MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

[Dan81]

Well,I've got myself a KT4AV for using it as a spare 3rd system (mainly for late DOS/1998-2004 gaming)and it doesn't post at all.
I tried 3 CPUs and 2 types of DDR memory,nothing worked.
There is absolutely no bad cap,as the board is all full of Panasonic caps,along with Sanyo caps.
Any ideas?All 3 CPUs are good,and have been tested before.
The CPUs are a 950MHz Duron,an Athlon XP 1700+ and a Sempron 2400+.

[tmiha71]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

Test them again, in known good mobo... Chances are - that they're good no more, after being in that board...

As suggestion, try to poly-mod that board, there's group of 5 vrm-out (put here 4 poly's 820uF or higher) caps and group of 3 vrm-out caps (put here 2 poly 820uF or one size lower)...

[Dan81]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

I have tested them before in a K7VZA,and all POSTed.
And why to poly-mod it if there are Panasonic and Sanyo caps,which are already good?

[mariushm]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

Check for shorted mosfets..

[Dan81]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

Checked it,none are shorted.

[momaka]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

Does it beep if you remove the RAM? What about if you don't install a video card (assuming there is no on-board video)? If it doesn't beep, BIOS probably isn't even able to get to that point.

If that's the case, start by checking if all of the voltages on the motherboard circuits good? You'll probably have:
V_core (CPU voltage) - about 1.5 to 1.7V depending on CPU
Vcc for Northbridge (sometimes combined with CPU voltage)
AGP connector voltage - 3.3V, 1.5V, or 0.8V depending on what video card you have in it)
RAM main voltage - 2.5 to 2.6 V for DDR
RAM secondary voltage - I think 1.7 or 1.8V, I don't remember exactly
and possibly a number of 1.7V, 1.8V, 3.3V, and 5V linear regulators.

Let me know if you need help finding these. You'll need a multimeter to find them.

[larrymoencurly]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

Not even the CPU fan spins?

[Dan81]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

Does it beep if you remove the RAM? What about if you don't install a video card (assuming there is no on-board video)? If it doesn't beep, BIOS probably isn't even able to get to that point.

It beeps only if no thermal paste is applied.

Not even the CPU fan spins?

It spins.
The computer powers up,but I have no POST.All parts I use are good.

[ant3202]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

hmm... does your mobo has has a d bracket from MSI ...

[Dan81]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

Nope,from where I bought it they only had the board.

[momaka]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

It beeps only if no thermal paste is applied.

Oh boy. I sure hope you didn't try this with all of your AMD CPUs. They won't throttle down when they overheat. If you did, they are likely all dead now.

The fact that the board beeps means that it might actually be posting or attempting to and stopping somewhere.

Check CPU voltage. A dead CPU could have killed something in the VRM.

[Dan81]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

Don't worry because as soon as the board finds there's no thermal paste it cuts power(fans stop spinning,HDD stops spinning and DVD stops spinning)and it does one high beep and one low beep.
However,applying thermal paste makes the board just turn on and it sits on a blank screen,no matter what video card I use,if it's PCI(S3 Trio 64)or AGP (ATI Radeon 7000).

Tried all CPUs and none died so far after doing that,as the thermal protection kicks in.

[cheapie]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

Don't worry because as soon as the board finds there's no thermal paste it cuts power(fans stop spinning,HDD stops spinning and DVD stops spinning)and it does one high beep and one low beep.
However,applying thermal paste makes the board just turn on and it sits on a blank screen,no matter what video card I use,if it's PCI(S3 Trio 64)or AGP (ATI Radeon 7000).

Tried all CPUs and none died so far after doing that,as the thermal protection kicks in.

If it has onboard video, it might be defaulting to that.

[pfrcom]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

applying thermal paste makes the board just turn on and it sits on a blank screen,no matter what video card I use

Could be that BIOS has been corrupted, especially considering MSI spruik their god-awful Live Update 5 on page for that board

Not beeping if thermal paste has been applied, but memory has been removed, is not a good sign

Consider getting a POST card, which might give some indication whether BIOS is doing anything - or get an MSI D-bracket like ANT3202 suggested, and see if its lights flash in some pattern

[Dan81]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

BIOS isn't corrupted,as the person I bought this board from didn't even know about BIOS flashing.
Also,I can't get a POST card or D-Bracket at all.
The board only beeps when no thermal paste is appplied.Otherwise,not even if I remove RAM it doesn't beep.Same for the video card.Both RAM and video card are good,as I used them on my Chaintech MPM800.

If it has onboard video, it might be defaulting to that.

KT4AV doesn't have onboard video.

[pfrcom]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

BIOS isn't corrupted,as the person I bought this board from didn't even know about BIOS flashing.

Did the seller demonstrate it working ? - if not, the problem is just speculation

MSI's overview page shows a so-called feature "Automatically Detect the BIOS/Driver/VGA/Utility Update"

How do you know vendor didn't OK some prompt, then decide to part out computer when it didn't work next time they turned it on ?

The way I see it ...

Board probably includes hardware to beep if overheating is detected - so you get beeping when no thermal paste is applied

If overheating is not detected, it transfers control to firmware, aka BIOS, to continue booting

If BIOS gets corrupted, it just hangs, doesn't even detect absence of RAM early in boot process, and beep to warn about it

... if it was mine, I'd accuse the seller of selling me a faulty board, or just cut my losses and scrap it

I've lost an MSI board to their crappy Live Update process, where they don't even offer the option to download a specific BIOS image which can be updated by a firmware tool or good old reliable DOS flashing program

[Dan81]

Re: MSI KT4AV not booting.....at all.

I got it at a fair for 10 bucks.
Well,if I can't get it work at least it makes for a good K7VZA recap when I get around it.
The K7VZA is another great board next to K7S5A but this one uses VIA chipset.Sadly it doesn't support Semprons.