MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

[AmahastPL]

Hi all,

I’d like to ask for advice; I’ve run out of ideas myself and I need some help. Here is my story:

I’ve built my PC in January of 2005. The mobo is MSI MS-7125 (K8 Neo4) with Opteron 165. Power Supply is Antec Neo 480. Ram is Corsair 2GB DDR500. 3 hard drives. 2 optical drives. Ati 1800. SCSI card. TV tuner card.

CPU is overclocked from 1.8 to 2.7 Ghz (FSB 250Mhz, HTT 3x). Core at 1.4V, ram at 2.7V

System was rock stable for over 2 years until August of 2007. I mean I averaged like 2-3 reboots per month sometimes; no crashes ever. Computer was always on. Then in August ‘07 I had to go to Europe for 3 weeks and I’ve unplugged everything from the wall (just in case).

When I got back the PC was dead – the on/off switch had no effect. I’ve unplugged the PSU from the board and tested it with a tester – power supply worked ok. I cleared the bios with no effect, I’ve even disconnected the wires and shorted the pins on the mobo just to bypass the on/off switch… system was dead – and I’ve got pissed. At this point I did what I do in situations as such – I went outside for a cup of coffee. When I got back after 30 minutes to my surprise the PC was on (by itself) asking for DEL to go into bios.

Month went by and system was OK. Then out of nowhere I started getting strange BSoDs and full reboots. Long story short one of the memory pieces went bad – I mean dead, system would not boot with it. I’ve replaced memory with 2 new pieces (warranty swap).

Fast forward 3 weeks – I travel again, system down for a week; when I get back – PC is dead again (I was almost expecting that). Friend of mine suggests PSU could be the problem– I scratch my head – I had such a “fancy” Antec Neo PSU – guess what – with new PSU system boots with no problems (also one thing: about 2 weeks before PSU went dead there was a high pitched “piiii” kind of sound (not too loud) emanating from somewhere around the PSU/CPU area – couldn’t really pinpoint it; it never happened after the psu got replaced…)

One thing that puzzles me: the crashes happen at random: heavy system load or just browsing the net… when they happen it is a sudden “hardware” reboot - system reboots, stops at post screen and bios beeps continuously. The MSI LED error thingy says “error detecting memory”. If I turn PC off, take ram out, insert it back in… it seems to work again. Then a day later or a week later another reboot happens. (memtest32 and prime95 show no errors after many hours of testing)

Here is my question: my PC is overclocked like hell but those early Opterons easily do 3.2 Ghz with no problems plus it was rock stable all this time; my PC is water cooled and even under full load the CPU is about 48 C. (idle 38C) Memory is DDR500, which is exactly within specs at 250 MHZ fsb. I know that Athlons have the memory management build into them…. How likely is that the CPU is causing the problem (due to long time overclock ect.)?

The MSI mobo: it’s been on for 2 years 10 months non stop. I’ve checked the capacitors… none of them is bulging in any way… 2 of them next to the CPU are not perfectly straight (just slightly titled)… some of the capacitors are green, others are black….. I don’t want to lead anyone to conclusions….

Power supply is new, CPU has no errors in any test software, ram is new and also shows no errors… reboots are definitely hardware related… but the system does not just reboots, it displays post (or sometimes even black screen) and BIOS just beeps memory error. What do you think? CPU going dead? Motherboard? Capacitors? Thanks for any input.

Mike

[kc8adu]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

new power supply could be junk.
post brand/model.
better yet a pic with the cover off.
and a pic of the mobo.
antec psu's have the fuhjjyu(fuhkkyu)cap plague.
welcome to badcaps!

[AmahastPL]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

Replacement (temporary) PSU is also Antec. Model Basiq. 500W. Purchased brand new at Cricuit City 3 weeks ago.

[Krankshaft]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

Replacement (temporary) PSU is also Antec. Model Basiq. 500W. Purchased brand new at Cricuit City 3 weeks ago.

Most stores in my area still have the old stock Antecs with the Fukyuu caps inside I just replaced mine about 2 months ago. In my case I caught them before they went sour.

[AmahastPL]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

Fine,

I'm frustrated enough to go and buy a different power supply just to get it out of equation.

What do you guys recommend? (~ 600W)

I had no idea caps can go bad until my PC started going into random reboots and I've found this website...

[PCBONEZ]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

I had the same thing happen with two MSI MS-6399 boards.
Ran fine, shut them down for a couple months, wouldn't boot after. DEAD.
- Both of them died at the exact same time.
The boards were in different cases with different PSUs and I tried them out of the case with yet another PSU. - Nuthin'.

I suspect the problem is the Chemi-con KZG caps in the VRMs.
KZG series caps are known to have problems.
(Just look around in here.)

I just pulled the KZGs off of one of them but I don't have replacement caps yet.
I want to replace just the KZGs to confirm (to myself) that that was the problem.

Interesting thing is both these boards were re-capped by MSI under RMA.
The KZG's were the new caps...
MSI just can't get it right!

.

[gonzo0815]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

I would not suspect the PSU in this case, as this should not be a to demanding system.

I would celar CMOS with battery and powerplug removed and the CMOS clear jumper in the clear position.
Then choose default settings, safe & quite.
At the next boot, just choose your settings, but don`t get to keen with memory settings.

Furthermore, i would seriously remove the board from the case and let it run at the desk.
Your problems might be caused by a random short of case and board or even a wrong angled video card.


And make sure, that you haven`t installed the famous Nvidia Networkmanager, which is known for problems like this.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

Outcome of the MSI MS-6399 (OEM) boards.

Why here?
I think that MS-7125 might have some KZG by some pics I saw of that model.

Okay. - I'm being too impatient to wait on a cap order.

Board 1:
All Rubycon MBZ in the input to the VRM,, all Chemi-con KZG in the output.

Board 2: (reversed positions)
All KZG in the input to the VRM,, a mix of MBZ and Panasonic FJ in the output.

So I pulled the MBZs off of board 1 and replaced the KZGs on board 2.
- Now one complete board with all original (to me) caps and no KZGs.

The previously STONE DEAD motherboard fired right up without even blinking.

That (and what I've read about KZG before) is enough proof for me.
At least some KZGs are crap and show no outward signs of being bad.

-- Temp production problem or a whole Series problem I dunno.
-- I still see KZGs on new and expensive boards all the time.
-- And I have two (more expensive) boards with'em myself. *snif*

~~~~

If dating them helps anyone:

The boards are 'very' early i845 chipset with SDRAM only memory slots.
Originally built by MSI late in 2001 for Medion *exclusively*.
No one else used this model and there wasn't a retail version.
--
They both have MSI RMA stickers on them so at some point Medion must have sent them back to MSI to be rebuilt during the "Bad Caps Era".
- Medion then presumably dropped the Model line in favor of one with the newer i845D DDR chipset (which came out Dec 2001). and so didn't want these back.
--
I'm sure they were rebuilt because the date codes on some of the caps indicate they were installed sometime after Oct 2002 which was after this board was out of production.
--
I bought them as refurbs in late 2003? early 2004?.
The dealer had several hundred..
--
--
Bear with, there is a point...
They weren't used right away, then they had less than a months of use on them before they were set aside (as complete systems) for around a year. After the down time they were both DEAD dead. Not even a partial boot or a fan kick. - Been on my 'to-do' list for just over a year now. (Hey, I been busy!)
--

Given how little these were used my point is:
KZGs -may- fail with -just- time.

If anyone knows how to decode Chemi-con Date codes I'll give the KZG's actual dates.
.

[AmahastPL]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

I'm pretty sure my new power supply is good...

Except for caps... is there anything else on the motherboard that "uses up" ?

My system reboots, goes into POST and beeps

What to do? Recap the mobo I have or replace it with a new one?

[PCBONEZ]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

50 - 50 - 90

If the MoBo does have bad caps and you replace it with the same make/model you will most likely just end up with different bad caps.

If you change make/model you will (probably) end up reloading the OS and unless you have a way to back-up your files first you may loose some data.

If you re-cap and caps aren't the problem you will gain nothing.

~~~~

The first thing I would do is remove the system from the case and 'build it' on a table.
This will eliminate the possibility of a case-ground as well as a faulty on-off or reset switch. (And you can see things better.)

While you are doing this check the PSU to MoBo power cable connectors on both the wires and the MoBo. (Occationally a bad connection will burn one.)

Remove and re-seat the RAM and CPU (get thermal compound first and don't forget to use it.)
- - - Do the same with all the drive connectors (power and data cables.)
- - - Do the same with any add-in cards.
- - - Make sure the fan works.

[kikkoman]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

This rather sounds like dried out caps.
Why would he have to reload the OS if he uses different caps? Nothing hardware/driver related is gonna change.

[gonzo0815]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

If the os isn`t already screwed up, there is no reason to replace it.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

People should try turning the brain on-off switch to the "ON" position before they reply to a post. (Is okay, I do it too.. LOL)

>>Why would he have to reload the OS if he uses different caps?<<

That's not what I said.

I said if you change the make/model of the motherboard you may have to reload the OS.

~~~~~~~

Dried out?
Sounds like the same thing but these KZG caps have no leaks, no bloating, no venting.
They "look" just fine and are only 2-3 years old with almost no use.
.

[gonzo0815]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

sure, your right, should have read it more carefully.

[starfury1]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

AmahastPL

heres my thoughts, bear in mind there are other reply's by those much more experienced then me above but my thoughts are as follows;

Considering your OCing it (extra heat)...it has been powered up for a long time

The MSI mobo: it's been on for 2 years 10 months non stop. I've checked the capacitors… none of them is bulging in any way

you would Need an ESR meter to do this proberly.

Thats like 25,000 Hrs running time

you mention

One thing that puzzles me: the crashes happen at random

this is a typical symptom of bad caps...please note "not in all cases" and caps can fail without physical signs...(I just don't know which brand or series are liable to appear this way)

the old supply could well (and probably does) have issues but the VRM output caps are probably stuffed.

I dont know how much more stressed the VRM circuit becomes when cpu is being overclocked but caps there are subject to brutal treatment under normal condidtions

If it was me in your situation Id recap the MB regardless. In this case I would seek the best for high heat and lowest ESR performance

if your lucky, no other damage has occurred (like dry joints etc)
and a recap hopefully should fix it.

but I am not the guru on this, anyway thats my thoughts and I could be barking up the wrong tree here

cheers

[PCBONEZ]

Re: MSI MS-7125 - strange reboots - what could be the reason?

starfury1 (and the 2 or 3 others that mentioned it) is right.
-
Caps can fail with no visible signs.

What brands and series caps are on the motherboard?