MSI K9N nForce 550 won't boot!

[The_Unmaker]

I set up my new ASUS M2N32 SLI board. Worked right out of the box. The memory is more than likely the problem with everyone's boards right now. I hope you all get it resolved.

Single core AM2s can run DDR2 modules at 800 MHz. No problem. You can play with the timings and tweak. But using single core AM2 processors with DDR2 6400 will not pose issues (unless your SPD chip is programmed to something that your motherboard dislikes).

 

[Cyrius]

Hey Unmaker, I've been reading all you stuff, for all the OCZ people out there, OCZ really does suck, I don't care if they can "fix" it, buy Kingston and don't have any trouble in the first place.

I tried OCZ first cause it was cheapest DDR800, didn't post. Now keep in mind I normally always use Kingston, got some Kingston, worked FINE. NOW, I'm having new issue, random reboots. Totally lost, think I might have a clue though, hoping it's just a driver issue, but it even does it with no nForce drivers installed, so I'm really not too hopeful 🙁

Any Ideas?

I'm the last post in this topic: http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Random-lock-ups-ftopict188352.html (as of now = 6.29.6 2:26AM PST)

 

[Swiss_Binky]

Hi all,
i've got the same problem, no post, no video, but the fans get power. I've checked if the graphic card might have a compatibility issue, i tried it on my brother's system, and it worked fine. My system specs

AMD Athlon 64 AM2 3800+
MSI K9N Neo nFoce 550
1x 1 GB Corsair Value select 533Mhz
HIS Radeon X1800GTO
320GB Seagate Barracuda SATA-II
Plextor 755SA
Tried 350 and 450 Watt Generic PSU and a Raptoxx 450 v2.0 PSU
(My brother got exactly the same raptoxx psu and the graphic card worked)

As i already said, the graphic card works fine, so i don't know if it's the RAM or what. It just seems unlikely to me that everyone has a RAM problem with different brands

 

[Cyrius]

only advice i have for u is to reset ur cmos/bios, using the jumper, or removing the battery, and use kingston memory...

kingston has higher compatibilty rating than corsair...

although, once my ocz ram didn't work, i suspected the memory right off, bought a 533 corsair 512mb stick, put it in, it worked fine, try one stick at a time, some people said the 2nd slot worked better also... i returned the corsair once i found out it was just the crappy ocz that didn't work, and got myself 2 1gb sticks of kingston.... kingston will never let u down...

 

[phyglenaut]

Sounds like most everyone has got this figured out, but I just thought I'd add my two cents to the mix in an effort to help document this issue:

Enlight 7250 w/350 w psu
MSI K9N Platinum (not sli)
AMD Athlon64 x2 4200
2 GB Kingston PC5300 667 RAM (1GB x 2)
ASUS 6600 Video
Western Digital 320GB 7200 rpm
Lite-On 16x DVD+-RW x2
NEC floppy

Cyrius, first of all, I had actually done exactly what you did, and bought Kingston memory with this computer I am building for a customer. Kingston is very compatible with MSI. One MSI tech told me once that Kingston is right across the street from them in fact.

When I put the system together 2 weeks ago, it booted up but would not load Windows. I thought it was the Windows disk at first, but I then thought it might be the memory so, I took out 1 stick and got it to load Windows with some trouble. I then tested both sticks of RAM with memtest86+ v1.65 and both were "bad". I RMA'd the RAM back to Newegg, and after a week, got the replacements. I installed these and lo and behold, memtest86+ tested these out as being "bad" also. Lots of errors in a short time. Newegg was very nice and actually next day shipped out another set of RAM as I RMA'd back the 2nd "bad" set to them for refund. When I got the third set of RAM memtest86+ tested these out as "bad" also. That's when I knew something had to be wrong with the motherboard/chipset. I did a little bit of searching and found out that this seems to be a pretty common issue as you all have noted, with the new AM2 socket and the new nVidia chipset, along with ddr2 RAM. The Kingston memory which I had installed is rated to run at 1.8v and that is what the MSI board defaults to. I had just figured naturally that the motherboard/chipset wasn't at fault because I was running the RAM at its rated speed and voltage. After reading a few posts I tried underclocking the RAM to 400 to be extra safe and it worked perfectly. No memtest errors. Then I tried putting it back to 667 and the errors were back, so I raised the voltage incrementally from 1.8 to 1.85 to 1.9 to 1.95 to 2.0 until it hit 2.05v at 667 and it works perfectly now, with no memory errors from memtest86+. Each time I raised the voltage I got less and less memtest86+ errors and Windows became more and more stable. 2.05v happened to be the "sweet spot" for the voltage on my particular machine.

As a side note, Cyrius, whenever I had those memtest+ errors before I raised the voltage to the RAM I could usually boot to Windows, but the OS was very unstable and frequently rebooted randomly. This may be what you are experiencing if you haven't tried raising the voltage to your Kingston RAM yet.

As others have mentioned, anytime new technology like AM2 comes out, all of us should expect to run into problems like this until BIOS revisions, drivers, and the technology in general has had the time to mature in the market. I'd give it 2 months and we'll probably see all board manufacturers and memory manufacturers to have fixed this with revisions to their products and BIOS updates etc. This isn't JUST an MSI + OCZ problem.

Also, in defense of MSI, I've actually had pretty good luck with MSI tech support, and I pretty much exclusively use their boards. Have built or supervised the building of 300+ MSI based systems from 2002 to present.

Please reference the following link where the third reviewer down had the same problem with Corsair Memory and fixed it with Voltages/Timings:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?Item=N82E16820145098

I respect this reviewers remarks about the high RMA rate and how it is not bad parts, but parts not playing well together . . . yet.

I'm hoping for BIOS revisions soon. After all, we shouldn't HAVE to raise the voltage on our memory or mess with timings to get our systems to work at their rated speeds. This is very frustrating of course. Raising voltage/tweaking timings should be for overclocking only, not for JUST getting your system to work.

Hope all this helps everyone concerned.

 

[mytomshardwarename]

Got everything back from Monarch and everything works great....the OCZ SPD timings are the problem. Patriot memory works great. got 2GB with 4-4-4 timings.

 

[MrsD]

Got everything back from Monarch and everything works great....the OCZ SPD timings are the problem. Patriot memory works great. got 2GB with 4-4-4 timings.

Yes the spd timings are the problem. Ocz has this straightened out though.

 

[Cyrius]

phyglenaut, thanks for your post, i'm hoping this will finally solve my issue... this problem is really bumming me out... even if i ever do get this thing stable, i'm guessing it will be more difficult to overclock.... i will try upping my voltage as you did, bit by bit... my favorite memory diagnostic program is the microsoft windows memory diagnostic... it actually tests stuff that windows uses... i use the regular memtest sometimes too, but it takes a lot longer compared... haven't tried the memtest + yet, maybe i will...

whatever happens, i'll post again once i'm sure my problem has been fixed...

thanks to everyone for any insight you might have provided, and especially phyglenaut, cause you're the latest to offer what i would consider to be a very likely solution!

this is really my first time ever being so involved in a forum before, i guess i've never needed so much help before, but i'm glad a lot of people go here and are so willing to offer advice! great forum!

PEACE!

 

[Cyrius]

you da man phyglenaut , i did 2.05 ddr voltage but i'm using 800mhz ram, still worked like a charm, i remember reading in a new egg review that someone had to change their ddr2 800 to 2.10, 2.05 worked great, no more reboots, i can't thank u enough for that suggestion, i was thinking about trying 2.10 after that new egg review just for the heck of it, even that was the default rating of the ocz memory that review was about, i'm using kingston, forget the timings, but ddr2, 800, set for 2.10 tonight, overclocking, so far perfect win mem diag and running games wow and bf2 at 2190 mhz, tried 2300 and 2200 mhz at 2.05 volts, neither worked, 2190 working great on 2.10, going for 2200 on 2.10 now muahahaha... if anyone has tips on overclocking this board, i'd be happy to hear about that too, amd athlon 64 3200+ 2.0GHz stock -- for me now it's 2.19GHz and perfect, never overclocked much before... hehe only back with jumpers on old K6-2 LOL... side note, price is dropping like crazy on all amd stuff cause intel conroe chip gonna blow it away... i hate intel...

 

[phyglenaut]

Hey Cyrius,

Thanks. I'm glad everything is going well for you now with your new system and I hope it will continue to do so.

We'll have to keep an eye on MSI's website and hope they'll have some BIOS fixes soon, and of course, also hope that the memory manufacturers will also quickly address any of these problems on their end.

Anyway, as far as overclocking your system further, you might start to be pushing it, since you've already got your RAM running pretty hot at that level of voltage. Good luck with it though and keep it cool.

 

[Bonzo]

Hi,

Just wondering whether it's likely the latest MSI K9N 550 board revision will be Ok now, and specifically with the following spec machine I intend to get:

AM2 X2 3800+
2GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 675MHz (4-4-4-12 default timings)
7600GT
160GB IDE Samsung SpinPoint HDD
Sony DVD-RW
56k modem
Floppy Drive
Antec NSK 4400 (with 380watt PSU - dual 12V @16amps each)

I'm also wondering whether this board has a hidden menu to change timings for memory, as the PDF I downloaded from the MSI site isn't so clear on that.

Thanks for any input!

 

[Cyrius]

You'll need AT LEAST a 400 Watt power supply with A MINIMUM of 18 amps on the +12 volt rail(s) - If there are 2 +12 volt rails, the combined total needs to be at least 18 amps, this requirement is for the video card alone. I'd suggest getting a 450 to 500 watt psu, definately not a 380, and i'd honestly stay away from antec if you can. Sparkle (SPI) makes some nice cheap power supplies that are actually higher quality than Antec. As for the hard drive, DO NOT get a samsung, they have an awful reputation for making the worst hard drives out there, or at least they used to, not too sure about their current drives, but I prefer western digital. Now on the RAM, I know everyone liked corsair, but I've had trouble with them in the past, I recommend Kingston, they NEVER fail me. And their reputation if you ask any IT specialist is far greater than Corsair's. On the hiddem timing menu, if you can post the exact board model, I can help you with this a bit more, if it's the same one we've been discussing, the K9N Neo-F then the menu isn't even hidden, and after my initial frustrations with this board, I've now come to like it very much and would even go so far as to recommend it to friends. Hope some of this helps, peace out.

War Rock is pathetic! - Battlefield 2 all the way!

 

[Bonzo]

Ta for info and thoughts provided.

I'm fairly comfortable with the Antec PSU - it's got dual 12V rails with 16 amps for each rail, so that's 32amps combined - I know it doesn't work exactly like that, but calculating the actual wattage the PC will consume, I've worked out it'll be more than enough for my planned setup at default clock speeds (overclocking would be another matter) - also, the price for the case plus PSU is only £41, which is the only half decent combination that fits my budget, and should be alot safer than a generic brand.

Unfortunately the place I'll be getting all the parts from doesn't have any kingston RAM, they have G.Skill, GeIL, Corsair, Crucial, Patriot, OCZ and Mushkin, but the only brands that would fit my budget are Corsair, GeIL and G.Skill, and I've heard of G.Skill having the RAM problems with AM2 boards, so maybe I should try GeIL if you think Corsair will be bad as well?

Is the RAM timings under the "MCT Timing" heading bit then - it is the basic K9N Neo -F 550 I'm looking at? I couldn't see anything in the PDF. :/

 

[metenojo]

I have a problem like yours.but sometimes My PC posts ,other not, so i did what one of the members said , i put the DDR voltage in 1.95 , the defaut is 1.8 , my memories are low quality 533MHz ,chineses Shang shong , or something like that , so if you have certified memories you can up to 2.0 or 2.1 , and until now the my sistems are working.

 

[thispastyear]

OK!
I FIGURED IT OUT!
i have been fucking with this damned motherboard all night, read ALL of these forums, about the fucking motherboard, not working at all, not posting whatsoever. No boot, no nothing, i had the same problem.

It's not about clocking your RAM, (Except OCZ, i tried using a fatality an9 32x with the OCZ, failed to work, appearently am2 and OCZ don't work together, too high a latency or something) ANYHOW, i got kingston, no problem.

The problem is SO MUCH easier than you guys think. The front pannel LCD connections are WRONG

Switch the Blue Wire, with the Red Wire (Reset, with Keylock or *Power Switch LED *not the 4 prong*)

Don't ask me why, but it works.
I was SO frustrated, all the answers on the forum were, just return it. I tried holding down the reset button, out of shear frustration, and fuckin a, the thing boots up. We call a Geek Squad buddy, and he reccomends the cable switch, whala, im formatting the new hard drive as we speak, motherboard is working just fine, no CMOS or BIOS problems, no RAM problems, everything is smooth sailing.


Good Luck. After my 4th Visit to Fry's electronics, i've finally got this bitch to work.

 

[Jackthetripper]

AMD Athlon 64 AM2 3800+
MSI K9N Neo nForce 550
1x 1 GB Corsair Value select 533Mhz Ram
320Gb Seagate Barracuda SATA-II
Generic 450 PSU

I was building this budget system for my brother and I also had trouble getting this board to post. No beeps, no video, no nothing. For the longest time I couldn't figure out what was wrong and I was getting pretty frustrated. I knew everything was hooked up right and I was stumped. I was beginning to think it was the cheapo ram.

This mobo is VERY picky about the way that the ram is seated in the memory slots. The ram looked like it was seated just fine (both white tabs were down around the ram). I removed and put the ram back in and pressed on it until I knew it was in all the way and BAM! It posted!

I can confirm this setup works just fine and is quite stable.

 

[kuiskaus]

I had a similar problem myself, though instead of never getting it to boot, after fiddling enough with the parts, it did boot. However the last time i changed some parts (everytime i did any modification to the setup, it didnt work anymore) i couldnt get it to work anymore. Fans/lights lightup but display shows nothing.

The fix seems now so obvious, that i doubt it was the same reason others had. But for the chance people as stupid as me are googling this out, i'll write it down

The problem for me was that i hadnt added power to PWR2 and PWR3 connectors, duh. Why i did that was cause the manual sayd that e.g. the one above the grahics card is ment to "provide power to the graphics card". What i didnt get from that text was that: is it supposed to provide the power, or should it be provided there. Now i thought that since there are GPU's that need an extra power supply, its supposed to be connected from there to the GPU. I didnt test it before cause if i would have been wrong, i would have fried the MB. And since i have gotten it to work without it, it made me more suspicious about connecting the PSU to those connectors. But after further investigation i realised i was wrong, connected the PSU to those and bam, its working, heh.

 

[taimoore]

Hello Everyone,
I just got a MSI K9A Platinum mobo with AMD X2 4200+ processor.

1. AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4200+ 2.2 GHz Processor with 89-Watt Power

2. MSI K9A Platinum ATI CrossFire Xpress 3200 AMD Socket AM2 Motherboard

3. 530 Watts RAIDMAX power supply with Blue LED Fans

I installed my OCZ 512 Mbyte ram (8.2volts) and switched on my PSU unit. Nothing would happen...zero zilch nada..the PSU wont even switch ON at all and the CPU fan wont even budge.

No error lights nothing on the MOBO came at to indicate what the problem may be. I have no idea what the problem is. I replaced the PSU with my known working PSU and switch it on again and this time the CPU fan came on for about 2-3 seconds and then switched off again.

Please help me, its been really frustrasting and I am out of idea and solutions..please need your help guys..

Tim

 

[wispyd]

I just went through this same sequence. Got the 4 red led's and never got it to post after exchanging both the mobo and the processor.

I am done with the MSI. I am going to Tiger and RMA'ing them and getting an ASUS.

This whole thing was a nightmare over 2 weeks (I am overly patient).

Thanks everyone for this thread.

 

[maxumjam]

Ok, what a pain in my ass!!! I have read everything here and it seems I have all of your problems!

MoBo 1 was MSI KA780G MoBo 2 is MSI 785 GTM -E45
Kingston 2GB DDR2 PC2 6400 800 MHZ
X@ 250 AMD Athlon Dual-Core 3.0 GHz Socket AM3
380W ATX Raid PSU
NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
Black power cord...

It all started when the computer would freeze as I was doing something. It would run one thing fine but if I was transferring data or multitasking it would lock up. No mouse movement or anything. I would reboot and everything would be coolio! Then one day it just quit rebooting... NO POST!
So, must be the MoBo. Went and got a new one... NO POST... WTF?
Must be the memory... Changed it out, NO POST. Ok probably the power supply, NO POST! Really, I mean how fuckin dificult is it to put 4 things in a box! I have unplugged everything that is not needed, I have put both MoBo's on a piece of cardboard, I've swapped several memory modules out, I've tried different video cards, cables and monitors, and I've kicked it twice! No fuckin luck!
Please help me!
I will find someone to blow you if you get this piece of *** fixed! I can't stand the wife pissing and moaning about it any longer!!!

 

[Guest]

First of al let me just say ur guys seems like noobish g33ks..

Sollution of this is that probably one or more of the black things u see on the motherboard with the white text R60 is blown..

i sugguest u just look for witch one an then just replce ehm
or just buy a new motherboard !

im right now just looking for a new R60 and gonna have my computer fixed
as soon as monday... my computer has been dead only for a week and seriusly how long have u guys tryed to serach for this sollution !?

the way u can see it is not the prossesor that is damage is that u unplugg it and start if it dosent start then its not the processor !....

u got alot R60's so u better start working !...

 

[DaveSny]

Same thing happened to me last night with MSI motherboard and GTX 550ti video card on a linux machine.
This machine has been running fine for months and after installing the VituralBox add on app for USB access I rebooted and my video ceased to function.
I've had two different 550's in the PCI slot a PNY and an EVGA. When Linux boots it freezes on this line:

ATA 3 SATA MAX UDMA/133 CMD 0xc400 CTI 0xc080 bmdma 0xb880 irq 19

The machine boots fine if I remove GTX 550 and use the video off the motherboard. I tried to load windows off a USB with the GTX card in and had no luck and tried to load Linux from a USB and it leaves me at a command prompt. In addition I had a XFX video card in the motherboard and it worked fine. Any thoughts? is there a MSI motherboard diag?

Kind regards
Dave