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MSI K7N2G-ILSR Nforce2 Mobo

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irish80122

Member
Joined
Apr 6, 2003
Location
Centennial, CO
I like this message from what I have read, but I know a lot of people have had problems with memory. Have any of you had any experience with this board, and if so what types of memory have you used. I would love to get something like some Kingston Hyperx PC3200, but I am not sure if it would work with this board. Also, how is the OCing on the board?

I am just looking forward to anything other than the board I have got. I actually have to let it warm up to 30C, no joke! I can't wait to get a better mobo!
 
Yay another Denver person!

Check out this review at [H]ard|OCP. It is pretty informative, gives their OC results as well as benchmarks when compared to other mobos.

I was going to get this board eventually, but I have since changed my mind. I want to get one of the new Abit NF7-S boards. There is also a review about that mobo on the [H]ard|OCP site as well.
 
make that 3 Denver folks :D

I got the -ILSR a week or so ago, and so far I hate it. It's fast, stable, loads of features, and OCs like a charm, BUT everytime you do something it don't like in BIOS it will refuse to boot. There's no clear reason why it dies, either. To fix it, you have to open the case, move a jumper to boot it at 100mhz FSB, boot it, change what you messed up, save settings, shut down, move jumper back, and try again. Drives me nuts. The BIOS has actually died for good once- I had to use a recovery disk to reflash before it would even boot.

That plus the TV-out doesn't work if you have an AGP card installed. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't get this board.
 
How has it been OCing?

Thanks for your responses! I am glad to see so many Denver people, makes me feel at home! I am sorry that you don't like the board, makes me worry since I just ordered it. Then again, it has to be better than what I have now. How high have you been able to get the FSB up to? It sounds like it is a ***** to figure out exactly how high you can go with OCing, but I don't plan on messing with it too much, just do it once and that will be good. What should I be looking for, 185?
 
heh I've never seen so many folks from CO :)

I got mine up to 190FSB with zero effort, super duper 24/7 Folding stable. It boots @ 200mhz and runs Folding fine all day, but hangs during a Sandra mem test. Haven't put any work into it yet (All default voltages); but I'm pretty sure it'll run 200mhz or more once I get serious.

It's a really great board, but that one design flaw about the safe mode jumper just kills it for me. And it's not just that- I still have *NO* idea what causes it to not boot. It seems to be something different every time, which is downright maddening. Having the BIOS EEPROM go completely corrupt on a week-old board isn't a good sign, either.

If you're going to be playing with it a lot, OCing and tweaking and such, you might want to think about exchanging the MSI for something else. I would only get this board if you're both A) not going to use an AGP card, and B) plan to OC with the multiplier only.

Oh wait, I almost forgot the most important part- this is the ugliest motherboard ever created by man! Eye-burning reds, greens, and blues. It's like circus clowns are making mobos these days. Or the colorblind.
 
I am not quite sure what all I am going to do with it yet, to be honest with you. I am actually a high school senior, so I am preparing for college, and I am not planning on taking my desktop with me, so I don't plan on doing too much with it. I just want to do some overclocking, which if I could get a 200 FSB I would be very happy, because this is just a temporary fix for me really. I have heard the Nforce chipset is more stable than VIA, which is a plus, but again I am the type that will set it up and forget it. I just know that I am not getting everything out of my Soyo board, which is probably my own damn fault because this was the first computer that I ever built and I bought cheap ram. I didn't make that mistake this time though, I got some Corsair that MSI had tested and verified will work with this board, since I have heard that several people have had trouble with memory compatibility. Again though, I can only OC to about a 145 FSB right now on this board, it only supports PC2100, and it won't boot for some reason until it hits 30 degrees C, which gets really old. I have found myself leaving it on at night for the sole reason of I don't want to have to wait for it to boot, so I am wasting electricity in addition to shortening the life of everything in my box. I do not plan on getting a video card right now just because I don't play many games, the Sims are about as advanced as I get. I guess that is about it for now, thanks for your reply. If I may ask, where abouts in Denver do you live and what do you do for a living. I live in Centennial actually, so on the south side of the city, and I am actually working on starting up a small PC manufacturing company for some money on the side, but that is just mainly for family right now. I may eventually advertize, I am not sure. Thanks again.
 
sounds like this board may be pretty good for you, especially since you're using the integrated video. The video-out was a main reason why I got the Big Daddy version of this board, having it not work when I use my AGP cards really ****ed me off.

If you're not planning on keeping it for long, then it's the perfect board for you :D Definately a good college dorm board, with all those built-in features. I gotta say, tho- the cold boot issue just knocks this board right off my list. A simple BIOS adjustment sometimes takes 20mins on this board, versus 20 seconds on any other.

I just realized that my board may actually be defective. Never considered that before, hmmmm.......

I'm living in Highlands Ranch right now, but I just signed a new lease on a place near Hampden and Santa Fe. Glad to be moving outta here! My fulltime gig is a silkscreen printer and tech support for a national automotive refinishing business. Good luck with the computer business! You have plenty of competition out here, inlcuding me :D

Oh and BTW welcome to the forums!
 
Don't worry, I won't be much competition, it is just something I do in my free time in order to make a couple extra bucks here and there. I don't have much time right now, but since it is a hoby, it works out well because I take very little profit. I just like to build mainly, so I really don't need to take much of a profit, but I will take what people give me to do what I love to do, you know? It is always good to be paid for doing a hoby! Good luck on your work, and thanks for all of your replies on the board, they have helped. If you need anything, email me at [email protected], maybe we can help each other if we get into a bind, just a thought. Good luck with your business once again.
 
So far....

Well, it has been a very hit and miss experience so far. I got the board in, and the first thing I noticed is that my processor seems to be running unusually hot. I hear this happens with pretty much all of these boards, so I am not to concerned. Have you had any heat problems? I also couldn't get the video drivers to install correctly, they would always freeze XP on bootup, so I just put in my old GeForce 2 MX440 card (too bad, that was one of the reasons I got this board). Anyone else have this? Lastly, I have been very unsuccessful with OC'ing for some reason. I haven't worked on it too much though, it will take some playing. Yet, it is a ***** trying to get this thing to boot if you do something it doesn't like. So far, it is a very so so experience, but if I can get a decent OC I would like it a lot better.
 
yah that no-boot thing is a killer!

I meant to mention the temps- mine are super high, also. My Tbred1700+@1900mhz is running at 65C, which is ridiculous. But when I touch the heatsink (SK6) it isn't even warm- I have to assume the board is just reading temps way too high. My system does not crash or even get unstable, so it's gotta be a measurement error.

I've heard from others that the built-in video has problems. I haven't tried it yet, I'm too afraid something else will go wrong :rolleyes:

Oh yah and BTW, DO NOT try to look at the built-in NIC's MAC addy in the BIOS. Doing this erases the address and ruins the NIC forever, even if you Escape out of it. Guess how I know this:)

Did you do the Live Update thing? I found that the most recent BIOS is a bit slower then the one it had when I received it. Also, ytou might want to use the Live Update thing to make a BIOS emergency disk. Chances are you'll need it. God knows I did- twice so far.
 
I have been there a bit, but I haven't done anything yet. I plan to as soon as I get some time, but I have been working a lot on this precalc homework that I just can't figure out for the life of me and it is really starting to get to me! How do you make the emergency bios disk, I don't see it as one of the options? Also, what happens if you hit yes for flash bios, does it do it there, or is that how you get to the disk? Thanks!
 
if my memory is working, i went in to update the BIOS and making an emergency disk was an option along the way. I decided to take the risk and let it flash from Windows, it just started going when I hit Yes, and all was well after a reboot. The flash Enabled some dumb settings like Spread Spectrum, so watch for that. If you flash, could you let me know if it helps your no-boot problems? Didn't help for me.
 
I already have 1.2 so I think my bios is up to date, which is nice. I am not sure what my problems with the OC'ing really have been, I haven't done major things so I really am lost. Then again, I am a newbie really with a lot of this stuff, I didn't build my first computer until about a year ago, but I worked at a local computer shop over the summer (which I hated, but that is another story) and I learned a lot. I still am learning in OCing though, hopefully sooner or later I will get it. I wish it was like my old Soyo board in that with that board you could hold down insert when you booted up and it would load all of the minimum settings, making fixing problems really easy. How important is lowering the multiplier? I have an unlocked chip, but I am not sure how big of a deal that is, and when to do it. Also, on a completely unrelated note, how do you get a picture to show up next to your name, like you have the big M, I am not sure how else to describe it since I am not looking at it, but how do you get that? I guess that is it for now, hasta. Oh, one last thing, are you good with precalc? I have a hw assignment that is killing me, lol. Hasta, thanks again for everything.
 
heheh dude you definately don't want my help with math homework, I am absolutely horrible at math. It's weird, I can do math alright when it comes to programming and such things but when I see a textbook my brain just locks up :D

The hold insert key thing, I would kill to have that right about now. Just about every board I've ever had has that option! Why they left it out is beyond me.

I don't think I ever really lower the multi. I just boost the FSB until it stops, and then turn up the multi until the chip is at it's limit. I don't really need to lower it. Then again, I always have a low-speed chip with a low multi to begin with. A faster chip would need to have a lowered multi. But since they OC the same I got the slowest cheapest one I can find.

The Marzocchi 'M' i have is an avatar, you need to have a certain number of post before you can add one, it's pretty low tho (like 15 or something). The option shows up in your user profile panel. Just keep it small when you get one, under 10K- only one dude pays for this forum's bandwidth and he's tryin to save $$.
 
I just realized that I did in fact lower the multi on this chip, from 11 to 10. Sorry, I had a brain fart. I'm still thinking like I'm on my old systems :D
 
No problemo. Does our motherboard automatically unlock all multipliers or do we still have to do it the old fashioned way. I have heard that the nforce boards unlock chips, but I am not sure. Do you know?
 
ya know I'm not sure! I didn't have to unlock my Tbred. Is this cuz A) it's already unlocked B) the board unlocked it for me? heh all I know for sure is I didn't have to bother with it :)
 
I am pretty sure that I have heard that about all of the nforce boards. Anyway, what have you heard about the early Bartons with their OCing ability, like the 2500 and 2600?
 
dude all I know about Bartons is they are ridiculously overpriced. I'd be surprised if they OC very well- twice the cache means twice the chance to fail an OC, just like back in the 300A days. Plus, it's a brand-new die, on it's first stepping. Honestly I doubt I'll ever even own one before the next chip hits.

Barton reminds me a lot of Tualatins- too little, too late, too expensive. Didn't get me a T. until they were outdated and cheap.

I don't even know why they bothered making Bartons, 512K is such a tiny tiny speed improvement over 256K. Jumping from 128 to 256 is like barely a 25% speed imcrease for ops that don't leave the L2, 256 to 512 is even less. I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually slower for any operations less than a multiple of 512K, anyway. All they did was add to the L2, they didn't do improvements to the instruction set.

heh maybe it's just sour grapes but Barton doesn't really interest me at all, I'll take a free one but that about it :D
 
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