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

[widdyst]

Anybody ?

[XavierMaxx]

Anybody ?

Changed hosts for my site, but got my spreadsheet back up. For convenience:
http://www.borecraft.com/files/P7N_D...m_GTL_rev2.xls

[widdyst]

Now that is excellent . What a stunning but of work by that man right there
THANK YOU VERY MUCH

i AM GUESSING THE THREE BLUE SHADED COLUMNS ARE FOR Q6600'S

[XavierMaxx]

Yessir. Hope it was useful to you. XS was down a bunch so this is the first time I've been able to successfully check back. Glad to know you managed to get it before the downtime!

[FedericoUY]

Has anybody tried the new 1.4b1 bios?
How is it? Any improves?

[x-built-Stan]

Where can we get them?

[dogg]

Where can we get them?

rapidshare link in the first post - 1.42 beta

http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?to...5073.msg864765


I did not try it, yet..

[FedericoUY]

2nd P7N Diamond DEAD!!!!!!!! This is incredible. 4 months the first one... 3 months this one. I really can't believe it!. If this motherboard is going to fry when overclocking, then this board is not for me. Will not RMA'it since I live 15000km from city of industry. MSI board never again.

[BababooeyHTJ]

2nd P7N Diamond DEAD!!!!!!!! This is incredible. 4 months the first one... 3 months this one. I really can't believe it!. If this motherboard is going to fry when overclocking, then this board is not for me. Will not RMA'it since I live 15000km from city of industry. MSI board never again.

I really think that it's an issue with the northbridge. Mine died in a very similar way to yours and I could clearly tell that they replaced the northbridge. I blame Nvidia but knowing what I know now I would have poped some aftermarket cooling on the chipset like the Enzotech sinks that I have on my P5Q Deluxe.

[x-built-Stan]

WOW - How hard are you guys pushing the NB? My system has been running now 24x7 100% (crunching) since I built it over a year ago. I did pull the heat sink and replace the purple junk with some ceramic, I also added two 30mm fans attached to the heat sink radiators. Since I run a liquid system, I was not getting much air circulation at the radiators by the CPU. I do push 1.425v on the NB.

[FedericoUY]

WOW - How hard are you guys pushing the NB? My system has been running now 24x7 100% (crunching) since I built it over a year ago. I did pull the heat sink and replace the purple junk with some ceramic, I also added two 30mm fans attached to the heat sink radiators. Since I run a liquid system, I was not getting much air circulation at the radiators by the CPU. I do push 1.425v on the NB.

Hi. I don't think I've been too hard on my NB. I used it all time at 1.45 vNB to don't push it too much. With my q9450 I was able to reach 3600mhz, but I needed 1.50 of vNB to get stable, so I left it on 3550mhz at 1.45. I also attached a fan to NB to prevent hot temps. NB temps were good, never go beyond 60ºC. My board has been that way for the 3 months I have this second one. I think I treated well my mobo, and it died anyway.

[BababooeyHTJ]

Hi. I don't think I've been too hard on my NB. I used it all time at 1.45 vNB to don't push it too much. With my q9450 I was able to reach 3600mhz, but I needed 1.50 of vNB to get stable, so I left it on 3550mhz at 1.45. I also attached a fan to NB to prevent hot temps. NB temps were good, never go beyond 60ºC. My board has been that way for the 3 months I have this second one. I think I treated well my mobo, and it died anyway.

1.45v is alot on an already hot running chip and 60C isn't even the NB sensor, it's a sensor near the northbridge so I'm sure that your northbridge was running considerably hotter than that. Mine never toped much more than 50C and I was running 1.4v which I probably didn't even need (we all have to learn somehow) and it died. I also replaced the TIM with MX-2 and straped a 40x10mm fan to the NB sink. I really think that with good chipset cooling we wouldn't be hearing about these types of issues and the sad part is that the stock chipset cooling is miles ahead of the heatsink that was on my P5Q Deluxe. Like I said I wish that I had known better at the time, since I had pretty good luck with this board. It's not just the MSI board I hear alot of stuff like this about refrence 780i boards as well.

[FedericoUY]

Ok, my NB never went beyond 60, i mean it always were around 50-55. That's not a high temp for this chip, and i don't think 1.45 it's a voltage to burn out this chip (impossible to reach 435+fsb with lower vNB), so.... I also had a fan blowing directly to the Nb, and I replaced the hard TIM with MX2 too. Anyway I'm thinking about RMA'it againg, but my shipping charges are too high, so I don't knowm since I already bought another motherboard, and I'm waiting it to arrive.

[x-built-Stan]

Where are you NZ? I'm 25 miles from City of Industry, but I never had to RMA anything with them. Isn't that always the way?

[BababooeyHTJ]

Ok, my NB never went beyond 60, i mean it always were around 50-55. That's not a high temp for this chip, and i don't think 1.45 it's a voltage to burn out this chip (impossible to reach 435+fsb with lower vNB), so.... I also had a fan blowing directly to the Nb, and I replaced the hard TIM with MX2 too. Anyway I'm thinking about RMA'it againg, but my shipping charges are too high, so I don't knowm since I already bought another motherboard, and I'm waiting it to arrive.

Not that this is apples to apples but my quad with a higher fsb and 4x2gb sticks of ram on my P5Q D which is very stressful on the northbridge and never toped 38c "motherboard" temp and that thing had a very subpar stock cooling solution compared to the P7N. I rember touching that NB sink, it gets hot. What are your ambient temps like? I think that mine died because I was living on a third floor apartment with no A/C and it got pretty hot in the summer, that with 2 GTX260s in the case didn't help with heat. I also noticed that you have a GTX285 with a nonrefrence cooler in your sig. Does it exhaust the heat? I am running a GTX280 and when I poped on an HR-03 I notied that my "motherboard" temp went up a bit, not much but some and I have insane airflow in my case.

I'm not defending the board but I think that most of the odd problems that poped up in this thread were heat related. The refrence 780i boards are no better from what I hear. Anyways, I'm glad that I replaced this with a nice P45. Which board did you pick up?

[FedericoUY]

Where are you NZ? I'm 25 miles from City of Industry, but I never had to RMA anything with them. Isn't that always the way?

I'm in Uruguay, so last time I had to send my board it was complicated, because I had to ask my ant (who lives there) to send it back to me. Yes, when you ask for RMA, if MSI approves it, they ask you to send it there. I can send the board to City of indusrty, but when they replace it, they ask for a USA address to send it back. I don't want to bother my ant again...
Sorry my english

Not that this is apples to apples but my quad with a higher fsb and 4x2gb sticks of ram on my P5Q D which is very stressful on the northbridge and never toped 38c "motherboard" temp and that thing had a very subpar stock cooling solution compared to the P7N. I rember touching that NB sink, it gets hot. What are your ambient temps like? I think that mine died because I was living on a third floor apartment with no A/C and it got pretty hot in the summer, that with 2 GTX260s in the case didn't help with heat. I also noticed that you have a GTX285 with a nonrefrence cooler in your sig. Does it exhaust the heat? I am running a GTX280 and when I poped on an HR-03 I notied that my "motherboard" temp went up a bit, not much but some and I have insane airflow in my case.

I'm not defending the board but I think that most of the odd problems that poped up in this thread were heat related. The refrence 780i boards are no better from what I hear. Anyways, I'm glad that I replaced this with a nice P45. Which board did you pick up?

When my board arrived from city of industry, three months ago, here in my counrty (Uruguay) was autumn and temps were higher than now. Now we are in winter and temps are lower, around 10º-15º. (Here seasons are backwards from there). I have a Antec 902 case, wich has an excellent cable management and really good airflow, so I still don't think my problem was a temp realted thing.
I picked up a ASUS Rampage Formula, which is arriving on sunday. I expect to have more luck.

*Edit: My GTX285 works at really low temps, even overclocked at 756/1620/2808. Really not much heat goes to inside de case I guess...

[rage10]

got my board back from rma. they sent me a new one. now with bios 1.3 official it gets past the loading bar in vista ultimate 64 bit and xp home but then reboots or freezes.

it loaded vista a few times. but it froze after a few minuites of use.

xp wont load at all the farthest I got was the login screen and then it froze. it wont even get to the loading bar in either without an overclock. however the hightest fsb I can reach is 1198. after that it wont boot and I have to hit the CMOS clear switch.

xp safe mode seems to work. no keyboard of mouse support though.
vista safe mode freezes durring loading

if someone could explain what the voltage settings from NB Memory reference voltage and down Id appreciate it as I'm lost here.
thanks,
rage10

[x-built-Stan]

Rage - what are you equipment specs? CPU, Power, memory, etc.

[rage10]

oops. I knew I forgot something...
Q6600 G0 (1.31 or so vid)
4x1 gb ocz reiper @ 5-5-5-18 at 1150 max. (800 @ 4-4-4-12 usualy on p7n sli fi.)
corsair 750 TX psu
1x 640 GB saegate HD
4x sony IDE disk drives
hope that helps.
thanks,
rage10
EDIT: I tried a few random FSBs above 1200 and they all reqired me to reset the cmos switch.

[rage10]

well I got the diamond to load vista. it takes 8 or so minuites to get from selecting vista from the boot menu till the login screen. it freezes shortly after loging in though
x-built-Stan can you tell me some of your settings please.
thanks,
rage10

[FedericoUY]

I would bump up a little the vSB, to about 1.55. Seeing you have all 4 dimms populated, you should bump up your vNB too, try it. Lower your memory settings to 800 5.5.5.15 until random freezes stops.

[rage10]

well it loads vista now and doesnt crash it although it takes about 8 minites to get from os select to login. it has a hard time running applacations and almost always crashes them. desktop frequently crashes.

[stickboy00]

8 minutes to get to login screen?! Somethin ain't right. I had some trouble with the default vista 64 sata drivers and had to install the latest nforce drivers to work correctly with my Seagate 1.5TB.

[x-built-Stan]

Rage,

Try bumping your power to the CPU, NB, and Memory. When you starve the system it will take a long time to come up. Once its up, everything will tend to run slow. Look for things like the desktop icons appearing very slowly, apps loading slow. Eventually you will open enough apps to crash the system - not enough power fo the CPU load. During your initial tunning its better to overpower slightly and backdown once stability is achieved.

Some additional info that might help:
I had the same problem when running XP - the splash screen would come up very slowly, almost like fading in. After my system was stable @3.6GHz, I loaded Vista. Appearntly Vista puts a heavier load on the CPU and I was forced to up all my voltages. Just recently switched to Windows 7 which does not load the CPU as hard.

Give it a try and let us know

[ijyt]

Hey guys, somewhat long time reader, first time poster. I currently have an E8400 with my P7N Diamond, but it's a dud at overclocking, maxes at 3.3GHz and refuses to even start anything past that. Voltages were also in the silly numbers to get that small overclock. I've ordered a cheap Q9450 that suddenly appeared at OcUK and was hoping to OC it to atleast 3.0GHz at first, see how it goes with my current cooler before pushing it further. I was just wondering which BIOS version you guys would recommend for easier overclocking?

I just hope it isn't the board that limits the overclocking, I'd hate to have to get a new one.