FX-55 + MSI Neo2 Problems

Ok, i've got my system all setup now, and something just doesn't seem right with it, so any help would be nice. Keep in mind, this is my first AMD build, so not only am i a noob, but i'm working with something i know very little about.

Hardware:
FX-55 (using stock FX-53 heatsink, waiting on XP-90)
MSI Neo2 1.36Beta
2x512 Gskill TCCD
6800 GT OC by BFG (66.81 betas)
Antec True Power 550
WD 74GB Raptor
Onboard Sound and LAN (non MAC one?)

My main BIOS settings are AGP 1.65v with 128mb aperture. RAM volts are default, CPU voltage is default with "vid" default as well, no % increase or whatever that is, something i still don't understand to begin with. ATI/Nvidia in special menu is disabled, RAID disabled, SATA 1-2 disabled, MAC LAN Disabled, HTT is at 3x, FSB is at 260, multi is at 10, AGP is at 67, spread spectrum disabled..i think that's most of it, at least all i can think of without rebooting right now. My memory timings are 2.5-3-3-7-1T. I haven't attempted to overclock, A) I don't have a clue what i'm doing, and B) i am waiting to burn in and get my new heatsink.

Now here's my problem. My 6800 GT OC card has a default clock of 370/1.0. I had been running it in my Intel rig at 420/1.10 for about a weeks time, no problems at all. If i even overclock it by 1MHz on this new AMD, i get artifacting like crazy, and benchmarks take on this crazy look. Aquamark will freeze, and have weird lags in it, plus weird artifacts i can't even describe. 3DMark 03 will have weird artifacting as well i can't describe, and even if the bench runs all the way through, it still is about 10K points less in aqua, and 3K less in Mark 03, now if someone can explain this to me, you get a cookie. Bassically i can't overclock this graphics card at all anymore, and my Intel rig spanks it in benches because of this.

Another thing i dislike about this board is the fact that everytime i reboot, i get the Nvidia IDE RAID pop up screen that sits on "detecting array..." for about 3-5 seconds, even though i have RAID disabled within my BIOS, not a big problem, but VERY annoying never-the-less, little help on getting rid of that would be cool too. Overall it's a nice CPU, it does beat out my intel at default clocks in CPU dependent benches, but as for this motherboard, i am not a fan so far, keeping in mind this is my first ever AMD and have nothing to comapare it to..lol

If you can suggest anything about my weird gfx problem that would be cool. Thanks.

Hey Sucka! (Heh, just had to say it)

Nice rig you got there much like mine. The Raid boot screen is certainly annoying, you can by pass it by flicking the Esc. button on bootup. I don't know how to get rid of it totaly. As far as the vid card issue, I couldn't tell you, do you have "AGP" selected as primary display? The bios default is "PCI" for soem stupid reason, that might help. I have not had any vid card issues with my Neo2 Plat. but certainly lots of others. this is my 3rd Neo2 Plat. and am glad I finally got a good one. what bios are you using and at what multi do you have your fx-55 at? I have mine set to 10x270 with the same Gskill ram you have and it purrs along nicely.

Here's a Sandra I just did of my FX-55 at 10x270fsb with the Gskill goodness.

krag said:

Hey Sucka! (Heh, just had to say it)

Nice rig you got there much like mine. The Raid boot screen is certainly annoying, you can by pass it by flicking the Esc. button on bootup. I don't know how to get rid of it totaly. As far as the vid card issue, I couldn't tell you, do you have "AGP" selected as primary display? The bios default is "PCI" for soem stupid reason, that might help. I have not had any vid card issues with my Neo2 Plat. but certainly lots of others. this is my 3rd Neo2 Plat. and am glad I finally got a good one. what bios are you using and at what multi do you have your fx-55 at? I have mine set to 10x270 with the same Gskill ram you have and it purrs along nicely.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I'm running BIOS 1.36 Beta. And yes, it did come with PCI as default, and i did swap it to AGP. But i got a question, there's that one screen that has AGp 4x, AGP 4x/8x.....which one of those did you pick (i got 4x/8x)? I plan on doing the exact same thing with my setup as well, 10 x 270 for a modest overclock on air. I am currently doing 10 x 260 as seen in that picture. So far it's a uhm, nice system. I can't say i'm happy with it yet, but if everything gets worked out, i'm sure it'll be nice. And yeah, that boot screen is killing me, i don't know why i hate it so much, but just watching it for 3-5 seconds when i KNOW i have RAID disabled is annoying....hehe

You might wanna try the latest NVForceawre chipset drivers, they are 5.10.

Download the 5.10 Unified drivers here.

See if this helps the graphics problem.

krag said:

You might wanna try the latest NVForceawre chipset drivers, they are 5.10.

Download the 5.10 Unified drivers here.

See if this helps the graphics problem.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Do i need to uninstall anything? If so, what?

Sucka said:

Thanks. Do i need to uninstall anything? If so, what?

Click to expand...

Nope, I never have. Just run the .exe and follow the directions. As far as I know they install right over the top of the others.

krag said:

Nope, I never have. Just run the .exe and follow the directions. As far as I know they install right over the top of the others.

Click to expand...

Worth a shot, best to work the bugs out before i install all my games

I don't want to speak to soon, but just ran through 3 benches without any problems, only a slight OC though so far....thanks for that link!

Sucka said:

I don't want to speak to soon, but just ran through 3 benches without any problems, only a slight OC though so far....thanks for that link!

Click to expand...

Right on bro! I am glad to have helped!

Is this the farthest you have gotten without vid card issues?

krag said:

Right on bro! I am glad to have helped!

Is this the farthest you have gotten without vid card issues?

Click to expand...

Yes, tottaly different outcome with those drivers. I'm running through 3DMark 03 right now which takes a little time, but so far it's looking normal. Thanks!

Edit: It is better, i can at least get a slight OC, but still not where i was at before. I've never seen overclocking the gfx card freeze benchmarks what whatnot, so weird. But at least i can run it slightly overclocked

Another thing i dislike about this board is how you need to set 67 on the AGP to have it lock, and not only that, but you can't use SATA ports 1/2 with them locked. So i've got the SATA cable running across my board...that is something i'm not a fan of. Another thing, not a big deal, but annoying was the jumper pins at the bottom that the case hooks to, they are all backwards from the pictures and make you really have to think...lol. The DIMMs being color coded, but not being matched for duel channel, another weird thing. Why 1 + 2 slots make duel channel, but they aren't color matched it weird imo. And what the heck is MAC lan? I guess it's just that i'm so new to AMD, and i really didn't know what to expect. Good thing there is enough knowledge around so that i found those things out on before i got the board.

Like with all drivers, id uninstall through control panel, re-boot then install new one's.

Anyways, thats one hell of a CPU you got there.