MSI K8N mobo - serious crash - hardware related?

[holycrikey]

Hello all! First time posting here. This seems like quite an expansive forum. I've checked out the big thread regarding the NeoHE series (with the poll), but I was unable to find any answers. Here's my specs as well as my problem:

-MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
-AMD 64 bit 3500+
-Antec NeoHE 550 watt PSU
-2 x 200 GB WD Caviar hd's
-2 x 1G OCZ DDR400 RAM
-BFG Geforce 6800GT OCX
-Windows XP Professional

All drivers are updated. Current nvidia drivers, BIOS has been reflashed, updated mobo drivers, current Directx, etc etc.

I bought the NeoHE PSU about four months ago, and I just started having problems. I play Battlefield 2 quite a lot, and just about two weeks ago, the game started to crash in-game. It was randomly crashing. Maybe 2 hours into a game, maybe 15 minutes. All case temperatures were pretty nominal. I tried testing almost everything. RAM was working flawlessly, harddrives had no errors, etc. I DID replace my BFG card as my first one was subject to a thumbscrew dropping on it, and thus frying it. They replaced it. Runs just as well. It won't crash during extreme testing during 3DMark.

I noticed that my Cool n' Quiet feature was disabled in my BIOS. I turned it on, which seems to have fixed the in-game crashing. I haven't experienced a single crash yet, for extended amounts of time.

However, now the computer will crash randomly in Windows. Not as frequent though. I may be watching a movie, or simply browsing the internet when POOF. No blue screen. Just the screen going black. If music is playing, it will continue for about 10 more seconds until the computer really crashes. Reboot button on the cash will NOT restart the computer after this happens. I have to physically turn it off and turn it back on.

When I restart, sometimes my USB keyboard will go undetected, which will require me turning off the computer and waiting about 10 seconds to restart.

This is the weirdest problem I've experienced with my computer. I know of the compatibility issues with the NeoHE PSU's. Do these crash symptoms seem like a PSU error? How can I go about testing this? How can I rule out a PSU problem?

I've formatted both my hd's and reinstalled Windows as well. Still have these odd problems with crashing every now and then. Windows comes back up after rebooting saying that it's "recovered from a serious error." etc etc.

ANY help would be great. I've searched these boards but can't seem to find these specific problems with anyone else, and I don't want to just start wasting money replacing components that may be perfectly fine.

Thanks for any ideas or anything to push me in the right direction. I want to solve this dang problem!

-Kevin

 

[ND40oz]

I think the MSI Neo4 Platinum needs a power supply with a -5 volt rail, which the Neo series doesn't have. I seem to remember this from awhile back, I'll try searching for the threads on it.

Edit: here you go: http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showtopic=47162

 

[holycrikey]

So why would my computer run like a champ for oh, four months or so, then this problem sneaks up on me?

I'm thinking more and more that my problems may be the PSU. I'm pretty noobish when it comes to PSU specs. What does a 5 volt rail do? Why would I need it? Why would these problems just happen now?

Thanks for that link! Definitely getting deeper on this problem

Edit: Upon further reading, it seems that only on-board audio will suffer on the MSI boards without the -5 volt rail. Otherwise, the system should run stable. So now I'm really confused. That, and MSI's website only states that the K8N SLI board requires the -5 volt PSU. For the other pages of the non-SLI boards, it states nothing of that sort.

 

[pkme2]

See this
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=27&threadid=1851368&enterthread=y

My reference is for the recent PSU pulls on eBay for sale.

 

[nycdude]

I heard that a few of these boards have a cmos battery issue. It may not be related but you should check it out.

 

[holycrikey]

Wanted to update this situation.

PSU most likely isn't the culprit. I changed back over to a -5 volt rail Antec PSU, and the system STILL crashed.

So now, maybe it's the mobo or video card? I'm still completely befuddled. This is getting to be insane.

 

[holycrikey]

Anyone? Anyone?

 

[alevasseur14]

Have you tried running Prime95 on your computer. That will turn up any computational errors your processor may be throwing. If it's overclocked, that could be it. Even if it isn't, I'd run the test anyways.

After that, my next guess would be your mobo is actually dying.