MSI 945P platinum neo

dedge

my first post so be gentle with me folks. i am building my first computer after being continually disappointed with off the shelf units. I am using the following.
MSI 945P neo mbo
p4 prescott 775/3.4ghz
ati radeon x700 pro graphics
maxtor 200gb sata
kingston memory x 2 x 512mb in dual mode
enermax eg425p psu
thermaltake heatsink & fan
samsung cd-rw/dvd
sony cd-rw
iomega zip
win xp home
I always see that the details are necessary hence my list.
problem is my mbo provides for a 24pin power supply
an 8 pin 12v connector and a 4 pin molex
my psu does not have an 8 in connector? I fired up for the first time and the cpu was dormant. msi offered little help, God bless 'em. I am waiting on enermax to respond. meantime i plugged in the 12v supply originally intended for powering a hungry graphics card. I found it snapped in real easy into the 8 pin receptacle. this still left the 4 pin molex available. anyway i fired up again using this config and bingo! the puppy came alive. however i am finding that I am faced with continual freeze ups making life just that bit harder. I have updated the intel chipset but not the mbo bios. I am being caught by these freeze ups and don't want to risk a partial bios update and crash. please help this old guy. I keep worrying that this 8 pin connector with a 4 pin supply is starving my cpu or something...help

dedge

MSI 945P neo mbo
p4 prescott 775/3.4ghz
ati radeon x700 pro graphics
maxtor 200gb sata
kingston memory x 2 x 512mb in dual mode
enermax eg465p-ve psu
thermaltake heatsink & fan
samsung cd-rw/dvd
sony cd-rw
iomega zip
win xp home sp2
Item 1. Since my original post i have returned my psu and upgraded per enermax's advice. seems that the MSI mbo needed the 8 pin connector which the new unit came with. Bad news is that with this installed i have the same problem. i boot up ok and there are no hiccups, my temps are running below 40C on CPU and PSU, after a varying amount of time (seconds to several minutes) everything freezes.
Item 2. I wanted to run a memtest but find that my computer will not boot from anything except my hard-drive, my boot menu offers no alternative except hard-drive even though my boot sequence is set for: 1/ cd-drive......2/ hard-drive. can someone shed some light please....dedge

Omega65

Unplug the HD cable (IDE or SATA), and the motherboard will boot from the floppy first then it will try the Optical Drive.

dedge

thanks omega65 didn't work for me, i got a message to insert sytem disk and i tried my xp disk in both my optical drives. its weird, both these drives show up in my computer and both work from here. its just that my computer refuses to look at either of these drives during boot up. my boot screen shows my maxtor sata and under that it says something about installed card? which escapes me entirely. thanx for trying and if you have anymore ideas shoot em over...thanx dedge

Omega65

dedge wrote:

thanks omega65 didn't work for me, i got a message to insert sytem disk and i tried my xp disk in both my optical drives. its weird, both these drives show up in my computer and both work from here. its just that my computer refuses to look at either of these drives during boot up. my boot screen shows my maxtor sata and under that it says something about installed card? which escapes me entirely. thanx for trying and if you have anymore ideas shoot em over...thanx dedge

Thats a Floppy disk its asking for.

dedge wrote:

kingston memory x 2 x 512mb in dual mode

Exactly what is this? PC2700, PC3200 or what?

dedge

finally got my optical drives recognised, had to make some adjustments in the bios before this happened. so now i am running memtest (3 hours into it) so far no errors? kinda sad about that as itwould have answered some questions maybe. anyway i will continue memtest for a while longer. hope i can find someone out there who can stay with me while i work this out. i'm running outa options. dedge

Omega65

Keep the Qs coming - I'm around today

freeze ups are mainly caused by CPU overheating, memory errors and (the big one) insufficient Power.

dedge

hi omega65, the memtest revealed nothing so I am stumped. I am pretty sure my enermax eg465-VE (24V) is doing its job. how could i confirm that? The cpu temp seems ok, after running memtest for several hours everything seemed cool, cabinet temp was at 43C and i could touch the heatpipes on the thermaltake heatsink, memory passed on memtest. I'm sorta getting desperate right now. I don't want to take into the store as i would be at their mercy, and costs escalate pretty quick. the memory i am using is Kingston value ram kvr533d2n4k2/1g i think this is ok even though it might not be the best? thanx for staying with me..dedge

Omega65

dedge wrote:

hi omega65, the memtest revealed nothing so I am stumped. I am pretty sure my enermax eg465-VE (24V) is doing its job. how could i confirm that?

The fact that your system freezes is evidence to the contrary. WeaK PSUs the the hidden cause of most computer problems. I also reread your 1st post and see that you plugged your 6pin PCIe Video power cable into the motherboards 8pin socket. I would recommend against that. Your 4pin should plug into one side of the 8pin socket also you can buy a 4pin o 8pin adapter for your PSU.

Grab a PSU that has the proper cables and has minimum specs of 12v @ 24A, 3v @ 30A & 5v @ 30A . If its a Dual rail PSU you want both 12v rails to be 12v @ 18A

Some Suggested PSUs
1) Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 ATX12V 550W +3.3V@32A, +5V@40A, +12V1@19A, +12V2@19A
2) SEASONIC S12-500 ATX12V 500W +3.3V@30A, +5V@30A, +12V1@17A, +12V2@16A,
3) SEASONIC S12-600 ATX12V 600W +3.3V@30A, +5V@30A, +12V1@18A, +12V2@18A
4) OCZ PowerStream OCZ420ADJ ATX 420W Power Supply +3.3V@28A, +5V@30A, +12V@30A
5) OCZ PowerStream OCZ520ADJ ATX 520W Power Supply


Rule of thumb is that you should pay for your PSU what you spent on your motherboard. That being said I have some $45 600w 12v@24A PSUs that have done the job.

My latest system (Athlon X2 3800+ Dual Core @ 2.5ghz, Radeon X850XTPE, PC4000 2GB, Raptor 74GB) system has a $160 Workstation PSU - SilverStone Zeus ST65ZF SLI Power Supply No problems with booting or freezing.

THG PSU 24hr Max Power Stress Test

dedge

hi omega65 wanted you to know I think I have fianlly cracked it. I decided that I would try one last thing...reformat and reload winxp. I only gave it minimal chance but BINGO everything seemed OK. I have taken baby steps loading and noting each advancement I made. I am up to service pack2 and have sound and am connected to internet. Still OK. I loaded new ram to bring total to 2 mb's still OK. I have a couple of ?'s. My device mgr is showing 2 identical intel processors? no exclamation marks. do i remove one of them. i have 1 "other device" which stay elusive, can't detect a driver for this. and lastly...the minute I try and load MSI Sytem disk i immediately freeze. I can reboot and all is well, so I haven't yet loaded this disk. I have been able to pick indiviadual items from it. ie network and realtek sound but on auto load...freeze-up. any ideas suggestions folks? thanx again for persevering with me dedge

Omega65

No - A P4 3.4ghz should have hyperthreading which will give you the 2 logical CPUs

As long as you can load the drivers off of the disk all is good. Enjoy using your system.

profdlp

dedge wrote:

...the minute I try and load MSI Sytem disk i immediately freeze...

I've had the same thing happen with lots of MSI CD's. There is something in their autoplay program which buggers the system. Try using Windows Explorer and find the Setup.exe file, then run that. Their discs can be fussy about the order in which you install drivers and are designed to make you follow their particular path.

Looks like Omega65 has you covered on the rest.

dedge

Thanx that explains it precisely. I have managed to selectively dowload the programs I felt were important so another success story. So far its still up and running, I have even ventured so far as to install my extra ram which arrived today making a total of 2gb. I guess I will begin to relax after a couple of days run time. much appreciate your comments and help along the way dedge to Omega65....over and out.