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

FSB Term Voltage effecting CPU performance ?

Been playing around, and have noticed that as i up the FSB Term V CPU / CPU GTL Ref V performance seems to go down.

Even with a simple bench with Real Temp's XS Bench, had FSB Term V set to 1.281v which set CPU GTL to 0.856 and XS Bench gives me constant 950ish results.
Back the FSB Term V to 1.230 & CPU GTL to 0.835 (Automatically as i reduce FSB Term) and XS Bench gives me 1090ish results.

It's also reflected in Passmark Performance Test ! Couldn't believe once i'd upped the CPU to 3.4GHz i was getting slower benches ? :confused:

Thought it was my dividers (FSB/DRAM) but when i dropped it back to 3.3GHz without changing the FSB Term V performance was still worse than previous 3.3GHz benches.

Anyone noticed this ?

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Originally Posted by panheimer

Hi, i didn't played with this board for the whoole weekend as i've sold the dfi mobo and the q6600. I've just putted a q6700 on this mobo and have some strange issue. First of all i've cleared cmos with the apposite button, and entered bios to set everything at default, f10, saved and waited win to boot and...the system restarted!
Cleared cmos again, checked all parameters and restarted win again...another reset...what's wrong with it?
As i've heard somebody else having problems with default settings, i tried one the latest stable config found for the q6600 with this board, nothing special, just the first oc settings i've found stable (bios 1.2b1):
CPU Multi X9, FSB 1360, RAM 680, NB 1.225, CPU GTL 0.833, FSB 1.250v and a little bump of +0.025 on the CPU just to give some margin. Saved bios, passed POST and started loading windows...and another reset!
But this time i've noticed that while i've setted a x9 multi in bios, during post it displayed a x10, so i've ended with a 3.4 Ghz oc instead of a 3.06 Ghz!
Entered bios again and checked againg: x9. Saved and restarted and x10 again! What's wrong? Tried even to change to x8 and saved, but after restart the same x10 was displayed during POST.
So: is it a bios bug? Can't change multi with a q6700?

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Looks like yes, it is a bios bug. I think you should open a ticket at msi support website and report it. They may be able to help. They have helped me quite often sort through bios problems.

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Originally Posted by theYipster

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the lack of participation recently. Other parts of my life have taken over atm and I've had very little time to tweak or otherwise enjoy this hobby of mine. As the originator of this thread, I do want to point out however that messages should stay related to the original P7N Diamond. The P7N2 is based on a different chipset with different characteristics and will likely contain a different BIOS. The information we've compiled in this thread about the 780i P7N is fantastic, but it can easily become confused with information from another board (as if the P7N wasn't confusing enough.) When the P7N2 becomes widely available, I'm sure a similar thread will be started on XS dedicated to that particular board (if one hasn't already.)

Thanks!

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What the %^&&*. Surely you have something better to do... All i did was ask if anybody knew anything about the board. It is very "related" to this thread. This is the ideal place to ask about any new info on the P7N2 Diamond. It is much more relevant and related than

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Originally Posted by theYipster

Like the introduction of Core 2, the release of Nehelem will likely be a game-changing event. I'm very much looking forward to it, assuming info about them remains positive. What will be most interesting is how nVidia and SLI will fit into the Nehelem world. Will nVidia be able to produce a competitive Nehelem board? One positive of the memory controller moving to the processor, I suppose, is that there is less to screw up with the Northbridge -- a real net positive for the Intel nForce world.

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That should be in the Nehalem thread not this one. Continue with your "lack of participation" this thread has survived and is doing well with out it, thanks.

I'm sorry you're offended Nugzo. My aim is to keep this thread friendly and on-topic. Please do the same.

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Originally Posted by aelgen

Hi guys! This is my first post and I'd love if you could help me with a few things! I'm not a complete moron(;P) but there's something that is buggin' me with my brand new computer.

I get these freakish random reboots and I'm not sure what can cause them. Although nothing seems to be wrong in prime95, memtest and Everest doesn't show anything specific either.
I've tried to swap the RAM modules and only using one.
I've tried switching to another PSU.
I've tried with another graphics card.
I've tried in all kids of operative systems and live-cd's.

But nothing seems to help!

After a good hour of "googling" I read that it might be the motherboard that doesn't set the voltages right. So. Here I am, trying to figure out how to flash my BIOS with the new beta version available on MSI's forum (that I read in the first post in this thread). I tried to flash with my USB memory stick, but I get a message telling me that the partitions are faulty. Is there any way I might flash with a floppy disk instead?! I know how to make a start-disk but where do I put the BIOS? :o

Please, I'm kinda desperate for help here! Is there someone that has had the exact(or same) problem that I have? And do you have a solution?! : (



My specs are:

Motherboard: MSI P7N Diamond, nForce-780i
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz
RAM: Corsair TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF Dominator 2x2048MB (with the fan)
GFX: XFX GeForce 9800GTX 740M 512MB XXX
PSU: CORSAIR TX 750W (ought to give my system more than enough power!)
HDD: Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10000rpm 16MB cache

Also: I'm sorry for my typing, I'm Swedish so there's probably a few errors.

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Are you running any SATA optical drives? Also, do you get any sort of error information? Assuming you're running Windows XP, you can get it to not automatically restart by right clicking on My Computer, selecting Properties, going to the Advanced tab, clicking the Startup and Recovery Settings button, and unchecking Automatically Restart. The information could prove useful.

There is a well known nForce 680i/780i bug regarding Windows XP and SATA Optical drives which results in random blue screens. I mainly use Vista (which is unaffected) but keep a bare-bones XP partition for OC testing and tweaking, and my SATA Blu-Ray drive triggered this issue on my XP partition. There are several ways to correct the problem. First is to see whether or not a new version of the XP SATA drivers has fixed the issue. I unfortunately don't know as I rarely use XP and haven't bothered to check. Second is to uninstall the nForce SATA drivers and use the generic driver provided by XP. There should be no performance loss in doing this, and it should correct the problem. Third is to try re-arranging the SATA ports your drives are connected to. This actually fixed the issue for me, but I went ahead and uninstalled the nForce SATA drivers for good measure.

I and wolf1974 have had success using the 790i SATA/RAID drivers. Instructions on installing them are on this page. Crashing was very frequent prior to getting the drivers installed. When I was first set up my computer, I was getting crashes even during the XP installation, which was an absolute pain. I've had no crashes at all since I started using those drivers. Furthermore, you can make a SATA/RAID driver floppy from the 790i driver set to load during XP installation for a very smooth install. It worked like a charm during my XP reinstall.

Nice to see you posting in the thread again. Perhaps the first post will see some updates again? :)

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Originally Posted by crucial33

Hi, my first post here. Just so as you know, the P7N2 Diamond is now available in the u.k. I was at a computer fair on 29.06.08 in Woking, and the guy's there had 2 of them on there table. I could tell you who had them, but i dont want to infringe any sort of advertising rules, (especially on my first post), but feel free to PM if you want to know who has them.However, im pretty sure they will be everywhere in the next few days. The board looks very clean, and according to the retailer i spoke to, "has all the features of the striker extreme, with none of the problems!", thats what he told me anyway. I nearly bought the thing, but was really after the striker extreme myself, but im now wondering if this board would be a great alternative. Just thought i'd post a heads up for you anyway, and i hope it helps.

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Doesn't really matter much to me who had them since I'm in the US but I am curious about the price. ;) Do you happen to recall how much it was?

MSI P7N2 Diamond s775 DDR3 - MBMSP7N2DIAMOND - $465.30 AUD - Wholesale

That's from a wholesaler here in Australia, about 3 weeks ago they were in the high 500's, thats why i went the P7N.

Okay, I've now flashed to the latest beta BIOS, it went very well and everything ran smoothly during the process! I've had the computer running for a good half hour now without reboots! :D

Thanks for the help, loonym and Leeroy!

I will write again in a few days, to verify that everything is alright. (so others with the same problem can find a fast solution as well!)

Edit: Now the BIOS is really messed up.. Haha. I rebooted the computer and now Windows wont load. The message I get is that there are missing files! :o
Also, the secondary hard drive isn't found in BIOS! What now? I'm pretty sad again. :(

Edit2: I cleared CMOS, and now it's back to default settings in BIOS 1.2B(?). The hard drives are all back online and I could proceed to boot Windows Vista.

As said before, I'll keep you posted on updates. Cheers! Now I'm off to play Crysis! :D

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Originally Posted by AaronYuri

I also had to slowly go up the settings. Going too high, too fast, resulted in a no POST. I've experienced this on many MSI boards and have just accepted it.

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I briefly tried the bios beta 1.22 today and experienced this same behavior. I quickly reverted to beta 1.21, which at least in my setup, allows me to immediately go to my desired settings and proceed. That is as long as I don't hit any fsb holes. Early on I was keeping a log of these holes, but as MSI started giving us more bios I discovered that this sometimes changes from one bios to another so I abandoned that.

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Originally Posted by loonym

Doesn't really matter much to me who had them since I'm in the US but I am curious about the price. ;) Do you happen to recall how much it was?

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Hi loonym.Just so that you know , it was being offered at £215. Not sure how much that is in dollars, but i think its a similiar price to the striker 2 extreme ddr 3 board. I think i'll treat myself this week, i'll post results once i have it up and running.

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Originally Posted by aelgen

Okay, I've now flashed to the latest beta BIOS, it went very well and everything ran smoothly during the process! I've had the computer running for a good half hour now without reboots! :D

Thanks for the help, loonym and Leeroy!

I will write again in a few days, to verify that everything is alright. (so others with the same problem can find a fast solution as well!)

Edit: Now the BIOS is really messed up.. Haha. I rebooted the computer and now Windows wont load. The message I get is that there are missing files! :o
Also, the secondary hard drive isn't found in BIOS! What now? I'm pretty sad again. :(

Edit2: I cleared CMOS, and now it's back to default settings in BIOS 1.2B(?). The hard drives are all back online and I could proceed to boot Windows Vista.

As said before, I'll keep you posted on updates. Cheers! Now I'm off to play Crysis! :D

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Thanks for the update, i was going to flash to newest beta today, with the problems you and Loonym have mentioned i'll think i'll go with 1.21 beta !

At my current clock, i had my first video curruption error yesterday :mad:
That's why i'm flashing, as some people are having good results from 1.21.

Well, I started having some trouble and simply don't know what component it may be caused by in my computer, so I figure I may as well ask you guys to point me in the right direction, as I figure it could potentially be the motherboard.

I was playing Crysis yesterday and my computer shut off. No error, nothing. Acted like power had been completely cut. I tried turning it back on and had no success. I went to fiddle with the cord and see if the power supply light was on. I checked the cord and then looked at the light and it was on, and then I tried again and the computer turned right on. I thought that maybe there had been a power flicker or something. Later on, I was playing Crysis again and my computer rebooted. Again, no error or anything of that sort. I turned off my computer shortly thereafter and heard a quick noise come from the computer about half a minute later, accompanied by the caps, scroll, and num lock lights on my keyboard flashing as they would during startup. It was silent after that.

Needless to say, I've had my computer unplugged for a while. I thought the issue might be the power supply, but the keyboard lights flashing makes me unsure about that, as during the startup process, the lights don't flash immediately (it happens a little ways in). I don't see how a faulty PSU would cause that to happen. I tried the computer again today and it's working just fine (I'm typing this on it right now), but it's going off again very shortly until I have a better idea of what's going on.

Any ideas on what this could possibly be? I figure the prime suspects are the PSU and motherboard, but I'm not very experienced with troubleshooting hardware.

It would be very disappointing if it was either one I think (psu or mb) but those would definitely be the likely suspects. Do you have another psu to try? I would hate to recommend you buy another. I've seen too many people do just that and then discover that the problem was elsewhere. Are you certain it's not heat related to the processor? I keep looking at your sig and that stock cooler stands out to me every time. Overheating would certainly display the behavior you described. And it seems a demanding game like crysis could generate some heat too.

I'd be very surprised if the processor were overheating. Even when running Prime95 on all four cores, the highest temperature was never over 65 C, and even that was rare. Crysis is demanding, but it doesn't use up all of all four cores. It's been hotter lately than it was when I ran the test with Prime95, but I've been keeping SpeedFan running while gaming to track peak temperatures and never saw any alarming CPU temps. I don't think an overheating CPU could have been responsible for some of the odd behavior (specifically, the keyboard lights). What typically happens when a CPU gets too hot, and at what temperature does it do it?

I have a spare 400 W PSU installed in my old computer, but I wouldn't trust it to supply enough good power for this new system, especially under load. Perhaps it'd be an option if I removed a video card and a hard drive. I figure my computer takes four or five hundred watts when under 100% load. I can send back the faulty part and have it replaced, but I'd like to make sure that that's the part before doing so. I'm hoping it's the PSU, as that'd be far less of a hassle to replace (especially since it's modular).

Any ideas how I can narrow this down without having a spare PSU to try?

If I had that psu I'd have a hard time believing it wasn't doing it's job although I've had my share of parts fail including pricey psu's. You might try just removing say unnecessary drives to start and play for a bit, see if you can duplicate the shutdown. Then if it does happen pull 1 card and see if it still does it. Not very scientific, and I know there have been a fair amount of people claiming bad boards too so that could just as easily be the problem.

Hey, Just A Shot But I Have Noticed When I Plug In My Ps Cable My Usb Keyboard Lights And Mouse Reciever Led Come On For A Split Second,,and With My K8n Diamond Plus I Had The Same Problem You Are Having ,except After A Couple Of Days The Power Supply Would Not Come On At All, Also It Would Be A Good Idea To Have A Spare Ps For Youre Rig Anyway,,so During Rma You Still Have A Gamer To Use And Not To Just Look At,,well Best Of Luck!!!

So you recommend I RMA my power supply, then?

Also, SLI seems to be working better now than it was on my last install of XP. I'm not sure what is different this time, but results in Crysis are more in line with what I expected. Perhaps it was some obscure driver issue.

Hey Fiskbit,
Sounds like something is getting stressed and shuts the PC off, could be PSU or some other component. Have you been running off a UPS ? Sometimes brown-outs (low AC supply) can damage a PSU.
Overclocking can cause weird stuff to happen, what's your settings ?
I read in earlier posts that your DDR-2's running at 533Mhz ?
I recon when i got my setup i tried running at that (1066) and the PC failed a lot, have you tried to put the system clock mode back to Auto ?

I'm currently running my DDR-2 at 450MHz (DRR2-900), still haven't got around to getting it to 533MHz (DDR2-1066) stable.

I'm running my RAM 1:1 with FSB. I don't have my settings in front of me because my computer is currently powered off, but my CPU is clocked at ~2.645 GHz, which is about 294*9, so the FSB is about 1176 and the RAM is about 588. There's some definite rounding going on here, so things aren't exact. As I understand it, that setting is a little more than half of what my RAM can supposedly run; it's way underclocked. I'm under the impression that running above 1:1 gives you no performance gain.

I don't have a UPS, though I am very interested in getting one. I've not read too much about them yet, but from what I've seen, the ones that are really worth getting are very expensive, which is why I don't have one yet. Are there any good inexpensive ones?

I've been running my PC again today to see what it would do. Everything was running fine for the longest time. I did a lot of copying files from an SD thumbdrive, played music, etc etc. Eventually I started running Crysis, but I hadn't gone beyond the menu (so nothing had been loaded yet) and had it minimized on the desktop. I stepped away from my computer for a minute and the thing shut off again. This time I was able to catch the glimpse of the back of the computer, and the power supply light was dead (indicating no power). After a few moments, there was an audible click and the light came back on.

Now, I'm assuming this indicates the power supply is faulty (if there are any other possibilities, I'd love to hear them. Perhaps some other component is acting up and this is some sort of power supply failsafe?). Could I have done something that damaged the PSU to become faulty? Additionally, I find it interesting that every time this has happened while my computer is on, it's been while Crysis has been running in some way, although it did act up after I shut it down last night.

If you guys think this is as clear an indicator as I think it is, I'll go ahead and RMA the thing. Thanks for all the help so far.

Ok, as i understand it, Your CPU @ 2.645 would give you a FSB of 1322.5MHz (2645 divided by 2)

Your FSB:DRAM ratio is at 1:1, are you sure ? You've set it to manual in BIOS ? Because it's strange you'd set it too 1322.5MHz, and if your at 1:1 then your DRAM would be at 661.25Mhz (330.6 base speed)

I might be wrong but i think your 588 figure is the base speed and it means your ram is running at 1176 ?

If so this might explain your problems.

Best thing to do would write down the setting from the Cell Menu in the BIOS and post them.

Like i said i could be heading the wrong way, but worth exploring !

lol... nice try Leeroy but that math is a little flawed :p:
This is how it goes... 2645/9=294fsb *2= ram frequency

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Originally Posted by Fiskbit

Now, I'm assuming this indicates the power supply is faulty (if there are any other possibilities, I'd love to hear them. Perhaps some other component is acting up and this is some sort of power supply failsafe?). Could I have done something that damaged the PSU to become faulty? Additionally, I find it interesting that every time this has happened while my computer is on, it's been while Crysis has been running in some way, although it did act up after I shut it down last night.

If you guys think this is as clear an indicator as I think it is, I'll go ahead and RMA the thing. Thanks for all the help so far.

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I don't think anyone here can say for certain your psu is bad but the indicators certainly point that way, especially that bit you mentioned about the psu light.

Hey Loonym / Fiskbit, Yep got my Math wrong ! Sorry :(

Was using my CPU's divider of 8 !

Better stop drinking the Turkey's !! :rolleyes:

Quad-pumped will be 294fsb*4=1176
You are looking at the calculation all wrong...
cpu freq/ divider= fsb

Yeah i know, was thinking stock CPU bus speeds of 1333 not 1066. have Yorkfield all over the brain !!!

Haha. I'm back!

The computer ran prime95 for about 1,5 hours and I thought to myself "hey, it's finally stable!!". Looks can be deceiving. I installed Crysis and I was able to play the first level without problems but then 10-15 minutes later - BANG! The computer reboots. So I waited for Vista (64 bit) to load and when I entered my password and saw the desktop it rebooted again. Same procedure, I logged in to Vista and it rebooted. The third time I could actually use the computer. So I thought that the gfx drivers weren't all that good and downloaded the latest fron Nvidia's web page. Now the computer ran for 10-13~minutes and rebooted.

I've no clue how this happened. All four cores peaked at 51 C and the motherboard was 50~ish as well. So no over heating I think. The GFX card and RAM modules were pretty cool also.

I'm guessing that the lates bios isn't that stable at all. Haha.

I'll try with the "official" 1,1 bios instead. If that doesn't work I'm going to bed.. for a week.

edit: Should I clear cmos after flashing, and then taking the "default values"? Or would that fix itself?!

aelgen: Those symptoms sound remarkably familiar to me (no issues running Prime95, but random reboots during casual computer use and even immediately after entering Windows). You haven't answered my question, so I wonder if perhaps you missed it: are you running any SATA optical drives or perhaps RAID? Additionally, did you set Windows to not automatically restart upon system failure?

I'm really hoping you answer yes to the former and no to the latter, since then the solution could be really easy. You mention Vista64, though, so I'm not sure if it would work for you, but it's possible.

Leeroy and loonym: I'm going to hold off on RMA'ing my PSU until after I do some more testing. I was reading up on PSU troubleshooting when it hit me that it could be my power strip. I'm currently forced to use power strips because there are no outlets close enough to my computer area. I may have had my computer plugged into a faulty power strip socket. I recall that I may have had some intermittent trouble with the same socket that the computer was plugged into when I was using the strip in my dorm way back when, but it was minor trouble and only happened once or twice, so it didn't come to mind. Why it would have waited a week to start acting up like this is beyond me, but I've got the computer connected to another socket right now and played Crysis for a while without any issue. The stuff I've seen would definitely be consistent (and more sensible) with a faulty socket.

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Originally Posted by Fiskbit

aelgen: Those symptoms sound remarkably familiar to me (no issues running Prime95, but random reboots during casual computer use and even immediately after entering Windows). You haven't answered my question, so I wonder if perhaps you missed it: are you running any SATA optical drives or perhaps RAID? Additionally, did you set Windows to not automatically restart upon system failure?

I'm really hoping you answer yes to the former and no to the latter, since then the solution could be really easy. You mention Vista64, though, so I'm not sure if it would work for you, but it's possible.

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Sorry, must have missed that you asked me.
Well. I do not use SATA optical drives and Windows is not set to auto restart after system failure.

It's like someone is pressing the reset-button at completely random. I've even tried to yank out the reset cable from the motherboard to see if that was the problem, but that was useless. I'm currently fighting with the computer to throw in the "official" bios 1,1 from msi's product page. Damn those slow disk drives! ;p

At any rate, I'll keep you all posted with updates.

That's good news Fiskbit, I hope you've solved it. I was really having trouble blaming that psu. :D

Alright. Now I'm starting to get really upset. Pissed so to speak. I've flashed to the latest beta bios and still those annoying reboots. I've flashed to the 1.1 released on MSI's product page. I've re-installed Vista for the fifth or so time. All drivers are the latest and updated. Vista is updated through Windows Update. Still reboots. I've even tried another wall socket for my power supply (just in case). All voltages are at "Auto" except RAM which is at 2,1 that is stated on the packaging. (yes, I have tried using auto here as well)

I have to tell you, I'm about to give up on this hardware and sell it for a bargain.

aelgen,

Run MemTest86+ (Google is your friend) for several passes.

What test did you use with P95? Also, as you saw. An hour and half isn't enough.

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Originally Posted by AaronYuri

aelgen,

Run MemTest86+ (Google is your friend) for several passes.

What test did you use with P95? Also, as you saw. An hour and half isn't enough.

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I can run prime95 for ages and it never shows any "error". But the reboots are completely random. They aren't caused by applications.. I'm currently able to use a live dvd with Backtrack 2 and 3 without any problems. So I don't know what to think...

I'll try MemTest86+ over the night and see what the results are.

You're running RAID0 and a SATA optical drive (like me) and are having reboots a lot like mine, save the lack of an error screen. I'm pretty convinced that your issue is related to SATA/RAID drivers, but you're using Vista, so I don't know all that much about how the issue affects that OS. I've been reading online about the 780i's SATA problems in Vista. One thread I found that discusses the issue in Vista is this one here. The guy fixed his problem by getting a PCI-E card to hook his SATA optical drive up through. When he had both hooked up to the card or to the motherboard, he had issues, but when having one on each, it was fine.

I don't know what it'll do, but you could try installing the Vista 790i SATA/RAID drivers on your machine in a manner similar to the one described here. It really wouldn't hurt to try. If worse comes to worst, you could consider trying a PCI-E card like the guy in that other thread.

Fiskbit is on the right track i think. I build computers for a living and have been forced to go with IDE optical drives when building SLI systems b/c of isues with SATA optical drives and nforce chipsests. I may have missed it but are you getting any entries in your event viewer at the time of restarts? I'm running 2 raid arrays with the onboard raid with this P7N and have had no issues with raid. Try unplugging your optical drive after your windows and drivers install and see if that doesn't stop your restarts.

As far as I know, the common SATA optical drive issue is with XP only. With Vista, a RAID-0 array, and a Blu-Ray sata drive, I haven't experienced any issues. That doesn't mean that your issue in Vista isn't SATA related, but it's probably not due to the same or similar fault in the driver.

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Originally Posted by theYipster

As far as I know, the common SATA optical drive issue is with XP only. With Vista, a RAID-0 array, and a Blu-Ray sata drive, I haven't experienced any issues. That doesn't mean that your issue in Vista isn't SATA related, but it's probably not due to the same or similar fault in the driver.

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My Repair bench machine (basically for driver downloads) has an ASUS p5n-d 750i chipset board in it. I dual boot xp/vista. With either an LG or a Lite-on SATA optical drive i get BSOD in xp and vista. Switched to IDE optical and no more bluescreens. Been this way for a month now. With the SATA Optical drives sometimes desktop wouldn't even finish loading before failure, sometimes could go all day b4 issues. Whether or not it was the exact identical problem it was a problem with both operating systems. It was duplicated on another build as well, yet worked fine in an older build. (as far as i know, he hasn't called back with issues). All i'm saying is give it a try.

I use sata optical drives but I never use nvidia drivers for anything other than the network adapters. Likewise with any of the software items that platform driver packages try to install, I steer well clear. Learned my lessons with nv drivers on the nforce and nf2 platforms.

I've removed the raided hard drives so I only use one hard drive and that is my Raptor. The dvd player is a simple IDE-component. (which I've tried unplugging as well) I un-installed the raid drivers that came with the motherboard cd, that didn't really help me. It's like the computer wants to be faulty.

Ah, I misread your post and thought you said you did have a SATA optical drive. Sorry about that.

If uninstalling the RAID drivers didn't help you at all, I don't know what else to suggest. Perhaps someone else has a better idea.

aelgen
do you have 4x1gb or 2x2gb? if you have 4x1gb you may try to up a little notch your ram. 2.1v are suggested for 2 banks of ram, if you've got 4 banks installed you may require a little more voltages on ram or on even on nb.
i've experienced it on the dfi 680lt with 4 sticks of ocz flex wich required me to add voltages both on ram and on nb.
or you may try lower a little bit the ram clock if you don't want to add voltages.

I just got my new pc and i have a MSI P7N Diamond MOBO, i was trying to overclock my 9450 @ 2.66 Ghz to 3.5 Ghz (390x9), but i really cant figure these BIOS out. I went into the cell menu but no luck. Could someone explain to me step by step how to do it plz.

Fiskbit: no problem :P

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Originally Posted by panheimer

aelgen
do you have 4x1gb or 2x2gb? if you have 4x1gb you may try to up a little notch your ram. 2.1v are suggested for 2 banks of ram, if you've got 4 banks installed you may require a little more voltages on ram or on even on nb.
i've experienced it on the dfi 680lt with 4 sticks of ocz flex wich required me to add voltages both on ram and on nb.
or you may try lower a little bit the ram clock if you don't want to add voltages.

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I have 2x2gb and they are running at 2.1V. I've also increased the voltage to the NB with "two +'s" that is, I've pressed the + key two times.. haha :P

I've noticed in Everest that my RAM's are 5-5-5-18 and that's not right at all!

Well.. I'll have a talk with a friend of mine tomorrow, and he's gonna come over and look at it. If by some freak of nature I've missed some vital part. Ha. Like that's gonna help me. Oh. I'll come with updates tomorrow!

But for now I'll install Windows XP64. I hope the motherboard drivers work this time. :)

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Originally Posted by aelgen

But for now I'll install Windows XP64. I hope the motherboard drivers work this time. :)

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No xp64 drivers on any of the MSI disks as you must already know. Just grab the latest from nvidia website. If you don't have a floppy drive you could slipstream the nvraid drivers to the windows install disk. It's not that difficult really if you find a good guide. http://www.maximumpc.com/article/How...P-installation this is just one example, if you google you'll find dozens. Other than the raid the only other thing really required from the driver package is the ethernet drivers.

Hey I just got my new pc and i am not yet used to the MSI BIOS setup lol. Its very different from my old setup. I have a Q9450 @ 2.66Ghz and i want to overclock it to about 3.5 Ghz (390x9). I cant figure out how to edit my FSB and my multiplier in these BIOS. Could someone plz help me. I know its in the cell menu but its so confusing. I know im a newb.

Also: What would be the best voltage for these settings?

Well, firstly, have you flashed to a newer BIOS yet? The shipping BIOS is more confusing and buggy than the current available betas. I don't recall the link, but there are links to the BIOS within the last few pages of the thread. I also recommend reading through some of this thread to get an idea of what settings you'll need to achieve your goal and how to arrive at those settings. It also probably won't be as easy as you're hoping; no one can just give you settings that will definitely get you to where you want to be, as everyone's hardware is different.

If I recall correctly (I'm not looking at the BIOS right now), you highlight the FSB entry, type in a new value, and hit enter in order to enter a new value. The FSB term is four times the value that will be used with your multiplier to determine your CPU speed. It's also a good idea to run your RAM 1:1 with your FSB, so set RAM to half the FSB. To change various voltages, I'm pretty sure you highlight the item and press + or -. Be careful with voltages, as too much will cause damage.

I recommend reading through this thread; it's long, but it's a good read and you'll likely learn a lot.

First of all welcome to XS :welcome:
Yup, as Fiskbit said this is a pretty decent thread. Lots of good info posted about quirks, bugs, failures, successes, and some great overclocks, most with screenshots, voltages, explanations, and advice. Take it slow to start. Learn the bios, the board, and how it relates to your particular hardware. There's a very good q9450 thread elsewhere in this intel section too so you can get an idea of what other people are doing with that cpu. Did I mention take it slow to start? :D A little patience goes a long way, and most of all have fun. Read a lot but also don't hesitate to ask questions, that's how we all learn. :up:

edit: To begin, in bios Cell Menu you'll need to set System Clock Mode to manual. Then you'll be able to adjust settings using either '+/-' keys or 'Page Up/Page Down'

massac78,

If you're new to overclocking, do a lot of reading and research. Not that much could really go wrong, but there's always that chance. Learn the architecture you are using first (Intel's FSB and memory/ratio divider system). Then move on to memory timings and voltages.

Good luck!

hy aaron,
sae you owned a q6700 on this mobo before q9450, and have a question for you: did you managed to change the q6700 multi on this mobo? Eventually, with wich version of bios? I'm using the 1.2b1 and while in bios i can change the multi, it doesn't affect the system, as it always set the x10 multi.
Wrote to MSI, but they told me that they can't get a q6700 for testing so can't help me.
I've got many usb recognize issues, so don't want to waste a lot of time trying to flash to differents bioses looking for the one that lets me change multi and then find it is a crappy ones...can you help me?

So i'm here with this cpu at 3.4 (340 x 10) with good temps (it's priming at 61°C max) but very high voltages (1.41 in bios and everest reading 1.34 in full load). So i'm wondering if it is safe try to get higher. I've always been told that a safe voltage for this cpu is 1.45 for air cooling, but i never went so far as my last cpus didn't need such a voltage, the last q6600 required me 1.425 to get to 3.6 Ghz (on an asus rampage formula, my 2nd rig) but theese days it's so hot that i had to set it to a safe 3.2 Ghz and still getting 67°C in full load.
So the question is: would you put 1.5 or 1.55v on a q6700 with air cooling as long as temps remains under 70°C?

Anybody else noticed inconsistent or lower than expected 3dmarks with the diamond? Ive had this board running for a few weeks now and cant match my SIIF scores. i consistently scored 19,500 with tri-sli with my striker, but with the diamond i havent been able to even hit 18,500. Same issues with 3dmark vantage. I was hitting 20k with the physics drivers with the asus and cant break 18,500 with the diamond. On 3dmark06 i always pay close attention to the very first framerates that pop up on the first test, i could normally come close to guessing final score by the first couple of numbers. On the striker i would get 120-130 fps on the first couple of frames, but with the diamond i get 100-110. Another strange issue is if i change the resolution to 1920x1200 i get a couple of frames higher than @ the default 1280x1024. I wonder if it has anything to do with the diamonds SLI bridge(s)? The striker has 1 solid 3-card bridge. The Diamond u have the single bridges.

Diamond: http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/8817/capturevo6.jpg Striker: http://xtreview.com/images/mio%203%2...09800%20GT.jpg

I don't really have anything to compare my 3dmark scores with except orb and hwbot scores and I've been able to do ok although I don't have any tri capable cards. Next week I'll have a 790i setup but that hardly seems a fair comparison. Interesting thought about the bridge though. I'll rummage through my junk and see if I have a solid type that will fit the slot spacing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by panheimer

So i'm here with this cpu at 3.4 (340 x 10) with good temps (it's priming at 61°C max) but very high voltages (1.41 in bios and everest reading 1.34 in full load). So i'm wondering if it is safe try to get higher. I've always been told that a safe voltage for this cpu is 1.45 for air cooling, but i never went so far as my last cpus didn't need such a voltage, the last q6600 required me 1.425 to get to 3.6 Ghz (on an asus rampage formula, my 2nd rig) but theese days it's so hot that i had to set it to a safe 3.2 Ghz and still getting 67°C in full load.
So the question is: would you put 1.5 or 1.55v on a q6700 with air cooling as long as temps remains under 70°C?

---

I do understand about summer temps being a problem, still ideally you should try and get temps down. I haven't run a q6700 but it seems like I was right around or perhaps a little under 1.5v set in bios for a q6600 to be stable @ 3600mhz. I think next week I'll put a q6600 back in the P7N so I can free up a york for playing on other boards.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nugzo

Anybody else noticed inconsistent or lower than expected 3dmarks with the diamond? Ive had this board running for a few weeks now and cant match my SIIF scores. i consistently scored 19,500 with tri-sli with my striker, but with the diamond i havent been able to even hit 18,500. Same issues with 3dmark vantage. I was hitting 20k with the physics drivers with the asus and cant break 18,500 with the diamond. On 3dmark06 i always pay close attention to the very first framerates that pop up on the first test, i could normally come close to guessing final score by the first couple of numbers. On the striker i would get 120-130 fps on the first couple of frames, but with the diamond i get 100-110. Another strange issue is if i change the resolution to 1920x1200 i get a couple of frames higher than @ the default 1280x1024. I wonder if it has anything to do with the diamonds SLI bridge(s)? The striker has 1 solid 3-card bridge. The Diamond u have the single bridges.

Diamond: [IMGhttp://img297.imageshack.us/img297/8817/capturevo6.jpg[/IMG] Striker: [IMGhttp://xtreview.com/images/mio%203%20way%20sli%20bridge%209800%20GT.jpg[/IMG]

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You could try using the Striker's SLI bridge. If the score doesn't come back, then try some different drivers. If drivers don't work, I'll see if there is some tri-SLI problem with the P7N.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AaronYuri

You could try using the Striker's SLI bridge. If the score doesn't come back, then try some different drivers. If drivers don't work, I'll see if there is some tri-SLI problem with the P7N.

---

Cant use the striker bridge or else i would have from the beginning. Theres an extra slot between the first 2 cards with the P7N. Since my earlier post i swaped motherboards and re-installed vista. As expected my scores returned to what i remembered. Now i will take the Striker bridge off and use the 3 msi bridges. I did use the X-fi that came with the P7N though. I had to cut the corner off of the PCB with a dremel to make it clear the NB, but it works and sounds better than the asus solution. Changing bridges now and will post back in a few.

Its not the bridge. This screenshot is the with the MSI bridges on the Striker. The striker is definitely faster than the Diamond. Both b3nchmarks were ran using the specs in my sig. Well actually the MSI was was runing at 4208mhz instead of 4200.

http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/5116/capturejv1.jpg

I see over 4.4ghz in the striker bench.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by loonym

I see over 4.4ghz in the striker bench.

---

Negative. C'mon loonym, your slippen :p: you know how 3dmark misreads. It only reads what the default multiplier is. I wish this cpu would run @ 4400. This is the screenshot from my earlier benchmarks on page 32 with the diamond. It shows 4442 in 3dmark06, but to the right you see how everest reads it, 4207.

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/4969/capture3qi7.jpg

I just formatted my hard drives and removed my raid array. I was playing HL2 Deathmatch and I had a crash with looping sounds in HL2 (with my stripe). I have had stuttering with looping sounds in the past. I read on a steam forun that that is most likely a memory problem. I think this is because of the faster page files on the stripe that would cause it not to crash on the array. I have my voltage set to 2.1, my north bridge set to 1.35, and timings set to 4-4-4-12. What could be wrong? I am going to run a prime blend over night to see if it stays stable.

Also my ram is set to a 1:1 ratio @ 450mhz. Thanks

Sorry 850mhz

1000 points is a huge difference for 2 780i boards lined up side by side. There has to be some explanation or difference besides just Asus/MSI.

Yay! I think that I'm close a solution now!

My computer was running prime95 and a looped movie in VLC(xvid) all night long and didn't reboot once. Later it rebooted when I was downloading the latest ubuntu via torrent to the other hard drive (I've removed the raid for testing purposes). It reboots every time I run torrent downloads to hard drives other than the system drive. (tried with two other sata hard drives and same result)

What might this indicate? Sata trouble? 'Cause I didn't install any drivers than the nforce thing and ethernet drivers.

So i'm still looking for a decent oc with this board and it's getting more and more difficult. Yesterday i've tested this config:
cpu to 3.4 ghz (340 x 10)
fsb 1360
RAM 850 (4-4-4-15 1T)
CPU Volt +0.150 (vid 1.265)
NB Volt 1.3
CPU GTL 0.833
FSB Term 1.250
I've left this config to run prime (blend test) all night long (about 7 hrs) and when this morning i woke up I saw prime95 was still running without any error, then checked everest saved log for temps (the max registered was 63°C) and decided to play GRID: the PC shuts down and restarted within 10 min of playing! So the after the pc rebooted, tried another game (assassin's creed) and got another reboot. Tried a run of 3dmark, left it crunch for and hours but no errors, nor crasches, nor reboot. Surfed on the web for a couple of hour and still no errors. Tried a third game, Wolrd in Conflict and another shut down within 5 min of playing.
So I can do everything with this config but not gaming! Tried to reinstall windows, checked hardware installation, wire connections, temperatures...tried to up CPU and nb voltages, changed CPU GTL and FSB Term values, enabled NB GTL but still can't be able to find a solution.
What's happening? I think It's no a PSU fault, as i've got 1 kw to spare, and my 2nd 8800 ultra is installed on the 2nd rig ('till 4870x2 comes out).
Help please!

I have to agree with loonym. I don't see how two mainboards with the exact same chipsets can get such a score difference. Run them both at stock...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AaronYuri

I have to agree with loonym. I don't see how two mainboards with the exact same chipsets can get such a score difference. Run them both at stock...

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Well believe it. I had the diamond installed for a lil over a week and i must have ran 100+ benchmarks with different OC settings on 3 different windows installs with different video and chipset drivers. I tried everything because i wanted to keep the diamond because of being able to us my Xonar with tri-sli. As soon as i yanked it and re-installed the striker my benchmarks jumped back up to what i posted. My 9800 GTX's will be sent off starting monday back to EVGA for step-up to GT280's. When they arrive i will try the Diamond again with the GT's. I may keep the diamond anyways because the loss of the 1k vs the awesome sound of the Xonar is worth the synthetic benchmark loss. I didn't see any noticeable loss in games with the Diamond, only the synthetic benchmark loss. I havent ran either of them at stock settings so i dont have numbers for stock. I will run them at stock settings once the new cards get here. I will also do single and dual card runs on both.

I ran prime small pft for an hour and a half with no errors and then ran a blend for six hours with no errors. I was playing bioshock and noticed occasional stuttering during heavy action. I also see alot of texture popup in crysis and flight simulator x. Could this have been a disk fragmentation issue? What would cause the texture popup issues or is that just normal in those games? I have seen both issues at any settings I have had in the process of tweeking my pc. Any utilities or recomendation would be greatly appriciated.

Finally flashed to Beta BIOS 1.21 to get rid of this damn video corruption error:mad:

Video corruption seems to be gone, but when i run in SLI games get the corruption !:dammit:

But at least it doesn't lock the PC up, i can exit the game and corruption goes once i'm back to desktop :clap:

Done a fair bit of reading on it, has anyone had any luck fixing it with drivers ?

Cheers

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Leeroy

Finally flashed to Beta BIOS 1.21 to get rid of this damn video corruption error:mad:

Video corruption seems to be gone, but when i run in SLI games get the corruption !:dammit:

But at least it doesn't lock the PC up, i can exit the game and corruption goes once i'm back to desktop :clap:

Done a fair bit of reading on it, has anyone had any luck fixing it with drivers ?

Cheers

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What drivers are you using? for my gf7 and 8 series cards I use either 169.21 or 169.28 in xp64. I think there's really nothing special in any of the 170 series drivers for older cards.

BababooeyHTJ, those are quite possibly the 2 most demanding games there are. I don't play either of them so I can't speak as to what's normal but I know prime stable doesn't always equal 3d stable, especially when it comes to system intense games like the 2 you listed. You say you've tried a variety of tweaks so I'm thinking you've probably experimented with drivers as well. Do any of the newer or beta gforce driver sets seem to help at all? What size monitor are you using? The stuttering you mentioned in heavy action @ bioshock sounds like you vid ram is geting a good workout :D You have a nice cpu clock, are you clocking the 9800 too? Save your penies and buy another... nvidia prices are dropping fast so it's not so much of a stretch as it was a few weeks ago. The 9800gtx is already down to $199 and who knows what could happen in another month the way things are going now in the card world. I think if you can sli you'll see such a huge improvement in your games. THe ones you mentioned are some of the ones that come to mind as scaling really, really well in sli.

nugzo, I can't compare any of my scores to yours because, 1) I am running strictly quads 2) I can't tri sli
I will point out that the major difference in those scores is SM3 and I'm not sure why you have such a huge difference in that one section of the test but the only explanation that makes sense is different driver level tweaks or other variables in each run.

Thanks loonym. I have my 9800stx clocked to 800 core 1200 memory and 2025 shader can run ati tool for a half hour no errors. I am using driver 175.16 and there is a new offical and beta driver out that I have tested breifly (175.19 177.39) I have heard bad thing about them but I plan to do some more testing on my own now. I plan on geting another 9800 for sli soon crysis should run great other than the popup it runs really smoothly on high @ 1680 x1050. Do I really need anti virus protection? I think that and my firewall cause me alot of these problems I dont really surf the web on this pc.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

Do I really need anti virus protection? I think that and my firewall cause me alot of these problems I dont really surf the web on this pc.

---

YES!!! :shocked:
Just disable it when you play, or try something different if you think it's an issue.

Is there an antivirus you recommend? I am using mcaffe right now.

I kind of like kapersky. Lot's of people swear by AVG.

Thanks Ill try out kapersky. I have 2 more hard drives coming from newegg I am going to try out a 4 drive stripe so ill wait untill then. http://s308.photobucket.com/albums/k...t=cachemem.png
One more question What do you think of this memory bench from everest? Is it where it should be? Thanks for all the help loonym. I have been reading this forum alot before I started posting and learned alot about this mobo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

http://s308.photobucket.com/albums/k...t=cachemem.png
One more question What do you think of this memory bench from everest? Is it where it should be?

---

Looks fine to me :up: Here's a compare shot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by loonym

nugzo, I can't compare any of my scores to yours because, 1) I am running strictly quads 2) I can't tri sli
I will point out that the major difference in those scores is SM3 and I'm not sure why you have such a huge difference in that one section of the test but the only explanation that makes sense is different driver level tweaks or other variables in each run.

---

I dont do any driver tweaks what so ever. I install the driver, Up Digital vibrance, enable SLI and up the video cards from 771/1150 to 800/1200 with EVGA tool and max fans to 100 and i'm done. I tried 175.16, 175.19, 175.80 and 177.41 Drivers on the Diamond. As well as Vista chipset, 15.15. and 15.17's. I also removed and re-installed cards into different slots. I am currently using 15.15's and the 177.41s because of the physx support. The only things running in background normally are the sidebar, everest, evga tool, real temp and the G15. Same for both boards. I did remove everything from start up with the diamond but that didnt change a thing. Every other benchmark ive ran on the boards are close to identical. Everest Read, write, copy , latency super pi and XS bench.

I havent tried comparing 1 or 2 cards. only Tri-SLI. I'll record single card and SLI scores with the GT280's and compare them on both boards.

Cool thanks loonym. nugzo what driver has given you your best results?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

Cool thanks loonym. nugzo what driver has given you your best results?

---

175.80 has the best IQ in my opinion. The 177's give a huuge jump in 3dmark vantage and some physX games.

Can you send me a link to the 175.80. Yeah my cpu score was rediculous with the 177 driver but I have no use for physx at the moment.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

Can you send me a link to the 175.80. Yeah my cpu score was rediculous with the 177 driver but I have no use for physx at the moment.

---

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=263054

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by loonym

What drivers are you using? for my gf7 and 8 series cards I use either 169.21 or 169.28 in xp64. I think there's really nothing special in any of the 170 series drivers for older cards.

---

Hey Loonym, I'm using 175.19 for my 8600GT's.
From what i've read in other forums, the 121 BIOS fixes the video corruption on some configurations but causes SLI gaming to be corrupt ?
First time i play UT3 for 3 hours no probs, next day everytime i ran UT3 i'd get severe corruption and have to exit UT3. At least the PC doesn't lock up anymore ! Disable SLI and there's no corruption...

Alright, alright. I ran memtext86+ for SEVEN HOURS, that ought to be enough. No errors or anything. Booted up Vista and saw a reboot.

So I installed window xp 64 bit and it's been running for quite some time without any problems. I've only installed the graphics drivers so far. I wont install sata nor raid drivers this time. Just chipset drivers.

Oh I hope this works. :P

I am using the 175.19 drivers no more stuttering in Bioshock(I think I had a corrupted driver) What would be the best way to actively cool the north bridge? I am thinking about just using looymn's idea with the 90mm fan. Is it difficult to pull off the factory cirupipe cooling and clean the thermal compound so I could reapply with mx-2?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

I am using the 175.19 drivers no more stuttering in Bioshock(I think I had a corrupted driver) What would be the best way to actively cool the north bridge? I am thinking about just using looymn's idea with the 90mm fan. Is it difficult to pull off the factory cirupipe cooling and clean the thermal compound so I could reapply with mx-2?

---

It is a good idea to remove the stock TIM from the heatpipes. You'll have to remove the board to do so though. I added a fan that came with my old EVGA 680i for the NB. It's attached with a cable tie.

Should I replace the TIM with mx-2? What is the best way to get the stock TIM off?

I used tissues, fingernail, and then Medi-Swabs to do final clean, which is Isopropyl Alcohol, let it evaporate then put my MX-2 on.

It was interesting to see the Alignment of the Stock thermal pads, as one of mine was only half covering the North Bridge, Dodgy :mad:

I've mounted an Intel CPU fan on two continuary wires going from the back of the case to the drive cages, seemed to do the trick, dropped the North Bridge temps by about 5-7 degrees. :up:

Ill give it a shot. I dont like the sound of that thermal pad only half covering the north bridge.

HTJ, I noticed you mentioned "texture pop-up" a page ago, which might be similar to a problem I was having (after my other listed problems, lol). Much of the searching I did for it was centered on a description as "artifacts," but in reality your terminology is much more accurate: I had textures popping up. Luckily I was able to narrow down the games where it was most noticeable, than narrowed the events in those games that made it the most noticeable, so I could discover the main cause. I tried different drivers first, of course, which did actually have varying effects. Ultimately the cause for me was too high of a FSB for the FSB Term. (FSB voltage), and dropping the FSB a few notches (22 in raw terms, 5.5 in quad-pumped terms) solved that problem.

As for my previously mentioned Super PI problem, it seems to be related to how the Mod version interacts with Vista's themes. Using the original version works fine, or running the Mod version without Aero enabled, or running the Mod version and manipulating the windows in a certain way. Was a bit annoying until I figured that out. Still trying to get this system 100% stable at reasonable settings, I am stubborn if nothing else, but thought I'd share those two developments.

That is still bothering me quite a bit I notice it the most in crysis and ms flight simulator x which I know is pretty cpu dependent. I am convinced my ram is runing pretty stable and I can run ati artifact tool for 45 minutes with no errors so I dont think it is my gpu. I formated recently( I wanted to see how every thing ran with no array)and have a couple of more hard drives on the way(I want a 4 drive stripe)so I only have a couple of games instaled at the moment. My settings in the cell menu are Dot(disabled) EIST(disabled) SLI-memory (Disabled) System clock mode (manual) FSB Clock(1700) DRAM Clock(850) CPU Ratio(9)Pci-e Frequency (105) CPU Voltage(0.20000) DRAM Voltage(2.10) Northbridge Voltave (1.350) SB Voltage(1.525) and everything else set to auto What other recomendations do you have. Thanks
Should I bump up my fsb term? If so what is a safe setting for it?

My quad is particularly crappy, so I needed max FSB term. even to get what I have, and although I could run OCCT and other tests overnight and put my GPU at stock (and could run Furmark for hr+) I still got the texture issues (in Grid, particularly during car crashes). I even considered it was the HDD like you did (btw I did get some HDD errors, but that was related to this problem as well) and changed ports, cables, even reinstalled the games as I have several HDDs in here. I eventually went into BIOS and lowered FSB term. to see what would happen and the issues got more and more common so I figured, since I couldn't raise FSB Term. further, that I'd lower FSB. Seems to have worked thus far - I'm guessing there was video data corruption over the bus somehow, but keep in mind my RAM was relatively stable (10 passes Memtest, 12 hrs OCCT RAM, Super Pi, etc).

So with that information in mind, to answer your question: I don't know. I consider that setting to be FSB voltage, in which case a maximum of 1.3125V shouldn't hurt anything, but I'm not experienced enough with anything beyond my 65nm quad to say that for sure. I imagine any data out there on FSB voltage would apply and I'm pretty sure loonym previously said it was fine for quads...but I am not sure about duals. In the very least you could test it like I did by dropping FSB a bit at a time and going for the games it shows up most in (as for me, again, Grid + Demo Derby did an excellent job).

Thanks this is a problem that has been nagging me for a while as soon as I set up my new stripe and reinstall I will start to play wiith the fsb and fsb term.

Excellent, can't wait to hear your results. You can imagine my dismay when I finally got 3.2 stable only to have random textures popping up in Grid every now and then when I hit something, lol. 3.15 is pathetic for a Q6600, but at the same time I'm proud to have even gotten it halfway stable at this point; price you pay with new and expensive hardware.

As you adjust your fsb termination volts it might also help to keep cpu gtl ref at 62-64% for wolfdale and 66-68% for quads and nb gtl at one notch below that. YMMV ;)

Nominal CPU vGTLref is 2/3 (66%) of the VTT terminator voltage. However, as you'll get noise, vdroop etc. You'll have to compensate by +/- 1-2%. So, just mess with the settings a bit.

I'm a little frustrated because my P7N Diamond/Q6600 Setup is limiting me to a mere 3.1GHz overclock, when it seems that most people can get closer to 3.6 GHz.

I've got some decent Corsair XMS2 6400C4 RAM (2x1GB) rated for 2.1V, and am cooling with a Kingwin Revolution RVT-9225 (92mm Fan). I was formerly using a Freezer 7 and found that it was pretty comparable in performance, although it seemed that things were running a little hotter than they should have been.

I've got 4 120mm case fans installed, and although I used to run them at 7V to keep things quiet, I've ramped them up to 12v after installing a couple of very hot 8800GTS video cards.

Anyways, it seems like no matter what I do with voltages, I can't get much over 1680. That speed runs fine, OCCT runs for a long time no problem, but if I go to 1400, I can't even boot Vista. System posts fine even at 1600, however, but Vista won't completely boot.

I've just recently updated to the V1.10 BIOS available from MSI's Liveupdate, but it doesn't seem to make much difference, other than voltages are set differently.

I've tried the following settings, just to get a boot at 1400:

CPU FSB: 1400 MHz
Memory: 700 MHz

CPU V 0.1750 (or less, makes no difference)
DRAM V 2.1
NB V 1.45V (or less)
CPU GTL (67% FSB Term, at 8.879V or less)
FSB Term 1.313V or less


All the CPU options are disabled, and all the other general recommended settings are made.
I am a little frustrated that I can't even hit 1400 MHz. I'm wondering if perhaps there is something that I'm missing here, or something else that I could try.

I'm currently running very stable at 1380 Mhz (3.1 GHz) at much lower voltages than those above. I could probably run stock voltages (or close to) at this speed... it's almost like the board isn't actually changing them, but that's a bit of a jump to a conclusion as to why my overclocking performance is so lame.

Any ideas would be much appreciated!

i'm not an expert on this mobo, still searching for a stable config for my rig and this q6700, but i've played a little with an q6600 and found your same difficult to get from 1380 fsb to 1400. The secret for me was to enable NB GTL. I'm not at home, so can't remember the exact settings - btw the settings you've posted seems very high to me. I remember that i used something like 1.25 or 1.275 on NB, then 1.250 on FSB Term and enabling CPU GTL and NB GTL they automatically rise as you rise FSB Term. Uh, I used the 1.2b1 bios wich seems a little more stable than the official 1.1
Now i'm stuck with the P07 as it's the only one that lets me lower CPU multi with Q6700, i've spent a whole afternoon triyng 1.1B4, 1.1B8, official 1.1, 1.2b1 and 1.2b2 but none of these worked with Q6700, only the P07 - btw NONE of these bios let me to boot windows with stock settings and everything in auto. Nor was able to find a stable settings for stock speed...i have to oc my sistem to get it stable!

There's a FSB hole for me on this board, roughly between 1440 and 1500, but I am sitting pretty happily at 1400 and have been more or less stable up to 1422, except that my Q6600 is really bad and needs the FSB term/voltage too much. If it helps, though, here are my current settings for a Q6600 at 1400:

CPU FSB: 1400
Memory: 1050 (manually 5-5-5-15-2T, rest on auto, but I set tRC to 45, tRFC to 52, and tRRD to 3 with Memset)

vCore: +0.07500v
vDimm: 2.2v
vNB: 1.425v
CPU GTL: 0.882v ("20")
NB GTL: 0.883v ("20")
FSB Term: 1.3125v ("63")

xaviermaxx
when i had the q6600 on this mobo, i've also found a fsb hole between 1420 and 1520 (where the system can't even post), so i'm startin to think it's a mobo related issue.
i've saw your reported GTLs and FSB term values in volts and even with the old integer number...is it true? Does it exist a conversion table for theese values? Where can i get them?
Thanks