MSI FM2-A75MA-E35 - Unable to use MSI Control Center 99.999% of the time. No SpeedFan

[Nazo]

So one problem that has been plaguing me pretty much since day one with this motherboard is that god-awful control center software MSI provided. At first I didn't care much since I had a pretty minimal CPU and I've long since stopped overclocking, but I recently upgraded to a more midrange-ish CPU and I've caught it running to some pretty high temperatures (just in the BIOS I saw it doing 50C the other day.) I've upgraded the cooler and thermal compound, but I had some problems and besides want to monitor temperatures. Unfortunately, their crappy bloatware MSI Control Center software has always been pretty unreliable.

Basically when I try to run the software most of the time it will just sit there taking up 100% of one CPU core on a separate process while the EXE you actually run to start it shows a dialog that says to wait while it's loading. I've let it sit there for a very long time burning through 100% CPU usage on at least one core with no results other than wasted power and more heat, so it's not just a matter of patience. (At one point I believe I quite literally waited more than thirty minutes.) I've tried uninstalling it, deleting the files it left behind (I couldn't find any leftover registry entries,) rebooting, reinstalling, rebooting, and running it again without running any other software first (and I try to keep startup stuff to a minimum -- no quickstart programs or etc.)

I've tried skipping over the main EXE that the start menu icon loads, running the "ControlCenter.exe" file directory (this is the one that hides in the background using 100% of a CPU core while the other process shows the "wait while loading" dialog.) No go. I tried using the "MSICCRS.exe" server process that basically lets mobile devices connect using an app, but sadly it won't let me connect or do anything without the actual control center running first. I've even tried with compatibility mode settings though that obviously shouldn't be needed. Oh, and it goes without saying, but I've been running it as administrator (this much actually needs it anyway.)

The truly galling thing is, every now and then, just to screw with me, it just randomly decides it will work for a day. Yesterday when I first installed this new HSF, it worked fine when I was checking idle temperatures. I didn't have time for a proper gaming run to test load temperatures though. I also made a slight adjustment to the fan and wanted to at least see the new idle temperatures, but no go. The part that most ticks me off is NOTHING HAS CHANGED! Nothing. I haven't changed any settings to anything. I hadn't looked in the BIOS. I didn't install ANY new programs. I didn't remove any old programs. I didn't even change my browser settings! Yet yesterday it worked every time I tried it. That's not the only time. I got it working in the past by -- or so I thought -- updating the BIOS. But I didn't use it much because, at the time, I had that minimal CPU and just needed to make sure that the dinky third party heatsink I had to use with it worked ok (I accidentally ordered one without a HSF. Woops.) I also ran it a time or two with the new CPU recently, but I wasn't really monitoring properly and didn't really check in games at the time (this software is horribly bloated, inconvenient to use, and frankly I just plain hate it. I really miss the likes of Motherboard Monitor 5 from back in the day...) I currently have the latest BIOS and I have not changed the BIOS since then, so at this point it's just screwing with my head at a terrible time (I finally had time to run a real game session and now instead I've wasted hours trying to get this crap to work.)

Also, every once in a while it will actually start. I'll get my hopes up, and then it freezes. As in if I move something over the window and then back off, it shows a hall of mirrors image of whatever I moved over it. It takes it a few moments to actually freeze and I can interact with it a bit, but before I can get as far as the temperature monitor it's frozen. Just in case it was some kind of conflict I've even tried closing down absolutely everything I possibly could. Mouse software, audio manager, even a bunch of system services such as the print spooler, all to get the list of running stuff down to a bare minimum as well as I could. Still won't start.

As noted in the title, SpeedFan can't do anything with this motherboard. I've found another program "Hardware sensors monitor 4.5" (aka "Hmonitor") which SEEMS like it gives numbers that could maybe be believeable, but, A. it's commercial software (with a limit of only 10 minutes run time in the free version) and B. I still don't know if I can trust its numbers. I have a CPU 1 and a CPU 2 sensor with CPU 2 idling about 2 or 3C above CPU1, but if I run Prime95 CPU 2 shoots up to 75+ within about one minute (which is just suspiciously fast) whereas CPU 1 only goes up to about 48C (which is suspiciously low, but maybe possible as this is a very energy efficient CPU for the most part.) If I try to very quickly reset and check the BIOS I'll see around 44C or so, but this definitely isn't inspiring confidence as if I trust CPU 1 it's going down a bit fast or if I trust CPU 2 then the temperature changes very quickly as that could maybe imply is possible with this HSF and I need to redo/replace it (which is kind of the sort of thing I need to know here! I THINK this heatsink should be better than classic ones as it's one of those new tower of fins with copper heatpipes to carry the heat from the CPU, but at the same time I wonder how fast the heatpipes are and the fins have overall a far lesser area compared to a classic heatsink including I think the stock one as each fin is exceptionally thin.) Or if I trust neither it's useless obviously.

 

[pgaster]

I would dump that MSI software and delete anything left over after uninstall. Then run ccleaner on the registry to get everything out as much as possible. Clearly that MSI software is garbage. Not your fault, so just dump it and move on.
https://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER

I've never done much with SpeedFan, so my advice would be to dump that too. HW Monitor is free, well, they have a paid option too, and I have tried that along with CoreTemp, but they both give me some very odd temp numbers at times.

AMD Bulldozer/Vishera/Kaveri cpus/apus in general have temp sensors that are way off at idle but are OK/decent with a load. Keep that in mind. CoreTemp shows zero or near zero for many AMD cpus and apus that I have owned, but seem decent or believable at load.
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/
Note that the latest coretemp from that site will lock up win 8.1, but works fine on 7.
If you have 8.1 you will need to google and try to find a newer beta version that does work.

AIDA64 gives some numbers that differ from everything else, and could be decent, but who really knows. Also, this software is trial only and won't be a permanent, long term solution for checking temps unless you pay.
http://www.aida64.com/downloads
I don't know the difference between the versions, so I just use the Engineer version. As I said, it's a trial.

For me, overclocking in the bios is best, but you could also give AMD Overdrive a try. It should work on that board, but just make sure to dump that MSI garbage first.
http://www.amd.com/en-us/markets/game/downloads/overdrive

As for your heatsink choice, well, there could be some problems, but I need to explain. That motherboard you have has no heatsinks over the mosfets in the VRM area around the socket. They need airflow to stay cool. The stock cooler, and any cooler that blows down will provide airflow. A tower heatsink will not do that. The airflow is going high and over those components, so they could maybe overheat and cause throttling or a shutdown. I'm not sure how MSI boards react to high mosfet temps.
Anyway, that board has mosfets to the left and above the socket, when looking at a picture of the board. Your best best is a stock type cooler that blows air down and has fins in all 4 directions so air goes left and right, and up and down.
AMD had a decent heatsink like this for the FX-4100 at first, but they changed designs later. It had a copper core and was pretty heavy. Pic in this thread: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/329180-28-4100-heatsink
That would be a good option for you if you could find one.
To be honest temps should be fine with the stock aluminum heatsink and even halfway decent case cooling. You shouldn't even have to worry about cpu temps. The cpu may run warm with a stock cooler, but as I said the mosfets will get some airflow.
Also, don't worry about temps in the bios too much. I have a Kaveri and just for kicks I am running the stock heatsink. It also gets over 50 in the bios, but yet I play games and have no problems. I am not much of a gamer and just finished Tomb Raider for example. It ran fine with the stock heatsink. I have a cheap cooler master case with one 120mm intake and one 120mm exhaust. My board is MSI also, A78M-E35. I ran the Kaveri stock with 2133 RAM, no overclocking, and there were no problems.
I tried temp programs just because I was curious, but I don't even run them when gaming or on a permanent basis.

 

[Nazo]

I'd rather get something accurate. I'm pretty sure the MSI software (when it works) and the BIOS are showing correct numbers. I just need to verify that this other software is. And I definitely can't trust anything that would show zero at idle. That means it needs a big offset and can't be trusted.

Yes the MSI software is bloatware, but if I can just get it to work long enough to verify numbers that will be sufficient. I just need to compare more than anything else. (Also, just to be clear, it's crappy software and bloated, but it's not actually malware. No spyware or any of that.)

As for the motherboard MOSFET, I wouldn't worry much about that. I have very good airflow in the entire case, including a couple of fans at the top (set to low generally, but good enough to establish some airflow.) Besides, calling the stock HSF dinky is being nice. If that thing is putting out probably more than 60C temperatures under load, I really don't think that's going to help the MOSFET particularly either...

Anyway, I don't need anything permanent. I just need numbers I can actually trust long enough to get the situation. In fact, I only need two real numbers: Prime95 set to in-place small FFTs (worst case scenario to deal with during summer time and such) and gaming (realistic scenario that gives me a better baseline.)


BTW, I never said I'm overclocking. In fact, I said I'm not. I won't be overclocking this setup probably ever. My goal with the past few generations has been to move away from stuff like that and stick with a more balanced, lower power solution. I really don't need maximum quality settings from games anyway, but what I do get still looks just great to me (and more than anything else I want decent FSAA which modern games are working very hard to eliminate in favor of cheap shader-based antialiasing that's more console friendly anyway, so overclocking won't help there sadly.)

 

[Nazo]

Bump. I needed to check again and this problem still remains. I still can't get the software to start no matter what I try. SpeedFan still won't give me proper numbers. (It says my CPU is below room temperature. I do not have water cooling or any other such thing, it's all air cooled. Also, I'm running Prime95. SpeedFan is wrong.) On a whim I even tried setting it to uniprocessor mode using imagecfg wondering if perhaps the reason it sometimes worked was when the two separate processes it runs to start needed to be on the same core or some silliness like that. (I didn't really think so, but at this point I'm grasping at straws.) I never did get it to run again that time before when I was going to try to see if I could adjust offsets on the other program and hope for accurate readings. As far as I can tell, the ONLY way I can ever see things like CPU temperature is to close down everything and reboot (which means it's going to start going down fairly fast and thus the BIOS reading is probably incorrect. Hopefully by a small margin, but under the circumstances there's no way at all for me to verify.)