** Official MSI P6N SLI-FI & Platinum NF650i Owners Thread**
- Thread starter ned14
- Start date
Very nice looking board
Thought that heatpipe design looked familiar
The msi board does look quality.
Reading up on the msi forums people are having problems with this board too already.Dont even see that they tested pc6400 ram on this board.
Amongst problems are random crashing not posting if using 2 of the ram slots etc etc.North bridge at 70c.
Thought that heatpipe design looked familiar
The msi board does look quality.
Reading up on the msi forums people are having problems with this board too already.Dont even see that they tested pc6400 ram on this board.
Amongst problems are random crashing not posting if using 2 of the ram slots etc etc.North bridge at 70c.
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Caporegime
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geff_r said:
If you cant post try the first orange slot with 1 stick of ram.
Been reading about this board a lot.F4 reveals the hidden settings in bios.
http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=106563.0
Msi have a list of setups/memory they tested it with and i cannot seem to see ddr2 pc 6400 on there anywhere which sounds a bit iffy but hope all turns out well ned14.If this board turns out ok i'm getting too the 2 ide and additional cooling if it turns out to be adequate has sold it to me.
Been reading about this board a lot.F4 reveals the hidden settings in bios.
http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=106563.0
Msi have a list of setups/memory they tested it with and i cannot seem to see ddr2 pc 6400 on there anywhere which sounds a bit iffy but hope all turns out well ned14.If this board turns out ok i'm getting too the 2 ide and additional cooling if it turns out to be adequate has sold it to me.
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Regarding the memory problems, yes if you're running PC2-6400 then you MUST use memories from the official compatibility list (which is in the motherboard manual). One such is Geil Value PC2-6400 and I'm overclocking 2x 1Gb of it flawlessly at 4-4-4-12-18 1T with a slight voltage increase to 1.9v.
This board is picky with memory from what I understand from the reviews. I'm sure it'll improve with BIOS releases.
Niall
This board is picky with memory from what I understand from the reviews. I'm sure it'll improve with BIOS releases.
Niall
Overclocking Results!
Ok, lots of good news here! Firstly, I'm running with v1.0 of the BIOS (the one it came with) which is most definitely buggy. One particular bug is the CPU multiplier has no effect, so for my E4300 it's always nine. This meant I couldn't test FSB overclocking. The benchmarks are from Sandra 2007.
At stock: CPU=1800, FSB=800, Mem=400 @ 5-5-5-15 1T, Int=16538, Float=11232, Mem=4500Mb/sec @ 94ns
Simple bump: CPU=3000, FSB=1333, Mem=667 @ 5-5-5-15 1T, Int=27579, Float=18697, Mem=6500Mb/sec @ 80ns. Uses 117W idle 135W busy.
This simple bump was done by setting Unlinked and then FSB to 1333 and Mem to 667 to force a 1:1 instead of 5:6 divider (which is slower). This passed Orthos at five hours. No voltage bumps or anything required, though the BIOS complains about an unsupported CPU.
I then cranked her up bit by bit and got this maximum overclock:
CPU @ 1.4v (+0.1125v)=3375, FSB=1500, Mem=750 @ 4-4-4-12 1T
This yields Int=31047, Float=21061, Mem=7577Mb/sec @ 66ns. Uses 152W busy. This has passed Orthos for an hour (it's still running right now). CPU temp is 40C idle and 52C working.
This CPU limit of 3375 is pretty fixed. It wouldn't even go to 3386 no matter what voltages I applied. For reference, this E4300 has an id of Q641A275 which makes it a week 41 CPU which are known to be good overclockers.
According to anandtech, the new v1.11 bios fixes the cpu multiplier not working bug so after its release, I can tell you how far the fsb will go. For reference, it gets warm but not hot at present.
There are some irritations with the BIOS eg; it doesn't recover well currently from bad overclocks and you need to clear the BIOS most times. Still, not at all bad for a v1.0 BIOS.
Any questions?
Niall
Ok, lots of good news here! Firstly, I'm running with v1.0 of the BIOS (the one it came with) which is most definitely buggy. One particular bug is the CPU multiplier has no effect, so for my E4300 it's always nine. This meant I couldn't test FSB overclocking. The benchmarks are from Sandra 2007.
At stock: CPU=1800, FSB=800, Mem=400 @ 5-5-5-15 1T, Int=16538, Float=11232, Mem=4500Mb/sec @ 94ns
Simple bump: CPU=3000, FSB=1333, Mem=667 @ 5-5-5-15 1T, Int=27579, Float=18697, Mem=6500Mb/sec @ 80ns. Uses 117W idle 135W busy.
This simple bump was done by setting Unlinked and then FSB to 1333 and Mem to 667 to force a 1:1 instead of 5:6 divider (which is slower). This passed Orthos at five hours. No voltage bumps or anything required, though the BIOS complains about an unsupported CPU.
I then cranked her up bit by bit and got this maximum overclock:
CPU @ 1.4v (+0.1125v)=3375, FSB=1500, Mem=750 @ 4-4-4-12 1T
This yields Int=31047, Float=21061, Mem=7577Mb/sec @ 66ns. Uses 152W busy. This has passed Orthos for an hour (it's still running right now). CPU temp is 40C idle and 52C working.
This CPU limit of 3375 is pretty fixed. It wouldn't even go to 3386 no matter what voltages I applied. For reference, this E4300 has an id of Q641A275 which makes it a week 41 CPU which are known to be good overclockers.
According to anandtech, the new v1.11 bios fixes the cpu multiplier not working bug so after its release, I can tell you how far the fsb will go. For reference, it gets warm but not hot at present.
There are some irritations with the BIOS eg; it doesn't recover well currently from bad overclocks and you need to clear the BIOS most times. Still, not at all bad for a v1.0 BIOS.
Any questions?
Niall
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Good Work there ned14 with your overclock and also for all the information you have provided for this topic.
I don't know if you already know this, but there is a another bios available at MSI TW.
Here is the link for the 1.1 bios:-
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/bios/bos/spt_bos_detail.php?UID=771&kind=1
Let us know how you get on.
I don't know if you already know this, but there is a another bios available at MSI TW.
Here is the link for the 1.1 bios:-
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/bios/bos/spt_bos_detail.php?UID=771&kind=1
Let us know how you get on.
http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=106348.0
useful thread for e4300 owners on this board
useful thread for e4300 owners on this board
Shaolin Chicken said:Good Work there ned14 with your overclock and also for all the information you have provided for this topic.
I don't know if you already know this, but there is a another bios available at MSI TW.
Here is the link for the 1.1 bios:-
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/bios/bos/spt_bos_detail.php?UID=771&kind=1
Let us know how you get on.
I think I said v1.11 is upcoming when I meant v1.22. I'm not sure what v1.1 fixes - according to its own changelog, it IS the initial BIOS release. On that alone I've not reflashed the BIOS.
It's also a real pain to do nowadays without a floppy drive
. I really wish they'd issue bootable ISO's or something you could burn to a rewritable.Cheers,
Niall
geff_r said:
Yeah I'd found that page too. Interesting thing is that my installation at least doesn't recognise any power saving abilities in the E4300 - I assume it's the v1.0 BIOS being unaware of this processor - so the C1E and EIST settings have no effect and Windows is unable to turn off the computer on shut down.
Arse probably will have to upgrade the BIOS now ...
Cheers,
Niall
Companys should release boards that work fine
i'm fed up being a beta tester for hardware.
I've always used software updater for bios never failed me once
but thats's asus.
What cooler do you have on there any idea if a tuniq tower fits?
i'm fed up being a beta tester for hardware.
I've always used software updater for bios never failed me once
but thats's asus.
What cooler do you have on there any idea if a tuniq tower fits?
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Even more good news!
After a great deal of faffing around creating a bootable USB stick, I reflashed my board with the v1.1 BIOS.
And OH WHAT A DIFFERENCE!
Firstly, the cpu multipliers now work, so I could then overclock the FSB to 1600 with only a mild +0.2v (to 1.45v) increase to the NB. The heatpiping makes easy work of the extra heat and I didn't need to use the attachable NB fan. This booted with a multiplier of 8 giving a 3.2Ghz processor with only a vcore increase of +0.1125v.
But then I thought to myself, what about the 9x multiplier yielding 3600Mhz? And well lo & behold, with "only" (heh!) a +0.3250v increase of vcore to 1.6v (accounting for the minimal vdroop) it passes Orthos StressCPU for twenty minutes, though it uses 179W when idle with 55C and a whopping 212W and 81C when in orthos. Indeed I am typing to you right now from this 3.6Ghz monster!
Turning a 1.8Ghz CPU into a 3.6Ghz CPU is a very nice overclock indeed. I could leave orthos run for a few hours, but well I have other things I'd like to do. I also reckon I have a bit more headroom left, could make it to 3.7 or maybe 3.8 but after that on air it's getting very hard ...
In the end, I'm not going to run my PC at that kind of speed for very long anyway. 3200Mhz is good enough for me, it uses only 130W or so when busy which is nearly half my current dual athlon 1700 (which always uses 222W!). Remember in the UK a kWh costs about 10p nowadays, so my dual athlon was costing about £200 a year in electricity being on 24/7. The new computer should halve that cost, paying for itself within four years ...
All in all, this motherboard rocks! You won't find many systems so overclockable for this price!
Cheers,
Niall
After a great deal of faffing around creating a bootable USB stick, I reflashed my board with the v1.1 BIOS.
And OH WHAT A DIFFERENCE!
Firstly, the cpu multipliers now work, so I could then overclock the FSB to 1600 with only a mild +0.2v (to 1.45v) increase to the NB. The heatpiping makes easy work of the extra heat and I didn't need to use the attachable NB fan. This booted with a multiplier of 8 giving a 3.2Ghz processor with only a vcore increase of +0.1125v.
But then I thought to myself, what about the 9x multiplier yielding 3600Mhz? And well lo & behold, with "only" (heh!) a +0.3250v increase of vcore to 1.6v (accounting for the minimal vdroop) it passes Orthos StressCPU for twenty minutes, though it uses 179W when idle with 55C and a whopping 212W and 81C when in orthos. Indeed I am typing to you right now from this 3.6Ghz monster!
Turning a 1.8Ghz CPU into a 3.6Ghz CPU is a very nice overclock indeed. I could leave orthos run for a few hours, but well I have other things I'd like to do. I also reckon I have a bit more headroom left, could make it to 3.7 or maybe 3.8 but after that on air it's getting very hard ...
In the end, I'm not going to run my PC at that kind of speed for very long anyway. 3200Mhz is good enough for me, it uses only 130W or so when busy which is nearly half my current dual athlon 1700 (which always uses 222W!). Remember in the UK a kWh costs about 10p nowadays, so my dual athlon was costing about £200 a year in electricity being on 24/7. The new computer should halve that cost, paying for itself within four years ...
All in all, this motherboard rocks! You won't find many systems so overclockable for this price!
Cheers,
Niall
ned14 said:
Well done on 3.6GHz.
Orthos on Priority 1 (the default) allows you to do other stuff on the PC, just minimise it to the system tray and it'll use up extra processor cycles as it can. It's only on Priority 9 that the machine is exclusively used for Orthos.
Go on - run it for 8 hours at 3.6GHz and post the screenie. That will give us all something to aim for!
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Damn and there was I deciding on the damn Asus 650 board lol. I am now wondering whether to get this board, although i am gonna be replacing the heatspipe system with a waterblock on the Northbridge so this is gonna work out more expaensive than the Asus
Soldato
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Yeah i know but if it clocks better....