K7N2 Delta-L 6570-020 old bios issue for Corsair

[Dantheman]

What I went through to get Corsair Xtreme Pro series 3200C2PRO 2x512MB 400MHz to work on my K7N2 MSI MB:

 

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It was the motherboard bios, it was too old.

 

flash bios on XP: http://www.msicomputer.com/support/bios_ami.asp

 

All of the other instructions for flashing bios that I found on the MSI site were wrong.

 

Ulitmately the whole problem was the MSI bios drivers were old and did not support 400MHz memory. The MSI live utility did not work for me (I had to roll back my bios twice) as you need to go in and locate the EXACT model MB you have and download the right bios (the utility recommended downloads I already had etc.).

 

After bios update was successful through DOS with the two floppies, one XP Boot disk and one with MSI flash util & bios update file, then the key thing to making the memory work was the voltage and timing settings for CPU & memory both advanced Chipset & Voltage control in bios. You need to go to your processer site and find all the right settings, not just latency and bringing up the the voltage for the memory but for the CPU. I was only working in advanced chipset :thinking:

 

In my case the barton 2500+ you have to be at clock of x11, the voltage says to be at 1.65 for my CPU. The latency that Corsair specified for AMD 2.5 for amd, 3, 3, 6, and bingo It's working great.

 

Also, keep in mind that alot of things can go wrong at once. I had an IDE cable fail, an a: drive die and my XP cd was scratched by my DVD rom so it was installing corrupted sys files on my HD.

 

All in all after trouble shooting this whole memory upgrade I have spent alot of time and well over $400.00. including the memory, power supply (antec neo), got my XP CD buffed/cleaned at Hollywood video, a: drive, new DVD Rom and new shielded IDE cables.

 

Hope this helps some other lamer like me so they don't have to go through what I did to fix the issue. So check your bios version on your mb site and see what new releases have fixed, you might just see your problem listed as fixed in a later version.

 

I can honestly say it was all worth it. My machine is running Doom3, HL2 etc smooth as glass on high settings. No more HL2 stutter, which is what made me embarke on this whole memory upgrade and I am smarter for it.

 

Dear Mr. Ram guy, please accept my apology, I was such a pain in the (__Y__) :dunno: unfortunately it is part of your job to deal with lamers like me. :wtfeh:

 

My Rig:

AMD Barton 2500+ 1.83

XP-Pro SP2

PSU = Antec Neo 480 watt (i did alot of research on PSU, this is the best you can get, don't go cheap on the PSU)

HD = Seagate 7200RPM w/ 8mb cache

Memory = Corsair Xtreme Pro series 3200C2PRO 2x512MB 400MHz

Vid Card = X800Pro AGP

K7N2-L 6570-020

 

Thanks for the help, it is sincerely appreciated!

 

Ram Guy --->:bomb: <--- Lamer

[RAM GUY]

LOL! No worries mate! Glad to hear you are up and running! Please let me know if you have any questions!

 

And thanks for taking the time to post your story, as I think that may very well help others!