MSI K8N Neo Platinum (MS-7030) Hangs at BIOS

[NegatiZE]

My motherboard is acting a bit weird. This doesn't happen every time, but every once in a while when I reboot or power on my computer, it just 'hangs' at the BIOS screen. It doesn't attempt to boot to any device; all I see is the Platinum logo. The system is not locked up, as I can hit F10 and see the standard BIOS screen that displays about of memory, etc. I'll hit the reset button on the computer or CTRL+ALT+DEL and it usually boots then, but sometimes I have to do that more than once.

I have the latest BIOS version, which IIRC is 7/28/04.

Is anyone else having this problem?

 

[k3nt]

YES I have a K8N Neo Platinum and I have the same problem you have. From time to time (randomly) it hangs at the Platinum screen. It happens when the BIOS does not recognize the hard drive. Really strange....If I reboot a few times it usually will boot to windows. Lately it has been giving me a ton of trouble.

Try checking your hard drive jumper. Try it both on "master" and "cable select". See which one the mobo likes better. For my hard drive (Seagate Barracude IDE) cable select seems to work.

I still have been getting blue screens randomly in windows. Ive had MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION and also KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR. I notice that you have Mushkin RAM. I do too.....I have pc3500 Level One. Do you have black level one as well?

 

[NegatiZE]

Thanks for the reply.

I have regular Muskin PC3200 RAM, nothing too fancy:

http://www.newegg.com/app/view...=20-146-219&depa=0

I haven't been getting any Blue Screens at all, just the weird boots.

Another thing I may add, when I overclock, the only thing I can change is the "FSB" setting. Right now I'm running 210x10 = 2100MHz. Anything else, especially the voltage, and the computer doesn't even boot. I have to reset the CMOS and start over. Ugh.

My friend's saying it could be a power supply going bad. I have an Antec TruePower 380W. If this is the case, seems like the perfect oppurtinity to upgrade to the 480W w/ Blue LED fan.

 

[k3nt]

I dont know....I have a TruePower 480(not the blue LEDS though heh). I have also been wondering if I have power supply issues. I just don't understand how my Antec PSU could be bad, I've heard so many good things about them. Maybe you and I just got duds....lol

I've read forums on MSIs site about people that have problems similar to you and I. Several said they replaced power supply, hard drive, memory, and still had problems.... = (

 

[NegatiZE]

Yeah, I thought Antec PS units were very good. Hopefully someone out there has an answer?

Would you mind posting the link to the MSI thread about this issue?

 

[k3nt]

I apologize, the link is really more about Blue Screen troubles so I'm not sure whether it will help you or not:

http://forum.msi.com.tw/thread...lightuser=0&page=1

I found it pretty informative. Hopefully it will help you!

 

[NegatiZE]

Thanks!

 

[k3nt]

no problem =)

 

[dacull]

I get similar problems , on the Neo2.

 

[k3nt]

= (

I've gotta say, I won't be buying another MSI board again...

 

[Corey244]

I finally got all the parts bought and shipped and ready to go. had the tech come over on friday, got it all set up and my MSI hung it bios too. He warned me before installing it the likelihood of this happpening, but I insited. I ended up calling newegg and explaining the problem and they offered to exchange it only if I bought another mobo from them. Surprised me they allowed me to buy a Gigibyte instead of swapping out for another MSI. I guess it helped having the tech there to explain the situation.

Oh and btw I have a Antec 550W TruePower PSU with my set up and so I doubt power supply has much relivence to this problem

 

[garikfox]

If yer Memory settings in BIOS are at Aggressive it will do that, some mem is picky cant handle the Aggressive setting mine cant. Also try the latest and prolly the best BIOS out the 1.52.

 

[NegatiZE]

Everything's set to normal/auto and I have the latest BIOS update too.

I'm seriously thinking about ditching this thing and getting a Chaintech VNF3-250. It doesn't have some of the features of the MSI but I never had any use for things like Gigabit LAN anyway when the rest of my home network is old anyway.

 

[k3nt]

what power supply do you have, negatiZE?

EDIT: whoops antec true power 380 I see now..

 

[scorpio110367]

garikfox, what bios are you talking about? Live update has only up to 1.4. Is this beta bios? Let us know.

 

[NegatiZE]

Yeah, it's the PS that came with my Antec Sonata case.

 

[imported_Jario]

Got the same problem...
Hanging at POST for me too. Just got this mobo...
The D-LEDs are showing memory error. Tried different types of RAM and still nothing. Just freezes up at the Splash screen with the KBoard LEDs all ON. Beeps once for POST but that's it. Doesnt respond to the Del key to go into BIOS.

Got an Antec 550W TruePower.
Any suggestions?

 

[gsaito]

It's important to try one device at a time. Just boot with 1 memory module, processor and video card. No cdrom / hard drive / sound card / modem / etc. Then add all the memories and try again. Then add hard drives. Then add cdrom. Leave the other boards for the end.

I was having freezes at power-up too and found problem was with hard drive configuration by using the method above. Solved it by moving second hard drive to SATA 3 (instead of SATA 2 which has the same controller as SATA 1) and enabling SATA DMA transfer.

 

[NegatiZE]

Good news: ever since I turned off the Platinum logo, everything works fine now. I haven't had a hang since. Weird, but it works for me anyway.

 

[imported_Jario]

I just got mine working. The reason it wasn?t working was my primary hard drive's jumper was set to master with slave present(jumper in the middle). I switched it over to master(no jumper) and it booted fine. I do have a slave drive but it looks like the mobo doesn?t like this setting.

 

[Psyrecx]

How do you change the memory settings with the Neo PE. It seems to be defaulted to ddr333. Im running 1GB PC3200 Mushkin RAM. Im not use to this bios configuration so Im having some problems.

 

[Dustswirl]

Try switching dimms then boot and test every configuration. i had the same problems with a corsair XL 512MB in dimm 2 switched it to dimm1 and no more problems what so ever.
K8N is very picky when it comes to ram size and dimms choice

 

[Nessism]

The "hang" issue occurs while the BIOS is trying to detect the drives; if it doesn't see things "just so" it will hang. I think this has something to do with the IDE and SATA controller implementation. I don't understand the reasoning behind the problem but try playing around with the drive orientation as it relates to master and slave configuration.

My system, 7030 FSR, was working well booting off a SATA drive. When I added an ATA hard drive as a Slave on the primary chanel, the system wouldn't boot. The system would boot and run fine with the hard drive set as the master, but if it is set as slave, it will not boot.

These MSI boards are clearly not very user friendly. Live and learn.

Ed