FSB wall on Neo2-FR, memory limitation or ???

[Gillbot]

System setup:
MSI Neo2-FR Motherboard rev 1.0, v1.6 Bios
Cooler Master Vortex TX Cooler (27c idle, 47c loaded temps)
E6550 CPU
Xclio 450BL PSU
2x1GB OCZ Platinum PC2-6400 Ram


My best max OC so far has been 2800Mhz @ 400fsb. It's 100% stable no matter what I throw at it so no real complaints there.
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/251/babyoc2pw9.jpg

My question is, no matter what I try to go higher, it will not boot AT ALL. It won't even ty to load windows. I'm wondering if it's the mobo or maybe the ram holding me back. No matter what tricks I try to isolate the issue, it will not go past 400fsb! Everything runs at stock volts and bumping voltage on any or all helps none. I've relaxed the timings on the ram, lowered the multi on the CPU, nothing.

I tried setting the bootstrap via jumper to 200mhz down from 333 and 266 and it helped none. I tried 433fsb x 6 and it refuses to post. Anything between 400 and 433 it sometimes posts but won't boot into OS. It seems something has a 400 ceiling and I can't figure out what it is. I don't have many divider options for ram on this mobo so i'm not sure where to go next. No matter what tweaks I try, it seems that it refuses to go 1 tick over 400fsb.

 

[Fayd]

i have that board, and i cant get it even to go 300 :/

maybe i need to up the FSB.

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: Fayd
i have that board, and i cant get it even to go 300 :/

maybe i need to up the FSB.

I had no problem once i updated the bios. At first it wouldn't go over 333 but after upgrading from 1.0 to 1.6 bios, it went to 400 with east. Now it just refuses to go any further no matter what tweaks i try.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Note that many E21x0 and E4xx0 chips will top out around 425MHz FSB. Use 1:1 memory divider and drop timing to 5-5-5-15-2T.

 

[PremiumG]

sorry to do a side topic but Gillbot, I was looking into getting that mobo. Can you adjust memory voltage in the BIOS?

i have OCZ memory that takes 2.0 voltage to bootup and the website says that mobo only uses 1.8v memory.

 

[Fayd]

yeah, you can adjust voltage manually.

it auto-detected my corsair as high voltage memory, and upped it automatically to 1.9.

btw, the mobo has the options for some insane levels of voltage. like up to 3 volts, i think, for the memory. like 2 volts vcore. it's wierd.

i screwwed up when i says "maybe i need to up the fsb", i meant fsb voltage.



do i need to up the fsb voltage or the northbridge voltage? i thought they were the same thing, but on this board apparently they're different.

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
Note that many E21x0 and E4xx0 chips will top out around 425MHz FSB. Use 1:1 memory divider and drop timing to 5-5-5-15-2T.

i'm using a E6550 as stated in the OP.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Crank up Vcore to 1.46. May need to bump up NB with POS OCZ RAMs. If RAMs passed memtest86, then the chip may be at fault.

If you need to pump +1.4Vcore to hit 3.2GHz, then you may have a bum chip. I could cruise all day with my E6320 @ 488MHz and IP35-E. The IP35 is a better buy @ 95 AR (MWAVE).

 

[Gillbot]

no matter what voltage tweaks I try, it yields zero results. it seems as though 400 is a wall but I can't figure what is hitting the wall.

 

[Gillbot]

I pulled the heatpipe and reseated it with Ceramique TIM, hopefully that will yield better heat transfer than the goop they used.

 

[Gillbot]

After some more playing, it MAY be the ram after all.

I set it back to 333fsb and set the ram divider so the ram would run at 833 and it refuses to post. Either my ram is crapping out at exactly 800 or something else is fishy.

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: Gillbot
After some more playing, it MAY be the ram after all.

I set it back to 333fsb and set the ram divider so the ram would run at 833 and it refuses to post. Either my ram is crapping out at exactly 800 or something else is fishy.

It was the ram. Tossed in my brothers Ballistix and it fired right up on 500 fsb.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: Gillbot

Originally posted by: Gillbot
After some more playing, it MAY be the ram after all.

I set it back to 333fsb and set the ram divider so the ram would run at 833 and it refuses to post. Either my ram is crapping out at exactly 800 or something else is fishy.

It was the ram. Tossed in my brothers Ballistix and it fired right up on 500 fsb.

POS OCZ RAM! All flash and zero substance.

 

[PremiumG]

Gillbot,

I have OCZ RAM and this same motherboard. Even with the right RAM dividers, the RAM was holding your system back??

Also, I see on newegg a lot of people bricked their board with the BIOS update. Did you use the software or a bootup floppy? Did you come across any issues at all??

 

[Jester666]

500 fsb, that's nice. I think I'll look at this mobo for my next build.

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: PremiumG
Gillbot,

I have OCZ RAM and this same motherboard. Even with the right RAM dividers, the RAM was holding your system back??

Also, I see on newegg a lot of people bricked their board with the BIOS update. Did you use the software or a bootup floppy? Did you come across any issues at all??

I used the online update system, it worked fine. AFTER I did it, I saw all the warnings from users advising against it. Oops.

The lowest divider is 1:1 so anything over 400fsb and you'll be OCing the ram. On mine, it ran absolutely fine up to 400fsb. When I tried 401 the system wouldn't even post no matter what mem settings i tried.

Now I got it running at 429fsb stable in my mobo but I can't get much more than that. With my bro's ballistix, it fired right up no issues at all at 500fsb so it HAS to be the ram. Granted, I didn't do much stability testing but the ability to get past the POST and completely into windows @ 500fsb was a major milestone.

 

[Gillbot]

I got a set of Buffalo Firestix thanks to Karaktu so we'll see this mobo and chip stretch their legs soon.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

KeaBorg's E6550 was able to hit 525MHz FSB with Abit IP35-E. My E6320 tops out at 490MHz.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...AR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
KeaBorg's E6550 was able to hit 525MHz FSB with Abit IP35-E. My E6320 tops out at 490MHz.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...AR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

I know what his topped out at, he tells me daily.

BTW, KeaBorg is my brother. Sadly, the mods won't ban him as a favor to me.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

He's got a gem chip. Very few will break 500MHz. You should steal his chip for testing. I have a bunch of +580MHz FSB DDR2 800 Kingston valueram modules for loaner if you guys are local to S Cal. We'll see if his chip can honestly POST and run Orthos @ 550.

 

[Gillbot]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
He's got a gem chip. Very few will break 500MHz. You should steal his chip for testing. I have a bunch of +580MHz FSB DDR2 800 Kingston valueram modules for loaner if you guys are local to S Cal. We'll see if his chip can honestly POST and run Orthos @ 550.

Mine has already hit 500 as well using his ram.

http://img243.imageshack.us/im...3779/gbt3500mhzqs1.jpg

Fired right up @ 500fsb as soon as I put his ram in. It wasn't 100% stable because I didn't do any tweaking so the voltage was fairly low, like 1.3875-1.4 or so maybe, we just wanted to see if it would even POST at anything above what the OCZ would do. We just decided to go all out and try 500 right off the bat and to our suprise it went right into windows. It ran OK through superpi but about 30 minutes or so into orthos it crapped out. I'm sure with some voltage and ram tweaking it would have been fine.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

30 min Orthos is fine. That's a 500MHz board. Without the $20 Abit IP35-E rebate, this board may take the crown for value and performance. There's really no need to push the FSB north of 480 to 500MHz. Course this may change with low-multi 45nm quads. Intel is going to play hard ball without much pressure from AMD.

How good is the on-board fan speed control? Can it regulate a 2 wire fan? IP35-E works only with the CPU and SYSTEM fan headers. Do you encounter the famous double post after system shut-down (PSU off)?

 

[Gillbot]

Yes, it always has the dumb double post that I can't figure out how to turn off. As far as the PWM, I dunno since I keep them all set to Full/100%. I never looked into them more than that since the only fan on the mobo header is the CPU one. All my case fans go through my Vantec Controller.

I've read a load of reviews that pushed this board well north of 500fsb and at the price I paid for it (~$70 shipped open box @ newegg), I'm VERY happy.

 

[KeaBorg]

The IP35-E is the king. Mine posts at 550 as you guys have said earlier it ALWAYS gets the ram beep a few seconds after it tries to read the IDE controller tho... With better ram *wink Gillbot* I'll try and see if I can get some benchmark tests at 550

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: Gillbot
Yes, it always has the dumb double post that I can't figure out how to turn off. As far as the PWM, I dunno since I keep them all set to Full/100%. I never looked into them more than that since the only fan on the mobo header is the CPU one. All my case fans go through my Vantec Controller.

I've read a load of reviews that pushed this board well north of 500fsb and at the price I paid for it (~$70 shipped open box @ newegg), I'm VERY happy.

$70 is a very nice price with all of those bells and whistles! You probably don't want to circumvent the double post. P35 chipset needs this stuff to properly set up the boot sequence.

I like the IP35-E because it can control a 2 wire fan. Not many boards can do this. I prefer to KISS with a good on-board fan controller. Have five in the lab...$55 to $60 AR plus $6 shipping.