MSI K8MM problems

[sykopath79]

I am building a barebones system upgrade for a customer and we decided on building him an Athlon64 3200+ system. I picked up the processor, an MSI K8MM motherboard, and a gig (2x512 MB) of Mushkin DDR400 RAM.

Built the system, installed Windows XP, which went smoothly up until right when it starts the "Let's Get Started" screen that walks you through creating user accounts, activation, and such. I got a wierd error saying something about the registry not loading properly right before the wizard began; went through the wizard OK but then it took FOREVER to load the desktop. I rebooted, and then I was not able to get a desktop up again, it would just sit at the blue screen with the Windows XP logo forever (the one you normally see very very briefly, if at all, before the logon/Welcome screen appears).

We have narrowed the problem down to RAM, motherboard, or CPU, but are not able yet to pinpoint it beyond that. We do not have extra DDR400 lying around to test it with, nor do we have any other Socket754 platforms around to swap CPUs/mobos with.

I am wondering if there are perhaps any known issues with the MSI K8MM that I might be overlooking due to ignorance of them (issues with RAM timings, voltages, or any other BIOS tweaks) as I do not want to have our vendor swap the board out for me and still have the same problems with board #2. And the customer is getting impatient because we were hoping to have his PC done Monday evening.

Sorry for such a long post, but PLEASE let me know of any suggestions you might have if any of you have experience with AMD64 systems in general, or the K8MM in particular, if there are any BIOS tweaking issues that I should be aware of that might resolve the problem.

 

[mechBgon]

Start by raising the memory voltage to 2.7 volts and reinstalling WinXP from scratch. Also, make sure you're not plugging a raw WinXP SP1 system directly into the Internet without firewalling, or you're a sitting duck for worm attacks. A worm/virus-infected system on your side of a hardware firewall (WAP or router) could also go after an unpatched WinXP system. Here's a security-rollup patch you could burn to CD to install before plugging into the network: link and it couldn't hurt to have ZoneAlarm basic on there either.

Hope it works out for you

 

[sykopath79]

Yeah we fix computers for a living where I work so we're pretty anal about making sure Sasser/Blaster/Welchia/other network worms don't get on fresh installs. I had this problem with only hard drive & CD-ROM attached, no network cable plugged in at all.

I may try the raising the voltage trick, as I have read around the 'net (Mushkin's own website included) that this may help with K8 boards... or I may just go swap the mobo out for a different model and hope to save a bit of time.

Any other suggestions or stories from similar experience?

 

[mechBgon]

I tried to find a downloadable manual for the K8MM so I could have more insight on it in particular, but MSI's site doesn't seem to have a manual for it :frown: I don't recall seeing anyone else post about the K8MM in particular, but if it's running the RAM at Auto and defaulting to 2.5 volts, then I'll bet the RAM is a little voltage-starved.

The other thing coming to mind is the power supply, since a wobbly power supply could have the same effect. If you build and support computers, I suppose that's old news to you guys, though

 

[rog152]

hi, did you get your problem resolve?

 

[Peter]

I wouldn't blindly raise the DIMM voltage for a system that's running at stock speed (if settings are "auto", the voltage bracket should be OK by mainboard design!).

Rather, run a memory test program like the one from www.memtest.org - and if you see errors, exchange your DIMMs for a set that actually works.