MSI KT7Pro2-A booting problems after gaming: Small Discovery

[Uconn411]

Well, I know a lot of people have had problems related to this board playing Counter Strike, and graphic intensive games like it. One small discovery I made today after letting my computer sit overnight is this: It seems to be Win2k's fault. Even if I run 3dMark2001 in Win2k, my computer will reset itself, and keep doing that every couple minutes. I tore it apart last night, still did it. So, I unplugged it, popped the CMOS battery, and let it sit overnight (trying it within a 2 hours or so just won't do it). It will work fine again, until something 3d is run on it.
But, I went into my Win98SE (dualboot), and ran 3dMark2001, and some other games that I know are problematic in Win2k. Nothing. No problems. I am going to update to SP02 in Win2k, and see if that makes a difference.

 

[Flyb0y]

I have run into a problem recently with my MSI KT7 Pro 2-A and 3d gaming. While playing Tribes2 in Windows XP the pc powered off abruptly (also did it in W2K several times) and would no longer power up. Pressing power button the pc would start to power up but would only stay on for approx 20 seconds before dropping back to a power saving mode. You can hear the fans reduce rpm's and the monitor displays "No signal", even if I go straight into the bios. I changed out everything, ps, ram, hd's and pulled everything off the mb. I even turned off advanced power management in the bios. No success, I just replaced the motherboard and used the Tbird 1.0ghz. Works great now but I don't know what happened to the MSI KT7 Pro 2-A . Anyone out there have any clues?

 

[brainalien]

Wow, weird. I've had my KT7 Pro2-A for a little over a year now and have had no problems. I play a lot of 3D, graphic intensive games like Half life, Battle Realms, Superbike 2001, etc.. My system is rock solid. Wish I could offer some advice for you guys, but I'm scratchin' my head.

 

[Uconn411]

Well, I updated to SP02 in Win2k. Now instead of resetting and freezing up the system at boot, it just freezes Win2k, and I simply press the restart button. Everything returns to normal after a quick scandisk by Win2k. Much better than before (had to unplug PC for couple hours), still don't know what the problem is.
BTW, WinXP gave me a lot of problems, so I had to go back to Win2k. Good luck to all....

 

[stokey7873]

i have this same exact problem and was gonna blame it on an unsteady power supply or maybe an overtaxed video card, but now i am clueless. i will play counterstrike and it will just shut down my computer and leave only the fans on. i won't be able to restart my computer for at least a half hour. but once it makes it into windows its fine, but it will not make it for a long time.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?!?!? i thought msi were supposed to be the ROCK!

 

[MeloManiac]

AFAIK Win2K/XP is known to sometimes not work well when you O.C. - not sure why. Try to see if it works better without O.C. You definitely can't blame this problem on Win2K at least...

 

[Uconn411]

Make sure you have SP02 installed for Win2k. I just did a fresh reformat and loaded the drivers for my new Xtasy video card (had a Voodoo 3). No problems here.

 

[RayH]

Been having the same problem with my KT7 Pro-2a which is just a little over a year old.

Was rock stable until about a month ago when it froze and on reboot would not even show video bios. If I pull the power supply cord (mine doesn't have a switch), drain remaining power by attempting power on, re-attach power supply cord a few seconds later and then power on, it will usually get past IDE detection before getting a blank screen and a blinking cursor in the upper left corner.

Now here's the interesting part... if I disconnect the power supply cord and leave it disconnected overnight and re-attach and power up the next day, it will work fine and stable 24/7 and I can power down and boot up at will with no problems. Then after a couple weeks it will randomly freeze and upon boot up have the same problems again.

There are others in the MSI newsgroups who have been having the same problem. There's been mention of the amount of heat the SC1155 voltage chip next to the ATX power connector puts out on boot up when this problem occurs. It sounds like either this chip or some other component upstream or downstream is starting to fail and somehow full drainage of power temporarily resets the problem (removal of battery wasn't neccssary though).

I've tried pulling all cards except video, pulling all but one dimm and swapping cpu's with no effect on the problem. The only thing I haven't tried is switching power supplies but I doubt it's the problem since when the system is working it manages to power two disc drives, 4 hard drives and 4 cards. If it was a heat problem on the power supply it should boot fine after a couple hours but it takes much longer.

It's too bad since I get the feeling that it's probably a single part that needs to be replaced on the motherboard. If anyone that's had theirs replaced can figure out what was fixed it might help us all out.

 

[JonB]

For what its worth, I just replaced my MSI Pro-2A when it finally wouldn't power up. The last two weeks have been frustrating as Win2k became freeze prone, something I wasn't used to.

So, last night I pulled everything apart and found a swollen capacitor near the North Bridge chip. The top was split and exposed some of the internals. Not good. It was one of the tall caps, and I guess it was responsible for stabilizing the voltages to the northbridge, since my freezes were just like those you get when the AGP video locks up. I may try replacing the cap sometime.

Anyway, I ordered a replacement ASUS A7V133 (very similar board) at 7pm from www.outpost.com and chose overnight shipping. Damn if it wasn't on my doorstep 22 hours later. That's the reason I am able to type this message.

Anyway, look at the tops of your capacitors for any sign of swelling or splitting. If so, you will fail soon.

best of luck.