K8N Neo4-FI whine

[colonel north]

Am I the only one not totally pleased with this board?

My complaints after about one month of use:
(1) Slow boot... 80-90 seconds from power-on to windows xp login screen; my socket A machines take less than half that amount of time.
(2) Mediocre overclock... 2.16 GHz with an opteron 165. Using a different psu, different ram in different slots, more voltage doesn't help. Regardless of ram bios settings, FSB maxes out at 240 (have managed to boot with FSB of 245-250, but not stable).

At least I think/hope the fault is with the motherboard, not the processor. Since most everyone else is having good luck with the board, I'm tempted to junk this one and order another in the hope of having better luck 2nd time around. But before I do, I thought I'd ask for more feedback. Don't be shy, share your pain, it's good therapy.

 

[cubeless]

1) i have w2k on mine, but the boot up was slow with a usb keyboard and mouse... they won't work together on this board... plugged in a ps2 set and all is well... kind of odd... kb and mouse work fine together on a k7s5a...

2) i have the fsb at 315... cut the htt to 3x... using cheap ram... maybe ymmv, but yours seems pretty low for the nf4... opty 146 doing 2.8... div of 133... dfi board has a 150 div so i didn't need such high fsb to get close to 200 mem (stuff i use won't go past 210)...

i'm pretty pleased with the board... but it won't squeeze any more out of the opty than the dfi did...

 

[colonel north]

Since I'm using a 4-port usb KVM, I'm stuck with my usb keyboard & mouse for now. I was thinking about getting a DFI or ASUS board instead of another K8N, but am not motivated to spend more $$ for a different nForce4 board if it's going to have the same slow-boot problem.

My memory is budget DDR 400 memory (corsair & kingston) which seems to run okay at 240. With my board, dropping the mem divider down from 200 to 166 or 133 or 100 doesn't help at all... highest stable FSB (240) attained using divider of 200. Very mysterious.

 

[pkrush]

I've had my K8N Neo4 F for over a year now, and you're right on both counts (mine wouldn't go past 240 FSB either...). Also, don't forget the hilariously bad chipset fan.

 

[f4phantom2500]

yo dude, the bootup time thing is like totally the opposite of my experience. i had an nf2 setup with a 2500 barton and 1.5gb ram, and this thing, with a sempron 3000 (stock) and 512mb ram boots up a lot faster. havent gotten to overclocking yet, either the board or the memory controller on this sempron doesnt like my good ram (2x1gb sticks), but im getting a 3500 venice in a few days so hopefully that fixes that issue...if not then..lol idk we'll see.

 

[colonel north]

Certainly not possible to forget the chipset fan, which brings back memories of working in a sawmill... I can almost smell the sawdust. But not surprising either... more often than not, seems like I end up replacing these fans with a heatsink.

Mr. f4... are you using a usb keyboard and/or mouse??? Until someone tells me otherwise, I'm assuming that all nForce4 boards have this slow-boot problem with usb devices.

This is the first real disappointment I've had in a dozen or so attempts at overclocking... just goes to show that there are no guarantees.

 

[f4phantom2500]

usb mouse bro, logitech g5...but im using a ps2 keyboard. i've been meaning to get a usb keyboard but since this one works fine there's little incentive to dish up the $ for a new one. also, the chipset fan is not loud at all to me. of course, i've only had the mobo for like a week and still haven't had a big chance to use the computer, but from what i've heard so far, it is not loud at all dude, my video card is louder (and it's pretty quiet...when you aren't loading a game or turning on the computer lol). this is by far the quietest setup i've ever had...well, you know, ever since you need more than 1 fan in the whole computer lol.

 

[cubeless]

r u using auto settings for memory? haven't tried with this board, but had a helluva time getting 2 different sticks of memory to work in my dfi nf4 lanparty... had to put in each mem option individually and make them loose...

and both of my nf4 boards seem to really dislike my hyperx (4000 and 3500) 512 sticks that were monsters in my old socket a boards...

 

[colonel north]

I think I've tried about just every combination & permutation of auto and manual memory settings available in the BIOS. Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration... allow me to admit right now that I don't really know what I'm doing or what exactly changing these settings accomplishes. But I think that, in general for memory, the higher the number, the "looser' or more forgiving the setting.

Well... I've tried some pretty darn loose memory settings (starting at 3-4-4-8 2T and going looser) combined with low dividers (166, 133, and 100) in the hope and expectation of achieving a higher FSB. But this just hasn't worked for me. If anything, the lower the divider, the lower the maximum attainable FSB, which just doesn't seem to make any sense.

 

[f4phantom2500]

cubeless:

yeah man, haven't tweaked the bios really, just disabled stuff i'm not using (onboard audio, raid, etc). it's kind of a pain though, i have a 2GB kit of generic ram, and it won't recognize both sticks...or either one for some reason; everything ramps up like when it first turns on, but the screen remains blank and the fans stay loud. kinda sucks, cuz i have to use a 512mb kingston kit, which isn't awful...but it's definitely holding back my 3500 venice and x1900gt. the ram worked in my last rig (p4 478), and i'm pretty sure i used it in my axp rig once, but...crap i can't get it to work in this board for the life of me. oddly enough, the kingston ram says it's for macs but it works fine in my pc lol.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: colonel north
With my board, dropping the mem divider down from 200 to 166 or 133 or 100 doesn't help at all... highest stable FSB (240) attained using divider of 200. Very mysterious.

Originally posted by: pkrush
I've had my K8N Neo4 F for over a year now, and you're right on both counts (mine wouldn't go past 240 FSB either...).

Try dropping the HT multiplier. Also try dropping the HT multiplier. Oh BTW, have I mentioned trying a lower HT multiplier?

On a more serious note... clear BIOS by using the jumper so that you're starting on a fresh slate. Set RAM to what you mentioned just above of 3-4-4-8-2T, memory speed 133MHz, HT multiplier 3x. Then, start bumping the HTT.

Originally posted by: f4phantom2500
either the board or the memory controller on this sempron doesnt like my good ram (2x1gb sticks)

Try using the two memory slots farthest away from the CPU.

Originally posted by: colonel north
This is the first real disappointment I've had in a dozen or so attempts at overclocking... just goes to show that there are no guarantees.

QFT. People tend to forget that little inconvenience. I had three Opteron 144 chips and while two of them were easy 2.7GHz+, the third one (tested using same PSU/RAM/mobo, basically just swapped out CPU) wouldn't go above around 2.2-2.3GHz. When I mentioned it here at AT forums, people called me a liar or a noob.

 

[f4phantom2500]

Originally posted by: Zap

Try using the two memory slots farthest away from the CPU.

oh yes, trust me, i have...i've tried either stick in every slot, both sticks in probably every combination...can't get it to work with that ram; it works with a 512mb (2x256mb) kingston ddr400 kit i have that's speced for macs lol, but not my 2GB kit!! it worked in my last rig so i'm really getting upset with that. i tried it with my new venice processor, and it still doesn't like it...actually it likes it less; with the sempron (winchester-based), i could run it with a 256mb stick (from a dell) in slot 1 and one of the 1gb sticks in slot 2, and it would recognize the total amount of ram as 512mb; boot up into windows and work fine. now it won't even do that.

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: colonel north
This is the first real disappointment I've had in a dozen or so attempts at overclocking... just goes to show that there are no guarantees.

QFT. People tend to forget that little inconvenience. I had three Opteron 144 chips and while two of them were easy 2.7GHz+, the third one (tested using same PSU/RAM/mobo, basically just swapped out CPU) wouldn't go above around 2.2-2.3GHz. When I mentioned it here at AT forums, people called me a liar or a noob.

lame...i hear ya there, it's all statistics; not every single one is gonna overclock like a champ, just most. that one was just on the bad end of the bell curve.