Rant on K8T800 NEO-FIS2R, anyone else have these problems with MSI?

[wakedog102]

I've been tinkering with computer innards for nearly all my life, even back when all my games had to be run through the DOS prompt, so replacing parts or upgrading my comp. was never an issue, however, I had never fully built a computer using parts I selected. Recently I decided to build my first comp from scratch and it has been nothing but a pain, which I'm thinking stems mostly from the motherboard I chose. I decided to go AMD with a 64-3000+ and a MSI K8T800 NEO-FIS2R mobo. This mobo has been terrible (when running however, the system is insanely fast, which makes the following even more difficult to deal with). In one week of having my system running I have had to hard reset (ie short the board out with the emergency jumper) the BIOS something like 4 times. It constantly hangs on boot. It hangs on windows install (when it does POST). It took me something like 4-5 install tries to get windows up and running. It hangs if there is a CD in my drive on boot. Worst of all it hangs while IN THE BIOS screen. Last night after wrestling with the mobo for the last week I finally received my last peice, a BFG 5900 and set it all up. Turn on the system power and the 5900 didn't power up, but the case fans did turn on. Tried everything, reset BIOS, tried different power connectors, to no avail. Finally I pulled the 5900 and now the whole system won't even power on. I checked my PSU with another computer and it is fine. I check all the connections, they are fine. I replaced my old vid card, still no power. I tried multiple times throughout the night and the mobo is now a no-go.

Could I have gotten a lemon, or is this pretty typical MSI? Anyone have any experience with this particular motherboard? I'm hoping that I can talk to NewEgg about getting an ASUS board as a replacement. I just hope that my CPU, harddrives and ram are all ok.

 

[JBT]

sounds like a typical MSI board I have swore off them my self. Asus/Abit for life w00t!!!

 

[Mem]

sounds like a typical MSI board I have swore off them my self. Asus/Abit for life w00t!!!

No manufacturer would release a motherboard that is not stable,sounds like you`ve a faulty board it does happen even to brands like Asus etc,all you can do is replace the board and see if that fixes the problem,if not then you have to start looking at other components.

 

[oldfart]

Originally posted by: JBT
sounds like a typical MSI board I have swore off them my self. Asus/Abit for life w00t!!!

Never will buy another MSI either. Never had any luck with them. I rate them as a bottom of the barrel budget brand.

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: JBT
sounds like a typical MSI board I have swore off them my self. Asus/Abit for life w00t!!!

I totaly agree with JBT & oldfart on this one,fool me once shame on you,fool me twice shame on me !!

I too have swore off them after spending a few months in hell trying to get my MSI board to work as advertised I finaly gave up.

Misi tech support is a joke & they cant even write a decent bios to save their life!!!

I can sum up my feeling about MSI in one word, BUGGY.

 

[Aoleleb]

Sounds like you might have bad memory, my friend has a Gigabyte board that was always freezing up even in the bios and he had bad memory. He got a new stick of ram and all his problems went away.

 

[phoenix79]

I'm here to defend MSI. The last few Mobo's I've owned were MSI boards. I've only had problems with 1 and it was a bit over a year old when it started developing problems. Even though it was slightly out of warranty MSI replaced this board for free and was pretty quick about it. So, in my experience, MSI is a good brand and I plan on owning more of their boards in the future. Every company on earth will have some flawed products get out their doors, but it seems like the people who get those are the most vocal. I am very happy with MSI.

 

[wakedog102]

Originally posted by: Aoleleb
Sounds like you might have bad memory, my friend has a Gigabyte board that was always freezing up even in the bios and he had bad memory. He got a new stick of ram and all his problems went away.

Let's hope it's not my RAM... Mushkin L1 PC3500 512MB stick.

UPDATE:

NEWEGG is going to hook me up and let me get an ASUS or ABIT board. NEWEGG rep was incredibly quick polite and understanding. So far, A++ for Newegg, definately doing buisness with them in the future.

 

[Budman]

Hey wakedog102 have you read this review yet?


Wesley seems to reeally like the new Aopen board. AOpen AK86-L: Uncommonly Good

 

[Mem]

Sounds like you might have bad memory, my friend has a Gigabyte board that was always freezing up even in the bios and he had bad memory. He got a new stick of ram and all his problems went away.

If it was just bad memory then Memtest86 would be a good program for testing the ram,however I still think it`s a more serious problem.

As to MSI well I`ve used their boards in the pass and last one I had was rock stable for 4 years until it died(guess any board can die after 4 years),you always get people bashing brands if there`s a problem,not like there`s a brand out there that`s perfect ,as I`ve stated before any brand can have a board go faulty,my friend had an Asus board that went faulty, am I going to bash Asus?No I`m not.

I think Asus,MSI and Albratron ,Abit all offer 3 year warranty on their boards.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

MSI is the :evil: and as another member pointed out the last time I said that "it makes sense, they even make the board red"

 

[Bovinicus]

Your power supply or inadequate system cooling could also cause the problems you are talking about. However, I do think it is probably the motherboard since resetting the CMOS often allows the system to operate. Just make sure it isn't some other piece of hardware. If it is the motherboard, then just RMA that badboy and you should have a solid board on your hands.

 

[wakedog102]

Originally posted by: Budman
Hey wakedog102 have you read this review yet?


Wesley seems to reeally like the new Aopen board. AOpen AK86-L: Uncommonly Good

EXCELLENT. Thanks for the link. Too few features, but it sounds like the overclock with AGP lock on this thing is a beast. Something to consider.

 

[shiftomnimega]

This is a good link

According to the article athlon 64 mobos have memory compatibility issues. They're just mad picky... go figure.

 

[WebDude]

I've been struggling with a similar setup for days. Same mb, had Mushkin 3500 level II ram, Athlon64 3000+. I've learned a lot about the mb in these days, but it still doesn't run right. I've tried repeatedly to set up a raid0 array off the promise controller. No luck at all. Been running instead off the via raid. That at least seems to work.

Memory timings are very important to get this board to run at all. I had constant lockups with the Mushkin mem. It wasn't the memory's fault. I found a few online forums where they discussed the memory timing issues (including the Mushkin web site). Unforntunately you can ease off on the memory timings, and then the board just won't even boot. (Same if you get them too tight.) Resetting the bios via the jumper wouldn't even work. Only way I could get it back was to pop in some totally different RAM. Very weird. Then the board refused to shut down. Windows would close out, but everything else would keep running. Disabled power management and no help.

I'm going to return my board to NewEgg too. Hope they're as nice to me as they were to you.

 

[MrMaster]

Originally posted by: WebDude
I've been struggling with a similar setup for days. Same mb, had Mushkin 3500 level II ram, Athlon64 3000+. I've learned a lot about the mb in these days, but it still doesn't run right. I've tried repeatedly to set up a raid0 array off the promise controller. No luck at all. Been running instead off the via raid. That at least seems to work.

Memory timings are very important to get this board to run at all. I had constant lockups with the Mushkin mem. It wasn't the memory's fault. I found a few online forums where they discussed the memory timing issues (including the Mushkin web site). Unforntunately you can ease off on the memory timings, and then the board just won't even boot. (Same if you get them too tight.) Resetting the bios via the jumper wouldn't even work. Only way I could get it back was to pop in some totally different RAM. Very weird. Then the board refused to shut down. Windows would close out, but everything else would keep running. Disabled power management and no help.

I'm going to return my board to NewEgg too. Hope they're as nice to me as they were to you.

Was told Corsair XMS memory doesn't like the NEO board too much. Mine booted up without a hitch yesterday after building one.

 

[WebDude]

Yeah I heard about the Corsair mem. problems. Bios ver 1.20 was supposed to address some of them, anyway.

2. This BIOS fixes the following problems of the previous version:
- Update VIA SATA ROM to version 2.31
- Fixed CPU vcore selection item.
- Fixed Corsair DDR466/500 stability issue.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: shiftomnimega
This is a good link

According to the article athlon 64 mobos have memory compatibility issues. They're just mad picky... go figure.

Well, they didn;t try many kinds of memory or motherboards. I can say I have had zero issues at many timings and speeds on my K8V and Kingston Hyperx PC3500 CAS2. Just can;t seem to hit 220 on 3d games, but I am at 218, and rock solid for 6 days now. 219 is next, but I know 220 doesn't work.

Edit: And I have run CAS3, 2.5 and 2. No real difference. Haven't tried CAS3 on 220, but I am sure it is AGP speed that kills it, since Windows is happy at that.

 

[Caminetto]

"Tom's Hardware" review of a64 boards all used corsair pc3200 xms. Would think that would be the way to go.
Also planning to build an a64 3000 on an msi neo. The msi boards must have had many issues in the past for so many "senior" at's to hate them, but every review I have read give this board extremely high marks.

 

[Farmer]

THG also said something (although a bit vague and in poor english) about the PC3200 XMS causing boot failures on certain boards, including the MSI. I have experienced no such problems with Corsair RAM, even with unflashed BIOS.

I currently own an MSI NEO (my first one was DOA with somewhat similar symptoms as yours, just that it never booted at all, and I RMAd. I should have replaced given the poor reputation of MSI, but, this second board has been basically solid so far), and I use Corsair XMS3200 running at 2-3-2-6. I said basically solid, because, though everything is stable and fast, there seems to be an issue with the floppy drive channel, as no disks can be read (though the floppy drive is fully functional and cleanly picked up by BIOS and XP).

Either you recieved a lemon, or I'm uncommonly lucky.

 

[Rent]

As I add components to my system, I find more and more quirks with this board. However, I still think its one of the best boards I've ever built a system with.

I've had MSI boards ever since they started produce AMD Athlon boards (think original Athlon here). I never really had a major problem with any of them. The first board I used burnt out a fan header, but otherwise worked flawlessly.

My Neo had zero problems getting up and running. My board seems to be particular about memory timings w/my Corsair PC3200. It also throws fits when I start overclocking manually instead of using the dynamic feature (which works great as it is).

I've built systems using all types of boards and while MSI boards tend to have their quirks, they usually perform the best for me. I've been abusing the living crap out of this one and it hasn't died yet. Go MSI

 

[nowayout99]

I feared having a problem with my NEO as well when I built my system last weekend... I had similar problems. My system wouldn't even survive a fresh XP installation because it would hang. SOMETIMES it would recover, but hang again.

Anytime there was considerable disk activity, from CD-ROM or HDD, it would lock up. I then switched the PSU line I was using to power my hard drive, and the problem went away. (I switched from a line that had 2 large molex connectors and 1 small floppy connector to a line that had 3 large molex connectors.)

The most likely culprit in my case was that the PSU was not enough to handle the load, or a bad connector. It was an Antec SL350S, but that's not enough info alone. It was weak on the +12V rail, rating at 16A, when the recommended minimum these days is really 18A.

Despite what many people say about Antec, as good as they are, I've begun to think that even a good 350watt psu is marginal with a top of the line A64 setup... at least that's my impression after dealing with this setup. I've since switched to an Antec TruePower 430 (with 20A on the +12V rail) and I've been humming along fine.

MSI K8T Neo
Athlon64 3200+
ATI AIW 9600 Pro
1 x 512 Mushkin Level One 3500+
1 x Maxtor DiamondMax 9 80GB (Master on IDE1)
1 x Plextor CD/DVD Combo (Master on IDE2)
1 x FDD
2 x 120mm case fans (front/back)

Old PSU, came with the Antec BQE Case: Antec SL350S (+5v: 35A, +12v: 16A, +3.3v: 28A)

New PSU: Antec 430W TruePower (+5v: 36A, +12v: 20A, +3.3v: 28A)