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speedyaxon
n00b
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2004
- Messages
- 19
Hello all--
This could be long, but I'm going to be thorough so hopefully someone(s) can help me get to the bottom of this. I've been building and troubleshooting PC's now for about 14 years off and on but this one has me stumped.
Brief background:
This system is about 5 years old now, with a slightly newer video card.
Core i7-970 with Corsair H70
GSkill Pi Series DDR3-1600 CL7 3x2GB
MSI Big Bang Xpower X58 (replacing Asus Rampage 3 Formula)
Corsair 256GB SSD, WD 1TB HDD
MSI Twin Frozr 7950 3GB (3 years old)
Corsair TX750 PSU (7 years old)
Pre-symptoms:
The previous mobo (asus formula) seemed to have died. Computer shut off by itself while I stepped away for a few minutes. After power on, it would stay stuck with the DRAM light lit. Tried all 3 sticks of memory by themselves in different slots, 3 other sticks of Skill DDR3-1333 individually that were working for a friend, and also no sticks at all....same result. Doesn't finish POSTing, no bios access, the end.
Symptoms:
So I got a friend's old motherboard (the MSI Big Bang) (which was from a system he was having issues with, so I'm not 100% this is a good one, but we'll push on). Put all my other hardware back in with this mobo. Powers on, gets to BIOS, won't load Windows (probably because different motherboard). But hey, this is farther than I could get with my previous mobo. So I grab my windows 7 disc and try to proceed through format and install. Initially boots to disc, the first screen is "loading windows files", does that, second screen is identical to the first, but the bar moves slower. About 15% in, and at that same position every time, the computer restarts. (The memory here is running at 1066, 1.5v, 8-8-8-24. CPU at default 3200mhz, ~1.2v. Temps read fine in BIOS, mid to upper 30C's at idle. At this point, I flash the bios to the newest one, 1.7. Successfully flashes, doesn't fix problem though.
Now, this disc drive successfully installed Windows 7 as a test on my mom's computer that I built for her while all of this was going on (so not a bad DVD drive). I also tested this Win7 disc and it loads everything just fine. I tried her 2 sticks each of Corsair DDR3 in this mobo, didn't help. Tried turning off the JMicron SATA6 ports, loading BIOS failsafe defaults, turning off USB3 support, upping CPU/DRAM voltages a bit, same result of computer restarting while loading Windows files. I also went so far as to take my OS drive (the Corsair SSD) and do a full format of it using my mom's new system and put that drive back in my system. No luck, still restarts while initially loading windows files. Unplugging my second drive also did not make a difference.
The system will pass a Eurosoft PC Check (booted from CD) which tests the CPU, memory, HDD, and will do a 20-min "stress test".
Another quirk, if I try to change the QPI voltage, the system will not POST.
So, hoping you've read this far (thank you!), I'm not sure whether this is another bad motherboard, or, the dark horse here, a failing PSU. (Or maybe something I haven't thought of?) Any advice/suggestions are appreciated, thank you!
This could be long, but I'm going to be thorough so hopefully someone(s) can help me get to the bottom of this. I've been building and troubleshooting PC's now for about 14 years off and on but this one has me stumped.
Brief background:
This system is about 5 years old now, with a slightly newer video card.
Core i7-970 with Corsair H70
GSkill Pi Series DDR3-1600 CL7 3x2GB
MSI Big Bang Xpower X58 (replacing Asus Rampage 3 Formula)
Corsair 256GB SSD, WD 1TB HDD
MSI Twin Frozr 7950 3GB (3 years old)
Corsair TX750 PSU (7 years old)
Pre-symptoms:
The previous mobo (asus formula) seemed to have died. Computer shut off by itself while I stepped away for a few minutes. After power on, it would stay stuck with the DRAM light lit. Tried all 3 sticks of memory by themselves in different slots, 3 other sticks of Skill DDR3-1333 individually that were working for a friend, and also no sticks at all....same result. Doesn't finish POSTing, no bios access, the end.
Symptoms:
So I got a friend's old motherboard (the MSI Big Bang) (which was from a system he was having issues with, so I'm not 100% this is a good one, but we'll push on). Put all my other hardware back in with this mobo. Powers on, gets to BIOS, won't load Windows (probably because different motherboard). But hey, this is farther than I could get with my previous mobo. So I grab my windows 7 disc and try to proceed through format and install. Initially boots to disc, the first screen is "loading windows files", does that, second screen is identical to the first, but the bar moves slower. About 15% in, and at that same position every time, the computer restarts. (The memory here is running at 1066, 1.5v, 8-8-8-24. CPU at default 3200mhz, ~1.2v. Temps read fine in BIOS, mid to upper 30C's at idle. At this point, I flash the bios to the newest one, 1.7. Successfully flashes, doesn't fix problem though.
Now, this disc drive successfully installed Windows 7 as a test on my mom's computer that I built for her while all of this was going on (so not a bad DVD drive). I also tested this Win7 disc and it loads everything just fine. I tried her 2 sticks each of Corsair DDR3 in this mobo, didn't help. Tried turning off the JMicron SATA6 ports, loading BIOS failsafe defaults, turning off USB3 support, upping CPU/DRAM voltages a bit, same result of computer restarting while loading Windows files. I also went so far as to take my OS drive (the Corsair SSD) and do a full format of it using my mom's new system and put that drive back in my system. No luck, still restarts while initially loading windows files. Unplugging my second drive also did not make a difference.
The system will pass a Eurosoft PC Check (booted from CD) which tests the CPU, memory, HDD, and will do a 20-min "stress test".
Another quirk, if I try to change the QPI voltage, the system will not POST.
So, hoping you've read this far (thank you!), I'm not sure whether this is another bad motherboard, or, the dark horse here, a failing PSU. (Or maybe something I haven't thought of?) Any advice/suggestions are appreciated, thank you!
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