MSI PM8M3-V rev. 1 - unstable gaming only

[caps_buster]

i found nemo -

maybe.. i hate to say it.. buy a new pc XD amd?

Well, first at all no money for that, second - I already did too much work on the mobo, so I have to finish it first:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ead.php?287215
...and I did not like failing in the middle of the game. There must be a valid reason, why this is happening and a way, what to do with it to stop it. Since I can get back to old win w/o reinstalling and install just different VIA 4+1, different Forceware drivers, etc. then I'm fonfident to be able to nail the issue. Of course I also expect help with the Thermalright SI-128 SE as soon, I get the missing nuts for the backplate.
As the AMD-Intel go, I really have no preferences there. I just did not much like the P4 for the huge heat output and little processing power for all the power and MHz... But, of course, my look might be different, if I own a P4 at 3.4GHz with 2MB L2 - then it might be dramatically faster that the Celeron D crap

Right now I realized, that the mobo was tested and reviewed with VIA 4+1 v 4.49, so it might be a good idea to try older VIA 4+1 drivers too. ATM at first I used VIA 5.11a, now I use the latest 5.24a, yet what about 5.04a or older? Cannot find, however, witch version support the P4M800 chipset informations... But also it is worth to try use more recent Forceware and see, if the Furmark is working ot not.


xpower -

is this error only a certain game or all the games?

All 3D games and even demos, instros, etc. are affected. W/o reinstall it was not even possible to change graphic settings in CoD. Upon "apply" it always freeze. Now at least this is working

also did you reinstall win? scan corrupted win files? virus scan etc? doesn't look a hardware issue...

Yes, I did reinstall win. Yes, I did scandisk and check if the dist operations are reliable. They are. No virus scan, as I just reinstall win... And what else that HW issue it could be, when it come to life just after some time during gaming?
And what else that HW issue could prevent my mobo from continue after posting to the VGA mode? Nothing except a HW problem near the AGP or in the gfx card...

[caps_buster]

I just realized why the Furmark does not work for me, even the 6800GT is supposed to support OpenGL v2.1:
http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/177...00-gt-agp.html
Well, it is quite simple. The Forceware drivers started supporting the OpenGL v2.0 required for Furmark since version 77.72:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_77.72
I use version 61.76, witch means that the most I could get is v1.5 of OpenGL. Everest helped me to realize my mistake...

So up for next - a GFX card test

[caps_buster]

Well, the more recent drivers worked and now the card support OpenGL v2.0 and hence - it run FurMark

Got a very low score of 547:
http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/sc...bbafb8ba784250

...but the problem is, that the FurMark did not crashed for about TWO hours straight MaxBurn test...



I was somewhat confused, that the image on screen did not update, but that it probably because FurMark is checking for bugs in the image, right?
Never the less, I have complain. On screen it write this:
Renderer: GeForce 6800 GT/PCI/SSE2

Obviously I have a problem with the "PCI" part, because the card is AGP and given some of the slow-downs it really looks like as it run on PCI speed, not AGP 8x...

No idea what this cause, but probably some wrong initialization of the card. Regardless if this works as I supposed right, then the card seems to be stable.

There are minor annoyances too, tough they are not new at all. First at all - opening overlay took for the first time eternity. (1 - 2 minutes) Dunno why that happen, never seen that in my life, but it does happen with different Forceware frivers (61.76 WHQ, 77.72 WHQ) as well, as with different VIA Hyperion 4in1 drivers (v5.24a, v5.11a, v5.04a). So it have to do something with what the card seems to initialize.

ALSO I cannot get the AGP page back in the drivers. It was there:



...and now, even I add to the registers the coolbites:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\NVTweak]
"CoolBits"=dword:0000000f
"NvCplEnableHardwarePage"=dword:00000001
"NvCplEnableAdditionalInfoPage"=dword:00000001
"NvCplEnableAGPSettingsPage"=dword:00000001

It is just not there.
Also a minor problem is, that the gamma value in nVcpl can be set only between 0.5 and 3.61 - too sensitive, no way to set better value or get back to 1.0

Kinda bad that FurMark run slow, yet not fail. I did not dare to take a screenshot of the "PCI", but the slow-downs in SoF2 looks like something is wrong with the speed...

[i found nemo]

caps/psu or northbridge. just more guesses.

[caps_buster]

Caps are replaced. PSU caps are replaced too. How can PSU caps be bad, if the Prime95 test go w/o error for 7h? Or the FurMark test in the case of GFX card go fine for hours?

Only the NB remain and the only one not replaced cap. This is a nightmare cap...

[caps_buster]

Replacement CPU arrived (a HUGE thanks must go to OC AU user Datsun 1600 for creating the missing screws for the Thermalright SI-128 SE and giving me great P4 CPU for neat CPU upgrade! http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh....php?t=1097986 ), so I went gaming and... again the PCI/AGP troubles, slow performance, etc. And it crashed during my gaming once again Same way as before. Changed box cooler to Thermalright SI-128 SE (greatly temps get reduced) and also now the 120mm fan is blowing to the NB heatsink - yet still no help at all. Crashing. New CPU at least feel much faster now:

Old MSI PM8M3-V (VIA P4M800) board, new Pentium 4 540 (3.2GHz, 1MB L2) CPU Faster a "bit" - 45sec compared to a 72sec with Celeron D suxxka


http://valid.canardpc.com/uv65p3

old: http://postimg.org/image/s85ao8vqv/

So it is definitively NOT the CPU. The CPU might be dead-slow, yet worked just perfectly. No help in sight, except maybe replacing the last cap with something good, like 10uF elyte change to 47uF tantalum cap?

[i found nemo]

are you getting proper voltage from the wall with pc under load? new psu cord??

[caps_buster]

Well, I did not going to even measure that. You know why? Because I just exchanged CPU for much more hungry one, and therefore if the problem was in the PSU/power outlet - then replacing low-power requiring Celeron with power hungry Pentium 4 would clearly cause instability.

Instead it is rock stable (unless I game too much, of course...) Some low-requirment games it seems tolerate quite nicely, yet after bios reset there get the default AGP voltage 1.55V and that cause SoF2 to crash in like 20min. With lower voltage 1.50V I can play for hours and it did not yet crashed - but it will come, that it for sure. When I hit the screenshot button... then
Also set AGP 4x in the bios, instead of trying 8x... Gotta look into the bios, why I cannot choose the AGP 1x and 2x speeds anyway... Hmmm, selectable is there in all cases (but only 1x, 2x, 4x - not the 8x visible in the bios now), but in reality I can choose only 4x or 8x...

It looks almost good, except for slow speed and two another things. First, the GFX card looks as running in PCI mode!!!

No idea how that can even work, but as you see is what I get...

Second, when for the first time any program (like BSplayer) trying to open overlay for video, the program freeze for about minute and THEN it finally open the overlay and display the video. Never happen the second time around, but that it is.
Also nVidia gama for overlay can be changed only between 0.5 (too dark) or 3.61 - NO other setting is possible (okay, there is the MAX setting sometimes also visible) - but setting 1.0 is not possible.The slider flick too fast to the 3.61 value, lol...

Since increasing voltage decrease the longetivity of SoF2 playing, then it must be bad cap, that cause overheating of some important for AGP voltage regulator (probably the next one to it, the small one: http://s16.postimg.org/5oo33y3qd/MSI_PM8_M3_V_caps2.jpg ) and therefore unstable operation. That is my best bet.

[i found nemo]

gpu-z always reports agp @ 8x? because in the post you included the screenshot with gpu-z says agp @ 8x

[caps_buster]

Not anymore:



Now every software claims that the card run in PCI - the damn card must changed the slots by itself, and just forget to tell me about it


After all it more and more looks like a HW issue related to the capacitor AND mosfets around the AGP. Usually when instability happens, increasing voltage fix the problem. In this case, increasing voltages = increasing prblems. The mobo is now fairly stable - that does not mean it is not crashing anymore, it does crashing, but not that much often - (even in light gaming like SoF2, CoD (1) and Quake 2 (KMQuake port with 300MB of hi-res textures) when I use the lowest AGP voltage possible.
That lead me to believe that the capacitor is the culprit, that overheat the mosfets and they might even need resoldering to the mobo... So next step - obtaining a replacement cap. I think that tantalum 47uF 10V cap ( http://www.digikey.com/product-detai...0CT-ND/4146673 ) would be a good and suitable replacement. Plus maybe adding some little heatsink on the little mosfet?

Should be also noted, that I increased the FSB a lot from 133 to 200Mhz!
http://valid.canardpc.com/73iuwi
http://valid.canardpc.com/uv65p3
And it does not affect the instability of any way. If the problem is the chipset, being unstable for FSB 133, then it would go VERY bad when raising the FSB to 200MHz by using full P4 CPU in the place of Celeron D crap. But it did not happen. Therefore the chipset it cleared from any wrongdoing.

To show my appreciation I give it a great laped heatsink AND fan blowing at it now:



So there is no more excuses for the crashes that could be attributed to the chipset.

[i found nemo]

chipset has nothing to do with fsb considering you are running the ram at 200mhz in both cases. nb controls agp/ram mostly. not cpu speed.

edit on second thought have you tried lowering agp speed from 66 to say.. 60, or 50? or is that not independently adjustable as mentioned earlier in the thread?

[caps_buster]

True, but still the new CPU access considerably faster the NB. Witch is why I'm almost sure that the chipset it fine. Ram access is fine too...

AGP speed settings? No, it is not there. There is no settings to adjust any speed, except the FSB. And even that had to be unlocked from the bios, witch I did. But tried only once, started crashing even in Firefox browsing the net, so... bad Bad bad bad.

In the bios (ModBin) should be AGP settings 1x, 2x, 4x - in reality I see only 4x and 8x (that is not even shown in ModBin)... I choosed 4x and the lowest possible AGP voltage 1.50V. Even slight raise to 1.55V cause the machine much often crashing when gaming.
I would settle for AGP 1x - only that it run on AGP and not PCI speeds... but no. No way. Has to be the cursed capacitor, and nothing else.

[i found nemo]

if agp and fsb are linked, turning fsb down from 133 should decreese agp speed. try 125 fsb. maybe lower?

[caps_buster]

Hmmm, this is actually a pretty good idea. Dunno if that can help to get back to working AGP, but it is certainly worth testing. Currently the FSB is 200MHz, because of the Pentium 4 CPU: http://valid.canardpc.com/uv65p3

But that would make my slow machine actually - slower

[i found nemo]

well the devidors for 133 and 200 are diff, so if you put the fsb of a 200mhz based cpu, the agp would be 80+ mhz. fsb has to be below 133.

the devidor for 133 mhz is 2x the devidor for 200mhz is 3x

[caps_buster]

Indeed. That had to be the issue. But truth to be told, the mobo is running more stable at FSB 200 MHz
The faster the P4, the better it seems... lol. I better gotta get the damn cap from Digikey and try to replace the current one:
http://www.digikey.com/product-detai...0CT-ND/4146673

...and if that does not fix this, then the regulators are next...

[caps_buster]

As for the 10uF d4 SMD cap, I will replace it (shortly, fingers crossed) with a 220uF 4V Tantal-polymer KEMET cap, so that should fix the problem. If it still fail, then the NIKOS poor mosfet is up to the blame and ... what replacement to choose for it??? Anyone?



Replacement suggestions?

The AGP regulator seems to be: NIKOS P3055LDG
http://products.niko-sem.com/images/...5182145127.pdf

This is, in short:
TO-252 (DPAK) 25V, 50mOhms, 12A, Gate charge 15nC, Gate treshold 1.2V

...so, what better with same gate charge/treshold and possibly lower resistance when opened (50mOhms are a bit HIGH IMHO) could anyone suggest?

[i found nemo]

i dn't know which is better but if you get this working stable plz report back

[caps_buster]

Well, I better find some suitable replacement first, so if the cap did not work this out, then I have a second chance to replace the mosfet(s) near the AGP that resulte the AGP voltage, since the AGP voltage settings are very sensitive to the stability. The lower the better, surprisingly. That might also indicate bad mosfet, because since when the lower the voltage, the more stability, huh? Unheard of, right?


Looking at the IPS1011RPbF,
it have 6V input (max. step down 28) witch is fine (input is 3.3V) but a 10mOhms, should do 18A and the rise time and shutoff time are simply uncomparable with 50uS and 330uS, compared to the 6nS and 20nS
NIKOS owned!

Sadly, there is gate treshold 1.7V (a bit too high to replace a 1.2V) and also there is absolutely NO WORD about gate charge
http://www.irf.com/product-info/data...ta/ips1011.pdf

That suxx. Something else is probably necessary

Semiconductor NCV8401
42V, 23mOhms, 33A, rise time 41uS, shutoff time 164uS
but gate treshold 1.8V
http://www.onsemi.com/pub_link/Collateral/NCV8401-D.PDF

Infineon BTS 3142D
42V, 28mOhms, 30A, rise time 60uS, shutoff time 60uS
but gate treshold 1.7V
http://www.infineon.com/dgdl/BTS3142_DS_13.pdf

ST Micro
40V, 35mOhms, 12A, rise time 350nS, shutoff time 450nS
gate treshold (forward on voltage) should be 0.8V, witch is pretty good
gate charge is not listed there, but todal is 36.8nC
http://www.st.com/web/en/resource/te...CD00002219.pdf

...that one could be it...?

[caps_buster]

I choosen this mosfet as good replacement:

Vishay SUD50N02-06P
http://www.vishay.com/docs/71931/sud50n02.pdf
20V, 6mOhms, 26A, rise time 10nS, shutoff time 24nS
gate treshold 0.8V, gate charge 19nC

Even that at 4.5V the resistance is actually 9.5mOhms, then it is still far better that 50mOhms.
Also the mosfet can operate at 175?C, witch is pretty high.
While it is a bit slower (rise time 10 to 6, shut off time 24 do 20), the gate treshold 0.8V should compensate that a bit for the original is 1.2V... The slightly higher gate charge 19nC over 15nC should not be a problem.

I believe I found the perfect replacement, that is better than the original!


...however I would prefer that things begin to work, but they do not. I managed to replace the last remaining capacitor on the MSI PM8M3-V mobo - the 10uF d4 SMD suxxka, that have kinda horrible ESR or 3.2 Ohms:



...with a new SMD tantal-polymer KEMET 220uF 2.5V capacitor T520B227M2R5ATE015

...with have ESR around 0.015 Ohms

That should be a huge improve. Also I, out of the desperation, resoldered a bit the drain tops of there NIKOS mosfets near the AGP slot.

And result?

ABSOLUTELY NONE!

So it looks like that the mainboard was not up to the blame the whole damn time. It is the videocard that have to be recapped.


The Radeon R9100 was crashing when new SoF2 level is loading. Given that it run passively cooled on Licon caps:



...with 60 mOhms ESR one should not wonder. Rest of the caps looks quite similar, so recapping is in order, just waiting for the caps (as usual).


The PNY 6800 GT failed after a short time to run in AGP mode, going down to PCI mode and crashing after some gaming is played. Now that is serious problem, because there are just THERE caps, two of them polymers on the voltage input filter and they are Chemicon polymers.
Last one is unknown 100uF SMD cap and that it is for other that ceramic caps! I would be inclined to add some caps in the blank spots too, probably something over 100uF SMD... and I would also like to create a custom effecient heatsink for the mosfets on the card, because they do overheat a lot - GPU VRM temp 71?C: http://postimg.org/image/x9m8pl4sl/


Should I try recap these graphic cards before I try replacing the NIKOS mosfets?

[caps_buster]

Quick report - after recapping the Radeon R9100, I put it into my MSI PM8M3-V mobo and at first it show ram errors (heartbreaking, after so much work and so many polymers and added caps...) on the screen, so I have to pull it off and check.
Fortunately, I managed to find the bit of tin, that ended up on one of the bottom ram chips and after cleaning - hoooray, all works like a charm!

Immediatelly the card go into AGP 4x mode (!) and despite being TAD slower that PNY 6800GT, the system feels notably faster. That is, because, PCI mode DO SUXX BADLY. Therefore it is getting almost sure that the mainboard was NOT for the blame. The bad caps are in the GFX card(s), witch I indent to fix, of course.

Now is time for a clean win install and then I do more testing - mainly the play testing and longetivity under serious load. Then I might be inclined to see, if I can overclock the card a bit, despite the poor speed to start with

The lesson from all this is too early to draw, but there are only 3 caps on the PNY 6800GT, that are not ceramic: two Chemicon polymers 330uF 16V d10 SMD and one 100uF 16V d6.3 SMD Nichicon UD with 3.4V on it + some empty spaces, but that it is.

Since I was getting about 71?C on the VRM mosfets ( http://postimg.org/image/x9m8pl4sl/ ) with just the ATI tool cube in small window, then I suspect these Chemicon polymer caps are up to the blame.

Of course the cooling of these mosfets is poor, but that was unchanged since day one and the card worked well for me before, so...

[caps_buster]

Today is the day! UPS delivered a 10pcs of Vishay SUD50N02-09P-E3 mosfets samples from German Vishay HQ. Hoooray!

Therefore I immediatelly went to work. First at all, there is a picture that show the "polymerization" of caps near the AGP on the MSI PM8M3-V mobo:



The remaining two non-polymer caps (Nichicon HM & Samxon GC) run at 5V, so there is no good substitute for them, but for the rest, the capacity was bumped (2x 1200 & 2x 2200uF) as well as the specs.

The yellow KEMET tantal-polymer 220uF 2.5V cap is also well visible, as replacement for the 10uF 16V SMD suxxka cap

However that did not helped, so it is a time to replace the NIKOS P3055LDG mosfets. I picked (for the start), the two, that are most suspicious: the two most close to the AGP slot - the left one delivering the 1.50V and the right one 2.50V to the AGP.
(as you remember, lowering the 1.50V voltage from default 1.55V helped considerably with stability, so it is not like I picking up on random mosfets)

Sadly, the place is pretty crowded, so I had to pull the caps off first:



And as you can see, there are new Vishay SUD50N02-09P-E3 mosfets soldered in! I did not skip on the tin, as you can see, trying to lower every possible mOhms out...

And then I soldered back and... tried the mobo. Worked right away, hooray! (with Riva TNT) Then I tried with my R9100 and it also worked well, so I pulled the machine together and now I typing on it, as you can see

But first news is bad news. There is no instant "back to AGP mode" in Win. Still it show PCI mode, so I probably have to reinstall the graphic card to get again AGP mode back, as I always had it, before the crash during gaming...
So no instant fix.

But since it crashed by playing in PCI mode too, then I first try playing, so I can determine the stability. If anyone can cross a finger or two (or even say prayer, tough I cannot believe in anything these days), it might help

[i found nemo]

hardcore stuff man. i'm seriously in awe!!

[caps_buster]

Thanks. Sadly, I do have bad news. It did not crashed, I can play for hours (when it did not crash, then it is getting boring! ) and no crash. Next day the same. So I get the idea to push the voltage regulation harder and overclock the Sapphire R9100. It does not overclock better that when it is new for rams, they are lazy and that determine the maximum clock - 248MHz from 200MHz. But the core when it was new, it can do 265MHz from 250Mhz. Now it can do 293MHz - polymer caps rulez!

But when I started playing with overclocked R9100, then it does crash! So I stop the overclock, but it still does crash now! Even I uninstalled the ATI tool, no help. Since it crashed once, it is back where it was... So that leave me no choice but push and replace another mosfets in hope that I can nail the problem. If this is not the AGP voltage being unstable, then it had to be the North Bridge part for the AGP output that is unstable, because badly supplied by voltage...

This happen to even much more expensive hardware. For example the Sapphire HD 7870 black screen issue during gaming:

The cause for GPU electrical signal noise is found to be bad quality ceramic capacitors responsible for conditioning power to the GPU.

http://www.techpowerup.com/174858/so...een-issue.html

...due to lame bad caps! So it could happen for even a respectable company...

[i found nemo]

man you just can't catch a break! i'm thinking since it is now giving you errors even when downclocked that you broke something you just fixed. i.e one of your caps has gone bad that u just installed. and since it was a weak cap from the beginning it could only handle the stock clock. just an opinion.