MSI K8n Sli H Manual

							5-13 Introduction to Creative sound BlasterEAX  CONSOLE
Click on the EAX console icon to enter its configuration screen.
Here you can to configure the Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit processors effects
engine. These audio effects take your computer beyond home-theater quality,
immersing you in sound so vivid, your imagination can almost see it.
Creative EAX Console consists of five sections: Effects, Karaoke, CMSS
3D, Clean-up, and Time Scaling.
Audio Effects: Environmental Sound Processing
In Audio Effects, you have to check the Enable Audio Effects item to enable
its configuration mean. Then you can choose how you want to enhance all kinds of
ordinary two-channel sounds. 
						

							5-14MS-7100 ATX Mainboard
Karaoke: Creating instant karaoke music
First, you have to check the Enable Karaoke item to enable its configuraion
maen. Then you can create instant karaoke background music from any CD, MP3,
WMA, or WAV file by suppressing the vocals. You can also adjust the pitch of the
music and microphone effect to suit your voice. 
						

							5-15 Introduction to Creative sound BlasterCMSS 3D: Simulating Surround Sound
Creative MultiSpeaker Surround (CMSS) 3D makes ordinary two-channel (Left
and Right Stereo) sound seem to surround you, even through only two speakers. For
users with 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 multichannel speaker systems, CMSS can also simulate
surround sound from ordinary stereo. This is useful for watching DVDs and VCDs,
which contain only stereo soundtracks, or listening to CDs with two-channel audio.
To enable the CMSS 3D configuration mean by check the Enable CMSS 3D item.
Then you can select CMSS for multichannel audio enhancement on 4/4.1, 5.1, 6.1 or
7.1 speaker systems, and CMSS 2 for movies.MSI Reminds You...
For a 4/4.1-speaker system, audio for your subwoofer is processed
by the speaker system.
Audio Clean-up: Removing noise and distortion
First, you have to check the Enabled Audio Clean-up item to enable its
configuration mean. Audio Clean-up allows you to process prerecorded as well as
real-time audio, in order to remove noise, click sounds and other artifacts. For example,
when recording music from old vinyl records, click and pop sounds can be removed
with the Clean-up feature. The Click Meter informs you whenever the noise clean-up
feature is activated during recording and also how many clicks are removed. 
						

							5-16MS-7100 ATX MainboardTime Scaling: Varying the speed of playback
Karaoke fans and musicians may sometimes wish to slow a song down (or
speed it up) to catch the lyrics or play along with the music. However, varying the
speed usually also varies the pitch of the song. With the Time Scaling feature, Sound
Blaster Live! 24-bit users can maintain the pitch of a song while varying the playback
speed.For more information and usage details on EAX ADVANCED HD, refer to the
Creative EAX online Help. 
						

							5-17 Introduction to Creative sound BlasterGRAPHIC EQUALIZER
Click on the player icon to enter its configuration screen.
Creative Graphic Equalizer (EQ) is designed to improve and fine-tune the audio
quality of your playback. You have to check the Enabled Equalizer item to enable
the configuraion mean. Just select any one of the factory presets, or adjust the boost
or cut amount (up to 12 dB) for 10 preselected frequency bands. You can also save
the settings as a custom preset once you are satisfied with the adjustments.For more information and usage details on Creative Graphic Equalizer, refer to
its online Help.MSI Reminds You...
To enter online Help for each configuration mean by click on the
icon. 
						

							6-1 nVIDIA RAID IntroductionChapter 6. nVidia RAID In-
troductionNVIDIA brings Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)
technology—which is used by the world’s leading businesses—to
the common PC desktop. This technology uses multiple drives to
either increase total disk space or to offer data protection. For all
levels, RAID techniques optimize storage solutions by using multiple
disks grouped together and treating them as a single storage
resource. nVidia RAID Introduction 
						

							6-2MS-7100 ATX MainboardIntroduction
System Requirement
Operating System Support
NVRAID supports the following operating systems:
Windows XP Home Edition
Windows XP Professional Edition
Windows 2000 Professional
RAID Arrays
NVRAID supports the following types of RAID arrays described in this section:
RAID 0: RAID 0 defines a disk striping scheme that improves the disk read and write
times for many applications.
RAID 1: RAID 1 defines techniques for mirroring data.
RAID 0+1: RAID 0+1 combines the techniques used in RAID 0 and RAID 1 arrays.
Spanning (JBOD): JBOD provides a method for combining drives of differentsizes
into one large disk.
Summary of RAID Configurations
Array Uses Advantages Drawbacks # Hard 
Disks Fault 
Tolerance RAID 0 Non-critical data 
requiring high 
performance. High data throughput. No fault tolerance. multiple None RAID 1 Small databases or any 
other small capacity 
environment requiring 
fault tolerance. 100% data 
redundancy. Requires 2 drives for 
the storage space of 1 
drive. 2 Yes  RAID 0+1 Critical data requiring 
high performance. Optimized for both 
100% data 
redundancy and 
performance. 
Allows spare disks. Requires 2 drives for 
the storage space of 1 
drive—the same as 
RAID level 1.  4+ Yes JBOD Combining odd size 
drives into one big drive Combines and uses 
the capacity of odd 
size drives. Decreases 
performance because 
of the difficulty in 
using drives 
concurrently or to 
optimize drives for 
different uses. Multiple No MSI Reminds You...
Please note that users cannot install OS, either WinME or Win98, in
their SATA hard drive. Under these two OSs, SATA can not support. 
						

							6-3 nVIDIA RAID IntroductionBasic Configuration Instructions
The following are the basic steps for configuring NVRAID:
Non-Bootable RAID Array
1. Choose the hard disks that are to be RAID enabled in the system BIOS. (Check p.
    3-13 for details.)
2. Specify the RAID level, either Mirroring (RAID 1), Striping (RAID 0), Striping and
    Mirroring (RAID 0+1), or Spanning (JBOD) and create the desired RAID array.
3. Enter the Windows OS, run the Windows nForce Setup application and install the
    RAID software. (Check p.6-9 for details.)
4. Initialize the NVRAID Array Disks.
Bootable RAID Array
1. Choose the hard disks that are to be RAID enabled in the system BIOS. (Check p.
    3-13 for details.)
2. Specify the RAID level, either Mirroring (RAID 1), Striping (RAID 0), Striping and
    Mirroring (RAID 0+1), or Spanning (JBOD) and create the desired RAID array.
3. Boot from the Windows CD, use the floppy disk that has the RAID driver to copy
    and install the nForce RAID software. (Check p.6-9 for details.)
4. Initialize the NVRAID Array Disks.
Setting Up the NVRAID BIOS
Be sure to enable the IDE Primary/ Secondary  Master/ Slave RAID & SATA1/
SATA2/SATA3/SATA4 RAID items in nVidia RAID Config of Integrated Peripher-
als in BIOS (refer to p.3-13 for details) before configuring the NVRAID BIOS. After
that press F10 to save the configuration and exit. The PC will reboot right away. Then
enter the RAID BIOS Setup by pressing F10 when prompted, and follow the proce-
dures described below to set up the NVRAID BIOS.
NVRAID BIOS setup lets you choose the RAID array type and which hard drives you
want to make part of the array.
Entering the RAID BIOS Setup
1. After rebooting your PC, wait until
you see the RAID software
prompting you to press F10. The
RAID prompt appears as part of
the system POST and boot process
prior to loading the OS.
2. Press F10, and the NVIDIA RAID
Utility --- Define a New Array win-
dow will appear.
The default RAID Mode is set to
Mirroring and Striping Block is
set to Optimal.RAID Configuration 
						

							6-4MS-7100 ATX Mainboard
Understanding the “Define a New Array” Window
Use the Define a New Array window to
• Select the RAID Mode
• Set up the Striping Block
• Specify which disks to use for the RAID Array
Depending on the platform used, the system can have one or more channels. In a
typical system there is usually one controller and multiple channels, and each chan-
nel has a slave and a master.
The channel/controller/master/slave status of each hard disk is given in the Loc
(location) columns of the Free Disks and Array Disks lists.In the example above, 1.0.M means the hard drive is attached to Channel 1, Controller
0, and the drive is set to Master. The following is a list of all possible combinations:
Parallel ATA
0.0.MChannel 0, controller 0, Master
0.0.SChannel 0, controller 0, Slave
0.1.MChannel 0, controller 1, Master
0.1.SChannel 0, controller 1, Slave
Serial ATA
1.0.MChannel 1, controller 0, Master
1.1.MChannel 1, controller 1, Master
2.0.MChannel 2, controller 0, Master
2.1.MChannel 2, controller 1, MasterMSI Reminds You...
There is no such thing as Slave drive in Serial ATA. All drives are
considered to be Master since there is a one to one connection
between the drive and the controller. 
						

							6-5 nVIDIA RAID IntroductionUsing the Define a New Array Window
If necessary, press the tab key to move from field to field until the appropriate field is
highlighted.
• Selecting the RAID Mode
By default, this is set to [Mirroring]. To change to a different RAID mode, press the
down arrow key until the mode that you want appears in the RAID Mode box—either
[Mirroring], [Striping], [Spanning], or [Stripe Mirroring].
• Selecting the Striping Block Size
Striping Block size is given in kilobytes, and affects how data is arranged on the
disk. It is recommended to leave this value at the default [Optimal], which is 32KB, but
the values can be between [4 KB] and [128 KB].
• Assigning the Disks
The disks that you enabled from the RAID Config BIOS setup page appear in the Free
Disks block. These are the drives that are available for use as RAID array disks.
To designate a free disk to be used as a RAID array disk,
1.  Tab to the Free Disks section. The first disk in the list is selected.
2.  Move it from the Free Disks block to the Array Disks block by pressing the right
arrow key (-->). The first disk in the list is moved, and the next disk in the list is
selected and ready to be moved.
3.  Continue pressing the right-arrow key (