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#1
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PSU problems with motherboard
I built a system a couple of months ago with an MSI 865PE Neo2-FIS2R
motherboard and an Antec TrueBlue 480W PSU. The system would turn on, but it would never boot up at all. The Neo2's four diagnostic LED lights all hung on solid red, indicating that the processor was damaged. However, the processor (a P4 2.8GHz CPU) was not damaged. I eventually went to CompUSA and bought one of their store-brand 300W PSUs, installed it in place of the Antec PSU, and sure enough the system then booted up and worked like a charm. (I didn't have many components installed anyway, so a 300W PSU was sufficient anyway.) I presumed the Antec's PSU power cable was bad, and got a refund on the unit. (I had purchased by mail order from a retailer in another part of the country.) Since then, I hadn't had any problems with the system. Except that on three or four occasions, when I turned on the PC, it would power on but not boot up. I simply turned it off and back on again, and the next time it booted up properly. I wasn't too worried about this since I intended to eventually upgrade the PSU. Then, last Wednesday, I attempted to install SP2 for Windows XP. (WinXP is the only OS installed on the system). The installation of SP2 seemed successful, except that when I rebooted, WinXP stayed stuck on the bootup screen with the Windows logo and black background. Only one block of the progress bar would appear at the bottom, and it would stay stuck on that one block without any sign of activity. Doing a hard shutdown and booting back up again got the same result. So I let Windows stay on that screen overnight, thinking maybe it needed a long time to boot up the first time after installing SP2. The next morning, it was still stuck on that same screen with only one block of the progress bar, so I did another hard shutdown. I had a .GHO file of WinXP on a storage partition, and I decided it was time to restore the ghost image of XP (pre-SP2 install attempt). However, when I booted into the Ghost 2003 diskette, it would always get stuck while loading the GUI, just as WinXP always got stuck while loading. I shut down the PC and started it back up again and retried loading Ghost a few times, but it kept freezing while loading the GUI. Even though WinXP and Ghost always froze while loading, I could boot into the Neo2's BIOS and never have any problems with it. All the BIOS's setting (including the power levels) were normal. Then it got to the point that holding down the PC's power button would not force a hard shutdown, so I had to remove the power cord from the back of the PC to do this. And as soon as I plugged the power cord back in, the PC started up on its own automatically without me hitting the button. I unplugged everything from the system a let it set and "cool down" overnight, but when I plugged in the power cord the next morning, the exact same thing happened again. Since the generic 300W PSU was apparently not working properly, I went back to CompUSA today and bought another Antec TrueBlue 480W PSU, since I needed a new PSU and this was the one that I had wanted in the first place. However, after I installed the Antec PSU and powered on the system, the exact same thing happened that had happened with the other one befo the PC would power on, but the system never booted up at all. Just like before, the Neo2's four diagnostic LED lights all hung on solid red. I did a Google search but found no issues with the the Antec TrueBlue and the MSI 865PE Neo2. (And keep in mind that the other Antec TrueBlue was bought in another part of the country, so it's doubtful that the two would be from a same "bad batch".) I found that if I reconnected the generic CompUSA-brand 300W PSU back to the motherboard, it would boot up, but the OS would still always get stuck. Then I set the Antec PSU's switch from 115 to 230, connected it to the Neo2, turned it on ... and everything was dead. When that happened, I unplugged the Antec immediately. I don't think I had it powered on at 230 for more than five seconds, but now when I try to power on the Neo2, even with the generic CompUSA PSU reconnected back to it, it stays dead. So I guess I fried it. (I thought the 115/230 selector was for the input power only and wouldn't have any affect on the PSU's output to the mobo.) So why will my Neo2 mobo not boot up with a PSU as reputable as the Antec TrueBlue 480W? (I've verified that my Antec PSU works fine on other systems.) Can a bad power supply (the generic 300w PSU) cause an OS to freeze up during boot, but cause no other apparent problems? Is there a certain amount of time I can wait to see if the motherboard will boot up again? Or is it fried for sure? I've been having all kinds of crazy stuff going on since the start, and this experience has been hellish to say the least. I'm just trying to get a handle on what's going on. TIA |
#2
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BillyR wrote:
I built a system a couple of months ago with an MSI 865PE Neo2-FIS2R motherboard and an Antec TrueBlue 480W PSU. The system would turn on, but it would never boot up at all. The Neo2's four diagnostic LED lights all hung on solid red, indicating that the processor was damaged. However, the processor (a P4 2.8GHz CPU) was not damaged. I eventually went to CompUSA and bought one of their store-brand 300W PSUs, installed it in place of the Antec PSU, and sure enough the system then booted up and worked like a charm. (I didn't have many components installed anyway, so a 300W PSU was sufficient anyway.) I presumed the Antec's PSU power cable was bad, and got a refund on the unit. (I had purchased by mail order from a retailer in another part of the country.) Since then, I hadn't had any problems with the system. Except that on three or four occasions, when I turned on the PC, it would power on but not boot up. I simply turned it off and back on again, and the next time it booted up properly. I wasn't too worried about this since I intended to eventually upgrade the PSU. Then, last Wednesday, I attempted to install SP2 for Windows XP. (WinXP is the only OS installed on the system). The installation of SP2 seemed successful, except that when I rebooted, WinXP stayed stuck on the bootup screen with the Windows logo and black background. Only one block of the progress bar would appear at the bottom, and it would stay stuck on that one block without any sign of activity. Doing a hard shutdown and booting back up again got the same result. So I let Windows stay on that screen overnight, thinking maybe it needed a long time to boot up the first time after installing SP2. The next morning, it was still stuck on that same screen with only one block of the progress bar, so I did another hard shutdown. I had a .GHO file of WinXP on a storage partition, and I decided it was time to restore the ghost image of XP (pre-SP2 install attempt). However, when I booted into the Ghost 2003 diskette, it would always get stuck while loading the GUI, just as WinXP always got stuck while loading. I shut down the PC and started it back up again and retried loading Ghost a few times, but it kept freezing while loading the GUI. Even though WinXP and Ghost always froze while loading, I could boot into the Neo2's BIOS and never have any problems with it. All the BIOS's setting (including the power levels) were normal. Then it got to the point that holding down the PC's power button would not force a hard shutdown, so I had to remove the power cord from the back of the PC to do this. And as soon as I plugged the power cord back in, the PC started up on its own automatically without me hitting the button. I unplugged everything from the system a let it set and "cool down" overnight, but when I plugged in the power cord the next morning, the exact same thing happened again. Since the generic 300W PSU was apparently not working properly, I went back to CompUSA today and bought another Antec TrueBlue 480W PSU, since I needed a new PSU and this was the one that I had wanted in the first place. However, after I installed the Antec PSU and powered on the system, the exact same thing happened that had happened with the other one befo the PC would power on, but the system never booted up at all. Just like before, the Neo2's four diagnostic LED lights all hung on solid red. I did a Google search but found no issues with the the Antec TrueBlue and the MSI 865PE Neo2. (And keep in mind that the other Antec TrueBlue was bought in another part of the country, so it's doubtful that the two would be from a same "bad batch".) I found that if I reconnected the generic CompUSA-brand 300W PSU back to the motherboard, it would boot up, but the OS would still always get stuck. Then I set the Antec PSU's switch from 115 to 230, connected it to the Neo2, turned it on ... and everything was dead. When that happened, I unplugged the Antec immediately. I don't think I had it powered on at 230 for more than five seconds, but now when I try to power on the Neo2, even with the generic CompUSA PSU reconnected back to it, it stays dead. So I guess I fried it. (I thought the 115/230 selector was for the input power only and wouldn't have any affect on the PSU's output to the mobo.) So why will my Neo2 mobo not boot up with a PSU as reputable as the Antec TrueBlue 480W? (I've verified that my Antec PSU works fine on other systems.) Can a bad power supply (the generic 300w PSU) cause an OS to freeze up during boot, but cause no other apparent problems? Is there a certain amount of time I can wait to see if the motherboard will boot up again? Or is it fried for sure? I've been having all kinds of crazy stuff going on since the start, and this experience has been hellish to say the least. I'm just trying to get a handle on what's going on. TIA Seems you had multiple issues and that complicates things as one might affect/cause another. I don't know why your board has problems with the Antec PSU but, since it does, it makes one wonder what else the board has problems with. As for the 115/230 switch, yes, it's for the 'input' but if the 'input' is wrong it's rather problematic what the output will be. Who knows what voltages were produced. The windows hang was probably a simpler problem. Windows XP SP2 is known to hang on boot with some systems running C stepping P4 Prescotts (and Celeron D) when the BIOS doesn't have the proper microcode update and I'd suspect that was your problem. MS has released a patch for that, here... http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en |
#3
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BillyR wrote:
snip Intermittents are tough to diagnose, but I notice two things about the antics (no Antec pun intended) you describe in detail: the motherboard has remained a constant and it's had problems (if different) with both the Antec and the Brand-X power supply. Do you think there's an implication, there...? -- Blinky Linux Registered User 297263 Go Blue |
#4
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On 9/18/2004 7:38 PM BillyR brightened our day with:
I built a system a couple of months ago with an MSI 865PE Neo2-FIS2R motherboard and an Antec TrueBlue 480W PSU. How well is everything grounded, is there a possibility something is shorting the motherboard somewhere inside the case? When this kind of stuff happens take everything, I mean everything that unscrews easily (don't take the PSU apart), apart and check that there's nothing connected wrong. 8 months of weird strange glitchy problems with an MSI board and an Antec PSU, when I got a new case 4 months ago I discovered a leftover (from an older motherboard) metal stand-off between the mobo and the old case. Since its been in the new case with no extraneous crap, zero problems. -- Lo, brethren, within the doom 3/base folder there is but one folder structure. That is the way it has always been, is now and ever shall be. Steve ¤»Inglo«¤ www.inglostadt.com |
#5
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On the same line of thinking of a ground issue. Take the Mainboard out
of the case and run it on a bench. In some case rather than an extra stand-off, one might not be center right and causing a problem. As far as the board, I have the same board (no Prescott) and an Antec Trus Control 550. Works like a charm. If you can get in to the BOIS, try increasing the RAM voltage to 2.7 volts. Some have had issues booting at the default voltage. Inglo wrote: On 9/18/2004 7:38 PM BillyR brightened our day with: I built a system a couple of months ago with an MSI 865PE Neo2-FIS2R motherboard and an Antec TrueBlue 480W PSU. How well is everything grounded, is there a possibility something is shorting the motherboard somewhere inside the case? When this kind of stuff happens take everything, I mean everything that unscrews easily (don't take the PSU apart), apart and check that there's nothing connected wrong. 8 months of weird strange glitchy problems with an MSI board and an Antec PSU, when I got a new case 4 months ago I discovered a leftover (from an older motherboard) metal stand-off between the mobo and the old case. Since its been in the new case with no extraneous crap, zero problems. |
#6
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"BillyR" [snip] Then I set the Antec PSU's switch from 115 to 230, connected it to the Neo2, turned it on ... and everything was dead. When that happened, I unplugged the Antec immediately. I don't think I had it powered on at 230 for more than five seconds, but now when I try to power on the Neo2, even with the generic CompUSA PSU reconnected back to it, it stays dead. So I guess I fried it. (I thought the 115/230 selector was for the input power only and wouldn't have any affect on the PSU's output to the mobo.) [snip] I really don't think you fried it by switching it to 230v. Reason being that the output voltages should be about 1/2 of what they would be at 115v, I believe. Now if your power at the wall was 230v and you had the PSU switch at 115v, then I believe you would have fried it instantly. Make sure , as others suggested. that your wall outlet is properly grounded and that your power cord to your PC is not damaged and that is its carrying a good ground. Taking the MB out of the case to see if it is being grounded by a screw or other item is also a good idea. Buffalo |
#7
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Buffalo wrote:
"BillyR" [snip] Then I set the Antec PSU's switch from 115 to 230, connected it to the Neo2, turned it on ... and everything was dead. When that happened, I unplugged the Antec immediately. I don't think I had it powered on at 230 for more than five seconds, but now when I try to power on the Neo2, even with the generic CompUSA PSU reconnected back to it, it stays dead. So I guess I fried it. (I thought the 115/230 selector was for the input power only and wouldn't have any affect on the PSU's output to the mobo.) [snip] I really don't think you fried it by switching it to 230v. Reason being that the output voltages should be about 1/2 of what they would be at 115v, I believe. Switching power supplies don't work like that. With an improper input, what happens to the internal circuitry as it tries to do the 'right thing' with the 'wrong stuff' is indeterminate, except that it certainly won't be anything so simple as '1/2'. Now if your power at the wall was 230v and you had the PSU switch at 115v, then I believe you would have fried it instantly. Make sure , as others suggested. that your wall outlet is properly grounded and that your power cord to your PC is not damaged and that is its carrying a good ground. Taking the MB out of the case to see if it is being grounded by a screw or other item is also a good idea. Buffalo |
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