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

[theYipster]

You can use the long one. You may experience a slight performance drop of about 500-800 pts in 3DMark and/or 1-2fps in most games. Well worth it in my opinion, given PCI slot you get (and the added breathing room between cards.)

[loonym]

I think the fsb terminator setting is similar to vtt setting on other boards. I have no idea how the numbers in bios relate to actual voltage delivered. I think a dual card sli only needs one bridge and I'm quite sure the long bridge shouldn't effect your performance.

[malik22]

well I put one card in the top blue slot and one in the buttom white used the long connector but when I got in windows it only detects one card what could cause this I did have a hard time getting the card in the white slot does this usually mean the card wasnt in all the way?and yipster zillmc on the previous page seems to get better performance with the blue white combo so I just want to try it out.

[loonym]

Make sure you reinstall the vid drivers if only one card is detected.

[AaronYuri]

My RMA has been accepted. Going to post it tomorrow, then I will abuse it ASAP once more...

[loonym]

I'm curious to know the turn-around time when you finally get a board back.

[AaronYuri]

Got my X1950XTX back within 4 days.

As this is just a straight forward BIOS recovery I would imagine it shouldn't take long.

[NIVO]

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.

thx, yes ram settings are at factory spec, as well as vdimm. Still having issues with cold boot, it only took 8 resets today to get it to post

[theYipster]

Nivo,

If you are running your Q6600 at stock 2.4ghz, then try setting your RAM to manually run 1:1 with the CPU instead of at 1000mhz. Despite what your RAM is rated for, there will be no performance loss, and your timings, if on auto, will automatically be tightened due to matching a lower JDEC setting. In short, try setting your RAM to run at 533mhz.

[NIVO]

will try that. Its actually underclocked at present to 400. thx.

[malik22]

Im having my system crash on me everytime when playing crysis anyone have this issue im using the 1.16 bios 174.74 drivers and latest Nforce of nvidias site.
I posted about it in this thread
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...73#post2953273
cant firgure out what the problem is maybe I should use the chipset drivers off the cd the nb is in its 50s while gaming so I dont think thats the problem and my sli 8800gtxs dont go past 65C.

[malik22]

Edit fixed the problem.

[AaronYuri]

Sent the board to MSI Thursday, they got it Friday, recovered the BIOS and it's on it's way back to me. But due to the bank holiday it will be here Tuesday.

[loonym]

Too bad you couldn't have gotten them to put on a 'special' bios. I know they must have a couple they're testing.

[AaronYuri]

I already messed the BIOS up... Didn't wanna push it. LOL

[bingo13]

Too bad you couldn't have gotten them to put on a 'special' bios. I know they must have a couple they're testing.

Yeah, P9 and 1.18 are out now for beta testing.

[AaronYuri]

Yeah, P9 and 1.18 are out now for beta testing.

I'll upload them as soon as I get them.

[Antong]

hello guys. first time post here. been reading all your posts and tried some settings in here but nothing seems to be stable for my rig im a noob regarding OC'ing, most of them will post on bios but all of the settings i tried would either blue screen on startups and not go through vista screen. oh and im running vista 32bit. any suggestions on what settings are good? a 3.2-3.4 oc would be great for me. thanks in advance guys!

[AaronYuri]

hello guys. first time post here. been reading all your posts and tried some settings in here but nothing seems to be stable for my rig im a noob regarding OC'ing, most of them will post on bios but all of the settings i tried would either blue screen on startups and not go through vista screen. oh and im running vista 32bit. any suggestions on what settings are good? a 3.2-3.4 oc would be great for me. thanks in advance guys!

What BIOS releases have you tried? What settings did you set?

[Antong]

hi aaron, here is the settings ive tried. bios v1.0 and p07, fsb 1600,dram 800,cpu volt .28750, dram volt 2.10, nb volt 1.425,cpu gtl volt 65, fsb term volt 25. memory timings on stock only blue screen but it will post on bios. it just says irql something ang memory dump bla bla. also tried fsb 1555, dram 777, vcore .22500, dram 2.10, nb 1.45, fsb term 25. still a no go. all will post but wont load wondows. this one can load windows but will go blue screen in about 3min. fsb 1400, dram 700, cpu volt .11250, dram 2.10, nb volt 1.30, cpu ref 60, fsb term 25. i got a coolermaster ecplise for chip cooling. my fpo on q6600 is L721A495 B3 stepping. tried all these settings on bios v1.0 and p07. maybe i got a q6600 dud. thanks for the help aaron.

[loonym]

You're going to need nb much higher especially with the added stress of 4 sticks of ram. Try 1.5 or perhaps even 1.525 for nb volts. You'll probably need to raise fsb term voltage too. I think that setting is almost like vtt on other boards and for quad oc it seems to like alot. I run that setting max 63 for 3600 and up.
Try this:
Ram Timings 5-5-5-18 2T
cpu voltage with your .28750 or as much as you think you need,
ram voltage 2.05 or 2.10
nb voltage 1.5 or 1.525
dimm mem ref voltage 5
cpu GTL ref voltage 30
nb GTL ref voltage 30
fsb terminator voltage 60 or 63


I'm slowly discovering that the relationship of the GTL ref voltages and fsb term is quite important for stability with higher overclocks in my setup.

[theYipster]

A likely reason for your trouble is that your Q6600 is a B3 stepping. These older Q6600 aren't as capable OCers as the Q6600 G0s. They are more voltage hungry and they run much hotter. Very few, if any, will reach 3.6ghz with any degree of stability. I recommend backing off 3.6ghz and trying for 3.0ghz. You should be able to reach that. Btw, what's your VID? (find out using CoreTemp.) If you're shooting for 3.6ghz, you'll probably want to replace your chip. (Alternatively, water cooling may get you to 3.6ghz, but you'll still have a much better time of it with a Q6600 G0.)

[autumnale]

I found out what the FSB Term (front side bus termination voltage) numbers mean. I got an answer from the MSI tech support. Here it is:

"The integer setting allows you to fine-tune the voltage. This value represent 0.xx volt. Thanks."

Yeah so 65 would mean +0.65 volts I'm guess. You add that onto the base FSB termination value of your CPU which is in your Intel CPU's datasheet.

http://download.intel.com/design/pro...hts/318732.pdf

Table 4 has the FSB termination's "VID" set to between 1.045 volts and 1.155 volts maybe. I have no idea. It'll depend on the processor just like the vcore's VID I'll bet. Too bad it's not written on the side of the box like the VID is. You'll just have to guess. You know what I need to ask MSI again where does the VTT start from actually. Will report back.

[theYipster]

That's very interesting if that's the whole picture. I've never heard of another BIOS handling FSB Term in this manner. Unfortunately, I don't know of a program that displays FSB Term VID for a processor. I also don't know if it's a number unique to every processor, as is vCore VID.

[Antong]

thanks for the help loonym and yipster. my vid is 1.3250v core temp is 42-44 on idle. B3... that expalins a lot. so if i OC to 3.0 what seetings should i use? sorry but really new to OC'ing. tempted to try out loonyms suggestion but i dont think itll be stable on that settings. my room isnt that hot though coz i usually turn on the airconditioning when its too hot to play. but still wont gamble on that. really hard to find decent chips here. got the q6600 about 7mnths ago and i had to wait 1 month for it. hitting a stable 3.2 will be very good for me, just dont know how to do it... thanks for the help guys.