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

[wolf1974]

x-built,

I was able to complete an OCCT CPU run, but Prime errored out at around the 1 hour mark.

Right now I'm at +.25v with all other settings listed above, and this is Prime stable (8 hours) with temps hovering around 58 under load. I think further tuning can get me lower, or perhaps newer BIOS releases, but this is a good stopping point for the moment.

Tomorrow, I'm going to reinstall Vista and get my normal computing environment back online. Then I'll continue fiddling before doing an 8-12 hour Prime run. (I'm not one to go much longer with Prime, as I've never felt the need.)

i am gonna try this again wolf[IMG]http

[wolf1974]

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[Overspeed]

So I took my PC down to the place I brought it from and explained that I wasn't able to get the ram to operate at specified settings. If you recall I have been concerned about bad ram hindering my OC ability. Well I picked it up today and they had all 4 dimms running at the advertised 1066. They did this by enabling Sli-Ready setting to Expert, overvolting the DIMM setting to 2.20v and manually setting the timings in the advanced dram area to 5-6-6-15-2T. So then is the ram ok? I'm still not sure.

I tried once again to get the E8400 up to the levels others have gotten with the P7N .... without success. If the ram is in fact not bad then I guess the CPU or mobo must be. I guess i'm SOOL. I will wait for a official BIOS update, until then I am suspending all OC efforts. A shame.

[BKA]

My Q9300 OEM came in today, got it installed and BIOS 1.0 recognized it fine. Temperature reading is not okay at the moment though, this could be due to the programs (CPUIDHW, Realtemp) not reading correctly or me not screwing down my heatsink tight enough. I will reseat it this evening and see if there is any difference.



It's weird because after running 3DMark I rebooted to check what the BIOS CPU temp was and it was in the high 30's. So I have a feeling I seated the heatsink correctly. Problem is I want somewhat accurate temps before I increase Vcore for overclocking. So for now I plan to see how far I can get on default Vcore with the first increment set in BIOS and probably 1.3 NB. Any suggestions on where to start with the CPU GTL and FSB Term?

[theYipster]

I wouldn't worry too much BKA. The first E8400 users experienced the same issues regarding temp readouts. I'm not sure if their issue was with the chips themselves, but my guess is that it's was due to monitoring software not correctly supporting the chip. I suppose it's the same issue with the Quads, and that it'll be resolved in future software updates.

[BKA]

Thanks Yipster, any suggestion on the GTL or FSB TRM to get started or should I just play around with the setting? I read your earlier comments on the Q6600 settings for these values. Maybe I'll start around there somewhere.

I was just looking at the detail for that 3DMark score and the CPU is recognized as a 4 Core, Intel Pentium III. LOL

[theYipster]

Bka,

Expect the Yorkfields to stabilize under different voltage needs. You might want to try 1.425 for the NB and 25 for FSB Term. I've found those to be stable throughout different vCore and GTL ref combos. As for actual vCore and GTL Ref needs, you're pretty much trailblazing here.

Btw, what's your chip's VID in Core Temp?

[theYipster]

Hi everyone,

Quick interjection here: As I've noted, it's very important to know your chip's VID when overclocking on this board due to the way vCore is set in the BIOS. The easiest and most popular way to get this information is from Core Temp, which until now was quite a pain to get working in Vista x64.

A new version (0.97) has just been released and it support Vista x64 natively. No more 3rd party batch script enablers or running the program in disabled-driver-signing mode.

Download here: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

[BKA]

Bka,
Btw, what's your chip's VID in Core Temp?

I'll have to check when I get home from work. I do have the new version but haven't really been using as CPUIDHM was giving the same temps plus my GPU temps but I'll check when I get home and report back. Thanks for the suggestions!

EDIT: I do know the BIOS was reporting 1.20,1.28,1.36 in BIOS setting, fluctuating between the three.

[loonym]

Please correct me if I'm wrong because my knowledge and understanding of this is somewhat limited. Isn't VID a non-changing value, programmed into each individual cpu that tells my bios what the 'stock' voltage is for my processor?

[theYipster]

Loonym,

You are correct.

[BKA]

Bka,
Btw, what's your chip's VID in Core Temp?

CoreTemp reports 1.0375 as the VID, CPU-Z report curent Vcore at 1.128-1.136, CPUID as 1.13-114.

CoreTemp and CPU-Z also report it as a C1 revision not M1 like TigerDirect listed for the CPU description.

[theYipster]

I've never heard of an M1 stepping. I believe C1 is correct. Do you have your chip overclocked or do you have speed step (Intel EIST) enabled? At stock settings, cpu-z should be reporting vCore below your VID. Note that Speedstep / EIST can cause an incorrect VID reading (reporting a VID that's too low.) If you suspect this is the case, turn off Speedstep and read the VID again. Unfortunately, I don't have a comparative basis at the moment as I haven't read up on Q9300 chips.

[BKA]

I've never heard of an M1 stepping. I believe C1 is correct. Do you have your chip overclocked or do you have speed step (Intel EIST) enabled? At stock settings, cpu-z should be reporting vCore below your VID. Note that Speedstep / EIST can cause an incorrect VID reading (reporting a VID that's too low.) If you suspect this is the case, turn off Speedstep and read the VID again. Unfortunately, I don't have a comparative basis at the moment as I haven't read up on Q9300 chips.

No, I disable Speedstep/EIST from jump. MSI does report a M1 stepping on the supported CPU's for this board, although both C1 and M1 are listed as "Under Testing". Only the C0 is listed as supported by BIOS 1.0.

Another thing I noticed, although the BIOS has it listed as 7.5 for the ratio, the highest that can be adjusted is 7.

EDIT: Intel only has the M1 listed in their Core2 Quad processor list. Hmm.

[loonym]

I really never thought it was significant enough to mention but I doubt the boards 'true' support for the .45 line. i.e. the ability of bios to set the initial voltage of the cpu correctly at boot.

[BKA]

Okay, so I have screwed up somehow. So I tried a simple overclock with no luck getting into Windows. So I decided to try the beta BIOS 1.1B4 but noticed that if I disabled EIST it drops the adjusted CPU Ratio down to (7x333) for 2.33 core clock with all auto settings. And the option for "Adjust CPU Ratio" only has 7 or 6. No matter what other setting I use the only way to get back to a 7.5 ratio is to enable EIST. I know this wasn't the case with the 1.0 bios because I double-checked it after you mentioned it.

So then I tried P05 with the same results if I disable EIST, no 7.5 ratio only 7 or 6. So I figured I'll just flash back to 1.0 and leave it at default for now until MSI gets another BIOS out there. But now its happening with 1.0 also. No 7.5 ratio unless EIST is enable and of course that removes the Adjust CPU Ratio option altogether. Not really a problem in Vista because I always have my power managment set to High Performance and Processor Power Management set to 100% in minimal and maximum, so it runs at (7.5x333) all the time but now the the auto vcore is at 1.200-1.208 instead of the 1.128-1.136 it was earlier.

So I figure I will test out by putting the E8400 back disabling EIST, do a few reboots and then replace the Q9300 to see what happens.

Also with EIST enabled now Coretemp shows a VID of 1.1125V which lets me know I'm not going crazy because I know it was disabled at first when I reported the 1.0375 as the VID.

So if swapping CPU brings back the option to disable EIST while keeping a 7.5 ratio, I will probably flash the 1.14B again and see what I can come up with at the 7 ratio just for kicks tonight.

[theYipster]

It could very well be that MSI does not yet have a BIOS capable of handling the half-multipliers found on the Q9300, Q9550, and E8500 chips. If they don't, I am sure they are working on one, as the P7N Diamond is indeed advertised as 45nm ready.

You should e-mail MSI tech support about this issue, and you may want to start a thread on the MSI forums as well. The issues with EIST may also be a factor of missing / incomplete BIOS support.

In the mean time, I would suggest leaving everything at "Optimized Defaults." When MSI releases an update that addresses the half multiplier issue, you should then revisit your OC efforts.

[BKA]

It could very well be that MSI does not yet have a BIOS capable of handling the half-multipliers found on the Q9300, Q9550, and E8500 chips. If they don't, I am sure they are working on one, as the P7N Diamond is indeed advertised as 45nm ready.

You should e-mail MSI tech support about this issue, and you may want to start a thread on the MSI forums as well. The issues with EIST may also be a factor of missing / incomplete BIOS support.

In the mean time, I would suggest leaving everything at "Optimized Defaults." When MSI releases an update that addresses the half multiplier issue, you should then revisit your OC efforts.

Good idea, will do. In the process of putting the 8400 in now and if that gets me back to EIST disbaled with the 7.5 I'll leave on defaults for now.

[loonym]

Yes, it's always a good idea to make the people at MSI tech support aware of every issue. They are probably sick of me by now even though they are always friendly and polite. I have an ongoing dialogue with them and they have asked me to help them test a few things as well. They are the ones that are going to write the bios that will make us all very happy

[BKA]

Well, with my E8400, I get choices of 6, 7, 7.5, 8. 8.5 and 9 under Adjust CPU Ratio, so go figure. I'll make sure to included all this in the email.

[loonym]

You doing a cmos clear with mobo power discharged when you make these cpu swaps?

[BKA]

You doing a cmos clear with mobo power discharged when you make these cpu swaps?

Yup, because I have my normal settings saved (RAID and stuff I disable) in the user setting. So I only have to adjust the Cell Menu after loading those.

EDIT: So after putting the Q9300 back in, sure enough EIST disabled and its auto set at 7.5, but still only 6 and 7 ratios were available. Leaving well enough alone for now. Going get some gaming in before I retire for the night. Thanks again for the suggestions Yipster.

[memory]

I think the VID under core temp for different mobo also plays an role in determine the voltage

Under Core Temp 0.97. My E8400 is 1.0XXvolt for MSI P7N Diamond but it is 1.1XXvolt for my Asus Maximus Formula.

It might due to the different manufacturer has different calibration on the vcore even the cpu is the same...

So, I will use the monitoring software as a guide and reference only. Using multimeter is still the best way for reading more accurate voltage

[theYipster]

Memory,

I have never encountered a chip whose VID differs based on the motherboard, but you may be right. I've never used the same chip in an nVidia board and an Intel board. If you have a multimeter, that is of course the way to go.

[BKA]

Well, I emailed MSI and they told me to Scram, Beat it, you idiot, its still under testing, didn't you read the CPU support list for this motherboard!!!!!

Just kidding but they did say that I would have to wait for the next BIOS release because they are still testing this revision.