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*** Official MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (nForce4 Ultra chipset) Thread ***

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Setup my new mobo and cpu today: an MSI Neo4 Plat and and X2 4400+. Had problems getting it stable, but as soon as I moved my 2 HyperX modules to dimms 1 and 2, and dumped my Promise Ultra100TX2, everything clicked into place and it's rock solid now. Thanks to everyone here at AT for the pre-purchase advice. 🙂
 
Hi, I recently purchaseed this board and used it with windows xp professional x64. Everything is working except for the sound. First, I installed the proper sound drivers as listen on the MSI website. When that didn't work, I downloaded the nforce 4 audio driver directly from NVida. When that didn't work I downloaded the proper drivers from Realtek for the AC97' audio codec. Each time, these drivers seemed to install properly and the computer acted as if the sound was functional. However no sound is coming out of my headphones and speakers. I'm posotive it's not a problem with my headphonesor speakers or their connection to the computer. Why isn't the sound working? I've heard some people say that some sound problems could arise when using a 20pin connector instead of a 24-pin connector, although others seem to turn that theory down. Has anyone else experience similar problems? Is it worth me to shell out $7 to buy a converter or is this going to be of no help to me.

Thanks for your help!!!

Also, is there a way to update the bios on this mobo without a floppy drive. With my old Giga-byte board I was able to do it through windows, but didn't see that feature with this particular board. I'm sure if I looked a little harder I would probably find some way to do it, but if you can save me the time and energy that would be much appreciated.

Lasty, if I have two sticks of dual-channel ram, do I match them up according to the colors (i.e. each stick in one of the purple/green slots) or do I mix and match the colors and go according to the order they appear on the board

Thanks in adavance!!!
 
People keep mentioning the loud chipset fan on the MSI Platinum, and for that
matter, all NF4 motherboards. Just how loud are these fans in terms of decibels?
I know most of us don't have decibel meters readily available - but would it be
louder than 2 Vantec 120mm fans, for example?

My case is an Antec 3000B - a "silent" case.
I'm getting a Sapphire x800xl Ultimate Video card just because it is quiet - but there's no
point if a regular x800xl can't be heard over the mobo anyway.

BTW, I will not be overclocking, so I imagine the chipset fan might not be working that fast
on mine.
 
When I boot up it tells me that my PCIE slots are running @ 8x. Now is that correct since I run SLI that it's 8x for each and 16x for both? Or should it tell me 16x at boot?
 
you're not seeing any performance increase because you're using a 6600GT. 3D'03, and 3D'05 are going to need a more juiced video card to push an A64.
 
wow...I'm getting scared. I just ordered the MSI NEO4 Plat with 3000+ venice...read good reviews on some sites and now found this thread and am dreading putting this thing together. First time build for me. Looks like I will be reading this thread frequently. So far I have purchased:

Antec P180
AMD 64 3000+ (venice) w/ Zalman 7000B-AlCu
Enermax Noisetaker 485W
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (nForce4 Ultra chipset)

any suggestions on memory(1GB (2x512 or 2GB (4x512) if cheaper memory is used? I don't want to spend more than about $150 on memory. I've read that this board can be picky...I just want something decent not overpriced. Not planning on overclocking any time soon. will probably usie the mobo dynamic overclocking process (from what I've read on the MSI info...don't know how this actually works).


Oh...and any suggestions for a decent Vid card...I'm not a bigtime gamer but want to be able to play some stuff in the futuer...if I ever get the time.
 
In the last month I've bought 3 different MSI K8N Neo4 boards (and returned 2). These are the K8N Neo4-K, K8N Neo4 Platinum, and K8N Neo4 SLI. All had 4 red LEDs on the D-Bracket stay lit on power up and nothing comes up on my monitor. You would think the processor was bad or installed wrong according to the manual, but this processor worked fine when tested in my working system (see bottom of this post). I diagnosed with MSI tech support every way imaginable with bare minimum set up, which is as follows:

- AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester
- OCZ Gold Series 1GB (2 x 512MB) Unbuffered DDR 400 Dual Channel Kit (OCZ4001024ELDCGE-K)
- Kalman ZM400B-APS ATX ver. 2.03 power supply (12V, 20 pin)

Not only have I tested the processor in my working system, I've tested all the components listed above on my working system and they all worked fine. I even tried all the components listed below from my working system on one of these other bords and again I get no post (all red LEDs lit).

I've read about the capacitor plague, but I can't find any evidence of faulty capacitors by physical appearance or use of capacitors from suspect manufacturers.

So anyone who can shead some light on this problem, please reply ASAP!!!!!!!!

The only thing I can do if no one knows the problem is to either send the board to MSI for diagnostics and repair or return to ZipZoomFly as defective and repeat this process until I get a working board. I just hope it's nothing I'm doing wrong.

BTW, MSI has a free uprade to their K8N Neo4 SLI boards for compatibility with the Athlon 64 X2 and the GeForce 7 PCIe video cards.

Thanks,

Scott

 
I'm just getting started on a new build. I don't think I'll OC, this is just a development machine for me. Relevant details below.

I have two intial questions and then will come back when I can't post and want to end it all. 🙂

1./ I got the Zalman 7700. I haven't started in earnest but I just seated a stick of ram in the first and second slots nearest to the cpu and then approximated where the sink is going to sit.

If I'm in the ballyard, it's going to be like maybe < 5 mm of clearance between the fan and the dimm. It seems like that could be an issue as far as interference or heat transfer, should I worry? I can always drop back to the Zalman 7000 or something even smaller--I just want this thing to be pretty quiet.

2./ From reading this thread and other reviews, I ordered the Zalman northbridge sink to replace the stock fan. I just lined that up with the vid card. Another super tight fit. If I don't seat the new sink fully centered (say I line it up flush on the upper right corner nearest the vid card, and then with additional overhang on the other three corners) it will clear fine, but, again, it's like 5-10mm of clearance and that seems sketchy.

It doesn't seem like the sink would need to be centered, the nb core would still be fully covered. I'm not an expert though, so please tell me if that's not how it swings. I'm also pretty worried about just the proximity. The stock fan is also going to be close, so maybe all these things are so self-contained that I'm imaging probs. My main motive again is to keep it quiet.

Any and all advice welcomed. Thx.

AMD64 Toledo +4400
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
Antec NeoPower 480W PSU
Zalman CNPS7700-CU sink/fan
Zalman ZM-NB47J Northbridge sink
OCZ DDR Dual Channel Platinum (2 x 1GB)
MSI RX800XL 256MB
 
Hi all,

I've upgraded to bios 3.6 and decided to try my USB KB. I couldn't try it before because Windows wouldn't boot with the KB/Storage option enabled since I have a card reader.

I found out that the 3.6 works well with my card reader so I was optimistic about the keyboard from cherry.

Unfortunatelly it doesn't work. It boots right sometimes and sometimes windows hangs and does no display the logon window, I get just a black screen. Probably the logon will come up after some hours, who knows.

Ok, back to normal Keyboard. I then decided to use my Logitech mouse 512 with the usb port. It works fine. At least looks like.

Since I plugged the mouse on the usb port, I'm experiencing boot problems.

The mobo won't post and I get the 4 red leds lit. If I reset the computer it posts and it works fine.

The funny thing is that this problem only happens when I don't use the computer for long periods. I've tried to reproduce it but I can't.

Everytime In the evening I "unplug" the computer from the eletricity. Next day, in the evening I get the problem. Then it doesn't matter if I unplug for a short time, it boots anyway.

I find it very strange that my USB mouse cause this problem since the red leds mean problems with the CPU.

Does anybody has/had similar problems ?
I'm really dissaipointed with this board, I have nothing but problems from the moment I installed it. I will go back to Asus in my next upgrade.

wpr.
 
whoever is having the shutdown/automatic restart problems:

uninstall/clean/reinstall your chipset drivers

that will solve the spontaneous reboots
 
I just finished my first custom build. My specs are

K8N Neo4 Platinum
Athlon 64 3000+ Venice
ATI X800XL 256MB/256bit (dual DVI)
Corsair valueselect 1GB dual channel mode
Samsung spinpoint P (SATA II) 200GB
Antec Sonata II (with case PSU)

I had some problems with my initial windows install, so I updated to bios 1.5 and reinstalled w/ XP home (w/ service pack 2). I did not need to preinstall SATA drivers in order to install XP on the Samsung HDD. Not overclocking, just basic usage. Runs 8 poker tables well though 🙂

Board works okay except for the sound. Windows is indicating that the sound is working, but no front sound. I've searched and not found a solution for this yet. What do you guys suggest? Just buy a sound card, or is there some fix ? I don't want to have to send the board back just for this.
 
I finally finished my build:

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
AMD 64 3000+ (Venice) w/Zalman CNPS7000-ALCu
XFX 6600 GT 128MB Dual DVI( cheap since I'm not a gamer)
Patriot PDC1G3200LLK 1GB PC3200 400MHz Low Latency 2-3-2-5
WD Caviar SE 250GB SATA II
Samsung Spinpoint 250GB SATA II
BENQ DVD+/-R_DL DW1640
Lite On CDRW
Enermax Noisetaker EG495AX-VE SFMA 2.0 ATX 12V 2.0 485W
Antec P180 Case

got it runnin at default setting with RAID 0...seems ok so far. Still need to update the drivers and BIOS
 
Originally posted by: Isura
...
Board works okay except for the sound. Windows is indicating that the sound is working, but no front sound.
Click to expand...

Did you connect the 10-pin connector coming out from the Sonata front panel (speaker/microphone) to the front panel audio connector of the board (JAUD1) ?

If not, MSI documentation say :
If you don?t want to connect to the front audio header, pins 5 & 6, 9 & 10 have to be jumpered in order to have signal output directed to the rear audio ports. Otherwise, the Line-Out connector on the back panel will not function.
 
does anyone else have the antec P180 case with this board....I don't know where to plu in the extra front panel LED stuff...extra HDD and Reset plug?
 
Hello.

I just got MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum and indeed the fan is too loud. I got me a Zalman fanmate to quiet down the noise.

Now I'm wondering if it's enough and would like to put Zalmans ZM-NB47J on it but I don't know if it will fit or not.
Has anyone replaced their fan to this and had a GFX card similar in size to X850?

If it fits, I'd be more than happy to get rid of the nasty little fan.
 
Originally posted by: jptavan
Originally posted by: Isura
...
Board works okay except for the sound. Windows is indicating that the sound is working, but no front sound.
Click to expand...

Did you connect the 10-pin connector coming out from the Sonata front panel (speaker/microphone) to the front panel audio connector of the board (JAUD1) ?

If not, MSI documentation say :
If you don?t want to connect to the front audio header, pins 5 & 6, 9 & 10 have to be jumpered in order to have signal output directed to the rear audio ports. Otherwise, the Line-Out connector on the back panel will not function.
Click to expand...

Yes, I connected the 10-pin connector to JAUD1. But front sound isn't working. Not sure if it's a driver problem, I downloaded the updated drivers from MSI live update.

 
Originally posted by: Isura
Yes, I connected the 10-pin connector to JAUD1. But front sound isn't working. Not sure if it's a driver problem, I downloaded the updated drivers from MSI live update.
Click to expand...

You can try to unplug / re-plug this connector on the board.
I have the same the configuration, and this make the audio work for me.
 
So I decided to overclock my CPU today. I have this motherboard with a 3000+ venice. I was able to set my FSB to 233. When I set it to 266 it would not boot and I have gone back and reset the bios and it still won't boot! I did not change the volt settings anywhere. Just the FSB.

The mobo still reads the CPU/HD/RAM. I just can't get it to boot. I have tried booting from an XP cd and the hard disk. Still no luck.

Any help/comments would be appreciated. Thanks
 
Originally posted by: jptavan
Originally posted by: Isura
Yes, I connected the 10-pin connector to JAUD1. But front sound isn't working. Not sure if it's a driver problem, I downloaded the updated drivers from MSI live update.
Click to expand...

You can try to unplug / re-plug this connector on the board.
I have the same the configuration, and this make the audio work for me.
Click to expand...



Tried this, it works! Thanks a lot.
 
3 quick questions:

1 Why is the orange pci slot orange?
2 In non SLI mode, does the second PCI-E x16 also dub as a PCI-E x1
3 This mobo supposably supports SATA II, which of the 4 (non-platinum version) SATA connects supports SATA II, and do i need to do something in the bios to enable it?

Thanks!
 
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