Anyone with an MSI X99 based board??

PowerPie5000 · 22 Jul 2018 at 01:03

I have an MSI X99A Gaming 7 and only recently noticed a weird issue regarding the CPU SA voltage (system agent/vccsa). The BIOS has a little info tab on the right side of the screen that shows the usual voltage readings, but the CPU SA reading always shows 1.256v (a bit high)… Even after I manually change it to something else! It never changes or fluctuates.

Does anyone else have this issue with any MSI X99 board? HWMonitor shows the 1.256v reading as "VIN5" and Speccy shows it twice as "VIN5" and "VIN14". All other software I've tried such as Aida64, HWinfo and MSI Command Centre don't even show/detect a 1.256v reading.

I'm also having to dial back on the XMP profile for my RAM and keep it at the default slow 2133 speed as my i7 6850K fails the Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool with XMP enabled (fails on the AVX tests). HWMonitor also shows a System Agent voltage offset at +0.512v with XMP enabled (which also seems a bit high, especially considering I don't know what the current SA voltage is at the moment).

Specs:

Intel Core i7 6850K (stock)
16GB (4x4GB) GeIL Dragon DDR4 3000 (running at 2133 for now)
250GB Crucial MX200 M.2 (SATA) SSD
2TB Toshiba HDD
8GB MSI RX480 Armor OC GPU
750W Riotoro Enigma G2 PSU (basically a Seasonic Focus Plus Gold unit)

Anyone have any ideas what's going on? I even updated to the latest BIOS to see if it changes anything and it didn't. I'm starting to think the board doesn't have a sensor for the CPU SA voltage reading... It doesn't even show the values for CPU Ring Bus or VCCU either (blank space next to "auto" where the voltage reading should be).

Chaos666 · 28 Jul 2018 at 22:07

i had MSI X99a SLI PLUS .. and to be fair I wasn't very happy with it... those boards have a lot of bugs... you just found one of them ;]

I know it may seem weird but try an older bios ... and check if the problem persist

thats my topic on MSI forum
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=298756.0

PowerPie5000 · 31 Jul 2018 at 00:50

It's an annoying bug as I can't find anything that will give me a system agent voltage reading... I have no idea what the default/auto value is and have no idea if the manual values I type are even being accepted. The system agent offset with XMP enabled is way too high (+0.512v offset according to HWMonitor & OCCT). The board previously had an i7 5820k and I don't recall having this issue, but to be honest I wasn't paying too much attention. I only bought the i7 6850k as I managed to get it new & sealed at a good price.

It's a dual BIOS board and it refuses to boot when I flip the switch to the other BIOS (older version). Strange as I thought the X99A Gaming 7 (which replaces the older X99S Gaming 7) was supposed to support Broadwell-E out the box? MSI have said to wait as they're still looking in to it. The Ring Bus, VCCU and PCH voltages are not even shown in the BIOS either.

Would a Ryzen 2700X setup be more of a sidegrade than an upgrade when it comes to gaming?

Drangueos · 31 Jul 2018 at 02:00

I have a MSI X99A-XPOWER-AC
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/X99A-XPOWER-AC

mine looks ok, but I don't have the last bios, I have the one before.

PowerPie5000 · 31 Jul 2018 at 11:40

Thanks for sharing the screenshots. I'm now guessing the X99A Gaming 7 is a "low end" X99 board and has some sensors missing or disabled. Your BIOS shows the CPU SA as 1.168V... Does that figure include the +0.348v offset shown in HWMonitor? Or will it end up reaching 1.516V under load? What is your auto CPU SA voltage at stock without any offset applied if you don't mind me asking?

I have no way of seeing what my stock CPU SA voltage is and can only really guess it'll be around 0.850-0.950v (ideally). I received a beta BIOS from MSI this morning (version HH1) and all they've done is remove the CPU SA voltage reading from the info tab and said the 1.256v reading is for something else. They said not to worry when I told them that enabling XMP with my RAM automatically adds a +0.512v offset to the CPU SA. I'm running everything stock in fear of burning out the IMC on my i7 6850K!

Drangueos · 31 Jul 2018 at 12:07

Yes 1.168 includes the +0.348v, on auto it raises the voltage with the memory clock, so if you enable XMP it will raise the voltage, if I leave the memory clock at 1333mhz it will be at 0.820v (default)

set your memory clock to 1333mhz and check if it shows a lower voltage.

PowerPie5000 · 1 Aug 2018 at 12:35

It appears that none of the voltages change when I drop the RAM to 1333MHz. I find it strange that HWMonitor will even show a system Agent offset increase when running the RAM at 2400MHz speeds at 1.2V.... I thought 2400MHz was a native RAM speed for Broadwell-E and anything above that would need increased voltages?

RevBillyG · 11 Aug 2018 at 17:53

X99S SLI Plus here. Vin 5 on Speccy also shows 1.256v for me to.
5820k @ 4.5ghz and rock solid for the last 3 years. So I'm not worried