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Anyone using K8N Neo 2 & Ballastix memory???

C

clentz

Junior Member
I'm building a new system and I am having random shut down's that seem to be related to memory timings. It has shut down at any place along from POST to Windows Update in all fresh installs. When I change around the timings and change the config of the sticks in the system, the time it takes to shut down (crash) varies. I have been troubleshooting this all day, but I don't have access to any replacement parts to pinpoint the exact problem.

My system:
AMD FX-55
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum with 1.4 bios
Crucial Ballastix PC3200 (4 sticks of 512MB)
WD 74GB Raptors (2X in Raid 0)
BFG 6800 Ultra OC 256MB
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Gamer
Thermaltake PurePower 560W
NEC 3500A
Lian Li PC-V1100B
Dell UltraSharp 2001FP


I'd like to have a happy new year, but these crashes are putting a major strain on that. If anyone else has an FX cpu. Neo2 mb, and Ballistix ram, AND has it running stable, PLEASE post your BIOS DRAM settings. Or, tell me what I might be doing wrong.

Thank you and Happy New Year

Charles



 
cmp1223,
Thank you for the site. I learned a lot, but unforunately, it was more the K8N Neo, and not Neo2. There were a few Neo2's but none running with Ballistix and Neo2.

Any other sites that could point me in the right direction.
 
Have you tried just putting in 2 sticks instead of all 4? Maybe the chipset just doesn't like 4 sticks.
 
Opps, thought that was the Neo2. You could post there if you can't find an answer here. Anyway, I'll tell you the same thing thing i posted yesterday...Over at the MSI Forums, it is HIGHLY suggested that you have over 25 amps on the 12v rail for the MSI to work well, especially if your going to pair it with a high end vid card that needs an extra molex like yours. Now, many people have had stable systems with less amps, but i would definately test it with a very good PSU. I searched your PSU and it has 22A (looks like they loaded up your 5v and 3.3v rails to get that wattage 🙁 ), which should be sufficient but you never know, this mobo is infamous for being a power hog. I'm no computer expert, but that would be my first guess, a new PSU, especially since you get it to post and load Windows, and it fails at different points. Also, i would NOT look for people with specifically your CPU, its more of a memory/mobo problem than a memory/CPU problem. Here is what i would do:

IF you can get it to run Windows stable or find a computer that CAN run your memory, run a memory test like Prime95 (i believe) and if it fails, then you know it is bad memory (no matter what the mobo)

Find a PSU with alot of amps on all the rails, then you can rule that out. Also monitor the votage of your crrent PSU from the BIOS. It could be a faulty PSU if it is fluctuating too much.

Since you dont have any test parts, maybe find a reputable computer shop. One near me offers a diagnogstic for $40, and will tell what, if any components are bad. Just make sure they are good before you give them that beast of a machine 🙂 and make sure they worked with AMD before, because they probably are used to HP, Gateway, Dell.

Baked is right, try t boot it with two sticks. FYI, 3 sticks is NOT supported on this mobo. Also, I have never used RAID, but it does require a seperate setup and i guess that could open up whole new problems. Maybe try just one HD, no RAID?

Whew, that took longer than expected.
 
Thank you CMP1223 for your suggestions. I was able to get a hold of 2 sticks of Corsair PC3500, CL2 ram. Having same exact problems. I'm thinking the cause of the problems... Power Supply can not supply enough amps at 12V, or the motherboard has some faults accociated with it. I would hate to think this is CPU related. The last thought I have come accross is the power source comming from the wall. I have been in a hospital room building this system, and could the problems all be steaming from inconsistant power from the AC outlet. Maybe every time an MRI turns on, I get a spike, or something like that. I was home for Christmas and was able to install Windows SP2 with no hick-ups. But since then, I've been back in here and I have added the Audigy, 2nd hard drive, and additional 1GB of ballistix memory, and am now having these problems.

Thanks again for your help.
 
But since then, I've been back in here and I have added the Audigy, 2nd hard drive , and additional 1GB of ballistix memory, and am now having these problems.
Click to expand...

Might be easier to diagnose if you don't change so many things at one time. Go back to the hardware where it worked.... verify... then add ONE piece or feature at a time and see what really borks it up.

-Sid
 
Yes, hopefully someone with better knowledge than me can chime in if this sounds like the common problems for a faulty PSU, CPU, or whatever. Its probably not the hospital power, it could be, but i wouldn't want someone's resperator to skip a breathe when the MRI clicks on! You'll probably have to wait until you get home to rule that out though.
 
OK, here?s what I've learned today, after many hours of troubleshooting and web research...

A lot of Neo2 users seems to be having similar if not the exact same stability issues as me, and all with different CPU, memory, and P/S combinations. I wasn't too happy nor enthusiastic to read that. I still pressed on...

I first took out everything that was added (2 sticks ram, HD, and Audigy) to try to duplicate the so-called working setup I had on Christmas day. I even disconnected the floppy, in case it was power related. Windows installed fine. So far, so good. I then installed the nVidia motherboard drivers. Still good. I then installed the realtek lan driver. CRASH! I turned the computer back on, Corrupted windows file, couldn?t boot any further? DOH. I decided to start over with a fresh windows install, but this time I tried the other hard drive. After formatting... coping Windows files... CRASH!

Very frustrated at this point. I then had the idea to try the hard drive on SATA3, instead of SATA1, like all the others times before. Windows installed. Great, Installed mobo drivers, but decided against installing the nVidia IDE SW drivers. I figured that might have caused the corrupted windows file. Installed the LAN driver, good, rebooted. Everything is working great. At this point, I'm waiting for a crash, expecting a crash, but nothing. Installed latest nVidia graphics driver. I then installed DOOM3, figuring, that'll crash her. Nope. Doom installed and ran at 1600 x 1200, all maxed out, 4XAA, for a few minutes, got a BSOD and rebooted. It rebooted, not shut down. I figured it?s got be better than before.

After the reboot, I decided to shut down and install the Audigy. Turned her back on and installed the drivers. Still no crash. Shut her down, installed the last 2 sticks of ram. Booted up, My computer reads: FX-55 2.61Ghz, 2GB Ram. Downloaded prime95, has been running stable for almost an hour. Good news? I'm still thinking it'll shut down any second. But I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed in hopes that prime95 runs all night without any crashes. If that works, I still have to get it working with both drives in a Raid 0 array. I'm thinking that I'll use SATA channels 3 & 4. I hope that solves all the problems. I'll let you all know tomorrow how the battle goes.

I still have to reinstall the floppy.

Happy 1st day of the year.

Charles
 
As soon as i read you istalled the NVidia chipset drivers i said to myself "i hope he didn't install the SW IDE drivers" DONT! Many have had problems, although not as bad as you. nVidia was stupid to put those on there. Little performance gain, alot of problems. And they are BETA, like the install pop up says. Never install them.
 
7am, the machine is working very good. It shut down once last during prime95 around midnight, rebooted and she been prime95 stable for the past 7 hours.

I'll give it another few hours more of torture test, then maybe I'll try some other benchmarking programs, 3Dmark01SE, 3Dmark03, and some other test, mem related and if she can survive all that without crashing through, then maybe, just maybe, I attach the second HD and RAID 0, and floppy.

Thanks you guys for your continued support and knowledge.

Charles
 
I noticed your post, so I figured I'd register.

Sys specs:
AMD 3500+ Winchester @ 2.5GHz (10x250)
Ballistix PC4000 2x512 2.5-2-2-10 1T
2x 74Gig SATA Raptor RAID 0
2x 250Gig PATA Caviar RAID 0
2x Plextor 712a
BFG 6800GT OC @ 390 1.12
SB Audigy ZS
Antec True Power 550

in a LianLi PC70

I was having the exact same problem.

I had this 6800GT in an A7N8XE Deluxe (AXP @ 2.3GHz) hard flashed to 420 1.18 before the upgrade. No problems.

But in this board, it would freeze for a few seconds at a time (w/o crashing) while running any 3D (No artifacting at all) I figured whatever, I'll re-flash it later.

Then the random periodic rebooting started. I thought it was the PS, so I hooked up two more 200Gig drives, and a 120 watt pelt (between two sinks, to put a load on the PS) for 3 hours. No problem at all.

Changed SATA ports, RAM timings, slots, used one stick, even underclocked the RAM and CPU. Still a periodic reboot.

Well I finally put the video card at 350 1.0. No problems. I've inched it back up to where it is now. I run Prime95 24/7 (never had any Prime errors in the first place), and I've had no reboots for over a week now.

My only conclusion is that this MB has a weak AGP port. I originally thought the A64 was pushing it much harder, but that wouldn't make it reboot in 2D mode.

The BFG card is overclocked by default. I would try stock ultra speeds, and see if that is the problem.

I am normally a hardcore ASUS fan, but they didn't make an NF3 939 board.

This isn't a bad board, but I'm used to my rock solid ASUS boards. Anyway, I will most definitely be going back to ASUS when I do my next upgrade. I seemingly forgot after ~10 years, why I don't bother with any other brands.
 
Yeah, my last 4 motherboards were ASUS's and the two before that were the old Abit BH6's. Remember how hot those were, I don't even remember why now. I have been, at least up to this last motherboard, a pretty solid ASUS user, and recommender. On this MSI, I?ve been swapping memory sticks around, trying different combos, single, 2, 4, no luck. I tried each hard drive by itself, still crashes during winxp install. I haven't even touched the AGP card, haven't even removed it. The only one thing that I have done that seems to be my savior, is to put a single SATA on SATA3. It has been running all day today SOLID. Prime95 in the background 3Dmark03 Demo Looped. SOLID No shut downs, no re-boots, no prime 95 errors.

So, my hypothesis is that SATA1 and maybe SATA2 are some how not working correctly on this motherboard. Reading over at the MSI forums, people were having all sorts of different problems with the exact same motherboard. You seem to have narrowed it down to a faulty AGP port, me, seems like a faulty SATA jack.

I may be able to further my hypothesis by attaching the now working hard drive to SATA1 and see it the crashes re-appear. And if they do, find out which SATA ports do, and which SATA ports don't crash. Then and only then will I be able to set up my Raid 0 array, starting with a fresh WinXPSP2 install, hopefully without having to buy any new parts.

Through all of my hypotheses, I have only one conclusion: I should have stayed with what I know works, ASUS
"I live for this shit" ... I really do love solving computer problems.

Until tomorrow... happy New Year.
Charles



 
If you aren't using all the SATA ports, you should probably use 3&4. They are the ones towards the rear of the board. 1&2 aren't locked at 33MHz. I also disabled 1&2 in the BIOS. I know you said you aren't overclocking, but it's worth a shot.

I also had to disable "aggressive timing" on the RAM in the BIOS. Again, I did this for overclocking, but it made the system much more stable in general, even at stock speeds.

Spontaneous reboots are often a PSU problem. This board has been known to require a strong PSU. I also don't know much about the Thermal take PurePower 560W. I haven't heard much good about TT PSU's in general though. Maybe someone here with experience with one can give you some advice.

Lastly, I would re-seat all your add in cards. That seems to have helped some ppl having the same problem with this board. That's all I can think of off the top of my head for rite now.

I will probably relegate this board and CPU to a Prime crunching drone within 6 months, and get an ASUS NF4 board after it's been out a while. As long as this board can run Prime 24/7 without having to be babied, it will serve it's purpose there.

EDIT: The Ballistix are rated for 2.8 volts, not the defult 2.6 volts. Make sure you set it to 2.8 in the BIOS.
 
Hello Clentz,

Happy new year to you too. I hope you can find your problem, but if you can't you could always send it to your uncle. He is a known computer wiz. 🙂
It may just be a simple video card driver. I would use the stock nvidia driver and see if it ever crashes.
 
I've thought of that. I'll look more into that today, and maybe a video card bios upgrade. The best and longest I've had it running stable, I was using omega drivers. After I added 2nd hard drive, reformatted and reinstalled WinXPSP2, I used the latest nForce drivers from nVidia. That?s when crashes started again. I will be troubleshooting it a little more today. But what makes me think that it is not a driver problem vs. a hardware problem is that this POS will be crashing even before I make it through windows format, let alone windows install or any video drivers install. I will be getting my hands on an old ATI 9700 Pro. I'll see if that fixes any problems. I?ve tried every different combination that I can think of, and I still can?t pinpoint where the fault lies. This is the most troubleshooting I?ve ever done to get a new system up and running. I love it, but I hate it at the same time.

I still think that a motherboard swap with an ASUS A8V Deluxe would solve my problems... ASUS has almost always been reliable to me.

Charles
 
And if you think there is any chance it is PSU related, get a PC Power and Cooling 510. The best there is.
 
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