MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

[Sparkey55]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

If you can not find a way to disable the IGP in the bios, try removing one stick of memory from the first mem slot. Then reset the bios to defaults, that should clear the mem map from any hidden reserved memory settings.

[Sparkey55]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

I have justfound on a google search someting about updating SoF2 game patch. It mentions about using Logitech mouse Force Feedback drivers causing crashes when exiting games. The patch goes into details about fixing the drivers. Just search using keywords SoF2 exiting crash.

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Slow, slow, slow, pls. One at time. First your memtest wish:



Granted. 7 hours of my sleep straight w/o a single error. As I told you already, memory is OKAY. But yet again - systems that pass memtest like that can fail under 5 min in Prime95 torture memory test... just start with the Min. FFT size of 1792 and see for yourself.
Best way - overclock up your machine ram till the memtest fail, then step down 2 or 3MHz and it does not fail for hours. Then do the Prime95 torture test/custom/set Min. FFT to 1792 and guaranted, under 5 min you get error.

Easy as that.

Blind shoots like "remove current HDD and try another" sounds almost crazy to me, but since it seems that the 2D acceleration is all but lost, I will reinstall anyway. Will you HDD idea be satisfacted by some tests of HDD transfers and stalibity?

PS. I did not use any force feedback drives and not use even any logitech drivers for my logitech mouse. Therefore this does not apply for me, sadly. BTW I get as search result at least four my own threads, lol.

[Sparkey55]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Slow, slow, slow, pls. One at time. First your memtest wish:



Granted. 7 hours of my sleep straight w/o a single error. As I told you already, memory is OKAY. But yet again - systems that pass memtest like that can fail under 5 min in Prime95 torture memory test... just start with the Min. FFT size of 1792 and see for yourself.
Best way - overclock up your machine ram till the memtest fail, then step down 2 or 3MHz and it does not fail for hours. Then do the Prime95 torture test/custom/set Min. FFT to 1792 and guaranted, under 5 min you get error.

Easy as that.

Blind shoots like "remove current HDD and try another" sounds almost crazy to me, but since it seems that the 2D acceleration is all but lost, I will reinstall anyway. Will you HDD idea be satisfacted by some tests of HDD transfers and stalibity?

PS. I did not use any force feedback drives and not use even any logitech drivers for my logitech mouse. Therefore this does not apply for me, sadly. BTW I get as search result at least four my own threads, lol.

The reason I suggested changing HDD is you can reinsert the original drive without losing data. You need to determine if the problem is a hardware or software issue.

[Sparkey55]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

What is your problem with me anyway? You sound very annoyed with me. Trying to fix issues like this can be frustrating I know. But your attitude is becoming very unfriendly like.

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Not to worry about data, I have HDD divided to C (Win only) and D (everything else), so I did not lost any data at all by reinstall. In fact, I have C partition backed up as image and I can restore it under 5min - for the R9100 for example.

I better check on the HDD with chkdsk and some tests, tough.

I tried hard to make the mobo run stable, just look at this - before bad 680uF Ost caps:

...and now a polymer Nichicon LE 820uF 2.5V supercaps:



PS. yes and sorry, I'm annoyed a lot

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only



Prime 95 memory test at the tightest timings the rams can handle - that means CL2!
(2-3-2-7)
And I would very much recommend them the stability, because there are damn good caps used for rams now:

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Do me a favor and run IntelBurnTest, should take 30 mins at most to find something. I've stopped using Prime long ago because i could run it for 4-6 hours with no errors and still crash after 30 minutes of gaming.

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Fine, I do it. Where to download it? Oh, maybe there?
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/deta...lburntest.html

It just need some dll (msvcm90.dll) and it will be probably fine then. ATM take Prime95 CPU stress test run:






PS. after that in need msvcp90.dll, both get from http://www.dll-files.com and after that it ask for .NETframework registry settings. So no, this is not a app for me, I not support or use NETframework.

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

HDD tests did not reveal any problem:



...so I think we can rule HDD or HDD cabled problem out of the question. Also I would noticed HDD errors, and they are nonexistant.



...but I suspecting the one cap that I did not replaced yet, because I did not trust caps at all after some failures. I would like to mention that the PC did not started correctly today. After a post it ended in endless loop with just the flicking lene char from dos "_" in the top left corner. Failing to enter the VGA mode once again. Reset fix that, but you know I suspect the cap:

(the small, 10uF 16V (?) one that I did not yet replaced, the rest are replaced with quality Nichicons)

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

After two hours of gaming the PC finally crashed (at first, it took two crash attempts to get SoF2 working, but once it is working, then things go smoothly - no more crashes in loading, as with Radeon 9100) and I took the oportunity to diassemble it right away and check temps and then voltages.

Temps
CPU Vcore regulators are lightly mildly warm, as if there is nothing going on. Clearly good surprise, they obviously benefit from the quality caps and even under load stays cool. Great.
GFX card - cold, well cooled.
But NB chipset cooler (and now it is a BIG one) is relatively warmer that expected. It is not like hot, but clearly I expected lesser temperature. So my idea that a better cooling is necessary might not be far off the reality what is need. That is why I get the Thermalright SI-128 SE... but the damn bottom scews are missing, so I cannot use it
Rams are about the same temp, as the NB heatsink. Well warm, not hot, but warm.

Voltages
3.40V, 5.11V and 12.01V on the wires from PSU to HDD/GFX card. Directly on the GFX card connector there is a 11.99V, so the cables and connection give 0.02V drop. Not bad at all.
Vbattery is 3.56V.
But what I see as definitive BAD NEWS is the voltage I measured on the last not exchanged cap. And that is precisely 1.55V.
Ring any bell? Yeees, this is the AGP voltage set in bios! So clearly this cap have something to do with the AGP and it is not at all impossible, that it could be the culprit behind the crashes.

Because to me it seems that everytime the GFX card should change it's mode of operation (from TXT mode to VGA mode, from 2D to 3D...), then it is very likely to crash.
Actually todays 4 times it hang on TXT mode to VGA mode switch, during all the resets and powering on and on again...

Bottom line - dunno if this is caused by the exchange of GFX card or not, but time and bios settings are lost once again, even I put a new battery there.
(I have to use small GFX card (old good Riva ) to be able to measure the voltage on the small SMD cap.
On the cap is:

10
16s.
005

Anyone know, what this is? 10uF 16V cap? Or 16uF 10V? And can I replace it with ceramic SMD cap like 22uF? Because this suxxka is only d4 and I cannot find any reliable polymer of this size, so... Ceramic cap seems to be a logical solution for this.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

10uF 16v. Yes you can use SMD ceramics, but be aware that high capacitance ceramics are usually rated for very low voltage, usually 2.5v. But since you measured 1.55v there, you can try to use a ceramic.

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Thank you for the cap identification. No idea what type of cap this is, right?

And luckily, todays are made as big, as 47uF ceramic caps for 4V, so, this is not a problem. I thinking about 22uF, since the cap is obviously very important, so a little capacitance bump should be in order...?


Before reinstaled, I installed the NETframework. Version 2.0 works, just install of v2.0 SP1 does not. But in both cases then the testing tools failed miserably:





So testing tools that require way too much are out of the question.


MSI PM8M3-V bois v1.4 (+ unlocked v1.4) and v1.5 (+ unlocked v1.5):
http://www.mediafire.com/?9npsvnsc8pmzhx1
http://dfiles.eu/files/z5ar3lnbl
http://www.uloz.to/xKAgfX51/MSI+PM8M3-V+bioses.zip


But now I have the C (Win partition) backup w/o any drivers at all (no VIA 4+1, no sound driver and no Forceware driver) and after that installed. And the reinstall really helped. Call of Duty (1), Quake 3 or the cursed SoF2 not crashing on exit anymore!
Hoooray!

...yet still they crash during longer gaming, witch I blame on the cap and overheating of almost everything inside. Mainly the GPU VRM (71°C with just small ATItool cube!) and the NB. The NB I plan to fix using the Thermalright SI-128 SE cooler (just get the missing female screws for P4) and the GPU VRM? Well, I don't know why it overheat that much. But maybe the Chemicon 330uF 16V SMD d10 polymers are not as good as they should be and a replacement of the TWO input caps on the card (the third and last cap on the board is 100uF suxxka) could help?
Or add another caps for the voltage filtering of the 12V input?
Or add a serious cooper custom made heatsink on the GPU VRM?

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Prime95 overnight CPU torture test - 7h 8min


No errors. Claims, that the machine is unstable in terms of CPU are dismissed. It must be the gfx card and/or it's powering.

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

I just realized why the Furmark does not work for me, even the 6800GT is supposed to support OpenGL v2.1:
http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/177...00-gt-agp.html
Well, it is quite simple. The Forceware drivers started supporting the OpenGL v2.0 required for Furmark since version 77.72:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_77.72
I use version 61.76, witch means that the most I could get is v1.5 of OpenGL. Everest helped me to realize my mistake...

So up for next - a GFX card test

[cheapie]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Have you even tried a different motherboard yet?

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Yes, but the card did not even post there.
It was a JetWay V600DAP mobo and dunno what went wrong, but no post at all with the PNY 6800GT card. So I give up on this. Other mobo is a Soltek crap with already bulging KZG caps, barely working. Sure you did not suggest to try it there, right?

...and then I have only JetWay V266B - a too old mobo to even test the card. I'm happy that it even run there. I backup my current Win and try the new drivers for the Furmark to see, how long before it crash and then we know, that it is the GFX card...

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Well, the more recent drivers worked and now the card support OpenGL v2.0 and hence - it run FurMark

Got a very low score of 547:
http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/sc...bbafb8ba784250

...but the problem is, that the FurMark did not crashed for about TWO hours straight MaxBurn test...



I was somewhat confused, that the image on screen did not update, but that it probably because FurMark is checking for bugs in the image, right?
Never the less, I have complain. On screen it write this:
Renderer: GeForce 6800 GT/PCI/SSE2

Obviously I have a problem with the "PCI" part, because the card is AGP and given some of the slow-downs it really looks like as it run on PCI speed, not AGP 8x...

No idea what this cause, but probably some wrong initialization of the card. Regardless if this works as I supposed right, then the card seems to be stable.

There are minor annoyances too, tough they are not new at all. First at all - opening overlay took for the first time eternity. (1 - 2 minutes) Dunno why that happen, never seen that in my life, but it does happen with different Forceware frivers (61.76 WHQ, 77.72 WHQ) as well, as with different VIA Hyperion 4in1 drivers (v5.24a, v5.11a, v5.04a). So it have to do something with what the card seems to initialize.

ALSO I cannot get the AGP page back in the drivers. It was there:



...and now, even I add to the registers the coolbites:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak]
"CoolBits"=dword:0000000f
"NvCplEnableHardwarePage"=dword:00000001
"NvCplEnableAdditionalInfoPage"=dword:00000001
"NvCplEnableAGPSettingsPage"=dword:00000001

It is just not there.
Also a minor problem is, that the gamma value in nVcpl can be set only between 0.5 and 3.61 - too sensitive, no way to set better value or get back to 1.0

Kinda bad that FurMark run slow, yet not fail. I did not dare to take a screenshot of the "PCI", but the slow-downs in SoF2 looks like something is wrong with the speed...

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Replacement CPU arrived (a HUGE thanks must go to OC AU user Datsun 1600 for creating the missing screws for the Thermalright SI-128 SE and giving me great P4 CPU for neat CPU upgrade! http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh....php?t=1097986 ), so I went gaming and... again the PCI/AGP troubles, slow performance, etc. And it crashed during my gaming once again Same way as before. Changed box cooler to Thermalright SI-128 SE (greatly temps get reduced) and also now the 120mm fan is blowing to the NB heatsink - yet still no help at all. Crashing. New CPU at least feel much faster now:

Old MSI PM8M3-V (VIA P4M800) board, new Pentium 4 540 (3.2GHz, 1MB L2) CPU Faster a "bit" - 45sec compared to a 72sec with Celeron D suxxka


http://valid.canardpc.com/uv65p3

old: http://postimg.org/image/s85ao8vqv/

So it is definitively NOT the CPU. The CPU might be dead-slow, yet worked just perfectly. No help in sight, except maybe replacing the last cap with something good, like 10uF elyte change to 47uF tantalum cap?

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

As for the 10uF d4 SMD cap, I will replace it (shortly, fingers crossed) with a 220uF 4V Tantal-polymer KEMET cap, so that should fix the problem. If it still fail, then the NIKOS poor mosfet is up to the blame and ... what replacement to choose for it??? Anyone?



Replacement suggestions?

The AGP regulator seems to be: NIKOS P3055LDG


This is, in short:
TO-252 (DPAK) 25V, 50mOhms, 12A, Gate charge 15nC, Gate treshold 1.2V

...so, what better with same gate charge/treshold and possibly lower resistance when opened (50mOhms are a bit HIGH IMHO) could anyone suggest?