915GM speedster motherboard for Pentium M mobile CPU's confusion

[wilfy100]

Hi,
    I wonder if anyone could advise me, the motherboard has a jumper J6 to alter the cpu voltage between 1.5 volts and 1.8. But none of the pentium M processors use these voltages (they are between 1volt and 1.48).
What do people set this too. Also regarding this jumper which is the number one pin? there are no markings at all on the motherboard. Do I assume that the drawing showing the settings in the manual is orientated correctly, in relation to the motherboard layout drawing. I am unable to get the motherboard to boot properly, the most I can get is a logo page for a few seconds before the board shuts down. This is with a 1.8Ghz pentium M dothan. With other cpu's the board is dead.
I have tried the following without success.
two different power supplys (both known good ones of more than adequate wattage)
4 different CPU's 1.8, 1.6, 1.5Ghz, pentium M's  all 400Mhz FSB .nd a Celeron M 1.4.
both ddr 2 and ddr 1 memory (I know you can only use one type at once)
Could anyone having this board please let me know the settings they have used for jumpers J4,J5 and J6
and which CPU they are using.
I am waiting delivery of some 533 FSB pentium M,s so hopefully I will have more luck. I have always had good results with MSI boards and want to be sure before I return it.
Thanks.
 

[Jack t.N.]

Please provide full syste specs for comparison? >>Posting Guide<<

[wilfy100]

I am just bench testing the board. Therefore I do not have a hard drive or DVD-rom connected. It is just in a minimal configuration. I have tried a Intel Pentium M SL7S9 (1.86/2Mg/533fsb), with this the board posts but cuts out after a few seconds. Usually this is just enough time to just open the bios but not long enough to actually do anything. The PSU is a 700 watt OCZ gamestream, changing memory sticks makes no difference. What I do not understand is If I have the clear bios jumper in the correct position i.e. on pins 1 and 2 then the board is 100% unresponsive. If I remove it completely then it will post. The board was supplied to me with the jumper in the 2 and 3 position i.e the clear CMOS position. I have powered the board up like this so in theory it could have damaged it, I hope not.
I have had in the past the sitution where I have used a large low rpm cpu fan and the board cuts out after a few seconds because the Bios shuts the board down because it thinks the CPU fan is not working properly. I have eliminated this by fitting a small high rpm fan to the CPU fan header.
I do not really understand the function of the J6 jumper, I think it is for overclocking to increase voltages. The manual describes this as CPU VCCA supply voltage. To the best of my knowledge this is set to 1.5 volts, I am reluctant to risk the CPU by changing this to 1.8volts. The manual does not give any info at all about this and a web search does not provide any thing conclusive.

[wilfy100]

I believe I have resolved the problem. The board was doing a thermal shutdown. I must admit to not being familiar with Intel Pentium P4 boards, When they were current I always bought AMD Athlons for cost and performance reasons.
The board has what I believe to be a standard P4 heatsink mount, so I used a what I believe was a standard p4 heatsink and fan. But the heatsink was not contacting the cpu, I have now used another heatsink with a raised "Platform" on the base. I am certain this is contacting the CPU as I can feel it rocking on the the CPU itself before I fit the retaining clamps. The other heatsink had a totally flat bottom so was sitting on the mounting frame not the CPU. I am very lucky that the thermal cutout worked, I sincerely hope this has prevented any damage to the CPU. If it had been an Athlon I would have been in the market for a new CPU as I don't think they had a thermal cutout. The board has been displaying the BIOS PC health status all the time I have been writing this and it has settled to a steady 36 degree CPU temperature. I feel foolish that I did not work this out sooner, I do not want to break things. Although the chip was cheap enough (I got a batch of 4 for £7.71 in total including postage) I pride myself in taking care and doing a good job. I can only say in my defence that the heatsink mounting frame prevented me from seeing if the heatsink was seated correctly. I will be building this board up as a media center, the low noise and power consumption will be ideal. I may look to add a basic passively cooled graphics card so that I can have an HDMI output to connect to my TFT telly.
I very much appreciate your help and I will try to support this forum in the future.
                                                                                                                          Cheers Wilfy