Question on the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum! Help pls

[JP215]

I recently built a new computer with some high end stuff and am having trouble getting the most out of it. My first question is are the AGP/PCI speeds locked as default or is this something I need to manually lock?

I'm fairly new to overclocking and tried to read quite a bit before I did it on my rig. I'm having serious stability problems past a 10% OC on my new system.

AMD .09 3000 with great air cooling
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
OCZ Platinum Rev 2.
X800 Pro Video Card

Any help with suggestions on why I can't get a better overclock when so many articles posted here on Anandtech have gotten 40% OC on this exact same rig. My chip is at the exact same temp before I overclocked. I've tried increasing my RAM timings to a ridiculous point to see if that might help and it hasn't. I've bumped up my mem voltage as well as my cpu voltage to similar lvls in the articles posted here on Anand tech but it hasnt' seem to helped get me past the 10% OC barrier. So far the only thing I've adjusted other than the voltage is the FSB speed with a standard ratio, which I'm not sure is standard. Currently my FSB is at 220.

Again any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[mytakeismine]

Here are a few tips ripped from xtreme

TIP: you have to disable cool n quiet when ocing
TIP: Cpu fan header must be connected, if not the pc could experience boot problems
TIP: if you have problems booting with BH5 try another stick of memory and set vdimm to the max and make sure you set the cas latency to 2.5 or 2.0 as bh5 wont boot with cas 3.0, then swap in the BH5
TIP: the CPU backplate is hard to get off on the MSI ... just heat it with a hair dryer, it will come off easily then
TIP: for best performance the MSI only needs Vdimm/3.3V bypass mod (or the OCZ booster).
Yet to try a chipset mod or HTT mod on the MSI ... it may help with LDT 4x @ > 260 HTT bus speeds
TIP: shut down core center after you used it to adjust or check your settings, if left running it might crash your system
TIP: if you have problems booting at low temps with a winchester try the latest beta bios
TIP: disable fast writes
TIP: turn off NV/ATI Speed Up in the hidden bios settings
TIP: only bios 1.36beta and 1.37beta allow up to 1.9v vcore
TIP: color coded ram slots are different than other 939 boards. Slots 1&2 are the ones nearer to the CPU and are dual channel
TIP: use HTT multiplier 4x up to ~260 and 3x up to ~290
TIP: use the + and - or PgUP and PgDn keys to change the htt speed, DO NOT HIT ENTER
TIP: check out the official msi 939 neo2 tips and tricks guide thread
TIP: check out this 2 ram compability lists: 1 2
TIP: In the bios press and hold Shift+F2 and then press ALT+F3 to unlock "hidden" features within the BIOS
TIP: If anyone has trouble getting low temp readings downlaod the latest MBM5 (use the K8N NEO Plat mobo selection, click settings,temps,CPU,and choose the first option for Winbond Diode 2)
TIP: if you experience problems with Antec Neopower and Truepower PSUs and also with PowerStream PSUs, try Bios 1.37 and turn the PSU off after you shut down, seems to help as well
TIP: Dissable Agressive Timings in Cell Menu if you're going to overclock
TIP: some people had close to no thermal compount on the nb, if your nb runs hot add some thermal compound (WARNING! might hurt your warranty)
here is a guide that explains how to remove the nb heatsink
TIP: The MAch II needs a new firmware to operate with this board get it here
TIP: the vcore of winchesters seems to undervolt about 0.1V, max vcore for winchesters is 1.7V
TIP: bios collection: 1.10, 1.20, 1.23, 1.25, 1.30, 1.33, 1.34, 1.35, 1.36, 1.37, 1.41
TIP: beta biosses
TIP: 1.37 modded bios by Trats 1 2
TIP: lots of biosses, incl. beta and modded ones with changelogs
TIP: bios flash guide
TIP: windows tool bios flash guide
TIP: newer boards, with S/N:K0411xxxxxx and S/N:K0410xxxxxx, seem to no longer have a bug with winchesters at low minus temps
TIP: get Codered's A64 tweaker
TIP: if you have BH-5 memory use the A64 tweaker and lower the timings as described here
TIP: OC Guide for the msi k8n neo2 by XS GraveDiggA
right click save as and open with wordpad
TIP: corsair xl pro memory wont fit in the board with an xp-90 or xp-120 heatsink
TIP: the newer northbridges (0410/0411) seem to need less vdimm to reach the same overclock in 1:1!
TIP: If you are having trouble getting windows to boot from SATA ("Error Loading Operating System"), be sure to set SATA1/2/3/4 RAID to "ENABLED", even if you are not running RAID
TIP: older bios revisions need the agp speed set to 67mhz to lock it
TIP: disable aggressive chipset timings (performance mode) when ocing
TIP: if you boot with trcd 2 vdimm seems to drop 0.1v, boot with trcd 3 and use corecell or codered's a64 tweaker to set it to 2 in windows
TIP: bios 1.36b and 1.37 and modded variants seem to work best for bh5/bh6

http://xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=46730

good luck

 

[mytakeismine]

PS to my last post what bios if 1.3 you might want to try 1.36 for a start and don't get to pushy on air

again good luck