A Real Technical Puzzle For Ya

[Treeburst155]

Thanks for checking the thread.

Three motherboards, an Abit, an Iwill, and an MSI K7T Turbo2

Two power supplies, a generic 300 watt, and an expensive 350 watt TurboCool from PC Power & Cooling

All three mobos on work table stripped down to CPU and HSF

One hard drive, One stick of Corsair memory

Moving the HD and the memory stick from board to board, all the boards fired up just fine with the generic power supply.

When I tried the same thing with the TurboCool PS, only the Abit and the Iwill worked. The MSI K7T Turbo2 would not go at all.

As I type, I'm using the generic PS with the MSI K7T Turbo2. I'm overclocked to 140 FSB, and stable as a rock. Everything checks out just fine. I just can't use the expensive power supply with this MSI board.

Anybody have a clue why this might be so? Thanks!

Treeburst155 out.

 

[THUGSROOK]

seems obvious that the MSI and TurboCool PSU are of lower quality then the other parts.

 

[Treeburst155]

What makes you come to that conclusion? The PS is of very high quality, or at least it's supposed to be. It cost $90 before shipping. The MSI board is very basic and only cost $60. Perhaps the board is just not good enough to be used with a top notch power supply. The TurboCool is a high performance line of power supplies from PC Power & Cooling. They're very expensive, and very good too. My particular one just doesn't like the inexpensive mobo for some reason.

 

[Regalk]

I never did like the MSI K7Turbo series after mine died one day w/out warning. This model always appear to have a power issue. There are some here who got it going and swear by it (maybe by a fluke with generic PS) who knows.

 

[DannyBoy]

You can never have a powersupply too powerful for your motherboard. Unless you go over-exaggerated and start putting 400wt PSU's on 486 motherboards :| (Can you find them nowadays? 400watt At PSU;s?) Think ive got one lying around. The MSI K7 Series of boards arnt the nicest of MSI boards, and not v.good when it comes to spec. I remember a K7 motherboard i came across that had the extra power socket. You dont av one of them no? Maybe there is just a bad connection with the power supply molex connector and the ATX motherboard connector on the mainboard. Make sure you check the un-obvious things though. Also make sure you havnt got a dodgy import. One thing i found once is that some PSU's (Especially the cheap ones) for some reason automatically change voltages to match what they want. Moving to the top range of PSU's, they have annoying little voltage switchs on the back, which can be useful sometimes . Check the voltage on the PSU is correct for that particular mainboard. Check the mainboard manual...

dan

 

[CraigRT]

DAMN ALL THE NEGATIVE K7T posts!!!
I have a K7T Turbo that is easily up there in the list with the most stable platforms i've ever seen.. i love the board.. never a problem... ever..
SOME things are just not compatible and I guess this one one of those fluke things. that is a good board... cause it won't work with the better PSU doesn't mean anything negative about the board. my K7T ran at 150+ FSB when it was in my main rig, and continues to today, as my 3rd rig upstairs in the guest room. that rig is a workhorse!!!

 

[Treeburst155]

I have the red power switches on both units to select between 115 and 220 volts.

The mobo is just out of spec somehow, and the quality PS does not like it. The
tech at PC Power & Cooling told me the PS will not start and/or shut down if
it detects a short in my system. He says cheap units will not do this. I suspect
he's right, and the MSI board is just....well, a bit funky for lack of a better term.

The board works great however with the cheapo PS. I'm mildly overclocked. I
can run benchmarks and stability tests for over an hour. Everything is fine. I
just can't use a killer PS with this mobo. It's odd.

EDIT: One more thing, the MSI board DID work with the good PS until just
a couple days ago. The comp shut down all of a sudden just like I had pulled
the plug. Never again would the good PS get the board to fire up.

 

[DannyBoy]

Thats MSI for ya mate. They have a bad reputation. Shame they are really doing quite well now. Their good boards are good, and there not so good ones are...well.....not so good...rubbish...Very crap...Shame they cant have a balance of the two, cheap lower-end & fast high-end. They never have been able to do that. Like i said. Shame.


Make sure you connect your P/N connectors correctly too

That cud cause a shortage

dan


Extras.... Aiy make sure you havnt knocked a jumper outta place then... The weirdest things can happen when you dont realise. I tapped my case the other day very gently with my leg and my comp restart :| Because the switch connectors got kncoed slightly :|

 

[CraigRT]

One more thing, the MSI board DID work with the good PS until just
a couple days ago. The comp shut down all of a sudden just like I had pulled
the plug. Never again would the good PS get the board to fire up.

well that's just plain strange.. my my! :Q

Thats MSI for ya mate. They have a bad reputation. Shame they are really doing quite well now. Their good boards are good, and there not so good ones are...well.....not so good...rubbish...Very crap...Shame they cant have a balance of the two, cheap lower-end & fast high-end. They never have been able to do that. Like i said. Shame.

you seem to be very right... kinda sucks, eh?

 

[DannyBoy]

Aye i have an MSI 6119 BX Chipset board at home. It plays about all the time. At time it was top of range but unfortunatly they just dont last .

MSI are unfortunate that they have had a bad reputation in past that they concentrate so much on making amazingly expensive & good motherboards for people that want Expensive + good, that they havnt had time to think about everyday people like me who want sumthing in between


dan



Extra: When i say people like me i mean people who dont want to have to fork out half my computer budget on the mainboard alone :|

 

[Treeburst155]

Well now, since I'm getting a little attention on this thread, what mobo do you
guys recommend if I want to stick with my old Corsair PC150 SDRAM? I paid
a pretty penny for 512 MB of the stuff, and I just can't part with it yet. The Iwill
and the Abit I used for my testing above are very tired now. They have lots of
miles on 'em. They can sure handle that PC Power PS though.

So what SDRAM mobo do I want?

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: Treeburst155
Well now, since I'm getting a little attention on this thread, what mobo do you
guys recommend if I want to stick with my old Corsair PC150 SDRAM? I paid
a pretty penny for 512 MB of the stuff, and I just can't part with it yet. The Iwill
and the Abit I used for my testing above are very tired now. They have lots of
miles on 'em. They can sure handle that PC Power PS though.

So what SDRAM mobo do I want?

Those are 3 of the best SDR mobos you can get for sure.
only other SDR Athlon boards I can think of (that are good) would be:

Asus A7V133
EPoX 8KTA3

 

[DannyBoy]

Originally posted by: Treeburst155
Well now, since I'm getting a little attention on this thread, what mobo do you
guys recommend if I want to stick with my old Corsair PC150 SDRAM? I paid
a pretty penny for 512 MB of the stuff, and I just can't part with it yet. The Iwill
and the Abit I used for my testing above are very tired now. They have lots of
miles on 'em. They can sure handle that PC Power PS though.

So what SDRAM mobo do I want?

PC150? Eh? :Q

 

[Treeburst155]

Thanks, Yield, with Christmas coming I just may get Santa to get me one of those two boards.

Mr Fitty,

Yeah, the RAM was/is advertised as Corsair PC150 CAS 2 RAM. They claim, "true PC150".

Right now I'm at 140 FSB and CAS 2 without probs on this MSI board. I've had it that
way for a couple months now. I'd probably have to go to CAS 3 if I pushed it much
further I'll bet.

 

[Iron Woode]

MSI Turbo/Turbo2 are great boards. They also require decent PSU. I use Antec and Enermax for reliability. A real quality brand PSU is worth the extra expense.

With that said, I would try a third PSU to see if the board is goofy or the PC P&C PSU is not functioning quite right. Did you try hitting the rest button for the MSI? Sometimes not enough power is available to initiate start up when the power button is pushed and hitting the reset button allows for boot up.

 

[Treeburst155]

Hmmmm.....the reset button, very interesting. I think I pushed it a couple times when the machine actually quit. Since then all my testing has been outside the case with no reset button available.

 

[Iron Woode]

I always test in the case. That way it is more like the way it will be used.

Edit: the more I think about it, the more I believe the PC P&C PSU is at fault. The iWill and Abit seem to be older boards than the MSI. What cpus are in each board? The PSU could of had a failure that is going unnoticed on less power hungry boards. The MSI with an XP cpu will draw lots of power and could expose such a weakness in a PSU.

 

[Treeburst155]

Another good point Iron Wood. The older boards have Athlon C 1.2 Gig processors with stock cooling. The MSI is running an XP1900 with a beefy Thermaltake HSF setup. It's an interesting situation IMO. I've spent two days on it. I think I'm done testing for now. It could be the power demands the newer CPU is making. I've eliminated all causes except for CPU, mobo, or power supply. One COULD say I've eliminated the PS as a prob since it runs two other boards successfully. The only way to find out is to start swapping CPUs. I'm definitely not going to do that. This big HSF setup is a REAL pain to work with. One thing I avoid doing if at all possible is playing with HSFs and Arctic Silver, etc.. That task makes me nervous.

EDIT: I couldn't swap CPUs even if I wanted to. The older boards will not handle the XPs. Then again, they might work just to see if the PSU will actually get the fans spinning. Right now I get nothing with the PC P&C and the MSI.

 

[Iron Woode]

the fact that the generic PSU works with the MSI fine but the PC P&C doesn't leads one to conclude that the PC P&C PSU is at fault. If the MSI board were at fault it wouldn't work with any PSU.

Case in point: I added a XP1900+ to my MSI turbo 1 board. Using an old 300 watt generic PSU that works fine with my 1.333 TB and an XP1800+, does not boot up using the XP1900+. I have to hit reset after a few seconds after hitting the power button, because the PSU cannot initialize the board fast enough. That is the upper limit of my PSU. I put in my Enermax 465 watt PSU and it works like a charm. For fun I tried my 250 watt Antec. It worked fine too, although I knew I was pushing it hard. In other words a good PSU is a great investment. Seriously, try a better PSU.

 

[Evadman]

I think your good powersupply is bad. They are not all perfect.

as for quality, I have K7S5A's running on cheaper than dirt PWS's all over. I had a 1600+ and K7S5A on a 200 watt Sparkle (cost was $5) K7S5A on a 250 watt generic with no name from who knows where with a thunderbird 900. the K7S5A is known for hating cheap PWS's too.

To top it off, I had This $17 PWS (400 watt) running a dual duron 1.0 tyan tiger for almost 6 months without a problem. ( I ran out of money and had to sell that system ) That $17 PWS I have everywhere. I use it in systems I sell to others, and have not had one go bad yet (knock on wood)

Only PWS company I will not touch is Deer.

Again, I think you got a bad PWS.

 

[DannyBoy]

I still dunno bout that PC150
You sure it wasnt PC133 Overclocked?
Strange


Anyway dodgy powersupply / dodgy motherboard.
In my personal final opinion there is a bad connection somewhere.

Make sure you check em all and make sure the MSI connectors are ok with the nice PSU connectors.
PSU doesnt sound like a problem not if it works on other mobos.


I think you should part with your "PC133" or PC150 as u say, and move on to ddr mate. Also get yourself a nice new mobo.

Im fond of Abit myself, and i will be purchasing an " Abit AT7-MAX2 " in January.
The Epox 8K5A2+ is also a nice board.

Last but not least i recommend the Asus A7V333 KT333+. This board is also possibly one i will get.
They have them for $99 at http://www.monarchcomputer.com/ !!!

Happy mobo shopping
dan

 

[Iron Woode]

Originally posted by: MrFiTTy
I still dunno bout that PC150
You sure it wasnt PC133 Overclocked?
Strange


Anyway dodgy powersupply / dodgy motherboard.
In my personal final opinion there is a bad connection somewhere.

Make sure you check em all and make sure the MSI connectors are ok with the nice PSU connectors.
PSU doesnt sound like a problem not if it works on other mobos.


I think you should part with your "PC133" or PC150 as u say, and move on to ddr mate. Also get yourself a nice new mobo.

Im fond of Abit myself, and i will be purchasing an " Abit AT7-MAX2 " in January.
The Epox 8K5A2+ is also a nice board.

Last but not least i recommend the Asus A7V333 KT333+. This board is also possibly one i will get.
They have them for $99 at http://www.monarchcomputer.com/ !!!

Happy mobo shopping
dan

The PC150 rating is manufacturing advertising. It is still PC133, just guarranteed to 150 mghz.

PSU is most likely the culprit. Turbo 2's are fine motherboards.

 

[AnandtechViolator]

I've used the PC power and cooling supplies all the time. All high quality stuff, I used on RAID systems etc. Maybe your problem is that you've UNDER loaded the supply! These are brutes, and require a MINIMUM load to regulate properly. Try loading the extra leads with spare HDDs or something. Don't need to connect the ribbons, just the power leads. Check the voltages when you power up. See if they're in spec. HTH.

 

[Zap]

If "fault" could be placed, I'd place it with the PC P&C power supply. However, could it just be that the two don't like working together? I've seen power supplies and motherboards not get along, even though independantly they worked fine. Most recently was a Shuttle AK31 and a Leadman Powmax 300W power supply not working together.