K8N diamond - memory upgrade advice?

Hi all,
I would like to ask local experts for quick advise on memory upgrade. Originally I though that this is easy task but via reading some of discussions here it doesn't seems so easy anymore....
What I have:
Board: K8N Diamond
BIOS version: 1.A0
CPU Type: Athlon 3700+ San Diego
Memory: 2x KVR400X64C25/512 Kingston (DDR400 512Mb CL2.5)
Operating System: XP (32)
What help do i need:
I would like to upgrade now memory either to 2 (or 3 Gb) At the same moment I would like to keep dual channel setup on 400Mhz. Which of folowing options you recommend ?
1. adding 2x KVR400X64C25/512
2. adding 2x ddr 400 CL 2.5 1gb module (e.g. KHX3200/1G)
(3. adding 2x 1gb and taking out 512MB but my strongly preferred option is not to sell current 512mg modules and replace them with 1gb .. loosing money on it...)
a) are these options possible/feasible at all? will both work as dual channel?
b) will system exploit dual channel on 400Mhz frequency in all options? My understanding from some discussions is that with all 4 banks full frequency goes down to 333 -> 1) can I boost it with my CPU/board to 400MHz (sustainably?) 2) if not can someone tell me +- what is performance difference 400Mhz vs 333Mhz?
I hope question is clear....
Thanks upfront, I know that this is discussed topic here but as IT amateur I would preffer to get answer customized to my computer:)
Paul

Hello, option 3 for me 2 gigs is more than enough but for the most demanding programs, and your going to spend money anyway you do it.
yes you can force 4 banks to ddr400 but at 2t command rate,window 32bit will only see and use 3gig or so
anytime you upgrade you loose money sell the 2x512 and recover some money, and if you OC two sticks will go much further than four
Good luck Henry9

Similar Messages

K8N Diamond Memory Problem

Hi Everbody,
I have a computer with these configurations;
but I have a problem. I'm installed four 1Gb DDR 400 Kingston (KHX3200K2/2G). But my computer show 3.4 Gb memory on the bios and 3328 Mb on the windows. What is problem? Where is it problem? Can you help me?. Thanks....
Computer:
Computer Type ACPI x64 Computer
Operating System Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
OS Service Pack Service Pack 1
Internet Explorer 7.0.6001.18000
DirectX DirectX 10.0
Computer Name TUGAY-PC
User Name Tugay
Logon Domain Tugay-PC
Date / Time 2008-10-13 / 23:31
Motherboard:
CPU Type DualCore AMD Opteron 170, 2000 MHz (10 x 200)
Motherboard Name MSI K8N Diamond (MS-7100) (3 PCI, 2 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, Dual Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)
Motherboard Chipset nVIDIA nForce4 SLI, AMD Hammer
System Memory 3328 MB (PC3200 DDR SDRAM)
DIMM1: Kingston K 1 GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (3.0-3-3-8 @ 200 MHz) (2.5-3-3-7 @ 166 MHz) (2.0-2-2-6 @ 133 MHz)
DIMM2: Kingston K 1 GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (3.0-3-3-8 @ 200 MHz) (2.5-3-3-7 @ 166 MHz) (2.0-2-2-6 @ 133 MHz)
DIMM3: Kingston K 1 GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (3.0-3-3-8 @ 200 MHz) (2.5-3-3-7 @ 166 MHz) (2.0-2-2-6 @ 133 MHz)
DIMM4: Kingston K 1 GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (3.0-3-3-8 @ 200 MHz) (2.5-3-3-7 @ 166 MHz) (2.0-2-2-6 @ 133 MHz) BIOS Type Award (02/28/07)
Display:
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS (256 MB)
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS (256 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS
Monitor Samsung SyncMaster 199BW/940BW/MagicSyncMaster CX915BW (Analog) [19" LCD] (HVEL957143)
Monitor Samsung SyncMaster 199BW/940BW/MagicSyncMaster CX915BW (Digital) [19" LCD] (HVEL957143)
Multimedia:
Audio Adapter Creative SB Live! 24-bit (CA0106) Integrated Audio Processor on MSI motherboard

Look for "S/W memory hole Remapping" in BIOS and Enable it in "DRAM Configuration" in "Cell Menu"

K8n Diamond Memory Help!!

Greetings,
I have a question and i hope i can get a awnser. I have a k8n Diamond motherboard I currently have 2 1gb pc3200 Nspire Ram installed. I just recently bought 2 more 1gb Pc3200 Nspire Ram chips and i installed them into the PC. Problem is i for one see it start runnin at 333mhz which apparently its suppose to do and it only posts 3GB worth of the ram (which i read in the manual happens due to Southbridge resource deployment).
My question is how do i get all 4 gigs to post and is there a way to get it it run at 400 mhz instead of 333mhz?
I have AMD 4200+ X2

Ok so i tried what you said and It didnt work. Im sure its all me but the options you gave just didnt really exist in my Bios. So here goes I have a Adjust DDR Memory Frequency which is inside Cell Menu. Currently i had it set to AUTO I tried manual and it seems it only runs correctly if i set it to Dram/FSB=1/1. However i cant boot windows when i try this. Now I couldnt Find anything that said MEMORY INDEX however there was a section called MCT timing Mode which i set to manual and a Row to Row Delay which i set to 2T. And i found a REFRESH RATE which i set to 200mhz 15.6us there were other 200mhz options but that was the only thing i could find that had anything to do with MHZ. also I found a USER CONFIG MODE which i set to manual and then Changed the CMD-ADPR Timing mode to 2t. There are many many many other Options And i feel that i should be setting more. I messed with it now for around a hour Trying different Things and i cannot For the life of me Get it to Recognize 4 Gigs at ALL. However i have gotten it to recognize 3 Gigs at 333mhz Single Channel. Please Tell me what im doing wrong be a little more specific if you could, i really appreciate your help on this.

K8N Diamond & VGA Upgrade Question

My video card took a dump on me this weekend. I cannot afford much at all and I need help from you guys.
I have been 100% MSI only boards ever since I started building pc's. I have never owned an Intel Chip and don’t plan to start any changes any time soon here...
When my ATI 9800 PRO with 256 died I started researching a replacement. AGP cards are still big $$$$
I was looking at an nVidia 7800GS as a replacement for around $300 but then noticed that the nVidia 6600GT was a step up above my 9800 and it was PCIe.
I currently run an K7N Delta L mobo with an AMD XP 1.8Ghz CPU and the board has NO PCIe slot.
Would I be better off buying an K8N/CPU combo here:
http://www.partspc.com/ProductDetails.asp?CatID=71&ProdID=17501
For $325
and the nVIDA 66GT PCIe card for $100 ??
The thing old me back would be how much crap I can take off my old PC would work on this new board.
A.) Would my 2 1gig sticks of DDR 400Mhz Ram work from my K7N Delta board on the K8N board?
B.) would my Enermax 350W PSU be enough juice for this board and Video card?
Replacing the board and cpu and video card is $125 out of my budget, but I am wondering if perhaps it is worth it now,... allowing me to "upgrade" to better CPU and video card down the road when I have extra money.
AMD 64 is 64bit right? So would it be best to run windows xp 64bit version or stay with a windows XP pro.
I just need advice if any of you have time. Thanks.

I've only built one system so far, but if there's an item that you shouldn't go cheap on, it's the PSU. I built my system last fall, so I have no idea how PSU's have changed, but I read up on tomshardware.com and anandtech.com, which had some good articles on PSUs. I would go for a good 24 pin ATX v 2.0 with at least two SATA connectors. I went with a Fortron Blue Storm 500W. It's not the absolute best, but the specs are good, the price was $89.00 on newegg.com and it did well in the tomshardware torture test.
No advice on the video card, since those change regularly. I went with an ATI brand Radeon X800XL, which at the time, had a good price/performance ratio and 16 pipelines. It was $260 after a rebate at compusa at the time and is much cheaper now. Right after that the 7900 line came out from nVidia and all bets were off. I like ATI brand for ATI cards because when my 9800 with an R350 core failed after I installed an Arctic Silencer, ATI sent me a new card with an R360 core no questions asked even after I told them I pulled the chipset fan off. Based on that experience, much as I do with HP for printers, I'd probably stick with an ATI card even where there are great nVidia based cards. I'd rather deal with a company across the border than in the Far East. I waited for a Crossfire based board to come out and given the fact that the video cards don't have to match, I would have opted for an MSI version of that over SLI. I never though SLI made much sense unless you were prepared to buy two cards at the same time. I would follow the advice of the other people on which video card to buy. Read up a bit and you'll make the best choice for you and your budget.
FYI--Scalable Link Interface or SLI, allows two identical nVidia based cards to share the task of generating the video image. Initially at 8X when in SLI, nVidia upped the ante to 16X on both when in that mode. Crossfire is the equivalent for ATI-based cards but doesn't require two identical video cards. When I built my system, I agonized about whether to get SLI, but since I had no intention of buying two video cards at the same time and Crossfire wasn't available, I went with one card. I looked at specs at two 6800GTs in SLI aren't going to outperform a 7900GTX. Two 7900GTX's--well, that's a different matter, a different PSU and a different budget, entirely.

K8n diamond plus quick advice

All I need to know is why in the bios, how do I lower the LDT to 4x, and why when I modify the CPU multiplyer to x10 in the BIOS it results x11 in Windows???????????

It would be great if MSI would release settings and setup types for the Motherboard.
And a list of what each one did and the outcome of using or changing a setting. Most we know,
but a few are new and we do not know how they where intended for use or setting.
Almost all of the Board books I have now come with a detailed setting list and what they do
and what you can gain or lose by changing a setting.
Heck it could be a text file we could download from here if they did not want all to have the file.
But it would make it nice for us and save lots of time.
Also does MSI ever answer support emails?

K8N Diamond and NO POST

I have a big problem with my new K8N Diamond, it will not go to POST. No beeps no nothing.
First the configuration:
MSI K8N Diamond
2x512 mb Corsair PC3200 TwinX XL PRO
2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160 GB NCQ 7200rpm SATA
AMD Athlon FX-55 socket 939
1x MSI Geforce 7800GTX 256 Mb SLI VIVO PCI-E
NEC Duallayer 16x DVD R/RW
Tagan TG580-U22 580w PSU, see link Electric Specification
Electric Specification
Max. total power 580W
AC input 100~240VAC; 60/50Hz, 10/6A
DC output +3.3V +5V +12V1 +12V2 -5V -12V -5VSB
Max. output 26A 30A 20A 20A 0.8A 1.0A 2.5A
combined current 32A
Max. combined 180W 420W 4W 12W 12.5W
I have tried the following:
- Removed all power consumption like fans and IDE units with only CPU and PCI-E connected
- Removed the MB from the chassi and put it on cardboard with only CPU and PCI-E card on power
- Removed one memory stick
- Tried with second memory stick in different position
Nothing happens. The fans are spinning on the CPU but no POST. I though it was lack of power so I bought
the Tagan PSU which was the biggest I could find, but it did not help.
Is there problems with the BIOS and FX-55 that I should know about? Or is it the MB that could be dead?
Hope someone could help me. I did not miss the 4-pin connector for power the CPU.
Many thanks in advance.
Stefan
Sweden

Hello,
I also had a K8N Diamond board with the same problems you are listing here.
In the end, I had to get it exchanged by another one. The one I got then
was the K8N SLI Platinum (also MS-7100 Ver. 1.0)
It has most of the features included on the K8N Diamond, except the following:
Sillicon Image SiL Serial ATA Controller Chip and SATA ports 5 and 6 : Gone.
Marvell Yukon LAN Controller Chip and Second RJ-45 Ethernet port : Gone.
Voltage Regulartor Active MOS Fan : Gone.
IEEE 1394 Firewire Bracket : Gone.
K8N "Diamond" Full Screen Logo : Replaced by K8N SLI "Platinum" Full Screen Logo.
About all other features included in the K8N Diamond mainboard (MS-7100, Ver. 1.0)
Active MOS Fan Connector : Still there and functional. You can plug a compatible fan there, to cool down the Voltage Regulator, if you want.
Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24 Bit : Yes, and complete with all audio ports, including Optical and Coaxial plugs for 7.1 Ch audio.
Back I/O IEEE 1394 FireWire Port : Yes
On Board IEEE 1394 FireWire Connectors : Yes
D-Bracket 2 : Included in the box.
10 USB 2.0 Ports : Yes. 4 on back I/O, 2 on D-Bracket 2, 2 for Case USB 2.0 Ports, 2 for internal use or additional back USB 2.0 bracket.
which can be an MSI USB 2.0 Bracket, a Modified MSI D-Bracket 2, or a USB 2.0 bracket, from Belkin or any other
brand, or a generic USB 2.0 Certified bracket.
Everything else is on this board, is exactly the same as with the MSI K8N Diamond. My advice for you is to get your MSI K8N Diamond exchanged by an MSI K8N SLI Platinum. Beleive me, this board doesn't have the problems most K8N Diamond users are having, and for me who once had the K8N Diamond mainboard, it is the best alternative comming from MSI. It's the same model, but without the extras I mentioned above.
I highly recomend this one

K8N Diamond Plus + Vista upgrade issues + Memory

When I go to install Vista Business , I receive an error before the install saying that my motherboard is Non-ACPI compliant. I went into the bios and and made sure that all ACPI settings were turned on. Also I installed 2 more gigs about a month ago and only see 3 gigs on post instead of the 4 that is installed. I tried to update my BIOS using the MSI utility but received a memory error saying it can detect the correct amount. I ran MEMtest and it passed .Here are my system specs:
K8n Diamond Plus - Bios ver 1.0
AMD Ath 64 x2 4800 toledo
4 gigs of Corsair XMS DDR433 3500LLPRO
2 x EVGA 7950 GT KO Superclocked 512mb
WD Raptor 74 ( OS)
WD SE16 320 gb (storage)
Plextor 18x
PC Power and Cooling Turbo Cool 510 SLI
XP SP2

Quote from: iampiglet on 02-February-07, 23:18:28
When I go to install Vista Business , I receive an error before the install saying that my motherboard is Non-ACPI compliant. I went into the bios and and made sure that all ACPI settings were turned on. Also I installed 2 more gigs about a month ago and only see 3 gigs on post instead of the 4 that is installed. I tried to update my BIOS using the MSI utility but received a memory error saying it can detect the correct amount. I ran MEMtest and it passed .Here are my system specs:
K8n Diamond Plus - Bios ver 1.0
AMD Ath 64 x2 4800 toledo
4 gigs of Corsair XMS DDR433 3500LLPRO
2 x EVGA 7950 GT KO Superclocked 512mb
WD Raptor 74 ( OS)
WD SE16 320 gb (storage)
Plextor 18x
PC Power and Cooling Turbo Cool 510 SLI
XP SP2
I have the same motherboard with 4GB Ram. I had to enable the memory hole in the memory configuration of the bios for it to see the full 4GB. However, Windows 32-bit will not show the full 4GB ram since 32-bit addressing limit is 4GB and all your peripherals have to be included like vid card memory, etc. So don't beat your head against your desk once you get your bios seeing the 4GB and Windows 32-bit doesn't. My Vista gives 2.8GB ram of my 4GB, some get more, but I know I have two video cards with 768MB ram also. I'm using 1.2 bios.
Incidently, I ordered an OEM Vista X64, it will be interesting to see if it sees all my memory since 64-bit can go up to enormous addressing ranges.
Good Luck

4 year old MSI K8N Diamond Plus [MS-7220], best upgrade CPU

I built this system about 3 1/2 years ago. It has AMD 64 4000 San Diego. It still runs respectable, especially with new Radion 4850. My question is, what is the fastest CPU I can upgrade to, and is it worth while? Is the dual core a better choice than the single. Thanks for any advice.
MSI K8N Diamond Plus [MS-7220] AMD 64 4000 San Diego
2 GB DDR 400, Radeon 4850 1 GB
WD 320 GB SATA, Lite on 24x DVD

Quote from: Henry on 11-March-10, 12:41:52
It is to laugh Ha, Ha, I just sold an X2 4200+ on eBay Friday and it fetched $56 USD. That's only $20 less than I paid for it 2 or 3 years ago.
I've got an opteron 185 that I'll trade for a Big Bang Fuzion...

K8N DIamond Plus- 4 sticks of memory problem

I have a new Opteron 180 with a K8N Diamond plus mb. I am thinking about getting another 2g of memory to run with my current 2g of 3200 memory to speed up Vista even more. I thought the new chips could run 4 sticks of memory at 400 with a command rate of 2t. I wanted to try to see if it would work so I pulled two 512 pc3200 sticks from my wifes computer and installed it. At boot up it clocked the memory to 333 (which I expected it to actually) and I got into the bios and set it to 400 with 2t command rate and everything else at default settings. All the memory is Kingston value ram. The computer randomly booted and I had lockups at 400, but at 333 it ran fine, but I still couldn't run the memory at 1t with 333. I am using bios 1.33 as the other bios's always set the HT bus wrong for me. Is this just a function of the motherboard or is the memory not compatable with each other? I thought the motherboard is irrevelant since the memory controller is on the cpu?
Thanks for your help,
Scott

The memorycontroller IS inside the CPU.
And some are lucky to get it stable booting at DDR400 with 4 sticks, some get crashes.
However, most have drop-backs to DDR333.
It's a CPU limitation when using unbuffered memory.
Buffered memory should be able to do it, however, I'm not quite sure as this is an S939 type CPU.
You could try something if you know somebody that has buffered memory.
Sometimes it helps if you lower the other timings.

MSI-K8N Diamond Plus - which memory?

Hello,
I will soon buy the K8N Diamond PLus motherboard. For that motherboard, I have selected the following memory: Corsair 512 Mo DDR-SDRAM PC3200 CMX Cas-2. But I can not find if this is ok for this type of motherboard. Does someone knows something about that? ???
Thx in advance!

Marlysa,
I would suggest that you stay away from the corsair xms ram as i figured the sme thing when I built my system, that it,s Corsair and its the #1 selected ram and usualy the most compatible, But this is not the case with this motherboard it's very picky about hardware pretty much the same as DFI board's!!!
Of course the CORSAIR WEBSITE will tell you this they want youre money!!!!!! Their certainly not going to reccomend OCZ MEMMORY that's for sure!!!!!
Please reconsider youre decision as I myself have traveled down that road you about to take. Personaly I love Corsair ram and i certainly wont bash it, but get the OCZ5002048ELGEGXT-K it cost me $213.00 wth tax for 2 gigs instead of $160.00 with tax for the corasir xms 2- 512 sticks Believe me you will be thankful that you took my suggestion!!!!! with the new 1.20 BIOS at optimized default's it posts and configures itself automatically where as befor you would usealy have to configure it manually in bios to get it to post at 500mhz believe me this OCZ MEMORY ROCKS!!!!
Save youreself alot of this.... BUY IT!!!!!!
Brother Esau
P.S just check around the forum their's alot of peop[le that have issues with the DIAMOND PUS AND CORSAIR RAM.

MSI K8N Diamond (MS-7100) O/C Advices...

Hi,
I want some overclock advices about MSI K8N Diamond (MS-7100).
First my full configuration:
AMD Opteron 165 CPU (Default 1800 MHz.)
MSI K8N Diamond (MS-7100) MOBO
Sycthe Ninja 1000P CPU COOLER
1 GB. (2x512 MB.) Mushkin (991093) DDR400 RAM (Default 3-3-3-8 2T)
AOpen H600 B-28 CASE
Tagan EasyCon 530W PSU
160 GB. Samsung SATA2 NCQ (HD160JJ) HDD
Sapphire X1800XT@PE 512 MB+AC Accelero X2 VGA
Creative Audigy DE@Audigy2 ZS SOUND CARD
Creative Inspire 5200 SPEAKER
Philips 107P5 SCREEN
Now; I O/C'ed my system to 260 FSB, HTT:4x.
CPU is running at 2340 MHz. Memories are running at DDR433 2.5-3-3-5 1T
All voltages are default. Temperatures are: IDLE:38 LOAD:51 with Sycthe Ninja 1000P.
How can I O/C my system further? I need all advices about this mobo and cpu.
With which settings may I run my CPU at 2700 MHz.
Best regards.
Hicksetto

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=93129.0
Yep the thread is long winded and a bit bizar in places if you were not in on the original conversation.
However it does give a load of info to work with if you have a Diamond board. We discuss parts, Overclocking and various other topics of interest.
Some say we should publish that thread to put some poor slobs in colledge to sleep.
Enjoy.

Upgrade Advice on an P7N Diamond

Hey guys, I need some upgrade advice for the system in my specs.
With the new generations of video cards, Dx11 is going to become ever more common in games. Within the next year I either need to upgrade my current system, or build a new one within the next 2 years.
If I were going to upgrade my current system, I would raid0 my 3 250gb WD's, buy a 2tb internal storage drive, and purchase a NVidia GTX580 or ATI Radeon 6870.
My questions are these:
Does anyone see any problems raid0'ing 1 WD2500AAKS with 2 WD2500YS to decrease my boot times and load times.
If there are no problems raid0'ing those drives, would the raid function built into my MB be able to handle those speeds without a bottleneck?
Would my CPU as it is currently OC'ed be able to run a top of the line, next gen video cards without bottlenecking? That would be the major decision point in upgrading or building a new system.
Will the proposed upgraded set-up be able to continued to run games in High and Max settings at 1680x1050 resolution without bottlenecking due to lack of CPU power and/or cores?
What I do not want to do is buy a QX/Q9650 or equivalent because by the time I bought a new processor I might as well have just saved for a new system.
Lastly, does anyone have any other suggestions?
Thx Guys!

Too early to ask questions which can only be known 2 years later. Your current setup is already very powerful and there's no need to go with the trend to get the latest stuffs.
When time comes for you to upgrade, all hardware will naturally be made compatible with each other.

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.

CPU Usage 100%? K8N Diamond Plus

Never before have I witnessed the CPU being used at it's absolute maximum. It has been occuring regularily with my system. I noticed it first when my screen saver started getting jittery. This seems to occur most often about 1-2 minutes after windows finishes loading. It seems kind of odd to me that this occurs during typically idle system times. The memory usage also dramatically rises during these spikes, using ctrl+alt+delete I noticed svchost.exe to be the culprit of the memory usage atleast. The hard drive doesn't appear to be active when these events occur. Is this normal for this motherboard, or is this something that should be corrected?
I've always had 3 short beeps upon startup with this board, but it has never stalled the boot process. Anyone know what this means?
I've upgraded my board somewhat recently and carried over the CPU and memory from a older MSI model that used the same type. Could it be possible either or both are incompatible?
Also one, somewhat less important problem. First off I must say that the PS/2 power on feature is pretty cool. I used it with a wireless keyboard so I could turn on my PC from my living room HDTV (I have my comp wired through Y/Pr/Pb cables). Only problem is about one in every 4 or so shutdowns the system restarts immediatly when this feature is selected in the bios. Bios issue maybe?
System Info (and everything directly connected to it):
(pretty sure not all of this is relevant, but I figure it couldn't hurt)
MoBo: MSI K8N Diamond Plus
Memory: 1Gb (2x512 kit) Crucial PC3200 CT6464Z40B.C8TD (in slots 1 & 2)
Processor: Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester
GPU (only one): MSI NX7900GT-VT2D256E-HD (primary PCI-e)
Modem: SupraMax LE 56K Fax Modem (PCI)
HDD: WD Caviar 120Gb IDE (primary)
HDD: Maxtor 80Gb USB (external, non system)
3.5: Standard 3.5" floppy drive (a:)
5.25: Lite-on 48x CD burner (secondary slave)
5.25: Sony DVD rom (secondary master)
PS: Antec SmartPower 2.0 500W
Human Interface: Wired Logitech KB & Mouse through USB (for primary use)
Human Interface: Wireless Logitech KB & Mouse through PS/2 (for remote use, often turned off)
Primary Monitor: Viewsonic P70f 17" CRT hooked to DVI #1 via RGB adapter
Secondary Monitor: Sony KDL-V32XBR1 32" HDTV through 1080i Y/Pr/Pb adapter, stereo audio
Speakers: harman/kardon
Connected to internet via Cat5 network, phone modem sometimes used when primary internet is down
OS: Windows XP Pro w/ SP 2 installed
Thank's in advance to anyone that can help me as I'm pretty much stumped at this point.

Quote from: mdawgmike on 11-November-06, 11:25:18
Any other suggestions?
how about this:
Quote from: BOSSKILLER on 03-November-06, 23:14:30
get Process Explorer to determinate in details what make this CPU usage: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html
it has more detailed information than the built-in task manager.

Diamond memory problem

Hi All
First post, and it's a problem. I have had (and still use) 3 MSI boards and have until now found them to be totally reliable. However I now have a problem, that mat or may not be related to the mii heat wave we are experiencing here in the North West of England. Basically I am in the process of oc'ing my system but I was getting a few blue screens so I thought I would add a few volts to my memory. I uppped it to 1.4 and the system died, so I cleared the bios and rebooted.....nothing. After mush tooing and fro'ing I surmised that the system would boot (intermittently) in single channel at 2T at 333MHZ (see specs) about half an hour ago it died again and will no longer boot. So if anyone has had any similar problems, any advice will be greatly appreciated. System Specs below
MSi K8n Diamond
AMD FX60 (overclocked to 3.2)
2 (2x1) Gb Corsair XMS
2x 7800 GTX (SLi) No OC
Creative XFi Platinum
Vapochill XEII case (Phase Change Cooling)
Various hard disks Maxtor & Samsung
HP DvD 840I
Thanks in advance

Hi Hans
Sorry for posting in worng section
Psu is Seasonic S12 600
85% efficiency on the 12V rail comes very highly rated.
System worked fine for a while with the odd blue screen, i resolved this down to my oc on the 7800's (up to 490/510 core and 1.31 on the memory) they are currently rinning at stock on a water cooled rig (mc50 pump (same as swiftech kit) 2 maze 4 gpus and a pa120.1 rad pumping out the back of the compressor compartment)
All other specs are normal other than the oc on the cpu.

K8N diamond - memory upgrade advice?

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