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RMA'd the board processor and sent my OCZ Newegg RAM (said they'd test everything for free) to Monarch Computer....I'll post the result when it is returned.

Thumbs up to Monarch for going above and beyond the call of duty. The guy who is helping me gave me his personal mobile number and said call him anytime. I told him about the issues we were having and he agreed to test everything for me.

This blows.....I hope some of the other vendors have a better showing when I build my next system. MSI was the only board that had all of the features I wanted though. Really disappointed in MSI this time. To bad, like my current board. I'm gonna have to agree with a previous poster though and say that the tech support at MSI is 3rd rate. It very much sounded like they were reading from a flip chart and weren't able to fix anything. The guys at OCZ were the ones who actually new what they were talking about.

I'm 99% sure it's a RAM issue with the TRAS timing thing, but since I cant get into the BIOS i cant fix it

I got another AM2 socket motherboard from Gigabyte, tested the same OCZ ram and it booted just fine..

BTW, I previously tried the CMOS clearing and removed battery from the MSI mobo and still no results

so after all this I RMA'd the MSI K9n mobo and I'm going to use my gigabyte temporarily until the rest of the Abit mobo's come out

basically MSI sucks and they're tech support blows..since this mobo just came out MSI will most likely tell you to deal with your retailer because they only handle warranties after 30 days

my suggestion is if you dont mind keeping a shitty product then RMA the MSI mobo and the problem should be patched
but personally I dont feel like dealing with problems in the future with MSI knowing how crappy their support is now and the number of issues their new product has

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MSI K9N SLI nForce 570 AM2
Athlon 64 3500+ AM2
Ultra X2 550W PSU
EVGA 7600GT KO
1GB dual OCZ DDR2-800 PC2-6400 (OCZ28002048ELDCGE-K 2GB)

I ended up giving up all hope with the MSI board (yes, it had all the features I was looking for) and am going for the ASUS M2N SLI board. I do not need SLI, but this board (the one with the heatpipe fixture) seems to be the most reliable of this first wave of socket AM2s from what I have read. It is the second high end model that ASUS has come up with. Although they've been having some quality control issues with some of their 939 boards, I think this one might be a better fit seeing the trouble that everyone had to go through with the MSI board. Some people got theirs to work on the first shot. But I didn't get lucky and thus subsequently lost all faith in this board.

Get your RMAs together and try again I guess. If you get it to work, please post it and what you did (differently?). Am curious to see if anything else is amiss apart from the Tras timing issue on the SPD chip.

Good luck with Asus, Ive had nothing but trouble with them. Ive built all my systems using MSI boards and have yet to have a single issue.

The problem is mostly user error because none of you purchased memory that was on the compatability list for the motherboard you purchased, that is not MSI's fault, its your fault. I just got lucky and bought cas 4 so I was ok.

Why any of you are returning your cpu's is a mystery to me, cause that has nothing to do with your problem.

Anytime you buy a new revision motherboard, with a new socket running new ram there are bound to be some issues. These get worked out in later revisions of the boards and bios updates. You cant necessarily blame the mobo maker at this point.

Well, that's the thing. The memory IS compatible. The OCZ memory did pass initial and secondary testing. Something happened that the OCZ people are now just noticing about two weeks ago (they believe). The Tras timing they programmed their memory modules for that originally worked for the MSI boards no longer did. If anyone is having issues and believes this to be the case with their modules, contact OCZ.

Check the OCZ forum if you'd like. I am also returning the CPU because I tried different DDR2 memory (one that WAS on the list, which doesn't matter, as this memory IS compatible) and it still didn't work. It was either a bad motherboard or bad CPU. And the D-Bracket lit up 4 red LEDs. To be safe, I RMA'd the processor too. The problem that everyone is having now just coincided with the one that I was having and, based on reviews at newegg and other rumors, I decided to post here as well (I believe I've mentioned this before). There you have it! Mystery solved!

A personal bad experience with a motherboard is not a statistically significant method of knowing that a product is good or bad. My system is currently an MSI, and it works! I just decided that based on my time constraints and luck with MSI (and based on the sheer number of problems with memory/bad motherboards that MSI has had with these Socket AM2s), I decided to go for a more statistically stable (even if it is just by a little) Asus. If I'm lucky (and I'm not...), I won't have to go through this again. I was looking for a new athlon system for a computational system (CAM simulations/FEM), so I figured the new athlons with integrated memory controller would do the trick.

To all of you that have had issues, I hope they get resolved and you can go back to your normal life! Hang in there.

Okay, today I got my replacement board, and I am useing different brand of RAM (pqi pc 4200). My results: IT WORKS!!!! . I installed Windows XP home ED. just fine and everything else just fine.


*I know this is off topic but... My system just randomly locks up, CPU temp doesn't exceed 40c, games run fine, if I do one thing at a time it works , but it's mostly locks up when I try any multi tasking. The HD led just stay's lit and I can't move my mouse or type on the keyboard. Oh, it seems to do this randomly whe I download some thing. If anyone can help me on that I would appreciate it.

That's great, that memory module has a good SPD then. Now, about this thing randomly locking up. Do you have all of the windows service packs installed (you say you installed Windows home edition). Download all of the "necessary" updates from Microsoft Update. I am personally cautious about installing updates, but in this case, it might be necessary. That's the first step (Get your SPs). What kind of hard drive are you using? Maxtor? Seagate? If you go to the website of those drives, they have special drive checking software to ensure that nothing is a miss with you HD. I would run a drive checking software just in case (might be a bad HD).

Check all of your SATA cables. Those things don't fasten on that well and one might be loose.

One more thing. Which system locks up? The new one you got to work? Or an established one (With IDEs?). If it is an older one, then do not discard the possibility that the hard drive(s) is(are) bad. Any small dust particle can ruin your day, depending on your luck. You might have a virus. I like NOD32 for this. Or your registry might be corrupt and/or full of junk. If you do not know how to manually clean your registry (it is a bit tough and pretty dangerous) then try an automatic cleaner (just remember to back up your registry and data).

Congrats on getting your new system to work!

Now, about this thing randomly locking up. Do you have all of the windows service packs installed (you say you installed Windows home edition). Download all of the "necessary" updates from Microsoft Update. I am personally cautious about installing updates, but in this case, it might be necessary. That's the first step (Get your SPs). What kind of hard drive are you using? Maxtor? Seagate? If you go to the website of those drives, they have special drive checking software to ensure that nothing is a miss with you HD. I would run a drive checking software just in case (might be a bad HD).

Check all of your SATA cables. Those things don't fasten on that well and one might be loose.

One more thing. Which system locks up? The new one you got to work? Or an established one (With IDEs?). If it is an older one, then do not discard the possibility that the hard drive(s) is(are) bad. Any small dust particle can ruin your day, depending on your luck. You might have a virus. I like NOD32 for this. Or your registry might be corrupt and/or full of junk. If you do not know how to manually clean your registry (it is a bit tough and pretty dangerous) then try an automatic cleaner (just remember to back up your registry and data).

Congrats on getting your new system to work!



Here is the link to the topic, I can give you more info there. Since it's not apart of this topic, I have made a new one. Random lock ups

I just submitted the same text.

Has anyone else been able to get their MSIs working? What have you all done in terms of memory with OCZ? I RMA'd mine back and they said they would fix the SPD or send me one that is working.

wanted to relate my experience.

have k9n platinum with x2 4200+, 2 x corsair cm2x512-5400C4, ultra 550 psu.

corsair rates this memory to work at 675mhz, 1.9v, 4-4-4-12.

board itself posts fine. when i have both sticks installed post will list 1024mb, and begin to load xp pro sp2. at the moment the login screen should show, the comp instead reboots.

if i use a single 512mb stick (@ 1.9v, auto timings) in either dimm1 or dimm3, the comp will boot fine. im using it now.

it just doesnt want to take dual channel setup. am i missing another bios setting somewhere?

****edit

just tried playin with timing per posts in this thread. set to 4-4-4-15 @ 1.9v - seems to be workin fine so far. thanks for the tips all!

I don't have an MSI board but am having the same problem with Abit KN9-SLI board and PC2 6400 OCZ memory. I read on a Abit forum that the 800 mhz memory won't work in the single core AMD CPU's. The 667 works fine and when I installed PC2 5400 (667) it posted right away. Is it possible for all the guys having problems to let us know what CPU they are running and what speed of memory?

Mine was a 3200+ Socket AM2 Orleans Core. That sounds a bit far-fetched though. Why would a memory board with compatibility for 800 MHz memory not be compatible with a single core? Only dual cores are compatible?

Actually, the OCZ team did confirm that the biggest issue was having to reprogram the SPD chip from the memory modules. If you suspect you are having troubles with the memory, I would contact them and get it resolved. That should really be the only reason why the memory won't work.

Here is the paragraph where he states you can only use 667 at the present time. Like I said I don't know if this is true but I can take the 667
out of my machine and install the 800 and it won't post . I even went in and manually changed the voltage and the settings and still no post but when I insert the 667 it will post right away. That's why I wanted to know if the problem is with the single core. I know in the OCZ forum the one person that posted the same problem was running a 3500+ single core.
I'm just trying to figure this out.

Now where do I go to get hold of the OCZ people to fix my memory?

This is from the Abit forum:
1. The AM2 socket Athlon 64 single-cores can only use DDR2-667 at the present time without overclocking. The X2s can use DDR2-800. However, you could use DDR2-800 with a single-core A64 to overclock it. You can also use DDR2-1066 and faster to overclock too. That has all to do with the board's supported memory multipliers and the LDT speeds than the CPU.

Something happened to the motherboards of the Socket AM2 persuasion before their release that made the memory modules from OCZ unbootable with their configurations. This has to do with the Tras timing on the chips, and thus you need to send your memory module back to OCZ to get it fixed (reprogram the SPD chip) and get it to work for the Socket AM2 single core processors.

Go to the OCZ website or contact support@ocztechnology.com. They'll surely help you out.