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K7N2 Delta-L Problem

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StaticXD00d

Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2004
Location
NC
First post here, been reading for a while, but just registered. I need help.

I just got the following:
K7N2 Delta-L
AMD XP2500+
2x512 DDR400 Geil Golden Dragon
Maxtor 80GB 7200
Thermaltake Extreme 12 Volcano
Arctic Silver 5

Vid card is my old 4X ATi Radeon 64MB DDR w/VIVO. (7500 equivalent, I believe). I don't have the cash right now for the latest Radeon, so I'm going to live with this one until I can get the one I want.

I put the thing together last night, got Win2K installed on it, and burned it in with Prime95 overnight. No problems. Decided this morning to start seeing what she would do. Tried the "jump straight to 200Mhz FSB" trick, and while it would boot up, Prime95 would fail. I played with it a little, but couldn't get it stable, so I said, "Okay, let's go back to the start and start bumping it up a bit at a time and see how far it goes".

I started at 170Mhz, ran Prime95 TT for an hour, no problem. Bumped it to 175Mhz, ran Prime95 TT for an hour, no problem. Bumped it to 185Mhz, and it won't post. So, let's reset the CMOS and start again, right? WRONG. I've reset the CMOS at least 10 times, changed the jumpers to safe mode/100Mhz, won't post. D-Bracket shows halt at Memory check when in user mode/133Mhz. When changing it to 100Mhz/safe mode, D-bracket shows halt at floppy controller. I've pulled the memory, swapped it between slots, tried one stick, the other stick, both sticks, no sticks, no luck. I cannot get this board to post now. Disconnect floppy, doesn't matter. Heck, I even pulled the CMOS battery off the board, let it sit for 60 seconds, and put it back, and no luck.

So, I sent an e-mail to MSI support, and of course, the first thing out of their mouth is, "By overclocking the system, it will cause damage to the components installed and this also include the mb. Please confirm the cause of the problem with other components installed in another working system board to determine the cause of the problem." :mad:

I don't buy that. The fact that the thing ran fine overnight, and all this morning, and just started this not-posting thing when I made the last change to the FSB, tells me it's not that I damaged it with overclocking. My temps never went over 46C on the CPU and 40C in the system at any time, and I never had to crank the Tt fan over 4500RPM or so. She was running beautifully.

Help? WTF is going on here? Did I really mess up my stuff by trying to OC it? I've read SO many posts of people OCing this setup much higher than I tried to, I can't believe I damaged something. I never smelled smoke or anything bad like that. It just simply fails to post.

Thanks in advance for any help!
 
Update: I just dropped the 2 sticks of memory in my wife's machine (AMD XP2000+ Palomino, MSI MB w/VIA chipset), and the memory runs just fine. Her machine now has 1.25GB RAM. (That's DEFINITELY not going to last long... :D )

Next is to swap vid cards, and other schtuff I guess.
 
Okay, I'm stupid. And probably not making a very good first impression, huh? Sorry. :bang head

I think it was related to my vid card, because I swapped it with the one on my wife's machine, and I noticed for a locked down AGP vid card, it sure came out easy. Put the wife's vid card in it, and it posted right up. Put mine back in it, making sure that it was seated properly, and put my RAM back in it, and it posted right up.

So... I'm on it now, currently running at 1929.4MHz with an FSB of 175.4, and Prime95 just failed. Darn.

Any ideas on how to get this thing to 2.2GHz, or close?
 
Well, I just got this stuff from Newegg, I ordered it on Monday and it arrived on Wednesday. (WOW! Newegg is amazing!) However, I think my 2500+ might be unlocked, because in the bios there is a range all the way from 2.0 to like 13.5 for the multiplier.

I currently have the ratio set to "By SPD", which, I believe, automatically sets the ratio to 1:1 at 200 fsb. I think the major problem I'm having might be RAM timings/voltage, but I don't know enough about it to change them to something that makes sense. Right now they're set to 2.5-5-5-9, and it seems to like that setting. FSB is set to 175MHz, and it's running pretty good. Temps are staying around 45C, and Prime95 is running. I'm getting a small SUM error every now and then, but it's not enough to stop Prime95 from continuing.

I will try just using J10 next time it won't post, instead of clearing the CMOS.

Thanks for the help!
 
the chip set runs crap with ddr at 400 and fsb 175 or any other spd other than 200

set it to 1.1 as i said it will be faster

if its a new one its locked leave multiplier alone
 
Well, I just can't get the machine to run at all at 200 fsb. It will post, but I always get BSOD when starting Win2k Pro. Something about ntoskrnl. I've tried bumping the Vcore, changing memory timings, I set the ratio to 1:1, no luck.

Perhaps it just wasn't meant for me to OC this machine. Oh well, it's not the end of the world. :)
 
Here's the link to the case on NewEgg: My Case

According to the side of the PSU, +3.3V = 28A, +5V = 35A, +12V = 15A. It's a 400W PSU.
 
I got it!

Well, I stuck with it, and got it up to 2.2GHz! Here are the screenshots from CPU-Z:

Main screen:
cpuz1.jpg


Memory screen:
cpuz2.jpg


As you can see, 2-3-3-11 seemed to be the magic number for the memory. Anything other than that, and it just barfed. I also bumped the voltage up to 1.80 on the mobo, however, this mobo seems to overvolt, as CPU-Z and MBM-5 both report anything from 1.82 to 1.90 volts during operation, mostly staying around 1.84-1.87ish.

It doesn't want to run Prime95, but seems to run everything else just fine. That's okay... I can keep it at stock speeds for normal use, and just kick it up when I'm playing a certain game or something. Temps are good, never saw the CPU temp go higher than 46C!

WOOHOO! :D
 
Well, I spoke too soon. I kept tweaking, and was able to get it way more stable at 2.5-4-4-11 timings. When I went back to stock speeds, Prime still wouldn't run. Now, at 2.2GHz, Prime runs much better. I still get an error every now and then, but it's rare, and not every 5 minutes like before.

Just wanted to say thanks again for all your help, Wonkanoby. I feel like this one's a success! :)
 
i got just about the same setup as you but i have 512 (2 pair) 333ddr and a 550 watt psu and i got my cpu up to 1995 and still going but i dont see any improvement on 3dmark03 or aquamark02, sometimes its worse. i dont get it it says 1995 in properties and on that cpu z with 181fsb but no diffrence. my old board was a l7vta 1.0 333 fsb 400 meory and i got better performance out of that and it wasnt clocked. got this mobo today btw, can anyone help me get back my normal performance or better?
 
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