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I have a MSI ms-6330 K&T turbo mobo with a amd 1800 processor. For the past few days the computor would randomly reboot and do a system file check (using win xp pro). Now system won't boot, but fans all turn on.
The mobo has a 4 light led diagnostic system and all 4 are in the red. Book says to check the processor. Thought I'd check here for medical opinions before I run out and buy another processor. Will Best Buy check the processor for free?

Remove the CPU, clean it, reapply paste, re-insert and boot up. Make sure your CPU fan still works.

Tried it and no go. All case fans and cpu fan works.
I'm also suspicious of the power supply. I have to use the on/off switch on the power supply to turn comp. on or off. Case switch doesn't do anything. I think I have a spare one at the office. I guess I'll try that next.

Definetly try a spare CPU and PSU before buying anything. Unless your CPU and PSU are both going at the same time, then it sounds a bit like the mobo is dieing.

Tried a spare power supply. Still no go. Ordered a new MoBo and processor.

Sounds like your mobo died....Does your PSU put out too much power? There have been cases of that happening.

thats a first to hear for me. PSU's putting out too much power?

voltage or wattage wise?

Power supply is only 300 watts. Mother board is a MSI K7T turbo and about 4 or 5 years old. I'm going to try replacing the board first (only 30.00 for another one).
I'm getting the exact same board with the same system bios in the hope the o.s. (winxp) doesn't get befuddled as I didn't prep the system for a change over.
Brings up a question though. How long do mobo.last before going awry?

Might be something on the mobo. I've had stuff cave for no particular reason before on my older mobo. Chalked it up to age.

woodchip wrote:Brings up a question though. How long do mobo.last before going awry?

my P-II Server has a mobo installed that is about 4-5 years old. it finally took the crap-out with the SCSIBIOS chipset. but other than that it still works. im going to get a SCSI PCI card and disable the onboard chipset.


a friend of mine still has a fully working (w/ original parts) 80386 machine.

I still have a fully working Commodore 64.

In all seriousness, it just depends on how rough you treat it and how well it was made.

MD-2389 wrote:In all seriousness, it just depends on how rough you treat it and how well it was made.

yup, keep it dust free and dont abuse it.........

works alot longer than originally designed.

While I haven't yet replaced the old mobo, I do notice two 2700uf 6.3v 1-inch tall round thingy's have their tops slighty bulged and have a brownish crust. Perhaps they are worn out?

Those are capacitors dude. They're definitely blown. Your board either took too large a jolt, or the manufactuer pulled an A-bit and used shitty capacitors.

May be a Manufacturer thing. Looked at a used board on ebay that was same make and model. Same capacitors had the start of the brown crud on them also.

woodchip wrote:While I haven't yet replaced the old mobo, I do notice two 2700uf 6.3v 1-inch tall round thingy's have their tops slighty bulged and have a brownish crust. Perhaps they are worn out?

HAH! well, there was a bad year in motherboards a little while ago. The story is something that the capacitor company bought (or stole, whatever it was) the wrong/flawed formula for the fluid in the capacitors. These capacitors then had a tendancy to burst or leak. There was a whole range of motherboards affected by this problem. I wouldn't buy the same mobo if it was made around the same time.

Back around 2000, A friend and I both bought the same mobo, an asus or something, and one day probably about two years later he calls me up and tells me his capacitors blew up and leaked all over his video card (ati all in wonder). I thought it was strange and took no thought. Then, recently I noticed my PC blue


{to be continued...got off work}

Xamindar wrote: I wouldn't buy the same mobo if it was made around the same time.

woodchip wrote: I'm getting the exact same board with the same system bios in the hope the o.s. (winxp) doesn't get befuddled as I didn't prep the system for a change over.

Ok I'm home, now I'll finish:

Back around 2000, A friend and I both bought the same mobo, an abit ka7, and one day probably about two years later he calls me up and tells me his capacitors blew up and leaked all over his video card (ati all in wonder). I thought it was strange and took no thought. Then, recently I noticed my PC blue screening a lot. Well, I finally opened it up to look inside and found that most of the capacitors were "bloated" with little brown crusty stuff on the tops.

That motherboard is now hanging on my wall.

I googled and found out why:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=195


From the article:

To paraphrase the opinions of the author of the Toronto Star article* , the faulty capacitors are suspected to have been rooted in the theft of an aqueous electrolyte formula which was not copied correctly. If you were to open up a capacitor you would find thin sheets of paper and metal rolled up together. The entire assembly is then wetted with an aqueous electrolyte solution. However, if the formula is not correctly mixed up, hydrogen gas can apparently build up in the aluminum can with time.

I would seriously think twice about getting the same exact motherboard again.

It is only temporary. When I upgrade my gaming comp. the mobo, vid card and memory will go into the old comp. with the suspect mobo.

Anybody know if Asus was affected by this problem? I suspect faulty capacitors in the death of both an Asus P4P800 and P4P800 Deluxe (the deluxe was broken fresh out of the box).

hmm, don't know. But the capacitors take a good time to break. And things stop working slowly, like more frequent blue screens. Funny though, Linux didn't have any problems. It was only after booting into windows a couple of times and reinstalling windows like 3 times before I thought: "you know...maybe this is a hardware problem".

I was running this motherboard for at least 2 years before it did that. And it also seems that the more the pc is turned on and off the sooner they blow.

Just look at them. If they are leaking or have brown crusty stuff around them then they are bad. Simple as that.

Well finally got a replacement mobo. Still didn't work...until I swapped out the cpu. Works fine. Looks like I should have listened to the idiot lights. Side note: Even though I didn't prep the O.S.; by buying the same mobo I had no trouble with the start up.

Also I am looking for a CPU. See Marketing forum.