Here is what was said in wikipedia:
Shortly after the release, an incompatibility issue with older PCI Express 1.0a motherboards was unmasked. When using the PCI Express 2.0 compliant 8800GT in motherboards with PCI Express 1.0a slots, the card would not produce any display image, but the computer would often boot (with the fan spinning at a constant 100%). Some mainboard (Motherboard) chipsets had a workaround, which was to re-flash the graphics card's bios with an older GEN1 BIOS (which effectively made it into a PCI Express 1.0 card, not being able to utilize the PCIE 2.0 functions. but since the card itself could not even utilize the full capacity of the regular PCIE 1.0 slots, there was no noticeable performance reduction). A workaround to this is to flash the BIOS of the motherboard to the latest version. The flashing of the BIOS, however, voided the warranties of most cards thus making it a less-than-optimum way of getting the card to work properly. In relation to this compatibility issue, the high numbers of DOA (Dead On Arrival - cards that are broken out of the box) (As much as 13-15%) were believed to be inaccurate. When it was revealed that the G92 8800GT and 8800GTS 512Mb were going to be designed with PCI Express 2.0 connections, NVIDIA claimed that all cards would have full Backwards-Compatibility, but they completely failed to mention that this was only true for PCI Express 1.1 motherboards. The source for the BIOS-flash did not come from NVIDIA or any of their partners, but rather ASRock, a mainboard producer, who mentioned the fix in one of their motherboard FAQ's. ASUSTek, which produces their own versions of the 8800GT, posted a newer version of their 8800GT BIOS on their website, but did not mention that it fixed this issue. As of the date of this article (Dec 26 2007) there has not been any official word on this issue from either NVIDIA or any of their partners.

So what do you guys think? Am I good to go on an 8800GT? Or would an older card like an old 8800GTS be the best card I will be able to get?

 

[bigsnyder]

What about a Radeon HD3870? I realize it is not quite a 8800GT, but it is close.
I have not heard any problems with these boards at least from my research.

 

[blimey]

Has anyone had any trouble with Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA drives installed in the K8NGM2-FID? I bought one from newegg, and it appeared to work ok - although it was much noisier than the Samsung 500GB SATA drive that was already installed.

Over the coming days, my computer started locking up (screen freeze & mouse freeze) a couple of times per day. It didn't matter if I booted to XP or Vista, the lockups would still happen. It didn't occur to me straight away that it could be the new drive, but eventually I removed the drive and days went by without any lockups. I installed another Samsung using the same cable and SATA port, and the system remained fine.

So, I sent the drive back to newegg for an exchange. The new one causes the same problem. Lockups everyday.

I read through the reviews on newegg, and there may be a couple of similar reports. One of them mentions new SATA motherboard drivers. Anyway, I'm going to get another Samsung drive - but I'm still wondering what the issue is...

 

[BernardP]

Originally posted by: Roca05
Has anyone been able to put an 8800GT in their MSI K8NGM2-FID motherboard? I want to buy one but I'm not sure it is compatible as MSI tech support says the PCI-E port on the motherboard is 1.0, and I read in wikipedia that it had to be 1.1 in order to work. Is this true?

This sounds like bad news to me. I was planning to get a new GeForce 9500GT with PCI-E 2.0 when it is released in June. Where are you getting the info that the PCI-E slot on the K8NGM2-FID is only 1.0 and not 1.1? Only from tech support? I have looked in the manual and this information it not listed. I would certainly like to see this in some official document.

If it is positively confirmed that the PCI-E slot on our board is 1.0, then I will have to get a 8600GT (PCI-E 1.1) while they are still available.

EDIT: After a web search that was full of twists and turns, I managed to find this review of the K8NGM2-FID on the HarwareZone.com web site. And lo and behold, in the Specifications section, the exact PCI-E compatibility is listed:

1x PCIe x16 slot, PCI Express Bus specification v1.0a compliant

I guess this means I am in the market for a 8600GT

 

[ra990]

I have an 8800GTS 512 (G92) in mine...lol.

Works fine by the way, so I'm sure the GT won't have issues either...just make sure your power supply is at least 400watts.

 

[Roca05]

Originally posted by: ra990
I have an 8800GTS 512 (G92) in mine...lol.

Works fine by the way, so I'm sure the GT won't have issues either...just make sure your power supply is at least 400watts.

awesomeness! this is exactly what I was looking for, somebody that has or had put an 8800GT or GTS in their system. Its also good to know that the 8800GTS fits as well. I just have one question though...what brand was the 8800GTS you put in your system?

 

[renethx]

GeForce 9800 GT ($229~279) will be released on April 3rd. Basically it is identical with 8800 GT, but it supports 3-way SLI and perhaps HybridPower. I think HybridPower is worth considering if you are upgrading your motherboard in future (like GeForce 8200 mGPU mb), that turns off dGPU when 3D performance is not needed thus reducing power consumption.