Posts by kwalk

21) Message boards : Number crunching : Phenom II Released (Message 860994)
Posted 2 Feb 2009 by Profile kwalk
Post:
Backed the CPU down to the 3Ghz default. I don't know if and when MSI will get a BIOS update out for the K9A2. I have tried what feels like 100 combination's of voltages and ratios but I can't get the memory to run faster than 800Mhz. I was not paying much attention until tonight so I missed the erroneous results on the work units. So ends the grand experiment for now.
22) Message boards : Number crunching : Phenom II Released (Message 859590)
Posted 30 Jan 2009 by Profile kwalk
Post:
The K9A2 has a fair amount of adjustments but I seem to have a bug on the board or in the BIOS that will not let me run the memory over 800Mhz. Each time I try to set it to 1066Mhz the BIOS has a checksum error at boot up and the settings go back to default. I think the BIOS was at 1.5 when I got it and I flashed it to the current 1.6. If your looking for a stable system and don't need to do a lot of overclocking then it is a good board. It is not the best I have seen for doing a lot of overclocking. Right now the BIOS and Vista both report the CPU running at 3.4GHz and the BOINC benchmarks seem to agree. I hear a version of the 940 is coming out later this year that will only work with the AM3 boards but this one out now works fine with the AM2+ boards. Just guessing here but even with older BIOS I would think the defaults would let it boot with the 940 then you could flash to the newer BIOS. I can tell you that version 1.6 does not know what to call the 940. It shows and UNKNOWN CPU. I hope that the next version of the BIOS will take care of that.

Thanks a lot!

Ahh.. O.K., the stock FSB is 200 MHz.. the stock multi of the CPU is 15 [X4 940]..

I have also few AMDs.. but to now I have only experiences with Intel-CPUs.. overclocking and so on.. (FSB/multi/RAM..)

The Intel overclocking work fine only with rise the FSB.. stock multi..
The RAM rise also with this..

AMD is not so easy.. I hear about..

The max. in BIOS is 600 MHz.. but not possible to let run, I guess.. ;-)
For example the max. for my Intel D975XBX2-mobo (stock 266 MHz) is ~ 380 MHz.. (load Windows) stable ~ 350.. (BOINC 24/7) I don't know what was the max you can choose in BIOS..


So from your experiences you can recommend your mobo for the X4 940 ?
And BIOS/Windows show you the right speed?

Because to now, I can see on the MSI homepage that this mobo will only support max. Phenom.. [V. 1] ..not Phenom II. ..

But I don't know, which BIOS will be on the mobo if I would buy today this mobo.. it's not a very new released.. maybe with the new X4 940 I can't start the system and need an 'old' CPU for start and make BIOS update?

Which BIOS version you had on the mobo as you bought it?
23) Message boards : Number crunching : Phenom II Released (Message 859499)
Posted 30 Jan 2009 by Profile kwalk
Post:
I am using the 6.4.5 version x86_64 with no tweaks of any kind to BOINC. There may be better ways of doing a benchmark but for now all I am doing is selecting the "Advanced" menu and running CPU benchmarks from there. Now that I have the CPU up to 3400Mhz the benchmarks are 2767 floating point MIPS per CPU and 8597 integer MIPS per CPU. Hey, how does that look BerryAZ? Better?
kwalk:
On your BOINC benchmarks, what version of BOINC did you use? Was it x86 or x86_64?

24) Message boards : Number crunching : Phenom II Released (Message 859498)
Posted 30 Jan 2009 by Profile kwalk
Post:
I hope I can do a good job explaining this. The CPU bus max on this motherboard is 600Mhz but you can adjust the ratio for the CPU. So, I left the CPU bus at the 200Mhz default but pushed the ratio to 17. 17x200=3400Mhz. So right now the CPU is running at 3400Mhz.

@ kwalk

I'm little confused..

You have the MSI K9A2 Platinum ?

I'm interested also to the board.. but it have only a bus up to 2600 MHz..

The X4 940 have 3000 MHz..

So the max. for this boards would be the X4 9950 ?

25) Message boards : Number crunching : Phenom II Released (Message 859447)
Posted 29 Jan 2009 by Profile kwalk
Post:
Darn your good. Ok, bumped the CPU to 3200 and the memory was at something like 667 or there about. The memory is now up to 800. I jumped it to 1066 at first but the system was not stable. So now we have a BOINC benchmark of 2606 floating point MIPS per CPU and 8125 integer MIPS per CPU. I suspect I'll have to play with the voltages to get the memory up to the full 1066. Kind of strange as the motherboard should handle 1066 memory right out of box.

OK -- the MSI 790 chipset boards have gotten mixed reviews regarding performance and overclocking. With the right BIOS you should be able to change the multiplier (not the FSB) from the default 15 to 17 or 17.5 - in effect running the 940 from 3GHz x 4 CPU's to 3.5GHz x 4 CPU's. That's a 15% performance boost.

Regarding the 1066 memory, it is quite likely the motherboard is detecting it as 800 memory. For the 1066 performance to play, you need to make sure the memory voltage is bumped from a default of 1.8v to 2.1v, and then push the speed from 400 to 533. Timings (if they can be controlled) should be 5-5-5-18 for the OCX memory. Again, I'm not sure how much of this can be controlled by the MSI BIOS.

Regarding the performance, that definitely seems like less than the 940 should be doing -- it's barely quicker than my 9850 overclocked to 2.8GHz.

Oh, one more thing, the newer Windows (Windows 7) looks to be a bit faster than Vista. Of course with Vista, if you run the default extra stuff, you do waste a lot of cycles. I tend to run XP instead.
26) Message boards : Number crunching : Phenom II Released (Message 858679)
Posted 27 Jan 2009 by Profile kwalk
Post:
No, I have not had time to play with it much as of yet. The mother board is not the greatest for overclocking. Not a wide range of adjustments available. I may take some time over the next week or so to see what I can do with it. I am not sure what you mean by "matching it with 1066 memory". I am using 4GB of OCZ Reaper 1066 memory if that is what you are asking. It is 4 1GB "sticks" so it is running in dual channel mode. For drives I am using a pair of 750GB Seagate Barracudas. I do not have the cash to burn for Velocaraptors right now. The new CPU was a big enough hit to the wallet. I am running Vista x64 at this time and I must say it is a bit funny to have the "fastest" Vista box in the local area. Yes, that was a dig at Vista performance.


Are you overclokcing this combination at all? My sense is that the 940 will overclock by changing the multiplier from the default 15 to 17 without breaking a sweat and with other tweaks and 3rd party cooling can go significant beyond that. Are you matching it with 1066 memory as well?


Using a MSI K9A2 SLI Platinum with the 790FX chip set, a Nivida 8800 GT Superclocked video card, and OCZ Reaper 1066mhz memory. I moved "up" from an AMD 9850 Phenom. I have the 1.6 version of the BIOS loaded which was the newest one on the MSI web site as of last night. BOINC 6.4.5 benches this rig at 2465 floating point MIPS per CPU and 7550 integer MIPS per CPU.

What particular motherboard?

Got the 940. It's ok. Nothing to write home about. No BIOS update yet for the MB so it comes up as an UNKNOWN CPU.




27) Message boards : Number crunching : Phenom II Released (Message 858553)
Posted 27 Jan 2009 by Profile kwalk
Post:
Using a MSI K9A2 SLI Platinum with the 790FX chip set, a Nivida 8800 GT Superclocked video card, and OCZ Reaper 1066mhz memory. I moved "up" from an AMD 9850 Phenom. I have the 1.6 version of the BIOS loaded which was the newest one on the MSI web site as of last night. BOINC 6.4.5 benches this rig at 2465 floating point MIPS per CPU and 7550 integer MIPS per CPU.

What particular motherboard?

Got the 940. It's ok. Nothing to write home about. No BIOS update yet for the MB so it comes up as an UNKNOWN CPU.


28) Message boards : Number crunching : Phenom II Released (Message 858439)
Posted 27 Jan 2009 by Profile kwalk
Post:
Got the 940. It's ok. Nothing to write home about. No BIOS update yet for the MB so it comes up as an UNKNOWN CPU.
29) Message boards : Number crunching : CUDA problems (Message 853209)
Posted 14 Jan 2009 by Profile kwalk
Post:
Not really looking for help just reporting what I see. Since loading the 6.4.5 version I keep getting a pop up message from time to time that says " Display driver stopped responding and has recovered. Display driver nvlddmkm has stopped responding and has successfully recovered." I noticed that the WU being processed that time then has a status of "Computation error". I have stopped accepting new WUs and will opt out of CUDA as soon as the queue is empty.

System is Vista x64 SP1, Phenom 9850 Quad core, 4GB of 1066 memory. Mainboard is a MSI K9NA2 Platinum and the video card is a 8800GT Superclocked. Driver is Nvida version 181.20 whql version.

Maybe this information will be of help to someone.


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