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Damn it! Does the new MSI nForce2 have a PCI lock or just a /6?

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c627627

c(n*199780) Senior Member
Joined
Feb 18, 2002
I've built a rig for a client, and the limited amount of testing I did, I did not see a change in pci/agp speed at all. I changed fsb 3 times just messing around and making sure not to fry anything. From what I gather, I'd say it's locked, but then again this is not definitive proof of anything. I certainly woudn't avoid buying this board.
 
Again, as a consumer with options, why would you pass on a board that is priced the same or less with a confirmed PCI lock?

MSI Senior moderators' insistance that this board has a PCI lock would ordinarily be enough to add MSI to the list of nForce2 mobos with a confirmed PCI lock: Epox, Abit, Asus, Chaintech, Soltek

There's only one problem: Anandtech nForce2 mobo roundup specifically quotes MSI as informing them that it doesn't.

Either somebody from MSI messed up major earlier in the year, giving MSI a bad rep all this time because of that Anandtech review, or the board has a /6 divider allowing it to reach 200+ FSB without a PCI lock.
 
Well, wouldn't the pci speed be affected even with a /6 divider. You would think somewhere along the lines, the speed would change to something other than 33. True or not true?
 
I agree with your reasoning.

In theory then to find out which of the five mobos have a PCI lock, all you would need is five people who own them, telling you what you just said about MSI.

Why then is there so much confusion out there?

Hundreds of people owned the famous Epox nForce2 before it was finally confirmed it had a PCI lock. Would it not have been confirmed earlier if it was as simple as you say?
 
How about this. How many people that own MSI Nforce 2 boards can state in this thread, that they can confirm that MSI boards DO NOT have a pci lock. That should be simple right.
 
The only thing standing between any doubt about MSI having a PCI lock is the Anandtech review:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1759&p=29
"12/04/02 UPDATE: MSI sends word that the K7N2-L indeed does not have a PCI bus lock at 33MHz."

I emailed them.

Who the heck from MSI told them this if it weren't true?
 
Thank you for reposting the link from post #2, [T-A]_Super_10

Who here is so confident in MSI PCI lock to take Gautam's challenge:
Gautam said:


This is getting unneccessarily heated. Although I can say for sure that its false to make such a generalization as saying that all nForce2's are locked. MSI themselves came forward and said that at least one of their nForce2 boards were not PCI locked. I think that they have the intelligence to know what features they're including in their board. Perhaps the later revisions are locked, perhaps they're not.

Now as for confirming whether or not they have a PCI lock, this is what I suggest to anyone daring enough that claims that their board does indeed have one. Take an ATA hard drive that has an operating system installed, and set your front side bus to 132mhz. If your motherboard truly does have a lock, the PCI bus will run at 33mhz, and you will be able to boot fine, and use it fine. If your motherboard does not have a lock, the PCI bus will run at 44mhz, at which speed your hardrive has just about 0% of surviving without being corrupted.

Either way, however, high front side buses shouldn't be an issue on any nForce2 Ultra board, as they all for sure have at least a 1/6 divider, to reach their spec of being able to run a 400mhz front side bus. The non-locked boards should stll be able to reach around 230mhz without any issues, so as far as the end-user is concerned, it doesn't matter whether or not their mobo has a PCI lock.
 
Gautam's explanation:

The reason this may work is that

Gautam said:

The default divider between 100mhz and 132mhz is 1/3.
Remember that 100/3=33mhz.

You'd have to reach 133mhz for the next divider, 1/4.

So 132 /3 = 44

133 FSB you're fine... but if you set your FSB 1 less to 132 on a board that is not PCI locked,

132 / 3 = 44

132 FSB would be like running your hard drives 33% out of specs.

unless...

there is a PCI lock.
 
that wont nessaserily work, since different boards tend to kick in the dividers at different speeds. for example, my old msi kt3-ultra's 1/5 divider used to kick in at around 162mhz, bringing the pci and agp bus UNDER-SPEC untill you hit 166mhz.

i think 129mhz to 133 mhz should be tested.
 
Here's a practical question:

Is there a mobo that is not PCI locked that actually allows you to set 129 through 132 FSB?

I thought that you couldn't even do that in BIOSes of mobos without a PCI lock because it prevents mobo suicide...
 
Originally posted by: c627627

Mr. Evan Lieb, please reply to this:

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1759&p=29

You say:

"12/04/02 UPDATE: MSI sends word that the K7N2-L
indeed does not have a PCI bus lock at 33MHz."

To this day, that was used as ultimate proof that MSI nForce2 mobo does not have a PCI lock.

Today (July 21, 2003) MSI Senior Moderators said:
"they are wrong,and who ever told them it did not from msi"

(!)

Source:
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/e_service/forum/thread.php?threadid=24587&boardid=14&styleid=[/L]


Won't you please settle this for us.

Who from MSI informed you about the PCI lock and why are they denying it now?


Source: Anandtech

Originally posted by: Evan Lieb

MSI did tell me that the original nForce2 boards had an unlocked PCI bus (despite what these senior mods would have you believe). Perhaps that has changed with the new nForce2 (Ultra 400) motherboards, or perhaps MSI misinformed me. However, the article you're referring to is nearly 8 months old, we can't possibly update it everytime something changes, otherwise we'd have to rerun benchmarks, update BIOSes all the time, etc. All nForce2 Ultra 400 motherboards do have AGP and PCI locks though, that much I've confirmed.

By the way, do those senior mods work for MSI? They don't reveal their names.
 
hold on, I'm willing to say that it does indeed have a pci lock.
I recently bought at tbred b, popped it in, and started increasing the fsb.
I did it one Mhz at a time, each time it ran, faultlessly, until my ram crapped out.

if you can do that without your network card or hardrives, or cd burners, or dvd roms giving you issues, I'm willing to bet it's got a pci lock.

I figure that's good enough for me
 
Which MSI nForce2, the old one or the new versions.
It sure looks like someone at MSI gave out the wrong information.

If you do have the old MSI board, there's one way to settle it:
Set your FSB just under 133, between 128 and 132, that should prove it, as noted above.
 
then I've definitey got the old, because I got the old when the old was new, and there was no delta
 
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