MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

[trodas]

I working with computes since 1991 and there is not much that I cannot understand, but this MSI mobo is challenging me. So, the mobo in question is a MSI PM8M3-V with PCB rev. 1.0 and latest bios v1.4 used.

Board: MSI PM8M3-V (VIA P4M800) PCV rev. 1.0
Bios: Version 1.4
VGA: PNY 6800GT 256MB DDR3 350MHz/1GHz
PSU: Enermax Liberty 620W PSU (replaced caps to quality ones!)
CPU: 2800MHz Celeron D 336 (133x21) 1.350Vcore
MEM: 2048MB OCZP4001G 2.5-3-2-7 200MHz 2.60V
HDD: 500G Western Digital 16MB cache (WD5000AAKB)
COOLER: Intel box cooler, checked, AS paste applied, cooling good (slowing all the way down to 1000 rpm in reality)
OC: NONE! (tried FSB 133 -> 138 and it get unstable even in Firefox, lol)
OS: Windows 2000 SP4 Czech

More info:
19" iiyama ProLite E1980SD 1280x1024 75Hz DVI
DVDRW NEC DV-4551A (16x DVDRW)
IDE 100MB zip
floppy with 7+1 USB2 reader Mitsumi FA404
Using PS2 mouse (Logitech MX510 red)
OkiPage 14ex laser printer
NetGear WGR614 fireWall / 54MBi WiFi - OFF

The Cause
--------------
While the mobo is perfectly stable in normal usage, gaming is a problem. I working hard to make the mobo stable, it is not stable in 3D games. In the end of making it stable it is not stable even in 2D Windows... lol.

To cut long story short - at first, it was just a mobo full of known bad caps that sometimes refuse to boot and losing clock AND bios settings when power is cut off. Sometimes it also crash during SoF2 _LOADING_ (never gaming), but that it is. Very rare crash.


So I replaced all the caps, put even these that aren't there back in action and used hi-grade caps. For example the best polymers that even exist Nichicon LE for Vcore and for voltage supply there are Nichicon HZ caps - the best elyte caps even made - king in terms of ripple current, only Samxon GA is "par to par" with them, but that it is. Sourced from Digikey, so, originals.


Result - still not stable. So I blamed the Radeon 9100 with questionable caps and added 120mm fan blowing on it.
Still no help, rare crashes of game. Fast Writes disabled, AGP 4x (R9100 cannot go faster), 1 WS Write/Read used, Calibration ON.
So I replaced the Radeon 9100 with GeFroce 6800GT, that have only 3 caps (Chemi-con polymers) and worked well for me before. Truth is a years ago... http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=189594

Problems get worser. Even exiting SoF2 or Quake3 is impossible now. It always freeze on exit...! It get reasonably stable for playing, yet try save screenshot and it crash ASAP. So I try lower the AGP rate (allow me to choose only 8x or 4x), disable Fast Writes, disable AGP Master 1 WS Write/Read and even disable AGP 3.0 Calibration Cycle (one by one). No help.
So I toyed with the voltage, raising from 1.55 to 1.70 and no help either.

Another thing that I added a huge nice heatsink on the NB, because the original one was pretty small and useless. And I discovered beneath it, that there was just a dip of white paste widely off center and that was it. Most of the heatsink did not even have contact with the chip...!
So I tought - I got this! Laped a BIG heatsink, Arctic past used and screwed it tight on the NB... and again no help.










So the last thing to toy with is the AGP Driving Value. It can be changed from 00 to FF, defaut on Auto show DA.
Dunno what will happen, but I run out of ideas right now.

Therefore I'm open to ideas. About the caps - there is one about 10uF SMD cap at the very end of AGP port. This cap I did not replaced. Could this be the culprit? Any suggestion about the Driving Value? I think - try 0 (00), 32 (20), 64 (40), 96(60), 128 (80), 160 (A0), 192 (C0), 224 (E0) and 255 (FF) and see, witch of these values give the best stability?

[Sparkey55]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Have you subed out another PSU?
Have you installed the VIA Chipset drivers prior to installing any other hardware drivers?
Have you turned off any Anti virus software running in the background?
Have you turned off all unneeded windows services?
Are you using any cracked or Warez software?
Are you using a surge protected outlet or power strip?
Did you use a driver cleaner prior to changing VGA drivers?

[Sparkey55]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Can you run memtest+ for more than 4 hours without any errors showing up?
Can you run looped 3DMARK vga benchmarks for more than 30 minutes at a time?
Can you run FurMark indefinitly without overheating or lockups?
If you can not run these tests successfully your system is not stable.

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Errr, my PSU is recapped with quality caps, no need to worry. But no, did not. You seriously suggesting that 620W PSU did not have enought power? I sure hope you did not...
VIA 4+1 drivers of course installed, just after DX9.0c...
No antivirus used.
No unneed services running - only 11 services are running.
SoF2 is original.
Surge protection not installed.
Prior to change VGA drivers I completely reinstalled to fresh windows. Having a backup still...

And before you ask, Prime 95 is CPU and memory stable.

/current situation - get back to AGP voltage 1.55V, disabled only FastWrites, having AGP 8x speed AND - pushed AGP Apetrure size to 256MB and - probably most importantly - changed the AGP Driving Control from auto and AB value (171) to 00 (0) value. Seems surprisingly stable in gaming - till I hit the screenshot save.
The BSOD, paging fault in non paged area - read in the AGP place...


PS. memtest? That is a joke compared to Prime95 memory test stress... Sure I can run it for whole night at memtest, lol.
3DMark? Witch one? Remember, W2k and 6800GT, nothing so fancy, pls...
Furmark? Never tried yet, but will.

[Sparkey55]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Errr, my PSU is recapped with quality caps, no need to worry. But no, did not. You seriously suggesting that 620W PSU did not have enought power? I sure hope you did not...
VIA 4+1 drivers of course installed, just after DX9.0c...
No antivirus used.
No unneed services running - only 11 services are running.
SoF2 is original.
Surge protection not installed.
Prior to change VGA drivers I completely reinstalled to fresh windows. Having a backup still...

And before you ask, Prime 95 is CPU and memory stable.

/current situation - get back to AGP voltage 1.55V, disabled only FastWrites, having AGP 8x speed AND - pushed AGP Apetrure size to 256MB and - probably most importantly - changed the AGP Driving Control from auto and AB value (171) to 00 (0) value. Seems surprisingly stable in gaming - till I hit the screenshot save.
The BSOD, paging fault in non paged area - read in the AGP place...


PS. memtest? That is a joke compared to Prime95 memory test stress... Sure I can run it for whole night at memtest, lol.
3DMark? Witch one? Remember, W2k and 6800GT, nothing so fancy, pls...
Furmark? Never tried yet, but will.

I am not saying that your PSU is not strong enough. I am just wanting you to try another one if possible in order to rule out it as a trouble source.
Memtest is a valid test tool do not disregard it.
The number of variables that effect a stable system is numerous.
You know there is no need for you to get so snotty with me. I am trying to help you, but I can just ignore your cry for help also. It is up to you. Have a good day. Bye.

[pfrcom]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

latest bios v1.4 used

1.5 is latest BIOS - http://www.msi-computer.co.jp/support/bios/?p=PM8M3-V

Got one of these boards recently and didn't want to use MSI Live Update

Mine's a Rev. 1 also - has 17211-10 near the keyboard/mouse connectors

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Pic res way too low! Being unable to exit a game sounds like a Windows issue, possibly background software running.

If you can keep playing the game, then it's not because of an unstable PC.

[mockingbird]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

trodas -

What about the small caps near the northbridge and especially the memory slots? -WHICH- PSU are you using and what kind of a re-cap job did you do on it?

[mockingbird]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

OK --

I saw the full size pics you posted at xtremesystems... So the small caps are Nichicon and Samxon (Looks like Samxon GC)... Only two more things:

1) I assume you also changed the small filter caps near the memory slots, correct?
2) This could be a transistor problem. Check for faulty FETs on the board. This can be very tricky since FETs can look seemingly fine in normal tests but then show weakness when driven to their required spec. Someone before claimed that it has been stated that "either a transistor works or it doesn't". I'm no expert, but I have seen examples in videos of transistors looking like they work in circuit but then being unable to deliver their full rated current when tested out of circuit.

The reason I bring this up is because I see NIKOS brand MOSFETS on the board. I have a very strong suspicion that NIKOS specs or has in the past spec'd their transistors well above their actual capability. At this point I have to ask who in the world would continue to invest in such an old board, but if you're up for it, replace the FETs with higher quality parts.

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Okay, okay. First things first.

Sparkey55 - sorry mate for being a bit more grumpy that usual at you. I know you are trying to help, so I respect that. I just hate memtest, because it many times can run for hours and hours and then Prime95 stress test show error on the same machine in minutes. I come to conclusion that memtest is not stressing the ram enought. But I will let it run overnight and capture the result, okay?
I did not really want to use another PSU, as this would require a drastic rework of and in the case, so I see it as the last resort. There is no way in hell that this PSU, that is of a good design AND having all caps replaces to quality ones, cannot handle Celeron D at 2.8GHz. No way.

In fact, I did one simple test to prove this and that was a very very mild overclocking. Using FSB from 133 to 138 jump. x21 it shoot to 2900MHz for the CPU and just after some browsing in Firefox it crashed.
That IMHO clearly show, that the machine run at edge of their possibilities and clearly the problem is in the bios and configuration itself.

And since todays it seems that I lost even 2D accelleration, as everything run sluggish. That really suxx. Maybe the AGP Driving Value 00 is not as good idea, as it soulds before, lol.

So that is probably why I cannot run Furmark, lol.


pfrcom - wow, a good link! Thanks a bunch! Looks like the bios is really v1.5... In the v1.4 I unlock plenty of hidden options in it, but now I fear that I might screw up something actually... Especially because there is a bunch of optins for the IGP, yet there is NO OPTION to actually DISABLE the IGP, lol.
Probably is a good idea to use the latest bios, right?


RJARRRPCGP - pictures are of a 800x600 resolution, used thumbnails for them from PostImg - now I realized that just on BadCaps one cannot click on these to get the full images, lol.
Dunno what to do with this.
Gotta ask Topcat or try something... I'm clueless. Everywhere it just works fine. Sometimes too much big images would be chaotic, so I opted for thumbnails...

Freeze of the game(s) on exit is the issue there. No background software is running, believe me. And yes, I can play the game. And it rarely crash in it, but even that happen, sometimes. But mostly during loading of a level, witch is weird.
Also is very veird, that everytime I try screenshot the game is guaranted to crash. And that was not happening before, not with the Radeon 9100 crap card. It "only" sometimes crash with the loading and that it is.

Got plenty of screenshots to back up that claim. Seems VIA chipse it oversensitive to the settings or did not like my PNY 6800GT?


mockingbird - I choosen 15 pictures and soon build a recapping thread about the mobo. However be sure I exchanged EVERY CAP on the mobo. And added caps where they are omited. I used caps that I mentioned in the thread about it there:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=26130
...except the 1000uF 16V HZ Nichicons for Vcore input that are not stock (d8). Managed to squeze there a d10 Panny FM that I had home, HZ ripple is 2500mA, FM is 2100mA, so it was not all that bad. Also now there are 4 caps in the input filter and full load on the output and with Nichicon LE polymers I think I done the best I can.
http://s15.postimg.org/dgl956yqz/MSI...3_V_caps15.jpg
...the two big ones in the back are Nichicon HZ 3300uF 6.3V - so best elyte caps ever and best polymers ever existing are used there for the Vcore output. How the mobo can complain?!

About PSU - using a Enermax 620W Liberty (just check the sig) and recapped with all good caps (Panny, Samxons)... IIRC only the input cap was left there, as the Hitachi H3 (IIRC) is a good cap... My list says this:

Enermax Liberty 620W
--------------------
1x 390uF 400V d25 x 45 - 1x Samxon GP 390uF 400V d25 (470uF d25x50) (493-2582-ND 330uF Nichicon) org - HP3 85°C
4x 3300uF 10V d10 x 34 - 4x Samxon GD 3300uF 6.3V d10
2x 3300uF 16V d10 x 34 - 2x Samxon GD 2200uF 16V d10
1x 1500uF 10V d10 x 23 - 1x Samxon GC 1500uF 10V d10
1x 1000uF 10V d8 x 18 - 1x Samxon GC 1000uF 10V d8
1x 470uF 25V d8 - 1x Samxon GC 470uF 16V d8 (highest spike 14.4V)
1x 22uF 50V - 1x Samxon GF 22uF 50V d5
5x 10uF 50V - 10x Samxon RS 10uF 50V d5
5x 2.2uF 50V -

And yes, used 12 Nichicons, yet forget to order the 4 more leftovers, so used a Samxon GC caps there.
Once again, I changed EVERY cap (except the just only one 10uF SMD suxxka at the end of the AGP slot - missed him complately ). And memory holding well on Prime95 stress test.

NIKOS mosfets - yes, they are there:

(and right on this image you see the IMHO 10uF 16V SMD cap that I did NOT replaced yet, because I have no replacement for it...)

Do you think they can be as bad, that they did not manage the Radeon 9100? Because troubles started there...
And the PNY 6800GT have external molex connector for power, that should be also putting less stress on the mobo, nope?
And the NIKOS P3055LDG is what kind of suxxka? Could it be replaced with some higher rated and quality mosfets you think?

I actually invested plenty of time to make this mobo working, so I did not want to give up on the last thing, lol. I can give up overclocking and stuff, but it has to be stable.

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

I started today with the bios v1.5. So I updated the bios, let almost the default settings (all default for AGP) - 8x, Aperture size 128MB, all on, Fast Writes Off.

However no help. The SoF2 game works well - untill I hit the screenshot button. Then in crash:



So bios are no help and my bios tweaking is not responsible for any failures.

[Sparkey55]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Are you using a USB keyboard? If so switch to a PS2 type. Also try disabling all USB ports in the bios.

[Sparkey55]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

A possible clue to the problem might be the BSOD error, page fault in nonpaged area. That could point to problems with memory or hard disk drive.

[mockingbird]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Now we are getting to the crux of the matter:

...except the 1000uF 16V HZ Nichicons for Vcore input that are not stock (d8). Managed to squeze there a d10 Panny FM that I had home, HZ ripple is 2500mA, FM is 2100mA, so it was not all that bad.

16V 1000 8x20mm Nichicon HZ
0.009 2880
16V 1000uF 10x20mm Panasonic FM
0.019 2180

I don't think this is the problem per se, but if a Nichicon HZ was supposed to go in there, then Panasonic FM is not a suitable replacement... It's more ESR than ripple that is important in the VRM pi filter... I understand that this wasn't even populated in the first place, but you might be doing more harm than good by throwing in a cap with too high ESR in the VRM pi filter.

About PSU - using a Enermax 620W Liberty (just check the sig) and recapped with all good caps (Panny, Samxons)... IIRC only the input cap was left there, as the Hitachi H3 (IIRC) is a good cap... My list says this:

You DID NOT re-cap this PSU correctly. You should not use ultra-low ESR capacitors in PSUs, (Except in certain rare circumstances). Obviously you do not have an oscilloscope to measure the ripple coming out of your PSU, specifically on the 12V rail, but now that we have established that the PSU might be at fault here, I suggest testing with a known good PSU.

(and right on this image you see the IMHO 10uF 16V SMD cap that I did NOT replaced yet, because I have no replacement for it...)

I doubt it.

[trodas]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Sparkey55 - No, no USB keyboard. Just PS/2 keyboard and mouse. Complete disabling of USB ports? This could never help (USB is on Southbridge, no reason to interfere with GFX card), but I can try that.
The BSOD error is quite alone, however. Changing the AGP settings cure it and now it (after the screenshot attempt) just crash, as I show in previous post. But I leave the memtest running to satisfy this test...


mockingbird - wrong assuption. The Nichicon HZ are never there in the first place. Original caps are listed in the thread I pointed to:
9x 680uF 4V d8 Ost RLA
2x 3300uF 6.3V d10 Ost RLX
3x 1000uF 16V d8 Panasonic FL (+1 leftover)
12x 1000uF 6.3V d8 Ost (+4 leftovers)
2x 470uF 10V d8 G-Luxon

These are the original caps in the Vcore input filter. IMHO fakes, because Digikey did not know about any Panny FL caps...

And as for the Enermax, I did recapp it correctly, using Samxon GD caps and many Panny caps, witch are more that perfect for it's design. I also do have scope (still stolen and police do nothing still, despite many argencies, still not returned) and did checked the ouput! The Enermax design favor lower ESR caps and the testing went fine, tough I have no idea what ripple it was measured there then...

[Sparkey55]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Okay, okay. First things first.

Sparkey55 - sorry mate for being a bit more grumpy that usual at you. I know you are trying to help, so I respect that. I just hate memtest, because it many times can run for hours and hours and then Prime95 stress test show error on the same machine in minutes. I come to conclusion that memtest is not stressing the ram enought. But I will let it run overnight and capture the result, okay?
I did not really want to use another PSU, as this would require a drastic rework of and in the case, so I see it as the last resort. There is no way in hell that this PSU, that is of a good design AND having all caps replaces to quality ones, cannot handle Celeron D at 2.8GHz. No way.

In fact, I did one simple test to prove this and that was a very very mild overclocking. Using FSB from 133 to 138 jump. x21 it shoot to 2900MHz for the CPU and just after some browsing in Firefox it crashed.
That IMHO clearly show, that the machine run at edge of their possibilities and clearly the problem is in the bios and configuration itself.

And since todays it seems that I lost even 2D accelleration, as everything run sluggish. That really suxx. Maybe the AGP Driving Value 00 is not as good idea, as it soulds before, lol.

So that is probably why I cannot run Furmark, lol.


pfrcom - wow, a good link! Thanks a bunch! Looks like the bios is really v1.5... In the v1.4 I unlock plenty of hidden options in it, but now I fear that I might screw up something actually... Especially because there is a bunch of optins for the IGP, yet there is NO OPTION to actually DISABLE the IGP, lol.
Probably is a good idea to use the latest bios, right?


RJARRRPCGP - pictures are of a 800x600 resolution, used thumbnails for them from PostImg - now I realized that just on BadCaps one cannot click on these to get the full images, lol.
Dunno what to do with this.
Gotta ask Topcat or try something... I'm clueless. Everywhere it just works fine. Sometimes too much big images would be chaotic, so I opted for thumbnails...

Freeze of the game(s) on exit is the issue there. No background software is running, believe me. And yes, I can play the game. And it rarely crash in it, but even that happen, sometimes. But mostly during loading of a level, witch is weird.
Also is very veird, that everytime I try screenshot the game is guaranted to crash. And that was not happening before, not with the Radeon 9100 crap card. It "only" sometimes crash with the loading and that it is.

Got plenty of screenshots to back up that claim. Seems VIA chipse it oversensitive to the settings or did not like my PNY 6800GT?


mockingbird - I choosen 15 pictures and soon build a recapping thread about the mobo. However be sure I exchanged EVERY CAP on the mobo. And added caps where they are omited. I used caps that I mentioned in the thread about it there:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=26130
...except the 1000uF 16V HZ Nichicons for Vcore input that are not stock (d8). Managed to squeze there a d10 Panny FM that I had home, HZ ripple is 2500mA, FM is 2100mA, so it was not all that bad. Also now there are 4 caps in the input filter and full load on the output and with Nichicon LE polymers I think I done the best I can.
http://s15.postimg.org/dgl956yqz/MSI...3_V_caps15.jpg
...the two big ones in the back are Nichicon HZ 3300uF 6.3V - so best elyte caps ever and best polymers ever existing are used there for the Vcore output. How the mobo can complain?!

About PSU - using a Enermax 620W Liberty (just check the sig) and recapped with all good caps (Panny, Samxons)... IIRC only the input cap was left there, as the Hitachi H3 (IIRC) is a good cap... My list says this:

Enermax Liberty 620W
--------------------
1x 390uF 400V d25 x 45 - 1x Samxon GP 390uF 400V d25 (470uF d25x50) (493-2582-ND 330uF Nichicon) org - HP3 85°C
4x 3300uF 10V d10 x 34 - 4x Samxon GD 3300uF 6.3V d10
2x 3300uF 16V d10 x 34 - 2x Samxon GD 2200uF 16V d10
1x 1500uF 10V d10 x 23 - 1x Samxon GC 1500uF 10V d10
1x 1000uF 10V d8 x 18 - 1x Samxon GC 1000uF 10V d8
1x 470uF 25V d8 - 1x Samxon GC 470uF 16V d8 (highest spike 14.4V)
1x 22uF 50V - 1x Samxon GF 22uF 50V d5
5x 10uF 50V - 10x Samxon RS 10uF 50V d5
5x 2.2uF 50V -

And yes, used 12 Nichicons, yet forget to order the 4 more leftovers, so used a Samxon GC caps there.
Once again, I changed EVERY cap (except the just only one 10uF SMD suxxka at the end of the AGP slot - missed him complately ). And memory holding well on Prime95 stress test.

NIKOS mosfets - yes, they are there:

(and right on this image you see the IMHO 10uF 16V SMD cap that I did NOT replaced yet, because I have no replacement for it...)

Do you think they can be as bad, that they did not manage the Radeon 9100? Because troubles started there...
And the PNY 6800GT have external molex connector for power, that should be also putting less stress on the mobo, nope?
And the NIKOS P3055LDG is what kind of suxxka? Could it be replaced with some higher rated and quality mosfets you think?

I actually invested plenty of time to make this mobo working, so I did not want to give up on the last thing, lol. I can give up overclocking and stuff, but it has to be stable.

Have you replaced the OST caps near the AGP slot? Have you installed the latest driver for the graphics card? Also do have the latest patches or updates for the games you are running? We need to figure out if this is a hardware or a software problem, otherwise we could be barking up the wrong trees.

[ratdude747]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Agreed that if the OST caps by the AGP are still there, replace 'em. I've seen them left and still run (I have a shuttle box where that was done by the Previous owner) but if I'm recapping, I'm perhaps a bit too anal about making sure everything with a vent and a crap brand is replaced.

[mockingbird]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

You're missing the point, and I did credit you with the fact that you added the cap where there was no cap before. What I'm saying is that the ESR of the VRM IN and VRM OUT should match. If you have Ultra-Low ESR polymers in the VRM low then you should have caps matching their ESR in the VRM high... Also, MSI doesn't use fake caps as far as I know. I don't quite understand you when you say "because Digikey did not know about any Panny FL caps". Maybe there's a language barrier here, but MSI most likely sourced Panasonic caps directly from Panasonic when they did use them.

Regarding the PSU... c_hegge's results speak for themselves, and your Liberty ECO 620W doesn't look like it would tolerate low ESR caps, judging from the pictures of the internals (Although I'll admit I'm nowhere near an expert on this matter). The PSU shouldn't be so easily discounted here.

Have you replaced the OST caps near the AGP slot?
...
Agreed that if the OST caps by the AGP are still there, replace 'em

Yes, he already has. Those are stock photos he posted.

[Pentium4]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

Every crap cap should be replaced on the mobo, even the ventless ones. I've seen lots of ventless ones have their top look like it's about to blow off. Namely Teapo and KZG

[Sparkey55]

Re: MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

I suggest removing the current HDD for now and reinstalling your OS on a different HDD and only install the needed software and games for a test.