*** MSI P6N SLI Platinum OVERCLOCK 650i ***

[chizow]

Hmmm I'm not familiar with that utility. Why not just run the BIOS set-up after POST? Its different than other BIOS I've used in the past but you just use the numpad "+" and "-" to adjust the memory voltages.

 

[raywood]

Sorry -- that's the name of the BIOS setup utility that comes up immediately after booting. It's the version that came with the motherboard. That's where it's greyed out.

 

[imported_JaaP]

Damn Chizow, that must have been a quitte annoying experience :S never heard of any problems with a X-fi card and this board :s

Today i got a E6600 and i started OCing right ahead it proved to be a lot harder to clock compared to my previous E6300. I got i stable now @3.3Ghz with good temperatures at the following settings:

fsb clock:1468
memory 800mhz
cpu voltage: .500
mem voltage: 2.0
NBv: 1.40
SBv: standard
fsb vtt v: 8%

It required a lot more voltage and effort to get it running stable....the FSB vtt made the difference although i didnt have to use that option with the E6300.

What do you guys think of these settings and is that 8% vtt not a bit to high??

 

[Assimilator1]

Originally posted by: raywood
I'm just starting out with OCing. I have a MSI P6N SLI Platinum. For some reason, on my system the Memory Voltage option in AMI's CMOS Setup Utility v. 2.61 is set to AUTO and greyed out. I have Crucial RAM rated at 4-4-4-12, 2.2V. I've gone into Advance DRAM Configuration to set tCL, tRCD, tRP, and tRAS accordingly. But I can't change the memory voltage, and I don't know why not.

Cell menu,highlight mem volts press + or - ,greyed out doesn't mean you can't change it on these mbrds heh
Just as chizow said:thumbsup:

 

[raywood]

You are so right! Ignore the grey and change it anyway! Thanks for the tip ...

 

[Elias824]

ive got an x-fi card with this board as well and I haven't had any problems. everyone also seems to be complaining about how loud the N.bridge fan is, I bought a zalman fan mate and turned it down to a reasonable speed and I can hardly hear it. Just downloaded the new V1.4. Had anyone tried it? says it just updates the cpu ID, maybe for the new intel procs.I dont think fsb is really that big of an issue with any board unless you have a low multiplier proc like the e6300. even so I still got mine to 1720fsb wit a little room to move up.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Elias824
ive got an x-fi card with this board as well and I haven't had any problems. everyone also seems to be complaining about how loud the N.bridge fan is, I bought a zalman fan mate and turned it down to a reasonable speed and I can hardly hear it. Just downloaded the new V1.4. Had anyone tried it? says it just updates the cpu ID, maybe for the new intel procs.I dont think fsb is really that big of an issue with any board unless you have a low multiplier proc like the e6300. even so I still got mine to 1720fsb wit a little room to move up.

Hmm interesting. How many sticks of RAM are you running? Also, did you disable onboard sound? What revision is your board and BIOS? What OS are you running?

Thing is, I was running the X-Fi with BIOS 1.0 without any problems until I upgraded to 4GB, at which point I had to upgrade to BIOS 1.3 to get any stability. Once I did that, the X-Fi started exhibiting cracking/popping sounds when my system was under load. The Creative documents addressing the cracking/popping problems with NV chipsets seemed to be spot on.

My best guess is that the BIOS fixing 4GB support changed some timings/resource allocation and essentially broke my X-Fi. If thats the case its a sacrifice I'm willing to make, as 4GB vs 2GB in Vista 64 is much more of an improvement over X-Fi generic Vista sound vs. Realtek generic Vista sound.

 

[Assimilator1]

Originally posted by: Elias824
ive got an x-fi card with this board as well and I haven't had any problems. everyone also seems to be complaining about how loud the N.bridge fan is, I bought a zalman fan mate and turned it down to a reasonable speed and I can hardly hear it. Just downloaded the new V1.4. Had anyone tried it? says it just updates the cpu ID, maybe for the new intel procs.I dont think fsb is really that big of an issue with any board unless you have a low multiplier proc like the e6300. even so I still got mine to 1720fsb wit a little room to move up.

My mbrd is holding back my E6420 incase you missed all my previous posts

Their's v1.4 now? ,cool I'll try that soon.:thumbsup:

 

[Elias824]

im only running 2gb with win XP, yes I did disable the onboard sound and im running the newer V 1.4. assimilator1 what did you manage to hit? still at 3.3? I pretty happy where i am now I max around 53c, idele at about 39.

 

[Assimilator1]

No unfortunatly I couldn't keep the mbrd stable at 3.3GHz ,I've almost got it stable at 3.25 GHz with sync'ed RAM but it's requiring a lot of volts ,NBv 1.45v.I might not bother with that though as I can run at 3.2GHz & lower NBv ,1.4v.

My CPU never idles so I don't know that temp ,running DPAD its around 48-52C depending upon ambient temps.Orthos pushes it upto the high 50s.

Here's more detailed settings:-

3.25 GHz ,1625QDR 406MHz FSB

RAM - 813MHz DDR
RAMv - 2v (would probably be ok at 1.95v)
NBv - 1.45v
vcore - 1.3125v

This failed Orthos after 18hrs ,so close to stable but not quite
Next I'm gonna try upping the vcore to 1.325v but I doubt that'll make any difference ,& I don't want to run the NB at 1.5v that's too high IMO ,especially for the mediocre increase it would give
Btw with the RAM at 760MHz DDR it is stable with just 1.4v NBv

3.2 GHz ,1600QDR 400MHz FSB

RAM - 800MHz DDR
RAMv - 1.95v
NBv - 1.4v
vcore - 1.3125v

Good for 25hrs Orthos & playing GWs

If 3.25GHz with sync'ed RAM turns out to be a no go'er then I will have to find out which is fastest between 3.2GHz syn'ced RAM 800MHz or 3.25GHz unsync'ed 760MHz RAM.

 

[WT]

Wow .. just .. wow !! I finally *emphasis* got around to getting my rig built and benched it after a verrry simple OC (my first on an Intel) and I set it 1600 FSB clock (400 quad pumped) and 800 Mem clock and its running at 3.6 and benchmarking very well. I have to run Orthos yet, but I don't trust the Speedfan 4.32 report of 40c idle.
Anyone care to tell me what I should do to clearly determine the temps ? I'll try Orthos next and see what happens.

MSI P6N Platinum
CPU: Intel C2D 6600
Memory: 2048 MB of Buffalo Firestix DDR2-800
Video Card: eVGA 8800GTS 640mb ACS Nvidia
Hard Drive: Seagate 7200.10 500.0 GB @ 7200 RPMS

DOH !!! Orthos dashed my hoped there .. had the temps up to 53c and failed after less than an hour. Voltage at 1.46 at this point.

 

[Assimilator1]

40C idle sounds about right ,dependant on ambient temps

I compared Speedfan to Rightmark CPU clock utility ,Core temp & Intel Thermal Analysis Tool & all 4 programs gave me the same reading ,so I know speedfan is right for my setup

Which voltage did you alter?

 

[WT]

Sitting at 3.4 now with a 1.44 CPU voltage. It was running Orthos for over 2 hours so I'm closer to my 'safe and stable' setting than I was last night with my initial go for broke overclock. I'd like to bump the voltage down to 1.42 and run Orthos overnight. CPU will creep up to 53c running Orthos but won't top that, so I'll assume an extended gaming session won't push the PC like Orthos will.

Edit: 3.4 appears to be the comfortable point for my setup, at I was able to lower the CPU voltage to 1.42 and run Orthos for hours before calling it a success. I realize 24 hours would be a better time frame, but I want to keep my temps and voltages lower than my initial test. I would have loved to have gotten 3.6 stable but 3.4 is nothing to sneeze at, especially for the older games that I play.

 

[Assimilator1]

Nice overclock still

Btw if you read mine & others earlier posts you will see that all of us needed higher NBv to approach (or get over for the lucky ones) 1600FSB ,my mbrd needs 1.4v for the NB to be stable at 1600.
It maybe that your CPU can run on much lower voltage & its infact your mbrd (NBv) that needs a voltage boost.

 

[imported_JaaP]

Nice overclock WT What bios settings did you use?

 

[WT]

I used the ones right on the second post of this thread ! iluv2fly had the right idea and I thank him for getting the thread going. It took me forever to get my vid card so I'm late to the party here (Best Buy BFG 8800 fiasco .. I waited 5 weeks before my CC canceled the transaction). I honestly wasn't even doing the math when I went through the BIOS but soon after noticed it reports the CPU speed at the top of the Cell Menu page as you adjust it.
I'd love to get back to 3.6 (50% overclock, hello Celeron 300A !!) but I'm happy at 3.4 with my low temps and solid Orthos runs, as well as lower temps with the 1.4 voltage, but in the interests of the endeavor, I will bump the NB voltage and see what happens this weekend. I'm retiring my Opteron 165 and switching to this Vista rig over the weekend for my primary rig.

OK, here's a question for everyone: What NB cooler should I be looking at ? That damned hair dryer that comes with the board is running at 8,900 rpm (!!!!) and I swear its getting louder every time I work on the PC. I hate to remove it and bump the NB voltages so I'll leave it on until I replace it entirely or maybe just swap the fan itself.

PS - 10,054 3dmark06 score seems low to me also. I know its a synthetic benchmark, but right now my HD performance is killing me. Its a Seagate SATA 500gb model and the new Seagate drives have borked firmware on them, causing my sustained speeds to manage only a meager 40mb/sec and my seek times to be over 14ms !

 

[Assimilator1]

3DMark won't be effected by HDD performance.

As for the NB cooler ,I don't know myself as I just suspended a 70mm AMD fan over it using cable ties
You could use a zalman fanmate to cut its speed but I don't know how effective the fan would be if speed were droped significantly.

 

[iluv2fly]

Assimilator1 covered the NB cooler.

Regarding your 8800 GTS KO ACS 640MB. It seems about right. I have a 8800 GTS KO 320MB (default speed 589/1840) and it scores 9960 3dmark06.

You are doing good!

 

[WT]

I splurged on the vid card and bought the eVGA 8800 KO ACS unit, a $90 increase over the Best Buy BFG card I had planned to get. Thats a chunk of change, but I wanted something a bit unique, as I find the reference cards as boring as watching paint dry.
Seeing as how the Coolbits portion of the Nvidia drivers isn't built into Vista, I searched elsewhere and found RivaTuner (too much stuff to deal with) or ATITool. My card actually crapped out running the ATI Tool check for highest clock speed, but it did get up to 670 on the Core speed before stalling, so there seems to be some headroom available there as well.

Zalman Fanmate 2

I actually have one of these already in another rig, running on a Zalman VF900 unit that cools a 7900GS card. It looks like the best bet for what I need, but I would certainly assume that the NB fan running at almost 9k rpm is making more noise than cooling at that speed. I'd knock it down to 4.5k and see how that performs.

 

[iluv2fly]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: iluv2fly
Regarding crackling sound from your X-Fi. I had that problem on a nforce4 board. The solution was to put the sound card in a different pci slot. Try moving it around.

Yeah, thanks for the insight. I narrowed it down to the X-Fi's IRQ/PCI slots giving me problems. I moved it to the middle PCI slot yesterday, got some stability back, then all kinds of progressively worst stability problems. NV driver stop/recovers, then I couldn't even load into Windows without weird IRQ related BSODs (bad pool, irq less than etc). Finally yanked the X-Fi out of frustration and boom....all fine and dandy again. Problem now is I'm down to 1 PCI slot that I haven't tried....after that I guess I can mess around in the BIOS some more and try to statically assign IRQs and mess with some of the PCI latency delays. If that doesn't work I guess I'll just have to wait for a BIOS update, since this definitely seems like a motherboard/chipset issue more than anything else.

To JaaP: 600-series should be able to support Penryn @1333 FSB, some boards may need a BIOS update first. Problem with higher default FSB though is they'll eat into your OC overhead without any guarantee that max FSB headroom will increase. From what I'm seeing in this thread and others about the 600-series, they're definitely not the "easy OC" solution early reviews made them out to be.

To those looking for a good NB cooling solution: I picked up an Antec Spot Fan with my Nine Hundred Case and it works great for cooling the NB. Its small and quiet but still pushes a good bit of air and can attach to your case/mobo virtually anywhere. I got it free with my case in a promo, but they run for $15-$18 and can be purchased from lots of retailers (CUSA, BB, Fry's, MicroCenter etc).

====================================

Here is a possible solution for your X-FI problems.

( Vista has problems with USB, there is a fix for it in Vista SP1 )
(I had Vista X-FI sound problems with BF2 and this worked for me)

-----------------------------------------------------------------

After you have installed your X-FI card.

Unplug all of your USB cables.

Reboot.

Plug in your usb cables.

Try again.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Assimilator1]

Originally posted by: WT
Zalman Fanmate 2

I actually have one of these already in another rig, running on a Zalman VF900 unit that cools a 7900GS card. It looks like the best bet for what I need, but I would certainly assume that the NB fan running at almost 9k rpm is making more noise than cooling at that speed. I'd knock it down to 4.5k and see how that performs.

Fair enough ,I don't suppose you have a laser thermometer so you can compare NB temps @ 4.5k & 8.5K do you?

 

[WT]

Ahh, funny you should mention that Assimilator, as I was just reading an old issue of CPU magazine and under the Modders Tools section there was that magic laser thermometer that you brought up. Unfortunately, I'd probably fry my eyeball (Ever see that warning sticker 'Do Not Look Into Laser With Your Remaining Eye!') so the best I can do is a remote temp sensor to see what happens.

 

[imported_Planatoid]

Originally posted by: Spanki
Hey guys, I'm trying to start listing some cpu cooler upgrades to my P6N thread here:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1164174

...if you're not using the stock intel HSF (I see a few different ones in sigs here), could you tell me briefly if it installed without hitches or anything special you had to do to make it fit?

Thanks much!

My Tuniq Tower was a close fit. It touches some transistors on the side, not cool at all...



Anyhoo,

Question (Schrute voice): I'm trying to get my memory to run in Linked Mode, 1667/4 = 416MHz or so, but it always defaults to back to 400MHz, it's so annoying. Anyone had any luck running Linked?

 

[Assimilator1]

Yea you need to set the RAM MHz 1 over the desired speed to get it to synch .....stupid MSI bios

WT
Why would you fry your eyeball?
I take it you don't have one then

 

[imported_JaaP]

Does anyone know if a Thermalright SI-128 CPU cooler would fit with the NB cooler installed??? I am planning on buying this cooler but i want to know for sure if it fits.......