MSI NF750-G55 and Athlon II x250

First post on your forum, thanks for having me.

Used to be a geek and thought I grew out of it, bought a nice laptop 4 years ago when I had money, and haven't kept up with the hardware scene.

A month or so ago, she died. I started researching and made an informed purchase with what little cash I had. This post is to thank you for giving me this forum to learn from and get back up to speed.

I couldn't afford an I series, and I like AMD so I chose a 250 I found on sale.

Just so happened to score an open box NF750-G55 too, my DDR3 memory cost almost as much as the combo, but at least one part is currently up to date. This is the cheapest SLI board I could find.

Running OCZ gold low voltage (2x2gb) ddr3 1600 and pretty happy with it.

Onboard video walks all over my old laptop but my buddy gave me an HD4650 so I'm keeping that warm for now.

If your still awake, I know it's not all that impressive, but I'm happy with it. I have room for upgrading with a phenom and better vc card down the road.

So the bios was real confusing but all of your posts helped me get through it, these are my results after 7 hours of prime. No fire yet and 3D still works, I'm maxing at 49c with a Tuniq 120, so I think she has more in her.

My timing could maybe be tighter too, anyway just wanted to say HI and thanks for your help, past present and future. Comments, advice, ridicule are welcome.

320 x 11.5 = 3680mhz - NB 2240mhz - DRAM 1280mhz - HT link 1920mhz

CPU VDD 1.45
CPU NB VDD 1.3
CPU Volt 1.5
CPU NB Volt 1.35
NB Volt 1.25
DRAM Volt 1.72

DRAM Timings 8-8-8-18-31-2T

This a bomb waiting to go off or am I on the right track?

Does XP itself have a problem with 3.9ghz+ or is it just me?

to OCF!


It looks like everything is on track and working well. Not sure about the CPU VDD so I'll leave that to others but your HTRef is getting pretty high so I'd guess if you're running into a problem that's where i is. 320 MHz is high even for some of the high-priced boards.

You can check to see how high you HTRef will go, though. Turn down your RAM, cpuNB, and HTLink speeds one notch then turn down your CPU multiplier to 10.5. This should put all your speeds well below where you're at now. The next step is to simply raise the HTRef up above 320 MHz to see if that's the problem - I'd use 5 MHz increments. With all your multipliers turned down 1x an HTRef of even 350 MHz wouldn't be as fast as you're running now. If the machine can't get there then you will have found the upper limit of your board ...

QuietIce said:

to OCF!


It looks like everything is on track and working well. Not sure about the CPU VDD so I'll leave that to others but your HTRef is getting pretty high so I'd guess if you're running into a problem that's where i is. 320 MHz is high even for some of the high-priced boards.

You can check to see how high you HTRef will go, though. Turn down your RAM, cpuNB, and HTLink speeds one notch then turn down your CPU multiplier to 10.5. This should put all your speeds well below where you're at now. The next step is to simply raise the HTRef up above 320 MHz to see if that's the problem - I'd use 5 MHz increments. With all your multipliers turned down 1x an HTRef of even 350 MHz wouldn't be as fast as you're running now. If the machine can't get there then you will have found the upper limit of your board ...

Click to expand...

Thank you kindly for the input, and I understand completely.

My board passed 7 hours or so of prime with the HTref (my bios calls it fsb) at 330 mhz....it will not post at 334 (with everything else at minimums). My CPU/NB gets flaky at over 2600, HT link likes 1900-2100 or onboard lan has problems.

I agree with you and didn't like my HTref that high either, so I burned in the below settings all night last night.

300x12=3600mhz NB 2400 DRAM 1200 HT link 2100
DRAM TIMING 7-7-7-16-27-2T

My ram would have ran at 1600mhz like it's rated at, but from what I read, the x250 can't handle that. I get errors at anything over about 1300 even with the loose timing in my previous post. I haven't tried upping the voltage to the ram too much because I think I'm at the limit of my memory controller.

My cpu doesn't like anything over about 3750mhz with 1.45v (49c). I want to go higher but I think I better upgrade my power supply first.

Anyway, thanks for your help QuietIce and nice to meet you.

I'll be hanging around mostly researching but I look forward to any and all advice and opinions, thanks.

*edit* I pulled last night's burn with all my voltages on auto (woohoo)

Looks like you've been reading the AM2 OC thread, among other things ...

QuietIce said:

Looks like you've been reading the AM2 OC thread, among other things ...

Click to expand...

Yes sir I have, been busy troubleshooting a vc and looking for a new ps but I'll be back to push this combo a little further real soon.

Thanks for your help.