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

[PapaMambo]

Long time listener, first time caller.. I just have a few questions about the x-fi card that comes bundled with the P7N. First and foremost, is have any of you had any sort of luck having the card do EAX 5.0 or whatever the latest EAX version is? I'll look at one site and it'll tell me that the card can do EAX 5.0, and the MSI site will tell me only EAX 4.0

The reason I am asking is that I have been trying to get my sound card to work properly with games like BF2, and BF2142, and to take advantage of the features of the built in X-fi support for both of those games, yet they both tell me that the hardware is incapable of using these features.

I had read about the Youp-Pax drivers, but navigating that site is an absolute mess, and I was wondering if anyone here had any sort of luck, or could point me in the right direction for drivers that will unlock some of the x-fi features in Vista x64.

[Fiskbit]

I'm using the standard drivers and have also been unable to get any sort of EAX working (such as in Bioshock). The impression I've gotten is that this card is only a slight step above integrated audio; if you want good sound, then buy a real sound card. Perhaps it's possible to get more functionality out of this card, but if so, I've not heard about it.

Also, for those wondering about how I've been doing regarding reboots, I recently eliminated another source of reboots for my system: nVidia's ntune. I'd have random problems with reboots when settings profiles were loaded (both automatically and manually), as well as reboots when doing simple things like changing fan speeds. Other issues were profiles not always loading when I told them to, which was actually a godsend at times when loading them would cause a reboot. I've replaced it in its entirety with RivaTuner, which so far has been both reliable and stable. Since I'm sure most people with this board have it for its SLI abilities, I figure there are probably other people out there with ntune that may have similar problems. If you have it, I recommend getting rid of it.

[stickboy00]

I'm using the standard drivers and have also been unable to get any sort of EAX working (such as in Bioshock). The impression I've gotten is that this card is only a slight step above integrated audio; if you want good sound, then buy a real sound card. Perhaps it's possible to get more functionality out of this card, but if so, I've not heard about it.

Also, for those wondering about how I've been doing regarding reboots, I recently eliminated another source of reboots for my system: nVidia's ntune. I'd have random problems with reboots when settings profiles were loaded (both automatically and manually), as well as reboots when doing simple things like changing fan speeds. Other issues were profiles not always loading when I told them to, which was actually a godsend at times when loading them would cause a reboot. I've replaced it in its entirety with RivaTuner, which so far has been both reliable and stable. Since I'm sure most people with this board have it for its SLI abilities, I figure there are probably other people out there with ntune that may have similar problems. If you have it, I recommend getting rid of it.

The MSI canada sight states EAX 5.0 compatibility. I have a normal x-fi PCI card in my other rig and It doesn't work very well with EAX 5.0 in BF2, either, although I can enable the AdvancedHD mode. Sounds are very bad on some maps, though, and so I don't use AdvancedHD mode.

[Krispinn]

Well, I have been trolling this board for about a week and finally got my password.

I believe I have read this entire thread and still can not resolve my issue.

I believe my problem is alot like Zepto's.

I bought a Voodoo PC back in 2003 and had it personalized in Silverstone Blue. It was antiquated and I just couldn't see giving it to Goodwill or somethign so I decided to build it anew.

I went to Newegg and bought

VGA Asus EN 9800GTX+/HTDP/512M RT
CPU INTEL / C2Q Q6600 2.40G 775 8M R
MEM 2Gx2/OCZ2RPR10664GK R
CPUCooler / Arctic P4 / ACFZ7-PRO R
MB MSI P7N Diamond 775 780iSLT RT
HD 750 / WD 7k 32M SATA2 WD7501AALS R
CPU Thermalpaste / Arctic Silver 5
Ti TR2RX 550W Power Supply

The only reason I got the Mother Board is because Newegg suggested it in a bundle deal. I had bought the PC Builder's Bible and the Computer Shopper to help me decide on the speed / $ issues.

I put the whole thing together and shaped and tied all the cables and got it looking like a sexy Voodoo PC should and fired it up. It booted with no problem and I went throught the basic BIOS setup following the manual provided by MSI. I had a copy of Windows XP with the original Voodoo PC and installed that.

When Windows was finished I went through updating all the drivers and updating to SP2 etc..

The Machine started having random reboots. It was not the blue screen of death kind, it displayed no errors just rebooted and went through the posts etc and restarted windows with no errors. There is no rhyme or reason to the random Reboots. I really didn't buy this stuff to be a power house I just wanted to use it as a gaming / media PC on the Sony 52" XBR in the entertainment room.

I used the factory defaults minimum and optimal and still could not get stability. I tried numerous suggestions from this site and still could not get the system stable.

Modified numerous BIOS Settings / Removed and Replaced Sticks of RAM / Reinstalled Windows / Downloaded all the monitoring and stress programs suggested on this site / and pulled out most of my hair.

I finally used one suggestion I saw that was Default All and set the FSB to 1333 / 666

The system runs through the stress tests and has been on for about 72 hours now. The problem is when I shut the system I can't cold boot the system. E.G. If I let it sit overnight and try to boot it up in the morning with these settings it gives me an **********ERROR********* message during boot up and never makes it to Windows. I have to hard boot it and del into Bios select a default setting, let the system warm up dealing again with all the random reboots during this period and once the system gets warm I can reboot / del / and reinstall the 1333 / 666 settings.

One problem that I do notice is that the voltage settings are frozen to me in the BIOS. I see all these values for CPV / DRAM / NB / SB / etc... but I can't get to them. If I place the cursor on them it says that it is not recommended to change these values or something to that effect.

I downloaded all these things like Prime 95 / OCCT / Everest / Coretemp / Memtest 86+ etc.. so if you would need some specific data to help me let me know.

I am not uber l33t at building computers. I have put several together and used the defaults on the builds in the past with no problems. This twinking is a whole new area for me so please forgive me for being such a newb. Again I am not looking to crank this thing up to the breaking point I just want a nice stable machine. I know I seen in other posts that if that is what you want you should have got a Dell etc... Please hold those comments. I love this case and the paint job and really didn't want to give it up.

Please help me to get stable.

Krisp

[loonym]

Long time listener, first time caller.. I just have a few questions about the x-fi card that comes bundled with the P7N. First and foremost, is have any of you had any sort of luck having the card do EAX 5.0 or whatever the latest EAX version is? I'll look at one site and it'll tell me that the card can do EAX 5.0, and the MSI site will tell me only EAX 4.0

The reason I am asking is that I have been trying to get my sound card to work properly with games like BF2, and BF2142, and to take advantage of the features of the built in X-fi support for both of those games, yet they both tell me that the hardware is incapable of using these features.

I had read about the Youp-Pax drivers, but navigating that site is an absolute mess, and I was wondering if anyone here had any sort of luck, or could point me in the right direction for drivers that will unlock some of the x-fi features in Vista x64.

If you message the owner of that site (also the author of the driver) or make a forum post, he'll help you.

[zillmc]

Hey all, hope everyone is doing well. Haven't checked the forum in awhile but its nice to see its still kicking strong ! I happened to check the MSI page for new bios updates and grabbed 1.2 this morning. I've been running my x3350 stock for the past 5 months or so but I decided to do some OCing for a lazy saturday .

Did a modest OC to 3.0 & 3.1 ghz stable:

Benchies:
3.0 Ghz


3.1 Ghz


Let me know what you think! :b

I tried getting it stable at 3.2ghz w/:

vcore:1.3v
vdram: 2.1v
nb: 1.325v
fsb: 1.313v

It'd post just would start loading up windows and stop in an endless loop, monitor lights would stay green but would have the black screen and reboot itself and repeat until i switched it back. Anyways good to see every!.

[bluspikez]

I tried getting it stable at 3.2ghz w/:

vcore:1.3v
vdram: 2.1v
nb: 1.325v
fsb: 1.313v

It'd post just would start loading up windows and stop in an endless loop, monitor lights would stay green but would have the black screen and reboot itself and repeat until i switched it back. Anyways good to see every!.

Probably need more volts on the nb and vCore. Go to about 1.375-1.4v on nb and just go in increments on the vcore till you get it stable.