Troubles with k8n neo2 and A643500

[Melhisedek]

Hi mates!
Well my mate just bought:

K8N Neo 2
A64 3500
2x512 PC3200 TwinMos 2.5 CL
6800GT
Raptor 37G 10k rpm

Well, something seems wrong... We did a fresh install of win XP SP2, latest nvidia drivers 61.77, Latest mo/bo drivers downloaded and installed through MSI "Live update program" 5.03 I believe.

Still he scores some 20k in 3DMark01 with CPU at 215 FSB, and GT @ 400/1100... He should score waaaay more.

Problem is that both me and him are Intel guys so I know nothing about AMD We probably made some bad choices in BIOS but I don't know what it can be :/

We have HT "something" set to x4 (It was 5 before [we don't know what does it do]). Max o/c RAM 200MHz, RAM V at 2.85 and Vcore at 1.65

It rock steady in Prime95 even at higher speeds but we wanted to see what's wrong with scores first.

3Dmark03 he gets some 122xx so its pretty normal (@Ultra speeds) But both Marks (01 & 03) can't seen to reckognise AGP speed (x4, x8 [set to Auto in BIOS] ) nor Aperture speed ( Set to 256 in BIOS )

His RAM is at 2.5 , 6, 4, 4
Fastwrites disabled

That would be it IIRC...
I myself don't like all that "NA" reading on AGP info in both 01 & 03 (BTW it says "AGP acceleration enabled" in DXdiag). Feels like we forgot to install something or we have some setting that is killing our performance.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance!

[Viral]

As I don't know the Neo2 BIOS all I can suggest are common problems people have.

Make sure the memory is using a 1T command rate and not a 2T one. Also, make sure that the memory is actually running at 400MHz DC DDR, not 200MHz. It should show you on startup the DDR speed.

These are two things even reviewers have accidentally done with A64's.. they also both effect performance quite a deal.

[Melhisedek]

Also, make sure that the memory is actually running at 400MHz DC DDR, not 200MHz. It should show you on startup the DDR speed.


What setting does affect 200 and 400 DDR ? So I can check it as well...

[saturnotaku]

First potential problem I see - don't use live update to do anything related to your motherboard, be it BIOS flashing or driver installation. Get the package separately.

Second problem - Voltages. Your vcore is set way too high, especially if you're not overclocking. My system is not overclocked and my vcore is about 1.55v, which is default. You also might want to consider dropped the memory voltage back to 2.6v if you're at stock.

Third - HT has to do with the on-chip memory controller. If you're at stock speeds, that should be left at 5x so you get the full speed benefit (200 fsb x 5 HT = 1000).

[Melhisedek]

First potential problem I see - don't use live update to do anything related to your motherboard, be it BIOS flashing or driver installation. Get the package separately.

Second problem - Voltages. Your vcore is set way too high, especially if you're not overclocking. My system is not overclocked and my vcore is about 1.55v, which is default. You also might want to consider dropped the memory voltage back to 2.6v if you're at stock.

Third - HT has to do with the on-chip memory controller. If you're at stock speeds, that should be left at 5x so you get the full speed benefit (200 fsb x 5 HT = 1000).

Well we are trying to o/c so that's why we have Vcore och Vmem high... We wanter to isolate CPU.

But bad performace is our problem even @ stock :/
We'll try running Nforce update manually and set HT to 5.