This is a long shot, but I'm guessing the sata/raid controller resides in the southbridge of the chipset? Have you checked if the chipset heat sinks are running hot? The poor southbridge probably gets quite a beating in a Crossfire setup with a ~100W heat source above and below it. Just something you might want to checkout and something you probably can easily remedy using an extra fan ghetto mounted somewhere. The board manufacturers often (well, at least they used to) mess up with the TIMs on those heat sinks (often too little, too much or no goop at all).
Southbridge is room temp. It's the northbridge that gets cooking. If you look at a picture of the board it is fanless and does not have that many fins. The back of the primary video card was cookin too.
I'm going to download something for Vista that can read the temps. MSI does not have anything that Vista 64 will allow to install.
It did crash part way through Mission 1 in Lost Planet.
Is the PCB around the southbridge room temp too? If the heatsink is badly mounted, not much heat will be transferred to it, and it has to escape through the PCB.
BTW is this RAID detection issue something that started at the same time as the other problem?
Checked the PCB around the southbridge. It's barely warm. The northbridge and the backs of the video cards are the hot spots. I've added an Antec Spot cool fan to blow on the north bridge and the back of the primary card.
I had built a baffle to guide the air flow from an intake fan to the two video cards. It helped reduce the case temp.
The RAID array problem started with BIOS 1.6. It's a known issue with this revision. BIOS 1.6 was 3 weeks before the problem started.
Just finished mission 2 in Lost Planet. Stable so far. I'm not gonna jynx myself and say I'm in the clear though :-)
Yeah I know the feeling Well if the RAID array issue is known, I guess it’s nothing to worry about. I have a feeling this might be BIOS related (plus a few worst case scenarios; failing PSU and hw/sw mix). If it continues to work I wouldn't touch it (knock on wood) before the next major BIOS release, or if you find some other good explanation and solution for the problem.
How did you flash the BIOS by the way? Some claim you should flash the BIOS as normal, power down, remove AC from the PSU (since it still delivers standby DC while powered down), remove the standby battery, move the clear CMOS jumper in the clear position, wait a minute or three, then put it all back in reverse order, power up, load BIOS defaults, save&restart and done! I think this method was something that started with the DFI NF4, which apparently had some clear CMOS bug. But it's a good method if you want to be really sure everything related to the old BIOS is wiped out.
I'm pretty sure MSI acknowledged the RAID bug on reboots. Plus I saw several others with the same board having the same issue on reboot.
I used MSI's new BIOS flash tool. It formats a USB flash drive to be bootable, asks for the BIOS you want it to install, and then reboots the computer. It backs up the bios and flashes, plus gives you all the good info to know about flashing the BIOS and the dangers. I do unplug and clear the cmos.
Five missions into Lost Planet now. Lookin ok. Onboard sound seems ok.
I did the install with all 4GB in place. That patch is only needed if your system met the 3 requirements. I can't remember which one, but my system didn't meet the criteria. It also was not producing a BSOD at any time. Just an instant power off.
I did try the patch on a previous install, and it refused to install for my system.
My system is currently folding while I work. So it seems stable. Didn't crash at all while playing Solitaire. :-)
MSI just sent me the 1.73 Beta BIOS, I'll check it out.
New BIOS changed the behavior of the RAID issue. Now on a soft reboot it only sees 2 of the 4 SATA drives.
However, I am still having the shutdown problem. I just finished reinstalling after the previous install wouldn't even boot into safe mode. It shut down instantly after I started the install for Lost Planet. I just can't win. There has got to be a reason for this.
It might not have been a bad HD. The Vista install makes the controller think a drive is bad when it isn't. Also the crash wasn't in a game. It was when I started the install program.
Here's a new twist. It had just powered off, and wouldn't boot back up into windows. It just kept powering back off. so I went and got my big psu and put it between my computer and the outlet. I wanted to see if I was getting something weird in the electrical. Now I hadn't moved the power cord for the external dvd drive. It booted up into Windows normally. It was all working just fine. Now I plugged my external dvd back in and windows hard locked instantly. I rebooted and it powered off at reaching the desktop. I powered off the dvd drive, and it booted up. Power it on and hard lock. For some reason the external DVD drive is causing the hard locks, and possibly the power offs. Also, the performance of Windows itself is a lot snappier. Everything is just jumpin.
It's powered by it's own adapter. I didn't remember to test the port with a flash drive this morning. So more later....
It caused a power off again. I took the external DVD drive apart. I installed it on the IDE port on the mobo. I updated the firmware on it, even though it had nothing to do with Vista. I can now access the drive as much as I like without causing an instant power off. I don't think the ports are bad, I think it's something to do with Vista and this motherboard.
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I'm going to download something for Vista that can read the temps. MSI does not have anything that Vista 64 will allow to install.
It did crash part way through Mission 1 in Lost Planet.
BTW is this RAID detection issue something that started at the same time as the other problem?
I had built a baffle to guide the air flow from an intake fan to the two video cards. It helped reduce the case temp.
The RAID array problem started with BIOS 1.6. It's a known issue with this revision. BIOS 1.6 was 3 weeks before the problem started.
Just finished mission 2 in Lost Planet. Stable so far. I'm not gonna jynx myself and say I'm in the clear though :-)
How did you flash the BIOS by the way? Some claim you should flash the BIOS as normal, power down, remove AC from the PSU (since it still delivers standby DC while powered down), remove the standby battery, move the clear CMOS jumper in the clear position, wait a minute or three, then put it all back in reverse order, power up, load BIOS defaults, save&restart and done!
I used MSI's new BIOS flash tool. It formats a USB flash drive to be bootable, asks for the BIOS you want it to install, and then reboots the computer. It backs up the bios and flashes, plus gives you all the good info to know about flashing the BIOS and the dangers. I do unplug and clear the cmos.
Five missions into Lost Planet now. Lookin ok. Onboard sound seems ok.
I did the install with all 4GB in place. That patch is only needed if your system met the 3 requirements. I can't remember which one, but my system didn't meet the criteria. It also was not producing a BSOD at any time. Just an instant power off.
I did try the patch on a previous install, and it refused to install for my system.
My system is currently folding while I work. So it seems stable. Didn't crash at all while playing Solitaire. :-)
MSI just sent me the 1.73 Beta BIOS, I'll check it out.
However, I am still having the shutdown problem. I just finished reinstalling after the previous install wouldn't even boot into safe mode. It shut down instantly after I started the install for Lost Planet. I just can't win. There has got to be a reason for this.
It seems to crash quite a bit in games, could something be wrong with your Crossfire setup? Any artifacting going on? (ATITool)
What disk setup do you have now? You mentioned a bad hdd earlier. Have you tested each disk separately with the WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tools?
Here's a new twist. It had just powered off, and wouldn't boot back up into windows. It just kept powering back off. so I went and got my big psu and put it between my computer and the outlet. I wanted to see if I was getting something weird in the electrical. Now I hadn't moved the power cord for the external dvd drive. It booted up into Windows normally. It was all working just fine. Now I plugged my external dvd back in and windows hard locked instantly. I rebooted and it powered off at reaching the desktop. I powered off the dvd drive, and it booted up. Power it on and hard lock. For some reason the external DVD drive is causing the hard locks, and possibly the power offs. Also, the performance of Windows itself is a lot snappier. Everything is just jumpin.
I'm gonna ask MSI what they think of that.
I'm installing lost planet again. I'll try a usb flash drive in the suspect port in the morning.
It caused a power off again. I took the external DVD drive apart. I installed it on the IDE port on the mobo. I updated the firmware on it, even though it had nothing to do with Vista. I can now access the drive as much as I like without causing an instant power off. I don't think the ports are bad, I think it's something to do with Vista and this motherboard.
So hopefully, this was my problem.