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

[malik22]

If someone read my previous post my Q6600G0 needs to much voltage for 3.6ghz but 3.5 seems good I have 8800gtx in sli what should I set the nb too cause 3dmark 06 crashes when sli is enabled I have it at 1.4 I presume gtx in sli stress the nb more and I also Have 4X1gb of ram.

[zillmc]

System has been running stable for the past 3 days now. Only have two minor quirks which can more than likely be easily remedied:

1. PC won't come back from S3. Keyboard/mouse/hds will all power up but screen just wont come back.

2. Due to having to mount the TRUE 90°, the fan rack for the CM Stacker 830 won't close. Nothing a dremel to the plastic cant fix though

I did some testing in SLI for x2 blue pci slots and 1 blue 1 white. I actually had better results with one blue one white, who knows why. See the scores below.

1 Card Results:
Non-SLI 8800GTS G92

2 Blue PCI Slots SLI Results:
2 Blue PCI SLI

1 Blue 1 White PCI Slot SLI Results:
Blue/White PCI SLI

I'm not sure if those are decent scores or not; I found it odd going from 1 card to 2 cards in SLi and upped the score by 2200 points. If anyone who is more familiar with 3dmark let me know.

Going to slap the X-Fi fatality champion w/ the livedrive back in since it will fit now too and start overlocking

[TheVicar]

Hi All,

I have been tracking this thread for almost 3 weeks now, I have had this board for around 4 weeks and have had major probs with Overclocking with this board and a older BFG 680i board with my current setup, was just after some advice from you guys regarding if you think its more to do with my CPU than anything Else? Setup as follows:

Q6600 @ 2.66 SLACR FPO batch: L735A886 (It wont go any higher)
Zalman CNPS9700
MSI P7N Diamond 780i
4 x 1 Gig Dominator 8500
2 x 8800 GTS
900w Tagen PSU
6 SATA Hardrives
2 IDE Drives
2 SATA Burners
Thermaltake Armour Case with 4 Fans mounted

I am assuming even with all the extra power with Drives etc, the tagen is a decent PSU and should cope with Overclocking?

I have followed all instructions within this thread to overclocking with the MSI board, although I do find it a bit harder than most boards I am used to with the voltage settings. But with the BFG680i was 2 Gig of 8500 and now the MSI with 4 Gig of 8500, onecommon factor imo is comming into it? The Quad 6600, the reason I put in the FPO L735 code, is I cant find any real reference if it is a bad OC model or maybe just my luck with that particular chip?

I have a friend I am going to see later to swap out to another Quad to see if that makes any difference! But any other idea's meantime would be welcome.


Regards


Vic

PS Forgot to add I am on latest Beta Bios from MSI website forums.

[loonym]

TheVicar, that is plenty of power and those tagans are nice units. As far as your particular chip goes you may want to just search your batch# in the big q6600 threads for it. The bios is difficult to understand in depth but by experimenting and following the lead of others you'll find the sweet spot. I don't see you state anywhere how much you can actually clock it or where and how it fails. The 65nm quads are hot with really not a lot of voltage so your answer may lie there depending on your goal.

[dogg]

nice to see you again /loonym, glad to see you around/

I was testing my previous posted settings with my E8400 / in short 1760 MHz FSB, 3960 MHz core ,800 MHz RAM CL4 timings and T1 command rate/, for two weeks to see if it's stable for normal use.. probleams appeared minor from start, but after I tried various types of video files, there was the same freezing in some of them and after different time of playing /sometimes after 2hrs/... it looks like stripes across display and next to mouse cursor small stripes in square shape... nothing like this in default or in decent OC... some crashes in games, but I think, just graphic drivers issues.. Just a fiew BSODs /windows reporting nvidia driver crash/.. I'm experimenting with drivers as well..

So, my settings of bios started again now... I've got P07 version

Now on 395 x 9 /3555MHz/.. 790MHz RAM on 4-4-4-18 T1
1:1 FSB RAM ratio

CPU +0.2000V RAM 2.1V NB 1.35V

anyway everest still showing 1.32 V and bios 1.39, what is a quite difference..
stress test without any problem on 100% usage for 30mins, than I stopped it..

I didn't have luck from 1600MHz FSB to 1700MHz.. 1600 appears to be ideal for 800MHz RAMs but not working for me... Vista freezing during startup...




__________________________________________________ ________________
MSI P7N Diamond (780i)
E8400 Penryn on air (Zalman CNPS8700NT)
2x2G Geil Evo One DDR2 CL4 800MHz
2x MSI 8800GT 1GB OC in SLi
2x 150GB WD Raptor
750GB Seagate Barracuda
Power: Coolermaster M series 850W
Logitech G15 Keyboard
Logitech G9 Mouse
Logitech MOMO Racing Wheel
Eizo Flexscan S2031W
Vista 32Bit Ultimate

[loonym]

You could be hitting fsb hole or maybe you need more nb volts or try setting 2T in timings. Did you try going maybe 5-5-5-18 ram when you overclock them past 800?

[dogg]

With those RAMs there is something strange...they are certified for 4-4-4-12 T2, but this setting is not working... I've found some tests of this sticks and seems not running T1, but it works with mine... I've tried 5-5-5-18 T2 just as auto setting in bios...
Never tried 'em higher than 800..

Do you think, there could be FSB hole there and jump over it with overclocked RAM FSB to keep 1:1 ratio should work... Am I get it right?

NB voltage could be higher, I think, because my temp sensor installed on NB passive showing 45 C max / belive something about 55-60 C inside /...





__________________________________________________ ________________
MSI P7N Diamond (780i)
E8400 Penryn on air (Zalman CNPS8700NT)
2x2G Geil Evo One DDR2 CL4 800MHz
2x MSI 8800GT 1GB OC in SLi
2x 150GB WD Raptor
750GB Seagate Barracuda
Power: Coolermaster M series 850W
Logitech G15 Keyboard
Logitech G9 Mouse
Logitech MOMO Racing Wheel
Eizo Flexscan S2031W
Vista 32Bit Ultimate

[malik22]

I have 4x1gb of corsair xms2 C4 and to use its rated timing 44412 I have to set voltage to 2.2 in bios is that voltage safe for 24 7 usage I wish there was a setting for inbetween 2.1 and 2.2.Im using 55515 with my Q6600 at 3500 to be safe.

[loonym]

Yeah dogg, you may be able to jump over the sticking spot and boot fine with same or little more volts.

malik22, I really think it is safe but I wouldn't go past that. My board tends to undervolt the ram slightly.

[dogg]

I've big jumped over hole straight to 4.05GHz /1800 FSB/ with my RAMs on 900MHz /5-6-6-21 T2 setting on auto/... with just little volt increase... CPU +0.2250.. NB 1.375.. RAM 2.1... It was stable in everest stress test but not in the games so I decreased it to 1720 mHZ FSB / 3.87 GHz / RAM on 860 MHZ /5-6-6-20 T2 setting on auto/ with the same voltage as previous...Played Oblivion on max settings for 5 hrs without single problem and runned various video file types for more than 4 hrs... no problem...

looks I'm where I wanted to get... I've tried to keeep CL4 default RAM settings /thought it's important for performance more than frequency/, but higher CL setting with higher frequency works nice and with CPU frequency increased I got more than 1000 3Dmark rise as with CL4 T1 setting and CPU on 3.555 GHz...

In some time I probably change my RAMs for some with higher frequency to underclock it and keep CL4 setting... /Now it's clear to me, that manufacturer settings are not some default but probably the max setting for the sticks/...



__________________________________________________ ________________
MSI P7N Diamond (780i)
E8400 Penryn on air (Zalman CNPS8700NT)
2x2G Geil Evo One DDR2 CL4 800MHz
2x MSI 8800GT 1GB OC in SLi
2x 150GB WD Raptor
750GB Seagate Barracuda
Power: Coolermaster M series 850W
Logitech G15 Keyboard
Logitech G9 Mouse
Logitech MOMO Racing Wheel
Eizo Flexscan S2031W
Vista 32Bit Ultimate

[loonym]

You may be able to gain some stability by increasing nb volts to 1.45v

[malik22]

Yeah dogg, you may be able to jump over the sticking spot and boot fine with same or little more volts.

malik22, I really think it is safe but I wouldn't go past that. My board tends to undervolt the ram slightly.

Thanks loonym how do you measure the vdimm?

[loonym]

The only thing I've found that will properly read my vdimm is msi's own dual core center which for the most part is crap but I like the voltage readings.

[NIVO]

ive been having cold boot issues for the last 3 days and its an extreme oddity to me as to why. I have been using P07 for about a month or so now and no problems stable here at 3.2ghz. Now, just for kicks i decided to go back down to 2.4 on optomized defaults(yes i claered cmos and done it all proper just as i should hehe). With a few exceptions like disabling all EIST, c1e etc etc, and turning off onboard IEEE(simply because i dont need it) and disabling floppy(as i always do). So im at optomized defaults at 2.4ghz and it takes 5 resets from a cold boot to actually get it to post(hear usb beeps) and then i know itll post and start windows and such. Its only started occuring for the past 3 days or so and it has been fine otherwise. Its simply very very irritating to me this is happening as i havent read anything about anyone else having cold boot issues be it stock or oc'd on this bios. Ive made no hardware changes at all, other than switching from my ps/2 kybd to my new saitek II usb kybd. It was doing this before i switched out keyboards and ive since put the ps/2 back with same boot issues so i can rule the keyboard out as an issue. Its really puzzling as to why this is occuring all of sudden when ive run so long with no problems and here i am running stock speeds

[AaronYuri]

NIVO,

Increase the NB voltage a notch.

[NIVO]

ok i will try that. But why would i need a bump on nb at stock cpu settings of 2.4? im just curious. Shouldnt it be that you dont have to tweak just to run all defaults?

[loonym]

I think the answer may be that you are running 4 sticks of ram. You'll need to find your own 'optimized defaults' rather than rely on auto bios settings.

[NIVO]

NIVO,

Increase the NB voltage a notch.

ive since tried this, and tried booting this morning, took 5 times just as before. Ive just about had it with this board and its quirks.

[theYipster]

Nivo,

You say you're at optimized defaults on the P07? Check your RAM timings -- they may be too tight. On the MSI BIOS thread, Aaron posted a warning not to use optimized defaults on the performance BIOS because it sets RAM timings to aggressively. In the cell menu, make sure that your RAM timings and vDimm are set to factory specifications.

[malik22]

Are there any other settings you guys change in bios for stability like sb voltage?and would setting my ram timings from 55515 to 44412 bring a performance increase in games or is it not worth it.

[theYipster]

I haven't needed to adjust SB voltage to achieve stability.. but that doesn't mean it's not worth a try if you're having issues.

[loonym]

I only raise sb volts .025v and that is only because I like to take into account any possible drop due to board fluctuations. It's probably not needed. I run fsb terminator voltage @ 63 although I honestly have no idea what that does or how it relates to actual voltage delivered. I just know I can stay stable with 3600. I also raise both cpu and nb gtl numbers. I really hate the idea of throwing out numbers and settings when I'm not sure precisely what they do but it took me a lot of experimentation and I'm still doing it every time I get the notion to try some 4gb+ benches.

[malik22]

Im perfectley stable with my Q6600 at 3.5ghz i was just wondering if there was a setting that would let me achieve 3600 without raising the vcore to much thats why i asked about the sb voltage and loonym ill try fsb terminator voltage to 63 does any one know what that settings does?

[AaronYuri]

It's the voltage to the FSB terminator.

Does wonders when you're using a quad-core, but doesn't help much when you can't tell what you're setting...

[malik22]

I would like to try blue and white slots for my 8800gtxs to test but the sli bridges are to small can I use the long one thats used for tri sli and are you suppose to use two sli connectors?