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

Welcome Aaron :welcome: Great to see you here. I know you're a valuable asset to the msi community and I have no doubt you can improve any hardware discussion (plus you have connections :ROTF: ) so really, really good to have you anywhere.

When I saw this ami bios on first post I was immediately put off but also curious, and now I'm rather enjoying it. I've dealt with some very difficult bios going back to dfi nf2-3-4 boards so I learned a tremendous amount of patience from that. There is always a percentage of people (and always will be) who want to fire up, go to bios, push the 'gimme big OC button' and then dazzle the crowd with their mad numbers. It's not that simple. These same people may have a stack of rma slips and a pile of OS discs because they rush to blame instead of seeking or perhaps creating solutions.

At any rate, it's good to have you Aaron and sorry about the board (bring back the socketed bios) :yepp:

Thanks for the welcome loonym. :up:

I like the AMI BIOS. It's slow, but it's flashy! :shocked: It takes some time to adjust to, but we'll all get there eventually.

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(bring back the socketed bios)

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Maybe I should moan about that too... LOL

OK guys,
I installed the Q9450 on Friday, switched from the core dual X6800 cpu. Now my overclocks are NOT showing up in Vista64 nor 32 BUT they due show up in BIOS and during boot up. Very strange, I could see all overclocks with the x6800 but not this Q9450. I have tried various offical and beta bios's with the same result. All comments are welcome.

Hi Thomson,

This thread is for the P7N 780i Diamond, which employs a different chipset and BIOS than your 750i platinum. I would suggest browsing the overclocking forum at MSI (http://forum.msi.com.tw) for assistance.

Good luck.

This thread is packed full of helpful information. I've been following since the beginning, and it only reinforces my opinion that this is an amazing board. Thanks to loonym sending me the latest bios last week, I finally got my board up and running the other day. Although I haven't overclocked yet, I've stressed the system quite a bit over the weekend, and it's performance has been flawless. I'm trying to finish a case mod at the moment, but I have a 2.33 Ghz ES chip, and available TEC cooling. I'm going to push this board as much as I can. So, expect to hear from me again in a week or two. Keep up the quality input guys!

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Originally Posted by craigbru

This thread is packed full of helpful information. I've been following since the beginning, and it only reinforces my opinion that this is an amazing board. Thanks to loonym sending me the latest bios last week, I finally got my board up and running the other day. Although I haven't overclocked yet, I've stressed the system quite a bit over the weekend, and it's performance has been flawless. I'm trying to finish a case mod at the moment, but I have a 2.33 Ghz ES chip, and available TEC cooling. I'm going to push this board as much as I can. So, expect to hear from me again in a week or two. Keep up the quality input guys!

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Here's hoping you have better luck than me. Still can't get back to 3.6 here.

first time i have finally gotten the pc to get into windows trying to oc for 2 days now DOH!

settings as below:
FSB Clock 1400
Dram Clock 700
Cpu Voltage 0.11250
Dram Voltage 2.10
NB Voltage 1.30
SB Voltage Auto
NB Mem Ref Auto
Dimm Mem Ref Auto
Mem Term Auto
Cpu GTL Ref 60
NB GTL Ref Auto
FSB Term Ref 25
SB Sleep Auto
PCI Expander Auto

so im at 350x9=3150 not too shabby. I think the 2 biggest settings are Cpu GTL and FSB Term. As not touching them at all would result in never even posting. I even tried a slight fsb bump to 1450 and dram to 725 at exact settings above and it would not post. This is the most touchy bios I have ever messed with. Its not surprising folks get frustrated quickly. Its not just point and shoot with this AMI.

Everest showed base VID of 1.275 and after .011250 bump and vdroop, cpu-z shows 1.368v. So a tiny vdroop here. This is where i stand, not sure what to touch next to try and push further. I think voltage is safe on cpu and ill bump up NB to try and push up to 1500fsb.

Here's a brief overview of my 3.6 settings. Cpu is a G0 batch L737A702 with a VID of 1.2875, bios A7510NMS.116, C1E and EIST disabled.

The first screen in cell menu just shows mode to manual, fsb to 1600, and multi at 9. The pci-e freq=107 is just to give me a little help for oc my vid cards so disregard that setting.
http://images6.theimagehosting.com/100_2513.189.th.JPG

Next you see my voltages. One might assume that cpu VID 1.2875v+.225v increase in bios will mean a vcore of 1.5125 but this isn't the case at all as you will see from H/W Monitor in a moment.
http://images6.theimagehosting.com/100_2515.th.jpg
The H/W Monitor screen is showing me vcore 1.464v and while I'm sure part of this is vdrop, it also leads me to believe that bios may not be setting the initial voltage correctly or that there is some amount of vdroop before the OS is even loaded. Of course that's purely speculation without actual digital multi-meter measurements.
http://images6.theimagehosting.com/100_2518.3de.th.JPG

I can show prime 25.6 stability if need be, I have run it 6hr with similar settings on bios 114 but honestly I'm not really big on hours of stress testing. It cuts into my WCG time too much and I have taken kind of a personal interest in that since my cancer diagnosis 7 weeks ago. 4 cores crunching 24/7 without error and the occasional game of Witcher or Silent Hunter 4 is my idea of stable. You can see the CPU-Z Core Voltage 1.424v 100% load so vdroop is around .04v. You might also note ram timings are tight and CL1. The OCZ Reaper HPC's don't oc worth a damn but they run mighty tight stock. :D
http://images6.theimagehosting.com/36116.th.JPG

The temps are really something I'm not going to discuss too much. The common question seems to be "which app should I trust?". I'll leave this argument to people who know a lot more about intel thermal specs than I do. The author of Real Temp (unclewebb) said something in a post that stuck with me:

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Originally Posted by unclewebb

If you are Prime stable and have left some head room before TjMax, which you have plenty of, then absolute temperatures don't matter one bit. 50C, 55C, 60C, 65C and even 70C doesn't matter while running Prime as long as you are stable. You are within the Intel spec and you aren't going to hurt anything. With no documentation of TjMax by Intel and no user testing of TjMax for your new processor, absolute temperature is no more than just an interesting number no matter what software you are using to report it.

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A s-pi 8m run
http://images6.theimagehosting.com/spi8m.th.jpg

thanks loonym. I am tweaking here and there. Now up to 3.486ghz at 1.416v and temps are decent around 35-42 depending on core. This house tends to stay warm in summer in this room, so i may keep this as my "summer speed" hehe. Winter speeds should allow me 3.5+ with no worries. Although my ram running at 387 sucks when its stock speed is 500. So i may play around with that some more and see where it leads. Need to stress test as well, but these results so far are very encouraging.

NIVO,

I run PC-8500 (5-5-5-15) stock. Running at 3.6GHz (800Mhz ram) lets me under clock them nicely (4-4-4-11). You might want to try that.

Also, you should be able to hit 3.6GHz pretty easy. Most of us have done it now. There are config setings posted throughout the thread from other and myself.

Good luck

hi everybody... after a 2 days stress session for my little 'puter (:D), here are my latest thoughts about it, but let me tell you that I've definately fixed all my problems

- put both graphic cards back in blue PCI-e slots. back to normal value under 3D Mark '06 (13467 points 1680x1050,4AA,Anisotrop.). with a better cables placement (replaced IDE and floppy cables from MSI bundle for rounded), no more temp problems, even if the southbridge and the heatpipe are still so hot
- CPU temp : 37 idle, 51 full (according to RealTemp 2.24). I put some arctic silver 5 instead of noctua nh-t1
- GPU temp : 46 idle (both), 63 full, and no freeze, bsod, etc... (using latest nVidia drivers 174.74 beta) after playing crysis for more than 2 hours
- horrible sounds : gone !!! there are tons of awful crackling sounds when I put the X-Fi in one of the 2 free PCI-e 16x slots. with my graphic cards in both blue PCI-e, there's still some place between them to put the X-Fi in the free PCI-e 1x slot. no matter which drivers I use (from MSI CD, from MSI website, from creative website, or from youp-pax), there are no more problems, so I'm gonna leave it here with official drivers
- I finally received my LG GGC-H20L which is my first SATA optical drive. I was curious about that problem that is sometimes happening with nforce chipsets and SATA opt drive. I tried to install both XP SP2 32bits and Vista SP1 64bits from this drive, and I didn't get any problems. also, I've never had to remove any of my memory sticks to install any of the OS. 4Gb all the time...

nothing else to say. I'm running a very stable and performant computer. sorry guys, but I won't report any overclocking attempt for now. I'm still too scared about it. my computer is exactly what I was hoping it to be when I decided to build a new one, and I don't regret any of the components... (this doesn't mean I won't post anymore. I'm staying with you all the time ;) )

PS: before I forget, I'm running bios 1.16b

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Originally Posted by x-built-Stan

NIVO,

I run PC-8500 (5-5-5-15) stock. Running at 3.6GHz (800Mhz ram) lets me under clock them nicely (4-4-4-11). You might want to try that.

Also, you should be able to hit 3.6GHz pretty easy. Most of us have done it now. There are config setings posted throughout the thread from other and myself.

Good luck

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thx stan. These firestix run awesome at tight timings as well. I just loosened em up for the oc to be safe and will tighten back down when i feel everything is okie dokie. I did hit 3.6 earlier at 1.4v! H/W monitor said 1.392v, but i didnt do anything to stress for stability at all. Temps were 36-43 at idle so i should remain in the safe zone under stress. I am trying to get this at 3.2 and settle on it for now, but im a bit confuzzled. Does this board have fsb "holes"??? I cant get it to post whatsoever at 1440/720 at all, yet i can get running smoothly at higher speeds. 3.486ghz seemed to perform wonderfully, gaming, playing online, encoded for a few minutes even. Yet 3.2 eludes me. Im stumped on that one. Im still diggin.......................:up:

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Originally Posted by theYipster

Hi Thomson,

This thread is for the P7N 780i Diamond, which employs a different chipset and BIOS than your 750i platinum. I would suggest browsing the overclocking forum at MSI (http://forum.msi.com.tw) for assistance.

Good luck.

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Yes,
I know I am in the 780i thread, but was looking only for a little help. Will anyway, I up my FSB and NB voltages to just before red and cpu to +.15 and followed the first page comments on overclocking and now my overclock is showing up in the OS. Maybe one of those famous FSB holes, who knows.
:up:

Yes NIVO there are fsb holes, the one you hit lol, another big one around 1457. I'm trying to keep a record of the ones I hit. The exact way you know you hit it is post fail, needs cmos clr to continue.

thompson5439, does that bios cell menu look the same as 780i?

Gamin,

Way to go. :up: Its always nice when you get what you expected on a build. When you are ready to really push that 8500, let us know. We would love to help.

to run 3.2 I only need +.075 vcore, 1.35v nb, nb gtl 20, fsb term 50, then it's just simple 1422fsb and 9 multi

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Originally Posted by loonym

Yes NIVO there are fsb holes, the one you hit lol, another big one around 1457. I'm trying to keep a record of the ones I hit. The exact way you know you hit it is post fail, needs cmos clr to continue.

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My board would post at pretty much any speed between 1066 and 1750, it was just a question of if it would get past the drive detection phase.

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Originally Posted by silent-circuit

My board would post at pretty much any speed between 1066 and 1750, it was just a question of if it would get past the drive detection phase.

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That's great, perhaps you could confirm 2 for me. 1467 and 1500, just snap a photo of the post as seen here.

anybody knows if 1.16 fixes lower multi on q6600? or does this rumored p07 fix the nvidia video driver issue? if so please let me know ill try it out

No, the q6600 cannot change multi with .116, and the P07 is just what you say, a rumor until whoever may have it comes forward.

o.k. some people think this board is crap...its not.. I currently have my q6600 at 3150 humming away at prime 95 small fft's..thats not what impressed me, my xfx 680 lt required me to raise the cpu voltage to 1.42 to get stable this msi board hasnt required any additional voltage to the cpu...i had the fsb upto 1.5v on the 680 and its 1.4 right now...that just shows me the oc potential this board will have as soon as the bios matures...ive also prime 95 for 8+ hours at 470 fsb with a 7 multi on the p05 bios but it has probs with nvidia video drivers...so again patience this board will be worth the wait:up:
1 thing keep an eye on your fsb hole...just because itll boot it aint stable if your too close to it....one way to tell is your ram speed will drop... i.e. from 800 to 792 in your bios.... hope that helps a few out

I just got this .P07 bios and it does fix quad multis as well as the vid driver issues that were a problem with .P05

Dogg, I mailed you the bios. When you reflash select program all blocks, I think your boot block is corrupt that's why you get the constant checksum error.

http://images6.theimagehosting.com/P071.th.JPG

I let OCCT finish a 1 hr run at 8x400 and then half hr at 8x425. I need more time to dial in all the settings but I think fsb can go higher, maybe even 450 with q6600 so I think this is good for people with wolf or york as long as the multis work on those cpus as well.

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Originally Posted by x-built-Stan

Gamin,

Way to go. :up: Its always nice when you get what you expected on a build. When you are ready to really push that 8500, let us know. We would love to help.

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let me learn first. I still have so many things to understand about overclocking... I promise to share if I decide to overclock, but I wanna enjoy my new computer first.

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Originally Posted by loonym

I just got this .P07 bios and it does fix quad multis as well as the vid driver issues that were a problem with .P05

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wondering if that P07 bios will also fix the half-multiplier problem... would you be so kind sending it to me as you did for 1.16b ? thanks in advance... ;)

Performance BIOS release P07 uploaded: http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=115073.0

Same old thing, please leave feedback.