Help with MSI p67a-GD53 hard crashing?

R

RooK

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 19, 2001
Messages
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Ok.. so I finally decided to give a new build a try...

i7 2600k
MSI p67a-GD53
16 (or 8) Ripjaws DDR3 1600
PNY GTX 470
Win7 x64 pro
Antec Earthwatts 650W PSU

Ok... when I put it together, everything came up and I proceeded with installing windows.

Windows installed fine, windows updates when fine.

Installed graphics drivers (have tried both newest official and beta).

Computer wouldn't make it very far in windows. These are stock speeds, and I have touched nothing in the bios (at this point).

Sitting with a freshly installed ver of windows, I can run prime95 no problem. It works all 4 cores (8 with hyperthreading)

I read something about disabling the onboard sound, and did that, but also went ahead and disabled the video cards "sound passthrough." I went ahead and just installed the actual video card drivers and non of the other junk.

This seemed to produce positive results as I could actually play DA2. However after I quit the game, windows hard crashed like it had done before. No crash to desktop, no BSOD, just a windows freeze.

I've done the motherboard's RAM test and everything checks out. The fact I can run prime95 pretty much indicates that its not the CPU.

The fact that after video card drivers get installed is when things start acting shady is the weirdness. I've disabled all audio devices in device manage, btw.

So... I am thinking there is an incompatibility between the mobo and gtx 470. However, MSI indicates that the mobo works fine with a MSI 470, and i've left this 470 completely stock and never overclocked any of this stuff.

The 470 has worked like a champ in conjunction with an asus p5n-e sli and a core2 duo 8400

I've tried with 16GB of ram and 8GB and there are no differences.

I'm at my wits end here... Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'll seriously buy you a cookie if you know what the problem is.

I haven't tried updating the mobo bios because the fix list doesn't indicate anything that looks like it would fix anything on my end.

I'm also using the white (sata2 connections) and not the new sata3 black connections and that seems the same.

Troubleshooters? Troubleshooters?
 
RooK said:
I haven't tried updating the mobo bios because the fix list doesn't indicate anything that looks like it would fix anything on my end.
Click to expand...

While it may not list a fix for your situation, it couldn't hurt to try. At least you can narrow down what the culprit may be.

Have you tried scanning the HDD sectors for errors?
 
I just can't see it being the hard drive since the problem doesn't manifest until the video card drivers are working.

Its a TB drive though, and was working fine beforehand - after I formatted and reinstalled windows was when the trouble began.
 
Have you tried running another 3d application? Test using Uniengine for instance.

Try disabling "spread spectrum" in UEFI.
 
There's not much you can do without the video drivers working, anyway.(besides run prime, which doesn't cause a problem).

But there are things you should do.
1) Flash the latest BIOS. There's absolutely NO reason not to. Just because something isn't on the fix list doesn't mean there isn't some other changes.
2) Disable any devices you're not using. Especially Firewire (IEEE 1394). Disable virtualization technology and isochronous support (you can turn that on later). Disable USB 3.0 "Turbo" support. Turn off "PLL Overvoltage."
3) Mess around with HPET (high precision event timer). If you can disable that in the BIOS, do it.
4) I have no idea if your motherboard supports it, but if you can avoid doing it without using offsets, set a manual CPU core voltage and set it to 1.25v. Disable C1E, C3 and C6
5) You can also try setting your RAM voltage to 1.5v or 1.65v (depending on if your RAM is 1.5 or 1.65v) and setting the timings manually, instead of through auto. As long as you know the timings it reports, won't hurt to check.

Please try ALL of these before throwing in the towel. If none work, then you either have a bad mainboard or CPU. Someone had a CPU that was actually bad recently, and exchanging it fixed everything.
 
Ditto on suggestion #5.

Try manually setting your RAM timings? These MSI boards sometimes have funky settings when left on auto.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions!

i've updated the mobo bios - no change

I've disabled all unused things... onboard coundcard, nvidia sound, and using audigy2 zs. Disabled comm port and other things as suggested by Falk.

I haven't touched HPET, but I will...

I've disabled c1e, c3, and c6... along with hyperthreading, spread spectrum, turbo boost, etc...

After updating the BIOS, it detected the RAM a little better, but still wanted to set the command rate to 1T... manually set it to 2T with 9-9-9-25. Have the RAM voltage at 1.525 or something just a bit above 1.5 (ripjaw's recommended)

I've had to bump up the proc's v core to 1.25 - but i'm not sure about the I/o voltage, and there is another setting in there.

And... no matter what i've tried, basically this thing will just crash when the video card starts getting used... HOWEVER the very odd thing is that i've stressed the video card using furmark, and MY GOD!! I've never heard the fan spin up that high, but the card was at 95 degrees, and doing fine... Very odd there... Installing SC2 freezes the system... playing Dragon Age 2 does the same...

I've made enough changes where its stable enough to surf, but obviously that is not what i'm going for.

Probably going to have to call MSI.... I will never get one of their boards again... The only reason I did was for SLI support since asus's p67's didn't have it... I'm regretting that decision. I'm not ruling out the proc, but it just seems so odd that this problem manifests RIGHT after the video card drivers are installed and the video card runs like a champ when stressed... hmmm

Makes me think it could be the CPU at this point... I haven't even touched the overclocking - I want a stable system first.
 
I am having similar problems with a P67A-GD55 board from MSI. I have a GTX480, windows7 64bit pro, 8 gb gsckill ripjaw (2x4) I really have 16gb but I cannot get it to post with 4 sticks of ram. I think these MSI boards just have issues or quality control I think I will just return it. To bad I really liked the click bios and booting is so fast with it. But It is just not worth building a system that MSI cannot seem to get working right out of the box.

I have overclocked nothing at all yet. And every part in my rig was perfectly working on an X58 platform. The onlything I changed was moving from 3 sticks of ram to 2 or 4 it is however the same ram. And of course the motherboard and CPU. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling drivers for the video card. Disabling onboard sound.

At the end of my last session with the computer I tried to set the timings to 2t and put in 16gb of ram after that no matter what ram I put in the thing will not post at all in any slots or combinations of ram.

I also upgraded bios to 1A since mine came with 1.9.
 
Rudy - looks like we're in the same boat... I wonder if you could run memtest and see if MSI has dropped the ball?

Here's what I got...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61891801@N02/5631236785/

I don't know much about memtest, but that looks like a bad mobo to me... I have tried all 4 sticks of ram, and all the combo's therein. Same results every time. I don't think it looks like a bad CPU, but... whatcha think?
 
I finally got mine to boot, I had to take a totally different stick of corsair ram and put it in the motherboard. For some reason not even clearing cmos would work. Then I booted, then i set the memory timings and booted. I set the cycle time to 2t. And manually set all other timing for the ram.

Then I added 1 stick at a time. I was able to get 3 sticks in. When adding the 4th stick of ram I got the same problem. No matter how I spin it I cannot get this board to take 4 sticks of ram. I saw this deal on newegg though. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.631251 and I hated my red ram anyway so I decided I will purchase that combo and then I will just return this motherboard this weekend. If a motherboard cant post you cannot do much with it and it isnt worth the trouble to hack around for hours trying to make it work.

I will probably let you know more but so far it seems stable.

Do you have live mesh running? Also do you have 2 monitors running?
 
No live mesh... Yes two monitors.

I called MSI and got a beta version of their bios... it allowed me to boot with optimal settings.

However, after an hour, it entered a POST boot loop where it would power on for 3 seconds, then power off for 3 seconds, then power on... rinse and repeat. At that point, I called tigerdirect who is going to refund my money. Hopefully the ripjaws is not crappy ram... We'll see when my preferred mobo brand comes.
 
It is hard to tell if it is the ram or not but gskill specifically says on their site this mobo is certified for my ram but only for 2 sticks. They say you have to turn down the speed to 1333 for 4 sticks. That might solve it but then it isnt 1600 ram.

Also the motherboard always resets the memory speed when I change ram which is why I think it cannot post with 4 sticks.

Did you try to loosen the timings, I noticed the timings stay but the frequency changes when to change ram. I cannot seem to force the motherboard to operate at a lower frequency then switch ram and have that lower frequency stay put.

I was using 9-9-9-25.

That being said for most of last night it was stable except 1 game crash early on. Windows 7 though pushed through the crash fine and I did not even get booted out of the game. It is a weird type of crash. I do have 2 monitors and had alot more crashing when running both of them. UEFI does not work on my primary monitor since I killed the edid at some point.

I also made sure to get all the motherboard drivers and IME from the website. (this board has no ide so i dont have an optical drive without ripping apart another computer). So I could not install drivers off the disk.
 
I have determined that I actually had a bad stick of RAM I dont know if it went bad at some point but it explains why I could never get all 4 sticks to run. I am now running a mix of the corsair ram and the gskill ram in an ASUS motherboard without problem.
 
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