K8N NEO4 Plat (MS7125): Odd Problem

[mxh]

Problem:

System will not start. Pushing power button results in momentary (about 1
sec.) movement in case fans. D-bracket flashes all 4 LEDs and goes out.
Front LED's (power & HD) flash 1sec, then off, then power LED flashes on &
off at 2 second intervals (on 2sec, off 2 sec). Unplug power supply. Turn
switch off. LED goes on & off 2 or 3 more times. If I don't unplug the PS,
the power LED will continue flashing as described. At this posting, it has
been doing so for about an hour. Plug PS back in, press power, begins same
cycle as described.

-------------------------------------
Events preceding problem:

Pioneer AO10 DVD burner went bad (ceased reading discs). Replaced with Lite
on DVD/CD player (had on hand).

Immediatley after replacing the above drive, the problem began. I unplugged
the PS and checked connections for power supply at mother board (both molex
plugs). Plugged PS back in. I believe I had to unplug the PS 2 or 3 times
and finally the system started.

System went into hibernation that night. This morning, the system powered
back up out of hibernation fine. This afternoon, I shut the system down to
blow dust out of the CPU heat sink. The problem began again and has not
started.

-------------------------------------

Diagnostic efforts:

Unplugged system, let sit and plugged back in.
Removed and reset RAM chips
Removed & reseated CPU.
Removed & reseated PS molex connectors (both power connectors)
Unplugged DVD drive (data & power)
Unplugged a few of the SATA drives.
Removed all USB devices.

I haven't tried a different PS because I don't have one on hand and would
like other opinions before I start spending money.

My specs are below.

Thanks for any help,

mxh





MS-7125
4400x2
4 Seagate SATA
xfi plat
2 GB Corsair DDR
ATI 1800XL
Liteon DVD/CD Player
Antec TruePower 2.0 550w

 

[GT]

Problem:

System will not start. Pushing power button results in momentary (about 1
sec.) movement in case fans. D-bracket flashes all 4 LEDs and goes out.
Front LED's (power & HD) flash 1sec, then off, then power LED flashes on &
off at 2 second intervals (on 2sec, off 2 sec). Unplug power supply. Turn
switch off. LED goes on & off 2 or 3 more times. If I don't unplug the PS,
the power LED will continue flashing as described. At this posting, it has
been doing so for about an hour. Plug PS back in, press power, begins same
cycle as described.

-------------------------------------
Events preceding problem:

Pioneer AO10 DVD burner went bad (ceased reading discs). Replaced with
Lite on DVD/CD player (had on hand).

Immediatley after replacing the above drive, the problem began. I
unplugged the PS and checked connections for power supply at mother board
(both molex plugs). Plugged PS back in. I believe I had to unplug the PS 2
or 3 times and finally the system started.

System went into hibernation that night. This morning, the system powered
back up out of hibernation fine. This afternoon, I shut the system down to
blow dust out of the CPU heat sink. The problem began again and has not
started.

-------------------------------------

Diagnostic efforts:

Unplugged system, let sit and plugged back in.
Removed and reset RAM chips
Removed & reseated CPU.
Removed & reseated PS molex connectors (both power connectors)
Unplugged DVD drive (data & power)
Unplugged a few of the SATA drives.
Removed all USB devices.

I haven't tried a different PS because I don't have one on hand and would
like other opinions before I start spending money.

My specs are below.

Thanks for any help,

I would suspect CPU, Motherboard or PSU.

Can't tell from above, but have you tested to see if you can get to a BIOS
screen with just CPU, 1 stick of RAM and graphics?

Do you have an other board or processor to eliminate both/either as faulty?

 

[mxh]

I would suspect CPU, Motherboard or PSU.

Can't tell from above, but have you tested to see if you can get to a BIOS
screen with just CPU, 1 stick of RAM and graphics?

Do you have an other board or processor to eliminate both/either as
faulty?

Hi GT, thanks for the response.

I suspect the same devices you list, but want to start with the PS. I have a
PS tester overnighting from Newegg, so I will at least be able to eliminate
that. Unfortunately, I don't have another AMD mainboard handy (other than
an old MSI NEO2, which is in another machine...I hate to rip both machines
apart and rebuild just to verify that). I guess I'll wait for the tester and
see. I also may post in the MSI forum. I'll post back here with what I do or
don't find.

THanks!
mxh

 

[kony]

Problem:

System will not start. Pushing power button results in momentary (about 1
sec.) movement in case fans. D-bracket flashes all 4 LEDs and goes out.
Front LED's (power & HD) flash 1sec, then off, then power LED flashes on &
off at 2 second intervals (on 2sec, off 2 sec). Unplug power supply. Turn
switch off. LED goes on & off 2 or 3 more times. If I don't unplug the PS,
the power LED will continue flashing as described. At this posting, it has
been doing so for about an hour. Plug PS back in, press power, begins same
cycle as described.

-------------------------------------
Events preceding problem:

Pioneer AO10 DVD burner went bad (ceased reading discs). Replaced with Lite
on DVD/CD player (had on hand).

Immediatley after replacing the above drive, the problem began. I unplugged
the PS and checked connections for power supply at mother board (both molex
plugs). Plugged PS back in. I believe I had to unplug the PS 2 or 3 times
and finally the system started.

Since you'd just been in the system I would recheck all
cables, cards, memory, etc - just in case something became
loose/etc, though below you do describe some of this, maybe
everything.

System went into hibernation that night. This morning, the system powered
back up out of hibernation fine. This afternoon, I shut the system down to
blow dust out of the CPU heat sink. The problem began again and has not
started.

-------------------------------------

Diagnostic efforts:

Unplugged system, let sit and plugged back in.
Removed and reset RAM chips
Removed & reseated CPU.
Removed & reseated PS molex connectors (both power connectors)
Unplugged DVD drive (data & power)
Unplugged a few of the SATA drives.
Removed all USB devices.

I haven't tried a different PS because I don't have one on hand and would
like other opinions before I start spending money.

MS-7125
4400x2
4 Seagate SATA
xfi plat
2 GB Corsair DDR
ATI 1800XL
Liteon DVD/CD Player
Antec TruePower 2.0 550w

Random guess is that your PSU has failed capacitors in it.
How old is it? It's just funny/odd that this happened to
coincide with putting the new drive in. Above when you
wrote "unplugged ... drive" I assume that to mean you had
left the drive unplugged when you tried to start the system
again, correct?

Try clearing CMOS (with AC power disconnected), by jumper or
pull the battery for a few minutes. If that doesn't help
you might strip system down to bare essentials (CPU,
heatsink/fan, 1 memory module, video) and retry it just
trying to get it to post then adding things back, but this
could lead to a false conclusion as well, because as you add
things back at some point it could be too much of a load for
the PSU (if it were failing gradually, it may be more stable
with a lower load on it) making it seem like adding part X
made the difference when it could instead be that it was the
amount of power part X used. I may be on a tangent too much
here, talking about the PSU as there might be a board
problem like ESD damage but I would suspect PSU.

You could unplug it from AC for several minutes then open,
inspect it... the caps would be near the exiting wiring
harness, usually.

 

[kony]

I suspect the same devices you list, but want to start with the PS. I have a
PS tester overnighting from Newegg, so I will at least be able to eliminate
that.

Unfortunately no, a PSU tester can only find certain kinds
of faults, it can't qualify a PSU as working properly (per
it's design and specs, nor that it's in a state workable for
the intended load (system). Using a multimeter to read the
voltages while it's plugged in and *trying* to power the
system is the better test.

 

[mxh]

I would suspect CPU, Motherboard or PSU.

Can't tell from above, but have you tested to see if you can get to a BIOS
screen with just CPU, 1 stick of RAM and graphics?

Do you have an other board or processor to eliminate both/either as
faulty?

Hello again, GT. It turns out it was indeed the PS. Thanks for your input!

mxh

 

[mxh]

Unfortunately no, a PSU tester can only find certain kinds
of faults, it can't qualify a PSU as working properly (per
it's design and specs, nor that it's in a state workable for
the intended load (system). Using a multimeter to read the
voltages while it's plugged in and *trying* to power the
system is the better test.

Agreed, but my meter happens to be on loan to an employee right now.
However, the tester did verify the PSU is bad in this case.

mxh

 

[mxh]

Since you'd just been in the system I would recheck all
cables, cards, memory, etc - just in case something became
loose/etc, though below you do describe some of this, maybe
everything.

Yeah, I didn't mention that in the 'diagnostic efforts' list, but that is
the fiorst thing I checked.

Random guess is that your PSU has failed capacitors in it.
How old is it? It's just funny/odd that this happened to
coincide with putting the new drive in. Above when you
wrote "unplugged ... drive" I assume that to mean you had
left the drive unplugged when you tried to start the system
again, correct?

Correct. Thanks for your input. As I posted in my other response to you, it
is indeed the PS. I picked up a tester and another PSU (Antec TruePower Trio
550w) at compusa (whom I hate doing business with, but diodn't have time to
wait for delivery). All appears well now. It is indeed a coincidence that it
went out after changing the burner, but after 30 years in the service
industry, I've seen many such coincidences, although they are still hard to
accept. Again, thanks for your help.

mxh

 

[mxh]

Just an update:

After my last post, I shut the system down to organize wires and plug power
to the DVD player (I didn't connect that to test the new PS).
I decided to re-try my pioneer DVD burner, which wouldn't read discs and
preceded the problems. The Pioneer works great now. I'll be keeping an eye
on it, but it looks like the PS was the culprit for all the issues.

Also, in case you're interested, the PS tester showed that the 4 pin voltage
output was bad.

Thanks again,
mxh

 

[mxh]

Just an update:

After my last post, I shut the system down to organize wires and plug power
to the DVD player (I didn't connect that to test the new PS).
I decided to re-try my pioneer DVD burner, which wouldn't read discs and
preceded the problems. The Pioneer works great now. I'll be keeping an eye
on it, but it looks like the PS was the culprit for all the issues.

Also, in case you're interested, the PS tester showed that the 4 pin voltage
output was bad.

Thanks again,
mxh

 

[Roger (K8RI)]

I suspect the same devices you list, but want to start with the PS. I have a
PS tester overnighting from Newegg, so I will at least be able to eliminate
that. Unfortunately, I don't have another AMD mainboard handy (other than
an old MSI NEO2, which is in another machine...I hate to rip both machines
apart and rebuild just to verify that). I guess I'll wait for the tester and

Do it the way I do. If the PS has the proper connections, just pull it
out of the one machine, set it on or beside the second. At this point
all you haveto do is unplug the PS connections to the main board (and
graphics card if PCIe), plug the test PS in o the board and test. This
is assuming the connectors are easy to get at.