The *Official* MSI K8NGM2-FID GeForce 6150 Motherboard Thread

[tempoct]

Hi all,
I've noticed some artifact (brief blinking few horizontal lines on screen corner) when using on-board video *when* running CnQ @ low setting. This happen when the Vcore is lower than full load. I disabled CnQ and use RMClock, same problem. I try to change the clock speed to low setting but keep Vcore the same, the problem is gone.
So, I guess it's Vcore is not sufficient or CPU doesn't wake up to higher speed fast enough, when needed. Anyone experience this problem? Here's my settings;

A64 3200+ Venice @ 2.3GHz, 1.45v (low power setting = 1.15GHz, 1.1v)
Onboard GeForce6150
Monitor Dell 2405FPW @ 1920x1200, 60Hz via DVI
No 2nd monitor (yet)

I will move this rig to be my HTPC soon so, I'd like to run @ low power when idle.
Any thought?

 

[RjG]

Lucky you. CnQ blinks me right into a blue screen, maybe 1 / 10 times during a transition, with or without O/C makes no diff.
I gave up on that one, not worth the effort to save 3 bucks a year on power ;-)

 

[brightman]

For anyone using this board in a myth box and wishing to build a serial IR receiver as described on the LIRC website be warned. The internal 9 pin serial header socket JCOM1 is incorrectly described in the motherboard manual.

The LIRC IR receiver uses the RTS signal to supply the receiver with power, in the motherboard manual this is listed as pin 7... however... it is actually pin 4 (I believe). The other pins used for the circuit seem to be correctly assigned.

 

[tempoct]

oh, BSOD for you is too bad!
Not only saving $3 a year, but my HTPC will run cooler, thus, I can run slower speed fan to reduce the noise. That's the main idea
What Vcore you use for low setting of CnQ? Maybe you should try RMClock since it give you a little more control on Vcore. My machine hang when I set it to 4x or Vcore is too low. Try that (if you are still interested in CnQ).

Originally posted by: RjG
Lucky you. CnQ blinks me right into a blue screen, maybe 1 / 10 times during a transition, with or without O/C makes no diff.
I gave up on that one, not worth the effort to save 3 bucks a year on power ;-)

 

[tempoct]

Anyone who use on-board 6150 notice the video memory size reported in Windows? I've set mine (in BIOS) to be 128MB, but Windows reports 256MB!! Where's extra 128MB comes from? Is there any onboard VRAM??

 

[RjG]

Originally posted by: tempoct
Anyone who use on-board 6150 notice the video memory size reported in Windows? I've set mine (in BIOS) to be 128MB, but Windows reports 256MB!! Where's extra 128MB comes from? Is there any onboard VRAM??

That setting is the AGP aperture size. The video ram size is fixed as a percentage of installed system RAM. ( like 2 gig ram = 256 MB video, 1 gig ram = 128 MB video )

 

[RjG]

Originally posted by: tempoct
oh, BSOD for you is too bad!
Not only saving $3 a year, but my HTPC will run cooler, thus, I can run slower speed fan to reduce the noise. That's the main idea
What Vcore you use for low setting of CnQ? Maybe you should try RMClock since it give you a little more control on Vcore. My machine hang when I set it to 4x or Vcore is too low. Try that (if you are still interested in CnQ).

Originally posted by: RjG
Lucky you. CnQ blinks me right into a blue screen, maybe 1 / 10 times during a transition, with or without O/C makes no diff.
I gave up on that one, not worth the effort to save 3 bucks a year on power ;-)

I did try RMClock to try stabilize it. Even went so far as to set transitions with the same voltage, but lower speed. Still flakey.
Venice chips run really cool, so the BIOS fan control keeps the fan spinning at low speed most of the time anyway, regardless of cool and quiet stuff.
Temp differences were really minor, just a couple degrees. Definately not worth spending the couple days I already spent messing with it, for me anyway.

It's really too bad MSI didn't make the fan control variable speed. I really love that feature on my ABIT board. The fan slowly ramps up as the temp increases. With a good heatsink, I've never even heard it since the fan never does have to go full speed. It's always somewhere in between.

 

[tempoct]

Hey RjG,
Can you elaborate the BIOS fan control a bit? Is that "Smart Fan" thing on BIOS? How does it work? I assume 2 speed fan control here. Low setting when temp is under the "target temp", high setting otherwise.

I'm using Zalman 7700AlCu and swapped fan out with a quiet Nexus fan (1050 - 1150 rpm, full speed). Look like I have to try it to see how it goes!

tempoct

 

[RjG]

Yep, that's exactly how it works. When the CPU is below the target, the fan is very quiet. When it goes over, it kicks up to full power.
I think there is a setting for how many degrees it allows before changing too. With that heatsink and fan, I doubt it would kick into high gear very often. Then you have your "quiet" part , without the C & Q

 

[trueimage]

Is the temp reported accurate? Mine is showing 29C with 35C ambient, using stock amd cooler and AS5. CPU is a Venice 3200+ @ 2.5ghz

 

[RjG]

CPU is 29C with 35C ambient? Geez, where'd you get that cooler, I want one

If you are running one of the older BIOS, I remember a release note that says they fixed the temp reporting in a later version.
As far as I know, BIOS 3.20 reports accurately

 

[trueimage]

Yeah I am using 3.00 for o/c, didn't see any reason to upgrade.

 

[tempoct]

Hi RjG,
I got a slight problem with the Smart Fan. At low setting, the CPU fan runs but the PCAlert4 and BIOS both can't read rpm (PCAlert 4 read out is zero).
This is a little nervous for me since I'm not sure the CPU fan is running or not, until I open the case.
BTW, I run low speed fan on the HSF which is max out around 1100rpm (Zalman 7700AlCu and Nexus 120mm fan)
Any idea?

tempoct

Originally posted by: RjG
Yep, that's exactly how it works. When the CPU is below the target, the fan is very quiet. When it goes over, it kicks up to full power.
I think there is a setting for how many degrees it allows before changing too. With that heatsink and fan, I doubt it would kick into high gear very often. Then you have your "quiet" part , without the C & Q

 

[pctwo]

Originally posted by: tempoct
Hi RjG,
I got a slight problem with the Smart Fan. At low setting, the CPU fan runs but the PCAlert4 and BIOS both can't read rpm (PCAlert 4 read out is zero).
This is a little nervous for me since I'm not sure the CPU fan is running or not, until I open the case.
BTW, I run low speed fan on the HSF which is max out around 1100rpm (Zalman 7700AlCu and Nexus 120mm fan)
Any idea?

tempoct

Originally posted by: RjG
Yep, that's exactly how it works. When the CPU is below the target, the fan is very quiet. When it goes over, it kicks up to full power.
I think there is a setting for how many degrees it allows before changing too. With that heatsink and fan, I doubt it would kick into high gear very often. Then you have your "quiet" part , without the C & Q

I have a 1500rpm fan and smartfan spins it down to ~800rpm, so I imagine your 1000rpm nexus is being spinned down to ~500rpm, which is usually too low to be detected. hence the zero.

don't worry about it.

if your fans actually stop spinning, your temps will rise pretty quickly and you'll know

 

[pctwo]

hi, I have a USB mouse. is there any way to set it to wake the computer out of stand by? I seee no wake on USB, and my mouse doesn't have a power management tab.

I do have a PS/2 keyboard. I set it to wake on "Specific key". I expet the BIOS to ask me what specific key I want, but it doesn't. So what key is that? (I don't want to use any key since it's too easy to hit a key by accident.

 

[avi85]

Hi, I know that I recently posted about coolers but I have another question.
I was wondering if anybody has used the big typhoon with this board and if any compatibilty issues are known.

 

[yehuda]

Okay guys, it looks like the K8NGM2 has a successor in the AM2 realm!

MSI K9NGM2

 

[RjG]

Originally posted by: pctwo
hi, I have a USB mouse. is there any way to set it to wake the computer out of stand by? I seee no wake on USB, and my mouse doesn't have a power management tab.

Add the following reg key, and it will work
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usb
"USBBIOSx"=DWORD:00000000

I do have a PS/2 keyboard. I set it to wake on "Specific key". I expet the BIOS to ask me what specific key I want, but it doesn't. So what key is that? (I don't want to use any key since it's too easy to hit a key by accident.

LOL, I was wondering that as well when I tried it.

 

[foxyrick]

Hi all,

Does anyone use power-on from LAN with this board? I need to turn it on by remote, which I do with several other PC's, by send ing the 'magic packet' over the LAN. I can't get it to work with this board though.

There doesn't seem to be any 5V standby power when the system is powered down. The LAN lights are off completely. Likewise, the keyboard won't power up the PC. I have enabled the WOL and keyboard in BIOS, but it's completely dead after shutting down and only the power button will power it back up.

I have two different PC's with these motherboards, tried different PSU's, and BIOS versions 3.00 and 3.20. Makes no difference.

I've also noticed the missing "specific key" keyboard power setting mentioned above in BIOS 3.20, but since it doesn't work with any key, it makes no difference.

I also have an issue with booting up with Maxtor Maxline III SATA HD's - it hangs after detecting the drives during POST when first powered up. I need to press 'reset', then it POST's fine. Happens every time I power up. The other PC with a WD PATA HD powers up fine.

Finally, a weird one... I bought two Seasonic 600W PSU's for these PC's, but the boards won't power up with more than one drive (HD or CDROM) connected with this PSU. I thought it was a problem with the PSU starting under load, but the PSU's work perfectly in another two (MSI K8N Diamond and an Asus) heavily-loaded PC's. An Xclio and Enermax PSU work fine with the K8NGM2-FID boards. Strange...

Any ideas on the Power-on-by-LAN issue?

Rick.

 

[pctwo]

foxyrick: are you shutting down your computer? you need to put it in stand by or hibernate. (you should see the keyboard LED, e.g., numlock, is still on).

 

[foxyrick]

Yes, I'm shutting the PC's down through Windows. In other words, to G2, S5 or Soft Off. In that state, the keyboard and NIC, amongst others, should remain powered from the 5V standby line. Hibernate (S4) essentially does the same as far as powering up again goes (or it should...)

On all the other boards (a lot) I have set up, Hibernate and Soft Off both allow the board to be brought up from keyboard and WOL.

However, I tried Hibernate and along with another thing I found, it did improve matters a little.

If I use Hibernate, and set "wake up by mouse" - the keyboard wakes it up! The mouse doesn't though.

That is the only real advancement however. I really think MSI has messed up somewhere here - I've never had problems getting all this stuff working on any other board.

Using "Switch Off" in windwos, rather than Hibernate, still won't allow the system to come back from keyboard.

I also got the LAN light to stay on, by going to the NIC's properties in Windows and turning off the setting "Allow Windows to turn off this device to save power". I've never had to do that before. It still won't power up from the magic packet though.

Funny thing - I turned back on the above option, to see of the LAN light went out when I shut down, it did. Then, the system turned itself back on 5 minutes later, with *no* intervention from me or my magic packets!!!

OK, now I'm testing as I write this, and guess what? the Wake-On-LAN now works - with the LAN lights off!

Real shame I have to do a reset to get it to boot off the miserable Maxtor drives.

Obviously something I have done has made it work. I'll have to try it all again and figure out exactly what it was.

It *still* won't start up from "switch off" in Windows though, by keyboard or WOL, and that's what I really need. It really should do exactly the same as Hibernate - like *all* my other systems.

I'll keep playing...

Cheers,
Rick.

 

[pctwo]

Originally posted by: RjG

Add the following reg key, and it will work
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usb
"USBBIOSx"=DWORD:00000000

I did that and rebooted. The power management tab shows up on the mouse's properties page. The box is checked. But still it doesn't wake up when I move or click the mouse. I think the board needs to support it.

 

[RjG]

Originally posted by: pctwo

Originally posted by: RjG

Add the following reg key, and it will work
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usb
"USBBIOSx"=DWORD:00000000

I did that and rebooted. The power management tab shows up on the mouse's properties page. The box is checked. But still it doesn't wake up when I move or click the mouse. I think the board needs to support it.

The board does support it. It works fine on mine. My FID wakes by either USB keyboard or USB mouse movement from full S3 suspend.
There are lots of variables though. Are you suspending to S3? Did you enable S3 *before* installing windows? If not, you might be hooped. Did you check the root hub the mouse is connected to if wake is disallowed? Do you have other devices that don't support S3? PCI cards and other usb devices can make it disallowed.

There is also a microsoft tool to check your ACPI devices and modes allowed.
I wish there was an upload function on this board... let me go Googling for a bit, should be able to find a link for you.

 

[RjG]

Cool, here's a good guide. It's for MCE, but the parts you are looking for are there too. And there is a link for DumpPO.exe
hxxp://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/29899.aspx (replace xx's with t's)

 

[trueimage]

I have a question about o/c stability.

I have my system right now 3200+ venice @2.5ghz, ram is set to 166, and is at 208mhz ,1t cpc the rest auto.

I did several size superpi tests: 1M, 8M, 32M all completed.
Then I did small FFT prime95 for about 13-15 hours, no errors.

Now sometimes when playing a video (xvid), it freezes and the machine reboots. It is under full load or near full load since I'm using ffdshow to enhance the video.

Is there something else I should do to be testing the system for stability? Prime for a full 24 hours? memtest? I really would love that o/c, and I know the cpu can do it, but I need stability, this is an htpc.

Also, is there any way, other than an external probe, to get the nb/sb/gpu temps?