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

[Leeroy]

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 ?

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 ?

[loonym]

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?

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.

[nugzo]

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!

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

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.

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.

[theYipster]

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

[Fiskbit]

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.

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.

[theYipster]

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.

[Fiskbit]

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?

[loonym]

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.

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?

[Leeroy]

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.

[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!

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!

[loonym]

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.

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.

[crucial33]

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?

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.

[Leeroy]

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!

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!

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
That's why i'm flashing, as some people are having good results from 1.21.

[Fiskbit]

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.

[loonym]

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.

[Fiskbit]

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?

[loonym]

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.

[wolf1974]

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!!!

[Fiskbit]

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.

[Leeroy]

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.

[Fiskbit]

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.

[Leeroy]

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

Your FSBRAM 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 !

[loonym]

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

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.

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.

[Leeroy]

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

Was using my CPU's divider of 8 !

Better stop drinking the Turkey's !!

[loonym]

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