Official MSI P7N Diamond (780i) Discussion/Review/Overclock/Guide/BIOS Thread

BababooeyHTJ, I am having mixed results with your settings. At first, PC posted ok and loaded Vista. Shortly after, BSOD complaining about win32k.sys. Leaving the CPU GTL & FSB TERM alone (0.866 & 1.313), I tried varied setting on the CPU, NB & SB. Having the CPU at +.025000, NB at 1.375 & SB at 1.6 I didn't get any more BSODs in Windows, and prime ran 1 hour without error. Was looking good until I ran a SoftSandra benchmark on the Memory & Cache. 17% in got BSOD again. Rebooted using same settings and ran 3DMark06, BSOD at Firefly test #2. I've pretty much tried all variations on the CPU & NB without long term success. Keep getting BSODs on 3DMark06. I have tried upping the CPU and NB a fair amount, and that seems to make the system less stable. Odd, that my VID is very low at 1.0375. If I don't try to run Sandra tests or 3D games, windows seems stable enough and I was able to produce the following benchies:

http://alpha.customfitonline.com/cpuid.gif

http://alpha.customfitonline.com/everest.gif

http://alpha.customfitonline.com/hm.gif

http://alpha.customfitonline.com/coretemp.gif

What was not noted above is that during heavy load, my CPU cores never exceed 58C so I can't imagine temps on the CPU is an issue. Despite my greatest efforts I can't seem to get stable for 3D applications or heavy CPU Cache tests. Going above your 3.85Ghz using any settings seems to fail instantly and will not post. Most BSODs are related to win32k.sys & others are just blank or not complaining about anything particular.

That really sounds like a memory issue. Have you run Memtest 86+ ? The only difference I see in our rigs is that you have 4 sticks of ram vs my 2. Your ram's stock voltage is 2.0. It might not like 2.1. I would definatly run memtest.

Well after a few more hours of testing, I think I must conclude that this setup is not going to be an adequate overclocker. Any NB setting over 1.375 causes high instability. I have not been able to get through a 3DMark06 run without error. Perhaps I just have a bad batch of E8400 or the NB is cooking, I can't be certain. As mentioned before, I can run windows stable enough, even prime won't crash after a long run, but Sandra benchies and 3Dmark06 die everytime. Here are the settings I used for basic windows stability:

FSB: 1700
Ram: 850
Dram Timing: Auto
CPU +.025000
Ram: 2.05
NB: 1.375 - 1.4
SB: Auto
CPU GTL: 0.866
FSB Term: 1.313
Rest Auto

I don't imagine the P7N BIOS is going to get much more refined than the 2.0, at least not for dual cores. I'll put this to rest for now, unless anyone has suggestions on what might be causing the failures. Thx.

OS

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Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

That really sounds like a memory issue. Have you run Memtest 86+ ? The only difference I see in our rigs is that you have 4 sticks of ram vs my 2. Your ram's stock voltage is 2.0. It might not like 2.1. I would definatly run memtest.

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My sig is old. I'm no longer running the 4x1GB Axeram, now running 2x2GB Mushkin PC-8000 Ascent, brand new, 1 day old. I will nevertheless, run a series of memtest. How long am I suppose to let it run for accuracy?

I ran it overnight. It could also be a corrupted install from bad ram timings. If memtest passes I would format or at least format a partition and install windows and some programs there. Try you dram v @ 2.1 and nb v @ 1.4. From what I hear you should let it run for at least 7 passes. I just ran it over night.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

I ran it overnight. It could also be a corrupted install from bad ram timings. If memtest passes I would format or at least format a partition and install windows and some programs there. Try you dram v @ 2.1 and nb v @ 1.4. From what I hear you should let it run for at least 7 passes. I just ran it over night.

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If I had a corrupted installation, wouldn't that mean windows would continue to fail after turning off OC and running at stock speeds? So far, when I set back to stock, all programs and benchies work fine without error or BSOD.

Well, memtest has gone 5 rounds so far with no errors. <shrug>???

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Originally Posted by Overspeed

Here are the settings I used for basic windows stability:
CPU +.025000

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Is this .25 or .025? What does this make load vcore?

Ok, so I let memtest run over night, 8 passes on both ram chips, 4 passs with only 1 ram chip installed, no errors detected. loonym, during my initial trials, when I had windows semi stable, cpuid reported my load vcore in windows was 1.384, that was with a +.25 increase. When not overclocking, my core is at 1.128. Now that memtest has run successfully, I tested running all benchies NOT overclocked ... all Sanda benchies ran with no error, 3DMark06 ran 10 times with no error, so I can't believe I have a corrupt windows install. During my OC trials, I gave all voltages adequate increases ... something just doesn't like it when pushed far. The NB HATES any voltage higher then 1.375. This morning I tested putting a spot fan on the NB, it didn't change anything. I'm not sure what else try try?!?! My CPU temps are very reasonable during the OC ... never passing 58C under heavy load. I am running 3 sata HDDs and I gave the SB a fair increase at one point as well.

If you read some of my early posts in this thread I had the same issue with the nb not liking any voltage over perhaps 1.35-1.375v. It wasn't until I pulled the chipset pipe, cleaned everything thoroughly, and reinstalled with ceramique that I started being able to really push my board. It's unfortunate there's no way to accurately read nb temps.

Ive come to the conclusion with the help of xytrius that my board has faulty CMOS chip im just unable to shut down anymore guess its time for rma.

Really sucks that a lot of boards don't used socketed bios anymore.

My computer's been running very stable at 3GHz so far, but every time I boot up my computer after leaving it for a while, it either won't POST (so I have to clear CMOS) or Windows fails to boot. I've been slowly upping voltages every time this happens, but I'm wondering if this is normal behavior. I don't remember the exact settings offhand (might be off by a couple thousandths), but I'm pretty sure I'm running 1.25v NB, 0.831v CPU GTL, and 1.223v FSB Term.

Edit: Still having trouble booting up after the computer's off for a while. It either doesn't POST or Windows won't boot. I'm up to 1.25v NB, 0.84v CPU GTL, and 1.225v FSB Term. Don't want to go any higher with FSB term because my cpu is running at 1.225v. Not really sure what the deal is with this problem; settings work great at first and later stop working altogether, like the hardware is degrading every time I run it.

Edit 2: And the random reboots are back. I guess I'll try messing with NB and CPU GTL voltages some more, but am really getting discouraged about this boardset. My computer can pass memory tests and survive long gaming sessions and stability tests, but it just keeps crashing under normal use and is unpredictable when booting up. The similar problems other people have and overall lack of success stories (sans loonym :P) is making me wonder if I should jump ship for another board. I've yet to experience stability with any setting on this board, stock or otherwise. :/

Just figured I should mention this...last night I pulled the Circu-pipe cooler (per Loonym's suggestion), cleaned it real well, and reseated it with some nice thermal compound (knockoff AS). Got everything put back together and got to clocking; needless to say it made a world of difference. My CPU easily is stable at 3.6ghz (400fsb); I upped my vCore a modest .125v for about 1.25v after vDroop, FSB term is at 1.313v, CPU GTL at 0.875v, NB at 1.375v and SB at 1.55. My RAM is at 800@4-4-4-12-1T and 2.2v (stock). So, I would recommend doing the same to everyone who is having stability issues. So far I have been rock steady at 3.6ghz. Haven't "prime'd" it yet, but it was good for about 2hrs of GRiD last night :D Can't wait to push it further here later today!

Has anyone here ran the P7N DIAMOND with the arctic cooling freezer 7 pro, im just wondering if it misses the cicu pipe OK or if theres any attatchment issues. I just got one, waiting for it to arrive, so hope its fine.

bluspikez, did you have that real hard purple stuff on yours?

crucial33, that ac freezer will fit fine. That's not a real strong cooler so keep that in mind when you oc.

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Originally Posted by loonym

bluspikez, did you have that real hard purple stuff on yours?

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Yeah, I did. Was figuring I would have to heat it up to get it off, but used some 3M adhesive remover instead (took some rubbing, but it came off :)). One of the chips (don't remember which, probably the expander) was barely in the thermal stuff that was on the heatsink. I left the pad that was on the MOSFETs, since it was actually decent stuff (not the purple gunk...was a light blue pad) and I figured that they didn't need the other paste that I had.

That being said, I think that reseating the sink is the key to success...just booted and am currently at 4.05ghz (9x450) w/1.36v vCore. Oh yeah, I never put a spot fan on it either (may do it eventually though). Gonna get to doing some benches and stability testing here in just a moment :D

bluspikez,

The nForce 200 chip barely makes contact. Same happened on mine too.

I had a pretty sketchy contact pattern on the nb as well as the nf 200 pci-e expander. Anyone doing this will also benefit from just tweaking the whole pipe unit into the proper shape and flatness too before putting it back.

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Originally Posted by AaronYuri

bluspikez,

The nForce 200 chip barely makes contact. Same happened on mine too.

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Right...its pretty sad to know that most, if not all, boards come from the factory like that. That being said, I think that the heatsink does a good job of cooling the board once you reseat it with some good TIM. I've got mine at 450fsb now for 4.05ghz (~1.4v-1.41v vCore after vDroop) and it has been running prime for almost 2hrs now with no crashes, along with some UT3 and Crysis for about a half an hour each before that. :D I am happy with the newfound stability that came with reseating the circupipe. That being said, I wish I could run some 3dmark06 runs, but for some reason it doesn't like my drivers for my video cards and it isn't utilizing SLi properly...guess I'll just wait till tomorrow when nVidia releases the new ones to worry about that.

EDIT: The 4ghz run of prime just crashed on me...my temps were starting to get a bit high for my liking (close to 60C for each core) at that voltage, so I decided to back off and go back to 3.6ghz. I know I could get it stable at 4ghz, but I just don't want to pump the voltage I'd need for it (probably around 1.45v) to my processor right now. Running prime now to see how stable my 3.6ghz settings are....

bluspikez, loonym, AaronYuri

Might any of you offer suggestions on where to start in regards to pulling the pipe off. This is not something I've ever played with before. I assume I will need to pull all cards and cords/wires off the MB and pull it from the tower? I figure that part should be easy enough. Then theres the matter of new compound. I have read your suggestions as far as properly cleaning the surfaces. I will need to buy new professional compound ... and would value advice on make/type as well as proper application techniques. To take it a step further, if I already have the MB out of the tower, I will put a 40mm on the NB underneath the curved/arc'd pipe tied down with zap straps as we have seen a few users do who have posted pictures in this thread. I have a pretty good CPU cooler on here but it wasn't installed by me, so I'll pull it off as well and use professional compound or pads based on your advice. I'm looking forward to getting better results with this effort. I would hate to go into this not knowing what i'm doing and rip a few chips off the board or bend/damage the pipe while pulling it off :o

Overspeed,

Remove the board from the case. Push the pins through, then pinch them with your fingers on the back. It will release the push-pin, remove it. Do that 8 times over. The Circu-pipe should just fall off. If it doesn't, grab the NB base of the heatsink (not the loop), and twist - it'll come right off.

Rub the crappy TIM off with a tissue or something similar, then get every bit off with what you usually would. Check the Circu-pipe for any bent heatpipes. The SB and NF200 heapipes were bent up for me. Straighten them out if there's any kinks.

Get some AS Ceramique or some other high performance TIM (not AS5 because it has a curing time), put a blob on each chip (NB, SB, NF200. Leave the PWM if you wish), spread it with a razor or credit card. Place the Circu-pipe back on with the push-pins, or preferably, get some nuts, bolts and washers, then put them 'sinks on real tight.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AaronYuri

Get some AS Ceramique or some other high performance TIM (not AS5 because it has a curing time), put a blob on each chip (NB, SB, NF200. Leave the PWM if you wish), spread it with a razor or credit card. Place the Circu-pipe back on with the push-pins, or preferably, get some nuts, bolts and washers, then put them 'sinks on real tight.

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How thick should the ceramique be before resteating the pipe? You mention using a razor blade, which in theory would scrape all the ceramique off (if the blade was pressed tight to the chip face). Should the pipe be forcefully bent in any way to better cover some of the chips that the pipe barely covered from factory?

I just use the tip of the tube to spread it, but remember all you need is a thin layer. If you use to much it'll just ooze out from the pressure of the sinks. You don't need much force to move the pipe into shape and flatness, more like gentle tweaking. You'll know when it's right. :up:

edit: I found that purple crap that's on there to be a real pain. It's hard like epoxy. I used alcohol and a plastic scraper.

Yeah...I don't use anything special to spread it out either, just a fingertip. Like Loonym said, the TIM on the sinks is a real pain; I was going to use isopropyl alcohol but found some other stuff in the garage that seemed to work better. Oh yeah, you may need a pair of pliers to squeeze the pushpins...I couldn't have done mine without it. As a side note, prime has been running for just about 8hrs now @ 3.6ghz and is still going strong. :D

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Originally Posted by bluspikez

Yeah...I don't use anything special to spread it out either, just a fingertip. Like Loonym said, the TIM on the sinks is a real pain; I was going to use isopropyl alcohol but found some other stuff in the garage that seemed to work better. Oh yeah, you may need a pair of pliers to squeeze the pushpins...I couldn't have done mine without it. As a side note, prime has been running for just about 8hrs now @ 3.6ghz and is still going strong. :D

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Awesome guys, I appreciate the input. Do you have any favourite brands as far as the ceramique is concerned? I'll use some on the CPU as well. I was looking at the mini 40mm fans on this page:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...minorcatid=102

We have the $5 to $23 fans there in that size ... I like quiet fans, but long lasting as well. Is 40mm too small? I usually oder from that site so if you find a professional brand of ceramique there, i'd love to know the link. Looking forward to the tweak, and thx again all.

I think a 40mm fan will fit just fine on top of the nb part of the 'sink, but you will have to bend up the rollercoaster part a bit to get it to fit right. Here's a linky to the stuff I would get....linky

Hi all, I've been reading this thread for many days. Really intresting. Have had some problems with freezes while watching movies or youtube videos. I try all bios available (official 1.1 and 1.2, 1.2b1, 1.2b2 and 1.2b3, not tried the performance ones) all the same. Have had another problem: freezing when inserting a USB pendrive. I've tried to fix the pendrive issue by pushing a little SB to 1.6v, and for some days this issue didn't happened. Any suggestions? i know many people are same as me with this video issue. Thank you.

ps: sorry my english, i speak spanish.
loonym: do you used to have a x3360(q9550) on your P7N?? Wich was your max fsb stable value?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FedericoUY

ps: sorry my english, i speak spanish.
loonym: do you used to have a x3360(q9550) on your P7N?? Wich was your max fsb stable value?

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Your english is fine, no worries. Yes I used the x3360 (c1 stepping) for quite some time and it runs really well in the board at 8.5x450. After 450 it becomes more difficult to stabilize and the voltages a little too high (at least for me.

And welcome to the forum :welcome:

Ok thanks loonym. If I reach 450(x8) fsb would be great. Can't do it now because I'm on stock cooling, I've reached 375x8 on stock with no extra voltages, that's 3000Mhz, but in some day's I'll be changing my cooling system. I have a Q9450, most peolple say this is not a good combination, but I thinks this processor is really fine on this MB.

I recently added a new SATA drive (3 hhds active now) and have a number of USB devices always running. Anyone have any thoughts on wether I should take the SB off Auto and assign it a higher value? I'm curious if I'm starting to overload it at auto voltage. That and recently i've started experiencing weird blips in movies/games/programs when hdds are being accessed, wondering if caused by insufficient voltage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by loonym

bluspikez, did you have that real hard purple stuff on yours?

crucial33, that ac freezer will fit fine. That's not a real strong cooler so keep that in mind when you oc.

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Your actually right. I read all these rave reviews around the arctic cooling freezer 7 pro, and its actually showing very similiar temperatures to the standard intel cooler. Im very very dissapointed. Although it is quiet. Anyone got recommendations for a decent cooler for the P7N2 and Q9450?

Been reading this thread for 2 weeks waiting for my account to become active so I could post on it. I have recently build a new gaming system using the components listed in my Sig. and am having some issues.

First off let me say this forum has so much valuable info, you guys rock.:up: Ok, the issue at hand is, using the Optimized or Fail-safe Default settings in the bois I am getting a ton of fragmenting on the video while gaming. It seems like any time the CPU is under load for any length of time it will begin to fragment, at times so bad it crashed the game (LOTRO) i am using. I read at the beginning of this thread that the voltages needed to be set to other than the "AUTO" settings.

I am hoping that you guys can give me base voltages to set the NB/SB etc. at so I can get some stablility before I begin fooling with OCing.

Thanks in advance.

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Originally Posted by crucial33

Your actually right. I read all these rave reviews around the arctic cooling freezer 7 pro, and its actually showing very similiar temperatures to the standard intel cooler. Im very very dissapointed. Although it is quiet. Anyone got recommendations for a decent cooler for the P7N2 and Q9450?

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The Xigmatek 1283 HSF is currently one of the best, do not forget to get the Xigmatek Retention bracket. That way you can screwed it down, instead of using the push/pin method for better cooling.

Hi PCgamerX and Overspeed: I have had the same issue that you have. I have 3 HDD's connected (2 in raid) and some USB devices. The only way I could find to get stable was upping a little the SB to 1.6, and as I have 4GB of ram, i upped a little NB too, to 1.3. On this values none of those chips are giong to get hot, not even close to that. My Pc is now very stable, and I'm using 1.2b2 bios as I found it to be good.

I agree with FedericoUY.. NB at 1.6V is fine with a 42C temperature /sensor sticked on the hottest place I found on passive cooling above NB/..
I'm using 3 x Raptor and 1x Barracuda /no raid/, SATA optical drive and the last sata slot for external eSATA connector... So my SATA onboard slots are full...
I've experienced some scary moments with it after my discs was disappearing one by one after 1 or 2 hours from a system and at the finish disappeared system disk as well.. There was no disks showed in BIOS... but it was vista/nvidia sata driver related problem / I think/..
I needed to clear cmos to get Vista instal on IDE disc.. /without it it freezed always on the same spot somewhere in the middle of installation/.. After, when Vista was on IDE, I was connecting SATA discs one by one to the board... I was trying to find which disc is broken and started that disaster, but all of them was ok and without any data lost... Reistaled system on SATA anyway /clean instal solved some minor issues as well/... and now everything alright...

Just something that could happen...
There is some nVidia something:D, that makes Vista show SATA devices as SCSI, so SMART is not working properly.. :shrug:
I decided to start backup external to IDE just to make it more easy when..just in a case...;)

Federico,
I got some video corruption issues before, but not in a games, just in video and it allways caused bsod after corrupted video appeared, I've seen exactly the same on asus 780i board as well.... That was solved somewhere around 1.16, and in 1.2B2 it comming back after 10min of playing video.. In the beta 1.2B3 is no problem even after 10 - 15 hrs playing..

Dogg, I agree with you. I've never had problems on games, and I play a lot (Assassin's creed (finished), Cod4, grid, etc). My only problem were video related, but this problems persisted with 1.2b3 bios on auto voltage (I've tried this bios). Thank you, regards.

Hi, I just finished my 1st build with the board. Im using the included sound card and drivers and my audio is skipping constantly. This did seam to start after my 1st overclock but i cant find any answers on google. Any advice is much appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Bobo888

Hi, I just finished my 1st build with the board. Im using the included sound card and drivers and my audio is skipping constantly. This did seam to start after my 1st overclock but i cant find any answers on google. Any advice is much appreciated.

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You can find info on sound card drivers on page 27 of this thread. Use the Youp-Pax drivers for the soundcard (Pax-X-FI-XP-32-V5.10). Also you can place the sound card in one of the lower 2 pcie slots, most find this works well, since it is away from where you place your graphic card in the upper 2 pcie 16x slots.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Overspeed

I recently added a new SATA drive (3 hhds active now) and have a number of USB devices always running. Anyone have any thoughts on wether I should take the SB off Auto and assign it a higher value? I'm curious if I'm starting to overload it at auto voltage. That and recently i've started experiencing weird blips in movies/games/programs when hdds are being accessed, wondering if caused by insufficient voltage.

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Bump

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Originally Posted by Yoosty

You can find info on sound card drivers on page 27 of this thread. Use the Youp-Pax drivers for the soundcard (Pax-X-FI-XP-32-V5.10). Also you can place the sound card in one of the lower 2 pcie slots, most find this works well, since it is away from where you place your graphic card in the upper 2 pcie 16x slots.

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Is this driver better than the original from the cd? Is it newer?
I was using the original one with a patch that is on MSI page to download on the driver section (I was going to tell bob to download it), but I guess this one should be better (Pax-X-FI-XP-32-V5.10)?.

@overspeed...try it and see if it helps. 'nuff said. We are here to help, but something like changing one setting...just try it! If it helps, great, if it doesn't, then oh well, try something else. Let us know if it does help, though. :) IMO upping the sb volts should help.

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Originally Posted by bluspikez

@overspeed...try it and see if it helps. 'nuff said. We are here to help, but something like changing one setting...just try it! If it helps, great, if it doesn't, then oh well, try something else. Let us know if it does help, though. :) IMO upping the sb volts should help.

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I didn't want to bump up the SB without understanding what concequenses might result. I know little about the SB :confused: I'm also not sure what a safe setting might be.

I have to bump up my sb to 1.65 to get my raid array stable. You shouldnt even need to go that high.

On a different note, while I am preparing to pull the ciru-pipe off, clean, ceramique and re-seat, I need to think about putting the spot fan on the NB. I have been informed that I will likely need to bend the curved fins pipe up a little to get the spot fan to fit underneath. My problem is I cannot bend them up as the CPU cooler is in the way. My CPU cooler works great, but I would replace if needed. So can I have a few opinions on a decent upgrade? I would like it to be as quiet as the one I have, (see sig) but also provide excellent cooling. Thx.

I have my E6300 running at fsb 390 and it seams stable so far. However any slight increase causes windows to freeze. Does this mean it's time to start increasing voltages? This is my first overclock and im a bit woried about increasing voltages as getting it wrong seams like a bad thing to do.

Also what is the best BIOS to use? I'm still on v1.0 :D

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Originally Posted by Overspeed

I didn't want to bump up the SB without understanding what concequenses might result. I know little about the SB :confused: I'm also not sure what a safe setting might be.

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Sorry...I just don't like it when people bump their posts, kind of a pet peeve of mine. AFAIK, anything up to at least 1.65v is pretty safe for the SB. As for pulling the circupipe and bending it, could you bend the round part up and out away from the CPU cooler? If you do want to get a new cooler, I would recommend the TRUE or any other sink designed like it (xigmatek and noctuna both make similar models that perform just as well). With coolers like that one you can choose which fan you put on it for how silent you want it (I have a 110cfm one on mine on a rheostat, so I can have it silent or crank it up for some crazy cooling.)

@Bobo888: Sounds like you do indeed need to start raising voltages. Just don't do it in big increments: go with small intervals untill you find the amount that you need. Really the only way you would go wrong with voltages is if you take huge jumps and end up with a voltage that is way over what the components can handle. With this board I raise the FSB term to the highest it will go (63 for earlier bios, 1.313v for the newer ones), since this is still well within the specs of the current intel chips, and set the CPU GTL to 66% of that (.875v on the newer bios...I believe there is a chart in this thread somewhere that states the equivalences.) The NB volts I set around 1.35-1.4v depending on the FSB I am looking at, and the SB volts can be left at auto, unless you have a lot of HDD's and USB devices, which would then benefit from raising it a bit to say 1.6v. Set your RAM at the voltage and timings that are provided with it. The CPU vCore is entirely independent on your chip, so if I were you I would set all the above around what I mentioned, and then start at stock and slowly increase the vCore until you find a stable value. As for a bios, I am on the 1.1 still (I think...pretty sad that I don't remember....:S), but I have heard good things about the 1.2b3.

It's hard to believe I haven't posted here in over two weeks, but I did promise I'd post back with my SLI results. Nothing spectacular - in fact, I'd say par for the course - using the system in my signature with newest drivers (which don't seem to score as well as the original 8800GTS-512 drivers). Viewable as an attachment. This was done using AFR method #1, so the GPU scores are higher but the CPU score is lower than default. This achieved the highest overall score.

Bobo:
It looks like 1.2b1 is pretty popular right now, although I'm using 1.2b2 without any problems. It didn't noticeably change anything for me over 1.2b1. If you read this thread you will see that 1.2b2 caused some issues for those who tried to jump-OC all at once. While 1.2b1 is to fix the video corruption issue, some people still seem to have it (after some time), so my assumption was that 1.2b2 was an attempt to clear that up. It appears that 1.2b3 is now out, but I have not tried it or seen any significant details about it.

I just had my first crash in a long time. I was downloading a patch and surfing the web and my screen just froze up no bsod. The only thing that I have done recently was remove mt xonar dx which I just gave up on, it gave me a lot of problems. I reinstaled the sound card that came with the board. Could that be my problem? I am using the driver on creatives site and I instaled all their bloatware by accident. I am alos using the pci-e x1 under my dual slot video card. This is really depressing. This thing was running stable for so long.

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Originally Posted by XavierMaxx

It's hard to believe I haven't posted here in over two weeks, but I did promise I'd post back with my SLI results.

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SLi works great for me in everything BUT 3DMark06. I haven't been able to figure out why, either. I can run Crysis on Very High in DX10 and get 40-50 fps average, and can run all my other games (UT3, GRID, COD4, Assassin's Creed, Hellgate London, etc) on the highest settings with the highest possible AA and AF with no hitching whatsoever. Before when I ran 3DMark I got just over 17k as my highest; now when I run it with SLi enabled I get around 10k. If I disable SLi, I get 12k. I'm not sure what the deal is, since it worked properly before, but now it just doesn't cooperate. I'm guessing it is a driver issue, but I am too lazy to deal with uninstalling/reinstalling my drivers just to get one stupid benchmark to work when all of my other games work great.

As for the hardware front, after removing the circupipe and cleaning/reseating and finding stable settings, my compy is happily chugging along at 3.6ghz and I have yet to have it crash because of my cpu/fsb overclock. 4ghz is easily attainable as well, but requires a bit more voltage than I like.

@Bababooey - I have heard that the included sound card causes issues...I haven't seen any with my machine, but there is a good possibility that it is causing problems. I would try it for a bit longer with the included sound card, and if it keeps acting up then either take it out or try with a different sound card to see if it was the cause.

Oh yeah, does anyone know what happened to theYipster? Seems like as soon as I stopped lurking and started posting he vanished, and then only appeared to b**** someone out and then vanished again. It would be nice if we could update the first post to include our findings after he vanished...

That wasnt it. I dont know what it is. When I restarted my pc recently it wouldnt boot into windows and I am getting a error with my stripe. It is only showing three disks. Normally I would be sure it is a bad drive but when I restart my pc it hangs on the Msi image when it posts. I just disabled quick booting in bios and it booted right into windows. Should I flash bios? My floppy drive is broken and I ordered a usb flash drive. How do I flash from a bootable cd? I just looked in event viewer and I am geting a raid disk error on drive 1.1. Does this sound like just a bad disk? The fact that I am freezing up at post is worrying me.

Yeah, I lost a disk. That sucks but I guess thats what I get for having a 4 disk stripe. I am using the three disks that I have now in raid5 now. I hope I get good results with that at least Ill have some fault tolerance this time. I also got my floppy drive working and flashed to the offical 1.2 so Ill try that out.

I've been continuing to fiddle with my settings, but have a lot of trouble booting my computer. I currently have vCore at 1.225v, NB at 1.25v, CPU GTL Ref at 0.822v, and FSB Term at 1.225v. I don't want to go higher on the FSB Term because loonym was saying earlier not to raise it above vCore. Adjusting other settings seems to have no effect at all. Sometimes my computer won't POST, or I'll get an exception when trying to boot Windows, but that's it. I've only had one reboot since using 1333 FSB, so I think that's helping a bit, but all of these problems when booting up are getting pretty bothersome. Earlier, my computer wouldn't POST right away, and then I powered down and back up and it POSTed and booted Windows without a problem. I also don't believe my problems are related to poorly mounted cooling hardware on the board (which I'll be remounting at some point, anyway), since frequency of problems seems totally unrelated to temperature. It's been very hot lately and I've certainly not had more problems than usual, despite everything running at least 10 C hotter than usual. I'm still running BIOS 1.2B1. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to try?

This has been an ongoing theme with you. You run this ultra conservative vcore and then can't understand why the thing doesn't want to work right. If I'm setting vcore 1.225v in bios I automatically know that by the time I get to windows vdrop is shaving a couple hundredths off that at least. I also automatically know that as soon as I start to load the cpu and vdroop kicks in, there goes another 3 hundredths or so (maybe more). At that point I'm pretty sure I'm not scratching my head wondering why things aren't how they should be. Because they are exactly how they should be because I haven't used my voltage adjustments properly! I've seen dozens of people complain 'the board should work with stock this or that'. Well guess what, with this board 99% of the time it's not going to, period. If someone doesn't like that well too bad, it's fact. Take it up with msi taiwan, buy another board, suffer with it, it's not going to change the fact that this board will not give you any satisfaction unless you are willing to use some voltage. Maybe someone else will give you an opinion that you want to hear but my simple answer to you is that your issues with this board are all solved by voltage. 'Oh but gee I added a whole 2 hundredths of a volt'... continue adjusting (read increasing) until the issue goes away or until you decide to blame it on the board and dump it.

Fiskbit,

Use one VGA card, one memory stick and one HDD. If that doesn't work:

Try a different power supply; if neither of those work, you either need to tune voltages like loonym said, or you have a faulty board.

loonym, maybe I missed it, but to my knowledge no one's been telling me that my vCore is ultra conservative or out of whack. Mind you, I'm still learning, but the idea I'd been getting is that when Intel sets the vID for a chip, they're taking vDroop into account, since it's a standard phenomenon when dealing with computers. Maybe I'm totally wrong about that and this board just has totally ridiculous vDroop, but from what I've read, vDroop is reduced on other boards with mods not available on this board, not from inherently having significantly lower vDroop.

After spending a few hundred dollars on this board, I'm not looking to buying another, which is why I'm still here trying to figure out how to get it stable. I'm certainly not happy with all the problems I've been having and probably won't get an MSI board in the future because it's been such a pain, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try to make the most of the money I spent on this one. I appreciate the fact that you say it's probably vCore, since now I have something else to look at as a possible solution. I appreciate it! I'd certainly be lying if I said this board hasn't been frustrating me quite a lot, but I've really been thrilled with the help offered by you and others.

AaronYui: I've tried with only one video card and still got reboots (also tried without my sound card), but not only one stick of RAM (I tried with one stick while I was still diagnosing my SATA/RAID driver problems), so I might give that a shot. I'm running RAID0 with two drives and have a third as a storage drive, so trying with two drives is doable. Trying with just one is something I might try down the road if I run out of other options. As for the power supply, I'm pretty sure it's not at fault and don't currently have another PSU capable of powering this system, but that's another thing I'll keep in mind. I'll try these after upping vCore as loonym suggested.

Thanks for the ideas, guys.

Look, that was a little over the top, sorry. Thing is though for the past few weeks since you started posting I've done everything but hit you over the head with the fact that you need to try some of the things that are in this thread, going back several months, beginning with voltage increases. I can only look at the situation as I would view it were it me having problem after problem. I would be doing the stuff quick be it bios flash, volts, cooling, or whatever. Real quick, the sooner the better to determine without delay if in fact I did have a bum board. I don't take the long way around the barn.

edit: and I think it would be easier to be patient with problems and such if the person posting for help can actually say geeez I've tried everything, even bumping my voltages to xyz amount and trying bios's this that and the other one.

I have to agree with loonym...looks like you need some more voltage. As long as all of your components aren't duff, the stuff should work, and having crashes like you are mentioning are probably related to voltages being too low. Try upping the NB to about 1.35 or so and maybe give another few tenths of a volt to vcore and see what happens.

I was reading through this forum and I saw a post on what all of the beep codes at post mean. I have thiss beep code every time I start my pc. 1 long, 2 short Failure in video system An error was encountered in the video BIOS ROM, or a horizontal retrace failure has been encountered. This has happened with two different video cards so I dont think that is the problem. I never really thought anything of it. It also says no devices detected at post sometimes. This has happenes with bios 1.1, 1.2b1, and 1.2 offical. Should I just ignore this? My rig seems stable. I never get any video errors.

Hi all. I've tried the Pax drivers (v5.1 and 5.25) for the included X-Fi but when the installation starts, an error comes out saying that there's no compatible product on the system. Anybody can help me please?

Bababooey: do you have any USB devices connected? You'll get one short beep for every USB device connected at startup, so I'd be willing to guess you have two. :D I went through that same concern at one point when I got one long and one short, especially after seeing that table earlier in the thread.

bluspikez: I'll try upping vCore first, but will keep NB in mind. When I was running at stock, upping NB even a little caused my computer to crash often with blue screens. With my current overclock, I've certainly tried upping NB, but it never had an effect that I could notice, so I put it back to 1.25, which was the minimum I needed for pretty clear stability. I continued having booting problems despite having higher NB volts.

loonym: I know what it's like to be irritated by newbies on message boards. ;) Really sorry about being such a pain. Regarding doing the stuff quickly, I typically try something new every time my computer displays a problem that indicates current settings aren't working. Since this overclock, that's been far less often, so there are only so many tests I can run, and I'm still really new to this, so exactly what tests to run isn't obvious to me. If you ever need help with math, algorithms, arcade hardware, or hacking assembly in classic games, that's definitely more up my alley. :D

Got this board since february and it's since I 'm trying to overclock.. I moved from MACs to PC /still got myMAC G4dualprocessor just because I love it../:D..
This thread /people in it, of course/ helped me much, and I learned a bit by myself /goooooogle/, but old "try and fail" way is good as well, so I tried lots of settings and some of them really high.. This board just passed through with some bsod or freezing and I didn't fry anything.. There was some nasty moments, but always caused by other hardware or drivers /some of them are really crappy/..
Now I got my Vcore at 1.41V /at these, read from bios, asus780i with the exactly the same CPU and cooling is 10C more hot.. strange..my temp 68C at load/ NB at 1.65V, SB 1.6V.. I didn't touch FSB term and CPU GTL before, but now I set them as BLUESPIKEZ posted /1.313 / .875/.. It solved ocassional TDU freezing..thx..

arcade hardware...lol I used to be missile command master. I had to let them blow me up or else I would still be standing there now 30 years later :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fiskbit

bluspikez: I'll try upping vCore first, but will keep NB in mind. When I was running at stock, upping NB even a little caused my computer to crash often with blue screens. With my current overclock, I've certainly tried upping NB, but it never had an effect that I could notice, so I put it back to 1.25, which was the minimum I needed for pretty clear stability. I continued having booting problems despite having higher NB volts.

---

I'm not sure if it will help in your case, but it definitely helped me. Also, going too high on the nb caused instability for me, so keep that in mind. 1.35-1.4v seems to be the magic range for me. Removing the circupipe and reseating it also helped with stability a lot for me as well; seeing as you mentioned it you might want to strongly consider doing that.

@dogg - Glad that I could help! :D

I'll be reseating the pipe soon; just need to have a good block of time to take my computer apart and do that. I'll also be taking the opportunity to resolder some wires in my computer case for the temperature monitor. As good of a job as this case does with cooling, its quality control is shoddy at best. That's a word of warning for you, loonym; be careful messing with this case, since wires and pins will break if you look at them.

I'd love to get a Missile Command at some point, but they're not exactly cheap. I have a ton of circuit boards and a generic cabinet for the bulk of them, as well as another more specialized one. I'd love to get some older games with unique controls or vector monitors, but my biggest interest is the deluxe sit-down games. They're a pain to move, but a blast to play. Great stuff. :D

Quick question, if one of the cpu cores fails prime pretty much instantly, does that mean the cpu has reached its limit or can it be made stable with voltage adjustments etc.?

It can be made stable. It depends which test you were using, however.

That's good to hear. I was using the blend test by the way. The only voltages I'v changed so far are Vcore at 1.36(VID 1.325) and NB at 1.375. I tried increasing these slightly for higher frequencies and I still had errors. Can anyone offer advice on how I go about making it stable at higher frequencies? I was advised to set FSB term to max and cpu gtl to 66% of that but was unable to find the cpu gtl equivalences. I would really like to reach 3ghz(430x7) just as a personal goal.

Ok, time for something a little off topic. I've been reading up on the benefits of running RAM & FSB 1:1. First off, my RAM is 2x2GB Mushkin PC28000. So a FSB of 1000 or 500 depending on how you look at it. My E8400 is a 1333FSB CPU ... 9x multiplied 333FSB quad pumped to achieve 3.0Ghz. For me to get a 1:1 ratio, I need to severly underclock the RAM to 333FSB. Of course I bought faster RAM to get faster speeds but doesn't look like its a good match for the CPU. So then I thought why not change to 8x multiplier @ 375FSB (not a huge increase, but better). PC will not boot period at those settings and voltages are not overclocked, everything auto. 7x430FSB will not work either. Then I came to think ... while technically i'm not overclocking the GHz, I am overclocking the CPUs overall FSB. The E8400 is set to run at 1333FSB and by setting to 8x375FSB its now running at 1500FSB. So i'm not sure what I need to do here. This is an aspect of overclocking I am uncertain about. While in all scenarios i'm only getting 3.0Ghz, the overall FSB is being pushed and I'm curious if what i'm trying to do is even possible. I can't overclock beyond 3.0Ghz at this time until I take care of the NB & circu-pipe issue. I want to get my RAM working as fast as it can ... and still maintain a 1:1 ratio. Am I missing something? Perhaps my understanding of overclocking was wrong in that it's not about pushing the overall GHz, its about pushing the FSB of the CPU ... or maybe its both. In the end, for now I just want to get my RAM operating as fast as possible, and keep 1:1. How might I achieve this? Is my understanding of overclocking flawed?

I see you give those a try ... 1:1 ratio works best for me, but some othe ratios worked stable as well (default setting with ratio 6:5 performing very good even on T2...) I wanted just to find freq they like with T1... Now running as in sig..
Some pics about it.. maybe it will help..

Good news! The next beta will most likely give you more CPU voltage - the CPU voltage limit is being raised from +0.37850v to +0.73850v. If any of you are LN2 benchers, you'll be able to push around 2.20v into your CPU if you really want.

It's already implemented on the X48 boards, so I assume the P45 and 780i/790i are next.

I believe this was done for cherry-picked benchers (ones with VIDs of 1.0375v etc). It would only allow them around 1.4v CPU vCore.

All, I updated the original post for clarity. There seems to be some confusion around the beep codes. It is really pretty simple and straight forward.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by x-built-Stan

I'm editing this post to clarify the beep codes. When you boot there are two series of beep codes with a slight delay between them. The first is the POST beep code - see table below. The second is the number of USB devices plugged into the motherboard directly. So if you get 1 long <pause> 2 short you have an OK POST with 2 USB devices plugged into the motherboard. Note that plugging multiple devices into a monitor or USB hub and then plugging the monitor or hub into the motherboard only counts as one device - 1 short beep. If you are concerned or confused, unplug all USB devices and boot to get the 'true' sequence.

Overspeed,

Here are thge AMI beep codes. Note that the 1 long is a good POST.

AMI BIOS Beep Codes:

1 short DRAM refresh failure The programmable interrupt timer or programmable interrupt controller has probably failed
2 short Memory parity error A memory parity error has occurred in the first 64K of RAM. The RAM IC is probably bad
3 short Base 64K memory failure A memory failure has occurred in the first 64K of RAM. The RAM IC is probably bad
4 short System timer failure The system clock/timer IC has failed or there is a memory error in the first bank of memory
5 short Processor error The system CPU has failed
6 short Gate A20 failure The keyboard controller IC has failed, which is not allowing Gate A20 to switch the processor to protected mode. Replace the keyboard controller
7 short Virtual mode processor exception error The CPU has generated an exception error because of a fault in the CPU or motherboard circuitry
8 short Display memory read/write error The system video adapter is missing or defective
9 short ROM checksum error The contents of the system BIOS ROM does not match the expected checksum value. The BIOS ROM is probably defective and should be replaced
10 short CMOS shutdown register read/write error The shutdown for the CMOS has failed
11 short Cache error The L2 cache is faulty
1 long, 2 short Failure in video system An error was encountered in the video BIOS ROM, or a horizontal retrace failure has been encountered
1 long, 3 short Memory test failure A fault has been detected in memory above 64KB
1 long, 8 short Display test failure The video adapter is either missing or defective
2 short POST Failure One of the hardware testa have failed
1 long POST has passed all tests

---

I am very curious if there's a few 'standard' settings I can try out to get my system oc'd to say 3.2Ghz (I'm not wanting to push the system):

MSI P7N Diamond mobo
Q9450 Quad-core processor at 2.66Ghz (stock)
4Gb OCZ reaper DDR2-1066
Antec 900 case
Antec Truepower Trio PSU - 650 Watt
MSI NX8800 GTS 512Mb videocard
2 SATA HDD's
2 DVD-rewriters

I've read all of the threads pertaining to settings people have used for which overclocks they've been trying but sadly I found them all lacking specifics for their setup.
Some mention a working setup, but forget to mention what speed those settings give exactly, others only give a few of the settings that seem to trouble them.

Is anyone here able to provide me with what exactly I need to change where, with the above info, and knowing I have the 1.2 BIOS from MSI - AMI, through the MSI LiveUpdate tool.

I am very aware it's not cookie-cutter and what might work for 1 person might not work for the next, but ballpark-values are fine (min-max settings, ...).

Running XP Pro SP3

Many thanks in advance.

If you've read through all the thread you will know that everyones settings are different and may not work on your hardware setup, i noticed you didn't specify what type of cooling you have, if you have a stock heatsink it will get hot !

The below settings are what have worked for me, there's no guarantee that they'll work for you, use them at your own risk :yepp:


Execute Bit Support - Disabled
C1E Support - Disabled
Set Linit CPUID MaxVal to 3 - Disabled
CPU TM Function - Disabled

Current CPU Freq - 3.40GHz (425x8)
Current FSB Freq - 1700 MHz
Current DRAM Freq - 915 MHz

D.O.T Control - Disabled
Intel EIST - Disabled
SLI-Ready Memory - Expert
System Clock Mode - Manual
FSB Clock - 1700 MHz
DRAM Clock - 920 (Adjusted to 915 automatically)
Adjust CPU Ratio - 8

CPU Voltage - 0.16250
DRAM Voltage - 2.20
NB Voltage - 1.450
SB Voltage - 1.550
DIMM Memory Reference Voltage - 1.035
Cpu GTL Reference Voltage - 0.879
NB GTL Reference Voltage - 0.877
FSB Terminator Voltage - 1.313
Spread Spectrum - Disabled

DRAM Timing Mode - Manual
CAS Latency (CL) - 5
tRCD - 5
tRP - 5

All other setting set to AUTO.

I've got it to 3.2 at the moment, which isn't the problem - I just wanted comparisons to my values, to see if maybe I could lower a setting here or there so as not to tax the hardware too heavily with non-standard settings (and as such lengthen the life of the components).

Thanks for your list of settings though, will compare them to mine (as I dunno'em by heart).

http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=408802

Hey all... it's been quite a while. Just wanted to chime in and report that while I've been running my board w/o issue for the last six or so months, this morning I unfortunately woke up and found my system had blue-screened over night. It looks like it's an issue with my RAID setup... A few days I ago, I started to noticed RAID Critical Access Failure messages popping-up in my system tray, which I tend to disregard as this was a common occurrence on my 680i boards, but was never indicative of a real problem.

Not now... It seems that there really is something going on. I'm now trying to do a just-in-time backup of my latest files, and it's a crap-shoot as to whether or not a particular file transer will complete or if my system will freeze. Every time my system freezes, Vista insists on running a chkdsk /f scan, in which it fines hundreds of bad attribute records to fix or delete. I don't think any of the drives are bad -- but I've only run preliminary tests... Something is definitely screwy with the file system though, and whether its merely a corrupt install, a driver issue, or worse, something with the south bridge itself--I have yet to figure out.

It's been a long time since I've tweaked my system's configuration, and my BIOS is also several versions out of date. Hopefully upgrading drivers and the BIOS will correct the issue -- but if its indeed a hardware failure, I'll have to see what to do. I have a backup EVGA 780i board that's never been used, and while I would likely see about RMAing this board, I'm not too confident a replacement from MSI will perform as well (as we've seen, there is a bit of luck in getting a good P7N Diamond.) If it is a hardware issue, in a way I'd rather it be a sudden and real failure of the south bridge rather than a degradation due to overclocking.... At 3.6ghz, my southbridge only needed a minimal voltage increase to operate, and at 3ghz, the southbridge would perform w/o issue at stock -- so if it is degradation, there is headroom, but still to think that the chip is degrading after just over six months of use isn't encouraging.

Anyone else have a similar issue with their RAID setup?

Can anyone please guide me through upgrading BIOS without a floppy drive? I want to see if i can overclock any better with a newer BIOS.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by theYipster

Hey all... it's been quite a while. Just wanted to chime in and report that while I've been running my board w/o issue for the last six or so months, this morning I unfortunately woke up and found my system had blue-screened over night. It looks like it's an issue with my RAID setup... A few days I ago, I started to noticed RAID Critical Access Failure messages popping-up in my system tray, which I tend to disregard as this was a common occurrence on my 680i boards, but was never indicative of a real problem.

Not now... It seems that there really is something going on. I'm now trying to do a just-in-time backup of my latest files, and it's a crap-shoot as to whether or not a particular file transer will complete or if my system will freeze. Every time my system freezes, Vista insists on running a chkdsk /f scan, in which it fines hundreds of bad attribute records to fix or delete. I don't think any of the drives are bad -- but I've only run preliminary tests... Something is definitely screwy with the file system though, and whether its merely a corrupt install, a driver issue, or worse, something with the south bridge itself--I have yet to figure out.

It's been a long time since I've tweaked my system's configuration, and my BIOS is also several versions out of date. Hopefully upgrading drivers and the BIOS will correct the issue -- but if its indeed a hardware failure, I'll have to see what to do. I have a backup EVGA 780i board that's never been used, and while I would likely see about RMAing this board, I'm not too confident a replacement from MSI will perform as well (as we've seen, there is a bit of luck in getting a good P7N Diamond.) If it is a hardware issue, in a way I'd rather it be a sudden and real failure of the south bridge rather than a degradation due to overclocking.... At 3.6ghz, my southbridge only needed a minimal voltage increase to operate, and at 3ghz, the southbridge would perform w/o issue at stock -- so if it is degradation, there is headroom, but still to think that the chip is degrading after just over six months of use isn't encouraging.

Anyone else have a similar issue with their RAID setup?

---

I had a 4 disk stripe and had a drive fail on me suddenly a couple of weeks ago. The raid utility (F10) showed which disk was bad as well as the nvidia software in windows. It would ocasionaly boot into windows only to show tons of errors in event viewer. The odd thing is that after this happened my board would ocassionally fail to post. I then removed the bad disk and flashed to the offical bios 1.2. Set up a raid5 array and formated. I havent had a problem since. I was running my southbridge at 1.65.

Hi all. I can help you with that BOBO.
The way I always upgrade my Bios is the following: First of all format a diskette with the option "create a MS-DOS .....". Then use the "HP Usb Boot disk" utility (you can download it for free anywhere) to make a Bootable Pendrive and the files you are going to point with the utility are the ones you have on your diskette. This utility have that option. So you boot with your pendrive (really fast) and put inside it the "afud4234.exe" plus the bios you want.
The string (just in case) is "afud4234.exe bios.XXX"
Sorry my english, did it help?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bobo888

Can anyone please guide me through upgrading BIOS without a floppy drive? I want to see if i can overclock any better with a newer BIOS.

---

Go to this site and read the forum thread.
http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=119353.0

You will need to have Nero 6 or newer installed, following directions from link below , that is also in thread above link.

http://www.msicomputer.com/support/images/BIOS_CD.pdf

Also make sure you have gone to MSI site to get the latest Official Bio's release or from MSI forum link above you can get Beta Bio's after you have register for the Forum board.

The CD option worked for me, tried the USB Flask and it did not work.
Also make sure you leave space between afud4234 a7510nms.120 when you type it in the Dos screen and remember to unplug the power cord and clear the CMOS after bios have been updated and you reboot.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the advice. It still sounds quite complicated but i think i can do it. asuming everything i need to know is in that Nero6 guide.

Bobo888, some people may not agree but as long as you're certain of your stability you should be able to use AFUWIN which allows you to flash from the windows desktop. It's very simple to use and I've done it on occasion with this board. Here's a brief outline for anyone that cares... start it by running the AFUWIN.exe, select the 'open' button and at the 'Files of type' pulldown menu select 'All Files', browse to wherever the bios is stashed, select it and open, click the 'Setup' tab and check the box 'Program All Blocks', hit the 'Flash' button. When it's done you're ready to reboot. I let it complete the first post after reboot, then I clear the cmos and begin entering my settings.
AFUWIN v4.33

Thanks a lot loonym, just as I had given up hope with a Boot disc that I couldnt get working. The whole process was done in 10 minutes. Although I have to say its not for the faint of heart. Vista slowed a lot during the overwriting of the BIOS and I expected a crash any minute (but i was 99.9% sure my system was stable). I Also had a BSOD after loading default values but that was just my old dead Hard Drive. Now to see if I can reach my goal of 3ghz :D

So an update on the RAID situation... The issue is that while both RAID drives and the array are detected as healthy during boot, one drive in the array will drop out after 5 to 10 minutes of use. It's always the same drive, regardless of what port I connect it to or what SATA cable I use -- but I'm still not convinced the drive itself is bad (although it's a likelier scenario at this point than anything else.) Mechanically the drive sounds and feels fine -- when it's working it's working at full speed... but invariably the system will hang and then report the drive as being disconnected from the array, as if someone pulled the SATA cable out. Since the drive looks, sounds, and feels mechanically sound, my guess is that it's the drive controller or the motherboard.

If it's the drive controller, I'll likely buy a 1TB drive and use that in place of the RAID-0 array. I've had enough issues with NVRAID to trust it further with such a setup -- despite a decent backup regiment. If it's the motherboard, and unfortunately it won't be that easy to determine, then I'm throwing in the towel on nForce chipsets... The P7N has served me very well, but these days regardless of how fast a board can OC my proc, stability must come first.

To be frank, I am eager to leave the world of nVidia chipsets. Despite my success with this board, and that of others such as Loonym, there's just too much negative news out there (anecdotal, statistically tested, and otherwise) to put much faith into a nForce system. Furthermore, my experience with the 680i turned very sour when I upgraded to a Quad, and despite my success with the P7N, I would be lying if I said it was a great board for everyone.

With X58 supporting SLI natively without a bridge chip, the 780/790i series looks to be the end of the line of high-end nForce anyway... The question is whether to hold out with a possibly shaky setup until Tylersburg or call it quits now for a P45 based P5Q Deluxe or Maximus II Formula.

@theyipster- That sounds alot like what happened to me although nvraid would occasionaly report the drive as bad at post. The board would occasionaly even fail to post, which dosent even make sense. It happened out of the blue. My pc locked up one day with no bsod after being stable for a long time. Then a couple of hours later another crash that required a hard reset. Then the board failed to post and after another reset nvraid showed me a bad drive and would not boot into windows. Then it would boot into windows and run fine for a while before nvraid started showing tons of errors on one disk. I finally removed the drive and had to do a complete reinstall. I havent had a problem since. I really like this board. Its served me well. I would wait and see what Amd and Intel has to offer in the coming months

I need help please. I have a Q9450, and Cpu-z and Everest cpuid are showing me that core #0 and core #1 are correct (333*8=2666) but core #2 and core #3 are showing 333*6 (2000). Using 1.2b3 bios.
Hasn't happened to anybody? Suggestions?

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Originally Posted by FedericoUY

I need help please. I have a Q9450, and Cpu-z and Everest cpuid are showing me that core #0 and core #1 are correct (333*8=2666) but core #2 and core #3 are showing 333*6 (2000). Using 1.2b3 bios.
Hasn't happened to anybody? Suggestions?

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Let's see a screenshot.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FedericoUY

I need help please. I have a Q9450, and Cpu-z and Everest cpuid are showing me that core #0 and core #1 are correct (333*8=2666) but core #2 and core #3 are showing 333*6 (2000). Using 1.2b3 bios.
Hasn't happened to anybody? Suggestions?

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Speedstep? Maybe ... but usually underclocks all cores AND must be turn ON in BIOS?

I was having tons of RAID problems until I downloaded the 9.99.0.9 drivers from the NVIDIA website. I was getting BSOD, critical errors messages in event viewer logs, even kept having to reset my bios. Once I updated the drivers, I've not had a single error or problem since. I've been running stable now, without any errors, for over a week. My suggestion is to download the bios driver package from MSI, install it, then the latest NVIDIA RAID drivers from their website (I think the MSI are 9.99.0.4). Hopefully you're problems will be over as have mine.

On a side note, does anyone have a link to Vista 64 bit drivers for the X-Fi Extreme that comes with the mobo that includes a mic boost? I've tried those PAX drivers, but they keep telling me that they can't find the hardware. I'm going crazy because nobody can hear me in for for jack. Any help on some decent drivers would be much appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Kyros

On a side note, does anyone have a link to Vista 64 bit drivers for the X-Fi Extreme that comes with the mobo that includes a mic boost? I've tried those PAX drivers, but they keep telling me that they can't find the hardware. I'm going crazy because nobody can hear me in for for jack. Any help on some decent drivers would be much appreciated.

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Trying to get a mic to work with the included card has just been a pain in the rear for me...I have yet to get it to work. It will play whatever I say over the mic over my speakers, but trying to get it to play nicely with programs like ventrilo just hasn't been possible for me. Plus, I can't control the outputs like I want to/could with the kX drivers for my old card. I'm really starting to get fed up with it and will probably just end up buying a nice pci-e one sometime.

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Originally Posted by loonym

Let's see a screenshot.

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I've switched to official 1.2 bios to see if error fixes but not.
Here goes a screen of 4 cpuz's. Please help.

You have eist and c1e disabled FedericoUY?

I use an external usb device for sound bluspikez. Wasn't real expensive and while it's not in the same league with some hardware sound cards it really does have decent quality.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by loonym

You have eist and c1e disabled FedericoUY?

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YEEEESSSS! Eist was disabled, but as I never saw "C1E" i didn't know where it were. I assume C1E = Execute Bit Support, so I just disabled It and all 4 cores are perfect at 8x multiplier. Thank's a lot.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bluspikez

Trying to get a mic to work with the included card has just been a pain in the rear for me...I have yet to get it to work. It will play whatever I say over the mic over my speakers, but trying to get it to play nicely with programs like ventrilo just hasn't been possible for me. Plus, I can't control the outputs like I want to/could with the kX drivers for my old card. I'm really starting to get fed up with it and will probably just end up buying a nice pci-e one sometime.

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If they just made some decent drivers that had "mic boost" all would be fine. Creative Labs makes good hardware, but they have always been poorly run with terrible driver support. I don't see how they stay on top. I really don't have the money for a new sound card, but having everyone say they can't hear me in vent is getting old.

Anyone at all had luck with the built in junker sound card that came with this board? The sound quality is not too bad, but I've got PCI Audigy 2 ZX in my old rig I'm about to throw in here because of poor driver support by CL.

FedericoUY,

C1E support is basically hardware level EIST. You reveal it by pressing F4 in the BIOS. It's under CPU features.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kyros

If they just made some decent drivers that had "mic boost" all would be fine. Creative Labs makes good hardware, but they have always been poorly run with terrible driver support. I don't see how they stay on top. I really don't have the money for a new sound card, but having everyone say they can't hear me in vent is getting old.

Anyone at all had luck with the built in junker sound card that came with this board? The sound quality is not too bad, but I've got PCI Audigy 2 ZX in my old rig I'm about to throw in here because of poor driver support by CL.

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There is no built in sound. The only sound provided with the board is the x-fi.

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Originally Posted by AaronYuri

FedericoUY,

C1E support is basically hardware level EIST. You reveal it by pressing F4 in the BIOS. It's under CPU features.

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I have the same problem again. I reveal the C1E option and disabled it, also EIST is disabled, but again I have 2nd and 3rd core on 6x of multi (core 0 and 1 ok). I use manual fsb option to set memory at 1066. What else could it be?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by loonym

There is no built in sound. The only sound provided with the board is the x-fi.

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I didn't mean built in, I meant packaged with. I've seen the card listed for like $8 online. It's just ashamed that the driver support by creative labs is so poor.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FedericoUY

I have the same problem again. I reveal the C1E option and disabled it, also EIST is disabled, but again I have 2nd and 3rd core on 6x of multi (core 0 and 1 ok). I use manual fsb option to set memory at 1066. What else could it be?

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Put the CPU under load and see what happens.