MSI P6N SLI-F

[Spanki]

This might help:

NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Overclocking Guide

 

[BolleY2K]

This board is strange...

Won´t run 2,xx GHz stable, but I am running 3,015 GHz right now, with only +0,0375 VCore, nothing else. 3DMark and Orthos have been running flawlessly so far.

Looks like 1066 strap won´t work, but 1333 MHz strap does.

So if someone has the same problem, go straight to 1340 in BIOS, don´t fiddle around with the 1060+ range.

 

[Spanki]

Yeah, I saw your update in the other forum.. check your PM here.

 

[BolleY2K]

I did and also did answer, thx a lot! 3,015 GHz ist running rock solid for a few hours now, looks good...

I hope this does it and it will stay this way. In all other aspects, the board is quite nice.

Does anyone use Speedfan and can tell me, what the Temp1 and Temp 2 readings are / what exactly is measured there? CPU external and ... ?

 

[jonks]

I've been stable at 333x9 for a couple weeks now, and decided to see if I could push higher. The short answer is nope. I tried 350 and 366, even with increased voltages, but after post, system would reboot and continue that cycle until I manually turned it off. Then I couldn't even get into the bios, she would just freeze after hdd recognition. Had to reset the cmos, which resulted in somehow corrupting or deleting the nvidia Raid storage driver from windows? I had to reinstall the drivers using the msi cd. Anyway I was being greedy. 3ghz is pretty nice for an E4300 It's not like I'd see very much performance improvement from 200mhz, certainly not worth the trouble it apparently will take to get there.

 

[BolleY2K]

I will try tonight, right now I am down to stock voltages at 9 x 335 MHz.

 

[normalicy]

To the best of my knowledge, you generally don't want any Spread Spectrum settings enabled while OC'ing. IIRC, the purpose of those settings is to reduce EMI by somewhat varying the frequency of the given bus over time. This is usually ok in a stock system, but can be somewhat problematic when you are running things closer to tolerance while OC'ing.

Thanks for letting me know. I guess I'll just turn everything off & see what I get. Especially since the overclocking guide that Spanki (thanks for the link) mentioned said to.

 

[BolleY2K]

Actually it is stated in the P6N SLI manual to turn Spread Spectrum off when overclocking - if anyone read it... *G*

I tested for 5 minutes this evening, my system will also post into Windows with no problem at 3,15 GHz at stock voltages but I got a BSOD shortly after. I guess with some tweaking, there is still some potential left.

But I am leaving it for now at 3,015 GHz. It´s running solid as a rock at stock voltages and sharp RAM timings, is fast enough for me and I don´t see a reason yet to put more stress to the system if I don´t need more power at the moment. My 8800 GTS ist also running nicely @ 650/1000 if it has to and helped me to break the 10000 Points mark in 3DMark06, so I am perfectly satisfied for the moment. The board turned out to be quite nice in the end...

Thanks for all of your help!

 

[Spanki]

Originally posted by: BolleY2K
...The board turned out to be quite nice in the end...

Excellent. If you get the time and don't mind, it would be great if you could post your system specs (memory used, cpu, etc) and any oc settings over in this thread for future reference.

If not, thanks anyway and enjoy .

 

[normalicy]

Actually it is stated in the P6N SLI manual to turn Spread Spectrum off when overclocking - if anyone read it... *G*

I noted that earlier. The manual only mentions the turning off the CPU spread spectrum when overclocking. I wanted to know if the other ones would make a difference.

Excellent. If you get the time and don't mind, it would be great if you could post your system specs (memory used, cpu, etc) and any oc settings over in this thread for future reference. If not, thanks anyway and enjoy .

Yeah, I've been tracking this thread too. Some good stuff there.

 

[cruzdiablo10]

Originally posted by: UNhooked
Got this board hooked up last night.
Currently at 377X9 on my E4300 at 1.45Vcore. Ram at 475 at 15-4-4-5 @2.2Vcore. System is pretty fast. I do have an issue where I keep getting a warning msg everytime I boot at post that says this is a 200FSB chip blah blah. Also is there any way to disable SMART system, since it keeps saying my Raptor is bad.

Will drop the multi later and see if I can go higher, apparently this board has FSB holes from 380- 400FSB

Hy, I'm new in this forum and I must tell you that I'm from Uruguay, so my english is not the best.

Well, I would like to know if you had to apply the mod to the E4300 or if you just overclocked it as you buy it.

 

[normalicy]

No mod is necessary. Just overclock it how it is bought.

 

[cruzdiablo10]

Really? I read in other forums that you have to mod the E4300 if you want to overclock it. No the E6xxx serie, just the E4300...

 

[Edge1]

Hey guys,
The mobo comes with a slew of "Utility" apps on the install cd. I've noticed a few random issues people had with things like Dual Core Center. Here's the list of utilities for the Platinum board:
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/s.../swr/spt_swr_detail.php?UID=771&kind=1

How many of these did you install?

Are any absolutely necessary?

Which ones should be replaced with better, proven freeware apps? I've seen things like Everest and Speedfan mentioned in several places although I have no experience with either of these. I have used CPU-Z. Of course I'd like to stress test the sytem for stability (orthos, prime95?).

I'm usually of the mind that installing a zillion semi-useless or potentially conflicting apps isn't such a good idea:laugh:. What's a good basic setup that gives you important sytem info (speeds, temps, voltages, etc) without getting bloated?

 

[jonks]

Well Intel's Thermal Analysis Tool (TAT) has proven to not report temps accurately with the E4300, it even reports the chip as Pentium M. I use speedfan to monitor temps and noticed it confirmed MSI Dual Core Center's findings. Speaking of DCC (hm, new version released 3/20, maybe I'll upgrade), I wouldn't use it for any tinkering. It won't OC my vid card because it's not MSI, and attempts to OC the FSB have resulted in immediate crashes, same with nvidia's ntune. Stick with bios OCing for best results. I was able to use nTune to OC my vid card tho, but performance improvements were so marginal I didn't see any reason to keep the settings OCd.

As to the rest of the MSI apps, I didn't install any of them except LiveUpdate, which the mods over at the msi forums say not to use for bios updates anyway.

 

[normalicy]

Really? I read in other forums that you have to mod the E4300 if you want to overclock it. No the E6xxx serie, just the E4300...

Well, I was able to overclock without any mods. I've heard that doing a pin mod is to fool the bios to think it is E6000 series chip so that the 200mhz warnings go away. Hopefully, a newer BIOS will fix that though.

 

[cruzdiablo10]

Originally posted by: normalicy

Really? I read in other forums that you have to mod the E4300 if you want to overclock it. No the E6xxx serie, just the E4300...

Well, I was able to overclock without any mods. I've heard that doing a pin mod is to fool the bios to think it is E6000 series chip so that the 200mhz warnings go away. Hopefully, a newer BIOS will fix that though.

Do you have to push any key to continue or the message doesn't stop the load?

 

[normalicy]

It just loads like normal.

 

[cruzdiablo10]

Great!!! Last question, I think... Do you have the P6N SLI-FI or the Platinum?

 

[jonks]

Platinum here. Same situation as everything normalicy has said.

 

[normalicy]

Just the P6N SLI-F for me, but no complaints so far.

 

[cruzdiablo10]

The thing is that I do have a low budget, so I am thinking about buying the FI one.
Unhooked's got that board, I am waiting for his answer to finally be sure that you don't have to mod the E4300 to OC it...

Sorry about my poor English. If any of you don't understand anything please let me know that.

 

[normalicy]

Like I said, I'm happy with my FI. Only wish there was a fan on the northbridge or a larger heatsink (fixing that currently).

Actually your english is pretty good. At least about as good as most of the people in this forum anyhow.

 

[cruzdiablo10]

Excellent, that's what I was waiting to hear.

Well, thanks then. As long as you undesrstand what I write...

 

[crapito]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
My friend just did a build with this board and and E4300 and is having trouble getting it to be stable at 9x333Mhz. Are there any known FSB holes with this board? Is the board normally stable at 1333FSB?

Originally posted by: BolleY2K
This board is strange...

Won´t run 2,xx GHz stable, but I am running 3,015 GHz right now, with only +0,0375 VCore, nothing else. 3DMark and Orthos have been running flawlessly so far.

Looks like 1066 strap won´t work, but 1333 MHz strap does.

So if someone has the same problem, go straight to 1340 in BIOS, don´t fiddle around with the 1060+ range.

yep...

seems that there are "holes" in the ~300/1200 FSB range on these boards.

i have this board with an E4300.
runs fine at 200/800 default;
266/1064 is sketchy;
290/1160 with some mild tweaks (CPUv +0.05; NB 1.35v; SB 1.60v; FSB VTTv +6% ) will run Orthos fine, but WoW crashes;
just checked this thread again and tried 335/1340 (CPUv +0.100) and not problems so far... guess my E4300 was better than 2.4 (running @ 3.0 now).

link to a screenshot of my desktop @ 335/1340FSB.