Chronic instability on MSI K7T Pro2A -- attempt to contact tech support failed!

[PCResources]

<< 1) Sony has a long, well-established reputation for quality, like Asus motherboards >>



Anyone here who has some kind of experience with both ASUS and MSI boards will tell you that MSI boards are far better... Both quality and RMA/DOA wise...

If i could just try to make a point here... It really doesn't matter what kind of hardware you buy, sometimes you will get bad hardware, it doesn't mean that ALL hardware from that company is bad, now does it?

As I have built thousands of systems i know that sometimes a board is unstable, if it is, i just send it back and get a new one, but if the failure rate is too high then i might not buy that board again, at least not until a new revision is out... But if i was never going to buy from any supplier that has delivered ONE bad part, well then i could never buy any hardware at all...

Maybe you should think twice about your next buy, the instability was caused by a VIA component in your case, so maybe you shouldn't buy a VIA based motherboard the next time, and if you have any problems with any other chipsets, maybe you shouldn't buy them either... In the end, you will not be able to get any motherboards, because every motherboard maker has problems sometimes, and that my friend is what it all comes down to in the end...

I have stated that i would help you in previous posts, but i will not sell you any ASUS or Abit boards, i have a reputation to think of...

Patrick Palm

Am speaking for PC Resources

 

[LXi]

<<you've deliberately misread what I said. I didn't say that I'd tolerate more from a Sony monitor. If I received a bad Sony, I'd immediately get it replaced without fuss, no big deal.>>

Why can't that be done with a motherboard? If you receive a bad MSI, immediately replace it without fuss, and its no big deal.


<<If, however, I received what seems like a good Sony but one that craps out under the most unpredictable circumstances (like the MSI), I'd switch over to someone else.>>

Is it crapping out? Has the board stopped functioning? I doubt it. It makes absolutely no sense how you rate the serverety of your bad experiences and decide whether to trust the company. If something craps out immediately, its no big deal to you, if something craps out unpredictably, you'd never touch that brand again.


<<Of course, (good) monitors have the advantage that such &quot;hidden&quot; problems practically never happen to them. That's all the more reason for unprecedented quality control in ultracomplex devices like motherboards.>>

So are you claiming that monitors never crap out unpredicatably? Well buddy, never say never.

 

[babylon5]

I decided to post after reading through the thread: I have been using MSI K7T Pro2A board with Duron 800 now for 2 months and have none of the problems people seem to have here. Maybe I just got lucky, I don't know.

 

[Dexion]

Ok, I was having &quot;chronic instability&quot; with the K7T Pro2A for quite awhile with the descriptions that Leo V has stated ie; constant Windows crashes, BSODs, and HD halts. After installing the IDE Busmaster driver foocused towards the new Southbridge 686B, most of these problems dissappeared. Although I cannot guarantee that it may fix Leo's problems, it might just be the &quot;cure&quot;.

heres the link:
VIA IDE Busmaster

Give it a try if you haven't already

 

[tjdavis1138]

Everybody keep your fingers crossed. My replacement Pro2A is on it's way, should be here today or tomorrow.

 

[jpprod]

I just recieved my Asus A7pro today. What a pain in the butt this motherboard is to set up compared to MSI K7Tpro and K7Tpro-2A!
- BIOS setup is clunky, albeit it has a much wider selection of settings available than aforementioned MSI boards.
- PCB layout of the motherboard isn't as elegant as MSI boards's. Seems like there's lots of wasted space.
- There's no CMOS clear jumper anywhere!?!? Please tell me this isn't true.
- Slapping my cards on the mobo resulted in endless streak of IRQ conflicts. I had to reboot&amp;shuffle cards at least five times until SBlive finally woke up.
- Before upgrade to v1005 bios Win98 crashed continuously. All 3D applications kept crashing until I did a complete re-detection of all Windows hardware and re-installed VIA 4-in-1 drivers.

On the brighter side of things, after these steps the boards seems very stable and - as surpricing as it might sound - noticeably faster than MSI K7Tpro-2A. For example, 3Dmark high polycount score has gone up from 8 to 10Mpolys/s, 64MB AGP texturing benchmark from 79-81 to 89-90 FPS and Deus Ex seems to run much quicker.

 

[ajskydiver]

jpprod, I belive that Asus boards don't have a jumper to clear the CMOS (I have a P2L97)...you have to connect two points with a wire, etc. to clear it...it's a pain compared to a jumper, but if you need to clear it, look for two contact points near the battery.

 

[jonnyGURU]

<< 1) Sony has a long, well-established reputation for quality, like Asus motherboards >>



MSI is a late comer?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I beleive I've been using their product since 1994. Mind you that I do acknowledge Asus has been around longer. I've even owned an Asus 386 board!

And Sony.... Wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole. Had two home casette deck die after one year and one car head unit die within a year and a Trinitron TV die within 5 years. My track record with Sony is not that good. I know they USED to make good stuff because I have a 20 year old Betamax that still works and a 15 year old Trinitron TV that still works (the sound is screwy but I use a receiver).

Just my 2 cents. Choose better analogies.

 

[NickkNackk]

I'll join the ranks of the MSI K7T Pro2A Lemon club.

It a Lemon.

I reinstalled Windows 10 times various hardware and drivers of all kinds (e.g.: std IDE ATA 33-I/O cables and High speed ATA 66/100 cables). regular to beta. In more variations than I care to try and list. Lost 2 wks on this bleeding issue. Just whish I had checked the Anand user forums earlier.

Boiled down to the same thing. Simultaneous ATA 100 disk and CD ROM I/O (e.g.: installing from CD) would reboot or toss crap to screen with out warning. Only noticed this from windows (after windows was installed) because to install windows I normally copy CD to hardrive to install. So the problem was not obvious until installing applications from CD after windows was setup. Do to the random nature of when it would fail small driver loads from CD would not crap out. only large transfers from CD. Yes I tried multiple types of CD drives and cable/channel combinations.

Interesting to note that during the DOS only mode CD to HD copy there was no problem.
Also Burn test and hard ware diag software I ran from a boot floppy found no hardware - I/O - or memory problems.
So its not completely a hardware lvl problem but possible driver/windows issue.

So this board is quite happy with DOS only platform. LOL Wolfenstien never ran so quick.

 

[Leo V]

jpprod, I've just taken another risk and purchased an Asus A7V133 from Ajump.com (I found a pretty good deal, $150 shipped). I couldn't find practically any A7V/Pro's anywhere. Time will tell how stupid my decision was, this time around.

 

[FrEstYle29]

i have been having all of these symptoms with my k7t pro 2a. blue screens, black screen, and little green lines at the top. This sucks!

 

[Miraluka]

I don't know why you are getting all pissy about the toll number issue. Even Intel uses a toll number for their CPU tech support. Damn Celeron 633 died out, called them and they sent me a Pentium3 733mhz .

 

[bernse]

<< The &quot;XXXX&quot; should look like &quot;0043&quot; for a 2000 Week 43 chip. >>



Well, I just picked mine up from my computer store....needless to say I was/am a little aprehensive since all this hit the fan. I carefully lifted the sticker and it revealed a 0053....not 43 but indeed 53. Here I thought there was only 52 weeks in a year. Hmmf.

Well, here's to hoping I won't have a problem tonight. Wish me luck.

 

[barlav]

I'm on my second Pro2-A. My first one wouldn't even post. 2nd one is working like a charm now but it took me about 2 weeks to get it 100% stable. I needed to work through some Soundblaster Live issues, Some GeForce issues and several Windows 2000 issues. But now I'm very happy and all is well and extremely stable.

 

[NickkNackk]

Well Leo V I replace my MSI K7Tpro2a with an ASUS A7Pro.

The only complaint i have with it is this: using an ATA66/100 cable the system stays in realmode pageing compatability mode. if i use a ATA 33 cable this problem goes away.

It will be interesting to see if you run into the same thing. Or has anyone else for that matter?

G/L

 

[Budman]

NickkNackk, Did you install the promise drivers?

look in device manager for MASS storage device &amp; reinstall driver.

 

[PCResources]

<< i have been having all of these symptoms with my k7t pro 2a. blue screens, black screen, and little green lines at the top. This sucks! >>



Do you know how many users there are out there that has the same problems as you, not with the same board, but with EVERY board...

It takes weeks for me to determine where the instability problems come from, but everyone else can do it in a matter of hours???

I have seen these kinds of problems with every board i have ever tried, was it a faulty mobo every time?? NO... Maybe you need to replace that memory stick, or maybe your PS is too crappy (and Intel users, just do not get me started with this one, if any CPU demands a special PS it is the Intel P4, and actually many PIII's run more stable with a higher output PS)...

So before you go blame the motherboard or the CPU, check the memory, the powersupply, the settings and everything else.... All i know is that if you have the right components and configure it in the right way, MSI is the best of the best...

(the most stable setups i have tested (except for the PCRES specials) uses Crucial memory, MSI mobo, AMD CPU (or intel if you would want one) seagate/maxtor drives and video cards from ATI, Matrox or Nvidia, coupled with sound cards from VideoLogic)...

Patrick Palm

Am speaking for PC Resources

 

[billmc]

Same problem exactly, bought MSI K7Tpro2-A in late December, have never been able to turn on DMA for DVD drive. System crashes every time. No response from MSI.

billmc

 

[slag]

I have absolutely no problems burning cds on my MSI pro 2a board.. None, zippo.. I have used a yamaha 8x4x24 and currently have an iomega 8x4x32 drive again with no problems at all.

In fact, this board is becoming one of the more stable boards I have used. The asus p2b holds the record for now, but I bet I have had perhaps 2 crashes in the past month with this board and I have 256 megs of generic pc133 ram, antec power supply, hacked promise raid card with 2 15 gig maxtor hdds, voodoo4 video, mx300 sound, etc.

Its just a very stable and robust machine!!!

 

[jonnyGURU]

I know this is an old thread and this is really late coming, but I finally found an instance where I was able to duplicate this DMA problem everyone is ranting about.....

Have any of you with the problem tried enabling the DMA, reboot, go into the BIOS, and disable AGP 4X mode? Yep. Solid as a rock. Sure, you lose that 4% memory bandwidth on video benchmarks and this really does suck, but it's at least a consistancy and can help point to a REAL solution.

Thank you for you time.
jon