• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

MSI P55-GD80 setup questions

D

Davermonk

n00b
Joined
Jan 2, 2006
Messages
27
This board is supposed to be at my doorstep tomorrow (along with some other goodies to go with it :D). I have 2 questions that I hope someone can help me with.

#1: What's the difference between the two types of SATA ports on this board (6 black & 2 blue)? I realize they use different controllers but I don't understand exactly how/if that will affect me. I currently have 6 sata devices that I'll be using (1 SSD, 2 DVD-R and 3 non-raid HDD). Is there any reason I should use the blue port(s) for either my system (SSD) drive or the two DVD drives? If I use all 6 black ports now, and I want to install another HDD or SSD later, will I need to do anything in BIOS to enable the blue port(s)?

#2: If I use the OC Genie button on the board, do I need to manually change anything with RAM voltages in BIOS or will that be taken care of automatically? I'll be using four sticks of 2gb if that matters.
 
The blue SATA ports are JMicron controller based for eSATA that you would connect to a backplate or connector on your case.

Personally I wouldn't mess with all the OC tools and tricks for an i5, they are unecessary as easy as those things are to oc. Just read around, you'll find plenty of reviews for this board that talk about overclocking. Really all you probably have to do to get a great overclock is bump up the base clock (BCLK) and up the CPU voltage.
 
Check out what version of BIOS you get when it shows up. It should be at least 1.4, if not newer. Personally I'd flash it to 1.6 which finally got posted on MSI's website a day or two ago (despite it being labeled 10/30). My impressions were that 1.4 is ok if you're going to be stock (and so might not really matter to you), but 1.5+ made it better.
 
Good to know bitgod! Thanks for that!!

From what I can find, there are 2 ways to update the BIOS on this board... M-Flash via USB drive and Live Update. Can anyone recommend one method over the other? I've never used an MSI product before, but I remember some "live update" type BIOS features for other boards that were pretty bad.

And to heatlesssun, I did a little research (which I should have done before I posted here I guess) and I'm seeing that people are getting this chip up to 3.6 without increasing the voltage? And up to 4.0 with only one step up? That's pretty sweet! It looks like it would be more stable if I do it myself instead of pushing the button lol.
 
Davermonk said:
Good to know bitgod! Thanks for that!!

From what I can find, there are 2 ways to update the BIOS on this board... M-Flash via USB drive and Live Update. Can anyone recommend one method over the other? I've never used an MSI product before, but I remember some "live update" type BIOS features for other boards that were pretty bad.

And to heatlesssun, I did a little research (which I should have done before I posted here I guess) and I'm seeing that people are getting this chip up to 3.6 without increasing the voltage? And up to 4.0 with only one step up? That's pretty sweet! It looks like it would be more stable if I do it myself instead of pushing the button lol.
Click to expand...

I don't have a current MSI motherboard but updating the BIOS through the flash option is awesome with Asus motherboards and is the way to go. Just download the BIOS, put it on a flash drive and in there should be a BIOS program that you run and then you simply point it to the BIOS image. Works pretty much the same with MSI motherboards I believe.

And yes, you can get a good OC at stock sometimes. But be careful Sometimes people think that stock voltage is actually auto. As in the case with my P6X58D, unless you set the voltage, the BIOS will feed the chip a lot more voltage than it needs is you up the BCLK without EXPLICTLY setting the CPU voltage. I set it 1.3 and my temps good and stability is a rock so I just left it 1.3.
 
Ok, I understand that I'll want to disable "speed step" and "turbo boost" in BIOS.

As far as "EXPLICTLY setting the CPU voltage" I assume you mean simply inputting a value into the "CPU Voltage" field instead of leaving it on [AUTO]? Do I leave CPU VTT on [AUTO] or should I set that to a specific value too?
 
Ok, I flashed the BIOS to 1.6 and I get CMOS CHECKSUM BAD when I boot. I can F1 into setup and then exit to windows, but I'd like to fix this so I don't have to do that everytime I boot the computer.

I flashed 1.6 twice from my USB drive. Did I do something wrong?
 
Make sure you reload default settings after a BIOS flash. After that, you'll have to enable/disable some settings that you made previously (example: turn AHCI on, enable overclocking, etc.).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top