Is this good ram for a K8N Diamond Plus?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145486
Brand-CORSAIR
Series-XMS
Model:TWINX2048-3200
Type:184-Pin DDR SDRAM
Capacity:2GB (2 x 1GB)
Speed:DDR 400 (PC 3200)
Cas Latency:3
Timing:3-3-3-8
Voltage:2.6V
ECC:No
Registered/Unbuffered:Unbuffered
Heat Spreader:Yes
And how would I go about Overclocking this ram?

It is good/ ok RAM. You might expect about 480 Mhz out of this RAM at 1T. Read the stickies on overclocking as this will answer most of your OC questions. Many people round here like Mushkin Redline, and I used Kingston VR for my project. Not the best stuff, but it works for a moderate overclock and extreme OC if you use memory dividers.
Search the forum for memory. There are alot of threads on this.
Also post a sig with your components. I know your building a rig, but we like to see what you have and where your going when we are answering questions.
Edit:// Sorry did more research on this stick of Mem, Not good for OC. Ignore my initial comments.

Similar Messages

I WANT DRIVERS FOR MY K8N Diamond Plus

I WANT DRIVERS FOR MY K8N Diamond Plus MAINBORD FOR WINDOWS 7 HELP ME OUT

Which do you need, that aren't supplied by Windows 7 itself?
Vista drivers may work if something refuses to work without special drivers:
http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=downloaddetail&type=driver&maincat_no=1&prod_no=232

Tips for my K8N Diamond Plus

so although i have been into hardware for awhile now i have never really been a big OC'er. it was never something i really wanted to do since i work my arse off to get my hardware. my buddy recently OC'ed his micro-ATX board with his AMD 3700+ from 2.2 to 2.9 on a stock heatsink and he is sitting stable. this got me thinking and wanting to try out a bit of OC'ing just to see what i am able to push my system until i upgrade from my current CPU to a new 4400+ dual core. so here is my system and im just looking for tips/a quick walkthrough of what i need to tweak to OC my box and keep it stable.
CPU: AMD 3500+ 939-socket, Newcastle core stock at 2.2ghz
MoBo: MSI K8N Diamond Plus with the 3.09 BIOS
RAM: 2x1gig sticks of PQI Turbo 400mhz/PC3200 timings of 3-4-4-7
PSU: Sunbeam 550watt SLI certified
Video Cards: 2x eVGA 7900gt's SLI'ed
that is basicly the big stuff, i have a X-FI soundcard and all SATA HDD's and stuff but that stuff doesnt really matter too much when it comes to OC'ing. anyways, im just looking for directions on what i should set my stuff to. if you could also through in a run down of how HT, the multiplier, my FSB, and the DRAM/FSB settings affect each other i would really appreciate it.
basicly all i would need is something like this for my settings:
multiplier:
vcore:
FSB:
DRAM/FSB:
mem timings:
HT settings:
and anything else i have left out.
again, i would really appreciate the help.

Quote from: Stick on 22-November-06, 19:13:44
geez guys, can't believe you haven't spoted the mistake yet.
first, the newcastle is socket 754, there is no newcastle core for socket 939.
k8n diamond plus doesn't have a 3.09 BIOS.
so iostream, please make sure that you get the details correctly.
tiresmoke, syar and bosskiller, slacking guys, slacking? (joke)
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Core Newcastle s.939(http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=65000304) ----> CPU ID: http://www.techpowerup.com/cpudb/details.php?id=43
MSI K8N Diamond Plus BIOS 3.09 exist, can be found here:( 6 = MS-7220 bios 3.09) ---> https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=101664.0

Which PSU for MSI K8N Diamond Plus?

I am so frustrated ... I have spent over 6 hours trying to find out which power supplies I can use with the MSI K8N Diamond Plus.
I am not able to find any PSU that has 24 pin, 8 pin and 4 pin power connectors ... do you have to get them custom made or something? I am in Switzerland and it is hard to track these things down if you do not speak the language.
This is the page which I am using to try and find a compatible PSU:
http://www.stegcomputer.ch/browse.asp?cat=376
I think the Spire Rocketeer VI should work but am not sure.
Can anybody recommend a PSU that is compatible with this board? Please.

Quote from: russellmrgn on 27-March-06, 20:51:26
Off topic.
Kenito443,
I see you have the Stacker830, was looking at that case myself. How do you find it performance / quality wise?
Russell
Yeah i love it...the cooling is amazing, my case never goes above 30C and the cpu idles at 22c and never goes over 27C even when OC'd,.. granted i have substantial cooling for the cpu. the case is completely tool less and boasts a up to 9 12cm fans...the case is double encased Al so with a silent PSU (true 500W), which is my set up , it is extremely quiet. i was going to get the lian li until i saw both of them on display. the lian li seemed a little harder to set up for water cooling -if i wanted that option in the future, and the tool less feature for the cm stacker was a lot more appealing. Interestingly, it has its own proprietary hard drive noise reduction and cooling doohickey. Also, the mb has this cool pull out tray plus the PSU rail is really easy to accomadate for a larger PSU. the store where i bought it from in santa clara CA threw in some of these nice dust filters with the case and I was sold. the only con was the price, i paid around $230, which is a little expensive for a CM....oh and a word of warning , the case doesnt really look that big in pictures, but it is HUGE !! it has 10 5.25-inch bays..you can fit every single imaginable peripheral and still have room to fit your kitchen sink..i was definitely surprised to see how big it was in person.

Best 2 gb kit of memory for a K8N Diamond Plus ?

I have the Diamond plus mainboard on its way, should be here Monday. I just received Wednesday a 180 opteron and a 2 gb kit of Corsair XMS 3500LL pro. I installed these in an Asus A8N SLI deluxe and have spent the last day trying to unsuccessfully install windows, only to find out one stick of the XMS is shot terribly, 7,776 errors in the first 10 minutes of Memtest86.
So needless to say these sticks are going back. I have never in my years of building computers received memory in this bad of condition before, and although an isolated case it could very well be I have a very bad taste in my mouth considering the 300$ price of these.
I would welcome recommendations on 2 gb kits that would be suitable for this board and processor, preferably low latencey, doesn't have to be more than PC3200-3500 since I am not an extreme overclocker, tighter timings on a lower FSB are more important to me since I have a larger processor. G-Skill, Patriot, Mushkin? what works best for this board/bios?
thanks!

Grouse - I think you can increase your voltage to ram by moving the jumper pins JV1 on the motherboard 1 - 2 to 2 - 3 which gives 3.1 volts and up. But by moving that jumper voids the warrenty of the motherboard. Well that's what the sticker on it says :(
Jumper is JV1 on the motherboard
Select DDR Power Jumper: JV1
The DDR Power Jumper is used to boost the DDR power. The BIOS will auto
detect the mode you configure by hardware and provide the properly selection for
DDR Voltage field. The hardware jumper setting and the software BIOS selection
have to complement each other.
JV1 - Pins
1 |- 3|
- |- -|
16 |- 18|
^
Boost Mode
(3.3V~4.1V for you
to select in BIOS)
|1 -| 3
|- -| -
|16 -| 18
^
Normal Mode
(2.6V~3.2V for you
to select in BIOS)
(sorry about that, but you get the idea)
MSI Reminds You...
We are not responsible for any damage from changing the default value of
DDR voltage.

Loosing RAM on my K8N Diamond Plus

Perhaps I'm asking for trouble by trying to 'upgrade' my setup #1 but to be honest, it's really working fine and I see little reason to dump it. But here goes my trouble:
Found it to be running a tad slow I bought myself another pair of 1Gb DDR400, hoping to up the RAM to total of 4GB! Big mistake! Stick in the pair of new Corsair DDR400 at CL3, I reset the BIOS, rebooted and to my horror only saw 1.47Gb being recognized! I then apologize to my computer and quickly took out the new intruder! No luck! Still reporting 1.47Gb w/ my pair of trusty Corsair 1GB XMS3200 DDR400 at CL2! Now I'm freaking out. Took out one of the 1Gb stick and system correctly reported 1Gb. I tried to have the pair of 1Gb in all different combination but no luck! Now I'm left w/ only 1.47Gb. Maybe I shouldn't really push my luck but I really like my setup!
Any help pointer?

First of all: one of the two features (or both) must have been enabled before you cleared CMOS before testing the 4-stick configuration. The Default-Setting Profiles you can load in BIOS Setup don't enable them. You should keep that in mind because whenever you clear CMOS again, the memory hole stuff will be switched off again.
How does it work? I am not sure about the precise functionality of (and the difference between) those two settings on AMD Systems because I mainly work with Intel stuff. However, to give you the general picture: The physical memory needs to be addressed in order to be accessed/used. This is true for all other devices and system instances as well. The address space used for devices is (of course) not available for memory addressing (otherwise you would have an address conflict). The options we are talking about will make sure that the device address space gets remapped to higher address areas to make sure that there is enough lower address space available for memory addressing in order to utilize as much physical memory as possible.

K8N Diamond Plus need a -5v rail?

If you read my saga, by now you know my on-board sound card isn't working, I haven't been able to figure out what was the problem, nor did my shop.
Now.. do I need -5v rail for the k8n diamond plus like the K8N Diamond (non-plus) ?

Quote from: HighTest on 14-February-06, 05:15:15
Doubt it, as you don't need it on the non-plus. See my sig, I've got one and my onboard Creative Sound solution is working fine with my Enermax EG565P-VE FMA 2.0 (SLI Compliant).
There's no -5V on the supply, in fact there is no wire on that connector, so it's very evident. What I do see is a mod performed before the board was shipped for retail.
Since I purchased my board in Feb 2005, I suspect most in the channel also don't require the -5V. The Diamond Plus has the mod build into the actual board design, so you shouldn't have any problems there.
only the 1st revision Of DIAMOND have -5V supply. Your's the latest revision without -5V
Quote from: TEKNOW on 02-March-06, 04:20:05
What I mean is, I no longer have crackling/popping/distortion etc. - but my sound is -weak, it's maybe 1/5 the power it used to be on my old P4 rig.
You need the powerful PSU which has 12V and i believe it has been discuss in this threat.

Aftermarket HSF options for K8N Diamond Plus

Just built a new rig with the K8N Diamond Plus and am very pleased with the board -- worked great from first power up and with a little BIOS tweaking I have no trouble getting a 50% overclock from my dual core Opteron 170. No headaches at all, unlike my previous experiences with Abit boards.
The AMD heatsink fan unit (with heatpipes) provided with the 170 is not bad at all, but I'd like to replace it with a more capable unit, along the lines of the Zalman 9500, Scythe Ninja, Tuniq Tower 120, Thermalright XP-120, etc. The tall heatsink of the Nvidia NB is close to the CPU socket and quite high, so I'm not sure if any of these will fit. Anyone using one of these or similar heatsinks ? Please let me know if they fit, or did not fit.
Since I could find any of the 7800GTX 512MB boards I wanted, I'm using a single MSI X1900XT card right now but plan to go SLI in the future with 7900GTX cards driving the 30" Dell monitor. The ATI video board and nVidia mainboard surprisingly get along great, with no crashes so far and 3DMark06 scores above 6000 -- the X1900XT is an impressive piece, and much faster than the X800XT-PE I had in my previous computer. But the fan can be extremely loud and the Catalyst Control Center sucks. Unfortunately the old ATI control panel is no longer offered...

TimeReaper,
The problems your are talking about are not uncommon with this MS-7220. The BIOS Clear Circuit physically has problems and that is not something they are going fix with a BIOS upgrade.
The BIOS Clear Circuit actually trashing the values stored in the CMOS by not doing a complete clearing of the CMOS is causing the problem. What leaves trash for parameters, for the BIOS to use when rebooting.
Let give you an example that fits your case. You can set the BIOS to turn the system on at any give time and date. So, if the trash in CMOS is in those parameters storage location. Therefore, whatever trash value gets stored in the locations, as a dated and time, will turn the computer on at that time. So, you could of had the computer come on in the meddle of the night two week later. Now, think of all the functions the BIOS have and how many weird things people are having and do not know why. There is one guy that is a regular on the Forum how has been fighting a problem I know is caused by trash in the BIOS CMOS, but Strick and I have ask him to do a good CMOS clearing and he just will not do it. I even wrote out in great deal the over night CMOS clear procedure I use. It is a pain in the ass, but some times, I have too use it. I just had to use it, upgraded V3.09 using short CMOS Clear and had no problem. Used the short procedure again when upgrading to V3.0A and everything when to hell, had to finally use the long overnight procedure and reinstall Windows to get computer to run right again.
NoBS, when your computer goes BOOO during the night just plain it o MSI.
Roger
When submitting a problem, include a complete list of your system components; include part numbers, all Power Supply Voltages, and their output ratings. It is almost impossible to estimate what your problem is without knowing something about it.

K8N Diamond Plus - ram issue

Ok, I just got this board and some bran new Corsair ram to go with it. The problem is the ram will not do 1/1 clocking. It will only do 5/6 and reads it as 333 ram, which it is not. I tried to change it in the bios manually but it will not go above 5/6 clocking. So at 222FSB I am only running the ram at 185MHz. Here is my system specs.
MSI K8N Diamond Plus - Athlon XP64 3200+
Corsair TwinX 2048-3500LLPRO (2x 1gig PC3500)
OCZ 600w PSU
Does anyone have any ideas how I might be able to accomplish running the ram at 1/1 speed? Is there some bios update that I'm not aware of (the live update says there isn't any)?
Thank you!

Quote from: K6dude on 20-January-06, 13:23:13
Hi,
I think you might need to use banks 1 and 2 to get the 128bit contoller working, otherwise you will be stuck with the 64 bit single channel mode.
Not sure what's up with the 4 banks full though for Latin.
A possible fix could be to reduce the HT multi?
I assume that you all know that Corsair default ram Voltage is 2.75v, and MSI is known for only giving 2.5 to 2.6v. Try manually setting 2.75 or even 2.8v and see if that helps.
K6dude
Thank you for the help... I just found the entry in the User's Guide on page 2-7. I followed the instructions of using banks 1 and 2, my computer would not boot. I used banks 3 and 4, like what was also shown on the table, my computer would not boot at all. As far as the voltage goes, I have it set at 3.0 volts so there's plenty of power.
On every configuration I have tried I am watching the LED lights on the ram and they are getting power on the bootup just fine, I hear my hard drives spin up, all fans spin up just fine, but monitors don't turn on. For some reason, it's just not reading the ram right. The only way it boots up is with the sticks in 1 and 3 slot. Any ideas?

K8N Diamond Plus: I LOVE THIS MB!!

I'm not a huge overclocker...but I soon will be. Sorry i just had to give major props to msi this time around..im spending way too much time with this thing and my gf is getting jealous

Quote from: nthexwn on 03-February-06, 11:44:39
Mine is being a major pain in the arse!
It refuses to recognize my Corsair XMS PC3200 memory as anything but DDR333. I've tried tinkering around with the BIOS several times but it either locks up (thank god for the CMOS reset switch) or doesn't change anything when I reset the frequency (by the way what the heck is with the numbers after the 133, 166, 200mhz, etc. options under the manual memory timings? The ones that say "us" after them. Is that microseconds?). I've even tried overclocking it through the BIOS with no luck and then I tried overclocking it in Windows with Ntune (which MSI seems to have butchered support for) and finally with Corecell which is being stupid and won't let me do any overclocking but the D.O.T options. I had the K8N Neo2 Platinum a while ago and I had control over the FSB with Corecell on that motherboard. When I try to adjust the memory frequency in the BIOS it just gives me ratio options. When I set it to 1/1 with a 200mhz FSB it STILL only runs at DDR333. I'm not even allowed to force the damn thing! Also, all of those smaller memory timings are nice to have, but I don't understand them all and it forces you to set some of them to settings other than auto if you want to, say, change the command timing from 2T to 1T (which I still haven't been able to do without a lockup). On top of that, the SPD is detecting different timings EVERY TIME I RESET CMOS. I seriously need a newbie mode where it just lets me adjust the 4 standard timings (my memory supports 2,2,2,5 at DDR400 in dual channel but this motherboard doesn't friggin' understand that!), frequency, voltage, and command timing, but instead I have to deal with all of these obscure timings that I've never heard of, and when I get them wrong I have to start all over again. The documentation is sparse at best and the amateur English that MSI speaks in all of their documentation is infuriating. I swear my purchasing decisions will be based on comprehension of the English language by the company that I'm purchasing from rather than actual product quality in the future.
I'm about to go nuclear... I'm going to do some browsing here as I assume that I'm not alone on this issue?
No signature yet so here are my system specs:
-MSI K8N Diamond Plus
-AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (Venice)
-1Gb (2x512) Corsair XMS PC3200 PRO (2,2,2,5)
-Raidmax 460W PSU (Only 14Amps on +12v, new power supply due for delivery on the 6th)
-MSI NX7800GT
-WD2500JS
-Don't think other components are related to issues
OMG buddy !! R U KIDDING ME....why the **** would u even get this board if you dont even know the first thing about overclocking....i suggest you educate yourself first then start asking questions...I think this board is too big for your britches...you should definitely stick with a nice and simple intel board especially if you dont even know how to put the ram into dual channel mode(do a search buddy its there!! the search button on the top of this page isnt just for looks!!!).....geeez how do you expect to do anything else..i'm just scared that you'll fry your board before you even get a chance to enjoy it...i have the same board and have no problems running 2 gigs pc 3200 (running dual channel), using ntune, manipulating the FSB or anything else...what the hell r u doing using core cell to overclock ...if your going to over clock dont pussy around fiddling with that thing...Do everything manually!! ...get cpuz get everest or something ...OMG ... PLEAASE for the sake of the board DO SOME RESEARCH
[Post edited by Tiresmoke] Knock off the double bold shouting and use of bad language. Also learn to spell and drop the crap AOL speak. I am watching and this is an official warning... This is a family freindly forum and this behavior will not be tolerated. I have looked at several of your posts and you have others with the same crap. Grow up or begone...

WANTED! - List of IRQs and Hardware for K8N Diamond Plus?

Hi there!
I'm trying to find out what hardware shares IRQs on the MSI K8N Diamond Plus motherboard.
I want to use an X-Fi card in the bottom (orange) PCI slot, and 2x 7800GTX cards in the PCI-Express x16 slots and would like to know if any of the devices will share IRQ's with onboard hardware.
You can list your IRQs by running msinfo32 - start, run, msinfo32 [enter], then click expand the following item in the tree System Summary -> Hardware Resources -> IRQs.
You can export the IRQ's in msinfo32, make sure the IRQ list is displayed, then click file/export, then save to a text file. Open the text file with notepad and copy and paste your results to your reply below.
I'm trying to find out whether an MSI K8N Diamond Plus will have less conflicts or less important conflicts than a ASUS A8N32-SLI.

There are 4 PCI IRQs called INTA#, INTB#, INTC# and INTD#.
These INTx# are interrupts and are level sensitive, this means that the electrical singnaling allows for them to be shared among all PCI cards. All single device/ function PCI cards that use only 1 interrupt must use INTA# as this is one of the rules in the PCI spec. If there are additional devices within a chip or on-board a card then these additional devices can use INTB#~INTD#, since there are very few multifubtion PCI boards (none that I know of right off my head) this means that most or all devices will use INTA#.
With that said; you do not really need to worry about hard wired INTA#~INTD# at board level.
If you are using Win XP I would not even worry about IRQs as Windows uses "Virtual IRQ routing" which simply means Windows XP will assing IRQ to each device and XP handles this extremly well.

K8N Diamond Plus boot problems

I just built a new computer and it was working fine for about a month. Then one morning when I started it up it wouldn't turn on. The front LED's turn on, and the fans all start, but nothing ever shows up on the screen. The set of four lights on the back show R R
G G
Nothing has changed since the pc was working fine. I haven't changed any bios settings or added any hardware or software. I did try resetting the bios using the CMOS jumper, but this didn't change anything. The lights on the back show that it is initializing ide drivers, but in the manual it also shows that it is one of the last steps in the start-up process, so i would think that the memory check, processor count, msi logo ect. should appear on the screen like it normally does. However, the LED that blinks when the hard drive is active never lights up, but when i open the case and feel the hard drive i can feel it vibrating like it is functioning properly. And if it is a hardrive failure, then shouldn't the bios still start up and show up on the monitor? I have heard that many weird problems can be attributed to the psu, but I have a 500w Antec Smartpower 2.0, which is a pretty reliable psu from what i've heard. Any help or suggestions would be welcome. Also, how would i test individual components to find out what is causing the problem? I think since everything is within a couple of months old i should be able to get replacements. Thanks in advance for any help.
System Spec:
MSI K8N Diamond Plus
AMD Athlon X2 3800+
Nvidia 7600 GT
Maxtor DiamondMax 300gb ultra16
2gb Corsair Twinx xms ddr400
500w Antec Smartpower 2.0
Thanks!!

Quote from: Mikeyp926 on 15-August-06, 12:58:47
You guys are awesome! Thanks a bunch for the info on ram, I feel like I understand it better and I looked and found all the stuff in the bios that you guys were talking about. I'm downloading speedfan currently and will go install it on my other computer. I tried swapping the sticks of memory, but i ran into the same problem i did before. So i'm assuming that i can safely say one stick is faulty right? And do any of you guys have any experience trying to get replacement memory from crucial? I'll have to go poke around their website also. Well, thank you all so much for all of your help. This is my first home built pc and i'm trying to learn alot about them. Once everything is running properly i may try a little overclocking, but i'd like to get everything running smoothly first. Just out of curiosity, what would make a stick of ram go bad like that? It was only a month old, and i thought crucial xms was pretty good ram. Is it not? or did i just get unlucky?
Thanks a ton for all the answers, this forum is the most helpful one i've ever seen. thanks!
Maybe that you're unlucky to get those faulty RAM. Crucial RAM is not bad if you get the better performance if you're ocing your PC if or else get the value RAM if you don't oced.
Quote from: Svenomous on 15-August-06, 12:55:00
Speedfan 4.29 works with the K8N Diamond Plus. I have it running now
Ok. Get it but not sure about MBM as it seems that it don't support it. :p

I need help DDR voltage and latencies (K8N Diamond Plus)

I noticed my DDR voltage was incorrect in the bios and I don't know what "Auto" is doing with my timings. I have 2GB of Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2 DDR400 Memory installed on DIMM1 and DIMM2 of my K8N Diamond Plus board.
So far I've made the following changes (as my RAM's specs indicate) in the BIOS but I'm new to this (first build).
DDR Voltage 2.75V
CAS 2.0
tRCD 3
tRP 3
tRAS 6
I left everything else at it's default setting. Are there any other changes I should make?

Quote from: memeticvirus on 14-May-06, 15:41:10
I'm having an issue with the 1.10 BIOS that is preventing me from manualy setting the timings...The problem I'm having right now is deciding what BIOS to install and where to download it. Perhaps you could help me with that?
With pleasure! I had the same problem with the v1.10 BIOS, as did another member here. I flashed BACK to the v1.0 BIOS (make sure to use the command line switched (just run the batch file)) and was able to set timings, and then I flashed directly to the 3.0A BIOS and was able to adjust timings still. See my old thread here.
For my success (I don't know if any or all of these influenced it, but I'm just happy it works) in flashing I did the following:
Download the 1.0 (original) and 3.0A (latest "official") BIOS images from MSI's support site.
Downloaded the DrDos BIOS flash bootable ISO CD image from bootdisk.com
Used my ISO software to add the BIOS image files onto the ISO image.
Burned the ISO to CD.
Booted from the CD
Flashed to 1.0
Cut Power (flipped PSU switch in back), held down the CMOS reset switch button on the mobo and the power button for 45 seconds.
Powered up, set "Optimized Defaults" and set memory voltage to 2.75v and rebooted.
Set all "normal" BIOS parameters (boot devices, et al).
Windows (x64) loaded with no issues, Everest reported timings appropriately
Did the same procedure for the 3.0A BIOS, with similar success.
You can see my post or click on the link in my sig for detailed memory reports.
Quote from: RogerP on 15-May-06, 03:04:55
Are you running just one set of TWINX2048-3200C2's?
Just one pair. I fiddled with the CR and the only result was with the single known good DIMM my latency got slightly slower (like a 5ns drop), but still no love with 2 DIMMS. I think it is just dead. But this is not my story (at least not in this thread)...this is memticvirus's story.

MSI K8N Diamond Plus - Guide to my first week

OK, not a newb here, but been around the block quite a bit. MSI K8N Diamond Plus is my 5th A64 mobo (ECS K8M800, my daily undestroyed computer, K8T800, my 12 year olds gamer, Asus A8V Deluxe, first 939 system, Abit AN8 SLI, first SLI gamer, and now the MSI Diamond Plus). Had the KDP (K8N Diamond Plus) for more than a week now, and here's what I've learned.
This is state of the art again, and we have no one to blame but ourselves for the pain this causes us when we upgrade like lunatics
And as usual, the drivers and BIOS are al Dente (i.e. not cooked enought yet, a little raw)
MSI is also oddly silent on this system, which is wierd, as they are a large company, and specifically cater to enthusiasts. But their BIOS guys are MIA. Hopefully this will not be forever. Asus, ABIT, DFI, Epox are always fast with fixes
The board is a nice design, with everything basically accessible, as much as any other board. Lots of purposeful components, not too many dumb frills. No tooty fruity colors, but rather practical parts.
The new 2 piece NForce chipset is fine, and the MSI guys gave us a decent, but funky cooler. It gets a little warm to the touch when you pound on it with Prime95, or Quake4, but other than that it is fine
The manual has a zillion typos, and fortunately for us in this forum, we have shared what we've learned. The translation from Chinese to English leaves quite a bit to be desired, and hopefully, MSI will learn from Asus and Abit and get a better translation service. In 2006 this is just plain stupid, especially with a $225 board
As usual, the mobo supplied tweaker utilities are just aweful. They look like a hallucination from a Hunter S Thompson book, and they work about as well. Core center is a sad state of affairs, and the rest of them just burrow their way into your otherwise stable system and cause it to have poor behavior. And therefore as usual, the BIOS is the best way, if slowest, to tweak this bundle of parts
Which brings us to the BIOS. IMHO, the worst one I've seen on a high end board. ZERO explanation for half the settings (this is not strange in and of itself, BIOS is still a black art, but in a tweakers board, we should have some basic explanation )
There seem to be adequate settings in the BIOS for all sorts of doodads and gizmos, but who the heck knows what half of them are. Roger points out rightfully, that we now need to "Tune" across all these different intermediary bus structures and test. But with the lack of info from either NVidia, MSI or anyone else for that matter, its kinda hard to know where to start.
The board is clearly sensitive, which is a result of it being high strung. This is no different than any "first out" product I've ever bought. Most take 2 or 3 turns of the crank to get totally stable and forgiving. This one hated my OCZ platinum EL 2Gb kit memory, and it brought out the worst in one of the SLI based EVGA 7800 GT COs. These components worked in the Abit AN8 SLI (although not always great), but the MSI has ZERO tolerance for even the slightest pertubation from the memory. It was BSOD city until I removed both of these components by process of elimination that took probably 100 hours
Once I removed the bad components, and replaced the memory with Geil Ultra X 2x512 2-2-2-5, it worked great, ran Prime95 for 10 hours with no errors, and seems reasonably stable. I've RMA-d the bad 7800GT CO back to EVGA, and will report back on how SLI behaves when I get the new one (cross shipped of course, I haveno patience )
I also now need to replace the 2Gb RAM kit with something that the board will tolerate. I may RMA the 2Gb kit back to OCZ and try another one, but I dunno. I love OCZ but I have a bad feeling about this, even though they have great!!! support. I may try OCZ PC4000 or the RAM that Roger successfully used.
I did upgrade to the 1.16 BIOS, and found that some new things were added, as well as voltage control in Cell was a little better, but registration of changes in voltage is still a disaster. I adjusted a bunch of times, it didn't register, and I ended up smoking a new A64 3700+ Diego with 1.95 volts, even though the BIOS claimed it was 1.53. I had to rebot to see what was going on. The Thermalright XP-90 kept the proc from melting down through the earth
Finally, I hope this board attracts more people, and therefore more tweakers that can figure out all these gadgets and settings. Everyone flocked to the Asus X16 SLI product, which is too bad, as this one needs lots o' folks to hack it up for us to figure out what is going on.
The on board Creative audio sounds lousy to my ears, and I will replace it with an Audigy 2ZS gamer that I had in the Abit. It just sounds better, but hopefully the drivers will not trash my newly stable system. Creative scares me, they scare me alot.
I've been able to get the CPU up to 2.4Ghz, with a .5 volt bump to the CPU and 2.9 volts into the Geil memory. So far, so stable, no smoke coming out yet
I hope this info is somewhat valuable to someone on this board. I will post details of all changes that I make, as others are doing, so we can at least take care of ourselves with this thing.

Quote from: nanohead on 15-February-06, 01:17:10
Which brings us to the BIOS. IMHO, the worst one I've seen on a high end board. ZERO explanation for half the settings (this is not strange in and of itself, BIOS is still a black art, but in a tweakers board, we should have some basic explanation )
There seem to be adequate settings in the BIOS for all sorts of doodads and gizmos, but who the heck knows what half of them are. Roger points out rightfully, that we now need to "Tune" across all these different intermediary bus structures and test. But with the lack of info from either NVidia, MSI or anyone else for that matter, its kinda hard to know where to start.
first of all, i do think that all the settings in the BIOS have an explanation in the manual, even if it's a basic one. if that explanation doesn't tell you everything in detail, is because if you do need a detailed explanation of the settings, you probably shouldn't be messing around with those settings.
Quote from: nanohead on 15-February-06, 01:17:10
I did upgrade to the 1.16 BIOS, and found that some new things were added, as well as voltage control in Cell was a little better, but registration of changes in voltage is still a disaster. I adjusted a bunch of times, it didn't register, and I ended up smoking a new A64 3700+ Diego with 1.95 volts, even though the BIOS claimed it was 1.53. I had to rebot to see what was going on. The Thermalright XP-90 kept the proc from melting down through the earth.
wanna tell me how did you get 1.95V on that mobo?
Quote from: nanohead on 15-February-06, 01:17:10
I've been able to get the CPU up to 2.4Ghz, with a .5 volt bump to the CPU and 2.9 volts into the Geil memory. So far, so stable, no smoke coming out yet
a 0.5V bump? again, you must be joking. maybe 0.05V.

K8N Diamond Plus

Beta BIOS for K8N Diamond Plus (MS-7220, PCB 1.0)
BIOS Sign-on message: MSI Project A7220NMS V1.34 04/23/07 (Date: 04/23/2007)
Attachment name: A7220NMSv134.zip
Make and ensure PC is stable before proceed. Remove any OC temporary if you have.
Use Beta or Modded BIOSes at own risk!
flash BIOS from USB key, by using our Tool(easy & safe way to flash):
MSI Forum HQ USB Flashing Tool

Hello,
I just installed the bios 1.34 on my K8N Diamond Plus MB. Everything went ok with the flash USB utility program.
Has anyone had trouble Disabling PCI ... and/or SATA ... Speed spectrum?
Everytime I try to disable them the computer freezes and restarts.
I did unplug the power cable and cleared the cmos by pressing the clear cmos button on board and all that good stuff.
Granted it's a beta Bios but just wanted to know if anyone else having that problem.
Sorry for bring this old topic back up. Didn't know if I should start another topic or posted in here. So please be kind
Bluephoenix

Is this good ram for a K8N Diamond Plus?

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