MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum

[imported_Supasniper]

I bought a K8N Neo4 Platinum last week but due to late shipping of my CPU I couldn't get my system built and running till monday. it's seems to run ok but every now and then i get random hard reboots while under normal operation immediately following which it refuses to even post and using the diagnostic LEDs on the PCI bracket I found it hangs on "BIOS Sign On". I am able to reboot after this and it then loads fine and continues to run till it occurs again (this was partially fixed by updating bios but some times peograms cause it to crash e.g exiting splinter cell or once firefox but when firefox caused it it also wiped my bokmarks too). But when i try to o/c even by as little at 1mhz it crashes and again doesn't even post but this time even rebooting doesnt help i have to reset bios (damn that little button is so much easier than messing about with jumpers) i'm wondering if anyone has had this problem or knows what i should do, just RMA it and swap for another of the same or a totally different board? or find a fix

Full Sys Specs:
K8N Neo4 Platinum
A64 Winchester 3200 hsf- Gigabyte 3d-cooler Ultra
OCZ Premier DDR400 CL 2.5-3-3-7 (2x512mb)
Sapphire X800 XL (PCI-E)
Creative Audigy 2
Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 160GB (SATA)
Western Digital Cavier SE 80Gb (IDE)
Antec SL450PGB 450W ATX P4 Smartpower
and i'm running XP Pro SP1


any help on the issue will be greatly appriciated

 

[Pr0d1gy]

OK, I had some self-created problems with my Neo4 SLI mobo when I put my PC together. The first problem i had is it would hang on the BIOS boot screen like yours is doing. I had to remove the mobo & cardboard bench it to find out the problem was a short that I was missing when i checked it out. Also, I could not overclock mine for anything once I figured out the short problem. I found that i had the RAM in the wrong slots. Also, you may have your hard drive in the wrong SATA port. Put your RAM in the 2 slots closest to the CPU & then plug your SATA into port 4. This cured my OCing ailments.

Also, I suggest you give the MSI HQ forums a looksy as well, because they have a few guys over there who are very helpful & willing to offer advice 7 experience to help you out.

 

[FastEddie]

First, you should really install SP2, which should put you on the same page in troubleshooting any os related problems.

Second, Antec makes decent power supplies, but 20a on the 12v rail is rather light when it comes to how MSI implements power on most of their A64 based boards. This fact was observed in the Neo 2 Platinum and I can't see it becoming any less of an issue with the Neo 4 Platinum. A good benchline with the Neo 2 was 24a on the 12v rail, and I would recommend the same for the Neo 4.

Do you have the vdimm set manually for your memory? When set to AUTO, the board will set the memory vdimm to 2.5v, which isn't enough for any of the performance modules.

Darn kleborg.

 

[imported_Supasniper]

thanks for thr replys guys,

@Pr0d1gy: i already had my RAM in the 2 slots nearest the CPU to enable dual channel, i tried putting the SATA drive in port 4 so i'll see what happens

@FastEddie: a couple friends have had bad experiences with SP2 so i'm steering clear plus i've heard about a lot of compatability issues with some software i run (e.g. 3d studio max and others) i did think the PSU might be an issue so i'll probably upgrade it when i can next afford it. Also i've looked about in BIOS but cant see an option for vdimm, is it under a different name?

 

[FastEddie]

Look in Cell Menu, the memory voltage adjustment is there. And being set to AUTO, like you currently have it, could be the root of your problem.

 

[imported_Supasniper]

i've put it to 2.55 and this seems to have fixed the general stability issues, thanks mate

 

[FastEddie]

The default vdimm for your memory is 2.6v, so I would set the voltage to at least 2.6v and have found that 2.65v works better for OCZ Premier series modules.

Edit: And there is nothing wrong with SP2 when coupled with the NF4 chipset. Some don't like the built in firewall that comes with SP2, but it can be disabled if you find that it's not to your liking.

 

[case]

:disgust: I have had lots of problems with the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum and i wholeheartedly suggest you go elsewhere. my biggest problem is random reboots about every 4 days for reasons that have eluded me for more than 3 months. all the parts listed in my sig below are new and i have updated the drivers to everything and the bios to the latest 1.5 version, and still no go. when it restarts it no longer can 'see' the ide drives (CD-RW, DVDR, PATA hard drive), and will only come back to life if i hard reboot. my working theory here is that something blows up, causes the reboot, and upon reboot the bios doesn't reload into RAM as the bios sees the corrupted one that's there and thinks it doesn't need to reload. another symptom is that occasionally i'll hear a click from the box (like a small solenoid), and the machine freezes for a few seconds and then works fine. it has only crashed twice in my presense, so i have an annoying lack of data on the problem, but from all the work i've done i can tell you it just shouldn't be happening. my other 3 machines all work great and are stable.

problem two is that it restarts itself after i power it down... i don't get this one at all.

the MSI 6600gt i have (which i bought from the same mfg as my mobo to hopefully insure compatiblity) ships with drivers that if combined with directX 9.0c and the game XIII (which is bundeled with the card) actually crashes to the desktop if you try to play it... this one blew me away... the software that the firm ships with its own card crashes. nice testing there i'd say. these are my three major issues.

problems that i've read of but not experienced: is that the nvidia ethernet port is reported to be quite buggy as if that isn't enough the the nvidia firewall is full of system bugs as well. consequently i have the nvidia enet port disabled in the bios and use the marvell enet port.

i have overclocked nothing and run everything at its stock speeds and specs. i have no interest in oc'ing. i place too high a premium on reliability.

in short, i hate this mobo, and my sence is that it's a bios or nvidia chipset driver problem, but i don't have a firm answer as to what's wrong. all i know is i went to a lot of trouble to buy higher end stuff to insure reliability, and all i've got is a headache.