My K9A2 Platinum motherboard won't boot!

[king-pin]

I have a msi K9A2 Platinum motherboard & I am using the crucial ballistic pc2-5300 ram and my computer won't boot. The led on the mother board is on and i double checked the power wires to the mother board, but it won't boot. this is my second mother board. I have replaced everything except the ram... i am not sure what the problem is yet..what do you guys think?

 

[harna]

Check the position of the CMOS jumper. Some manufacturers/retailers set these to clear CMOS. In this condition the board won't post.

 

[g-paw]

I'd just disassemble including taking out the mbo. Make sure you have the precise number of standoffs, no more, no less, and test it after you installed a part.

 

[GetAGrip]

At first I tried to install OS onto IDE RAID but had problems with my IDE card. After mounting a SATA disk in one of the SB600 ports, system would hang before booting CD or saving BIOS changes. Thought that I might have bent a card or that I was getting heat problem on my first 3870. When I unplugged the SATA drive the system stopped hanging. When I tried the Promise ports the system booted windows install disc but I couldn't browse into the vista promise driver on MSI disc. I'll try to install again after put drivers on floppy.

Maybe many MB owners uses RAID and therefore haven't run in to my problem with SB600. Or maybe its hardware related and only affects a small batch. Somewhat strange though that I haven't found any info on the web about my problem.

 

[steelman93]

I have the same issue. I have a k9a2 platinum, Athlon FX 5000+ black edition, MSI 8800GT, ABS Tagan 800w power supply, matched pair of 1GB Corsair XMS2 ram and a zerotherm BTF-90 cooler.

I can get to the bios, or I can start to boot, but within 1 minute the screen goes blank. I have loaded the fail safe defaults with no luck. I have gotten an error message about overclocking, but I am not OCing.

I tried plugging a 3 pin case fan into the cpu fan header and the cpu fan into a case fan to make sure the issue wasn't fan speed, and it wasn't. I have been in the bios when it crashed and my cpu temps are 23C, so I don't think it is a standoff issue. I have checked the standoffs, I have 9 installed, and there are 9 holes in the board.

Everything is new except the drives. I have tried booting off of a cd with no luck and with my old ide drive. I have also tried it with no drives installed. The system recognizes the RAM.

If you solve the issue, or if anybody else can help I'd appreciate it.

 

[steelman93]

Success!!! I finally fixed the problem!!!
Really a noob error on my part.

It turned out to be a cooling issue on the card. I was using a duorb on an 8800gt. I borrowed a video card from work and tried it and the system worked fine. I couldn't understand why my MSI 8800gt wouldn't work with my MSI board, so I started looking harder at the card. That led me to do some searching on the internet and I found a post about mounting that cooler on that card. It turns out that the supplied instructions for the duorb are incorrect. There are two different height standoffs supplied, and if you use the ones that they tell you to use the heatsink does not make good contact with the gpu. It barely touches, not well enough to provide adequate cooling. If you use the smaller ones there is a gap between the mounting bracket and the card that will lead to bending the card if you tighten the nuts all the way, so what you have to do is use the plastic washers that are supplied for under the nuts on the other side of the card and then use some other plastic spacers or other nonconductive material under the nuts. I had some extra plastic washers that worked fine. I should have seen this earlier, because when I really looked hard you could see more thermal compound than you should.

I found the problem in another forum, and the system is working great now.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[Mike of Westport]

revised 3-27-09, fixed problems:
I had a problem with not enough power for MSI K9A2 Platinum system so be careful as you spec out system. Wouldn’t boot, thought it was board but after much work determined it was power. I had tried new Antec Earthwatt EA 500 but wouldn’t cut it. I have 4 GB DDR2, new GPU with 512MB DDR2, Intel 80 GB SSD and couple peripherals. I needed 25+ AMPs and EA 500 only had 21. I went with Corsair TX650W Model CMPSU-650TX, 52 AMPS +12Volt power to be safe.

If you are building new Phenom system here are my lessons learned.

My story:System wouldn’t boot, thought it was board. I RMA’d it and second one failed or so I thought but realized it must be something else so kept looking.

Lesson #1 - My PC Analyzer boot codes did not work so that threw me off. The lights indicated BIOS loader was failing, usually indicating bad mobo. Actually that happened because it won’t POST due to low power or without GPU (which I removed to minimize power). Found old PCI GPU and it POSTed with that.

Lesson #2 - I did not see in the manual or on the board the extra 4-pin 12v power connector on the motherboard next to the PCIe slot. Once I plugged that in PC analyzer worked and probably contributed to my initial difficulties with an older PCIe card.

Lesson #3 - After much work and research determined problem was power. Need to look at AMPs not WATTs. I had tried new Antec Earthwatt EA 500 but wouldn’t cut it. I have 4 GB DDR2, new GPU with 512MB DDR2, Intel 80 GB SSD, 2 HDDs and 2 optical drives. I needed 25+ AMPs and EA 500 only had 21. I went with Corsair TX650W Model CMPSU-650TX, 52 AMPS +12Volt power to be safe.

Lesson #4 – Minimum POST config on this board is with CPU/cooler, one stick of RAM and GPU. Wouldn’t POST with 2 RAM sticks fyi until Windows was live. Wouldn't POST without GPU.

Lesson #5 –I had a problem with not enough power from Antec Earthwatt EA 500 and do not recommend it for today’s systems. My board wouldn’t boot, thought it was board but after much work and some good info and help from MSI HQ user forum determined it was power. I do not recommend you buy Antec Earthwatt EA 500 for a new system.

Lesson #6 –To anyone else reading this thread, be careful as you spec out power for your new system and you have to pay attention to AMPs not just watts. I wasted a lot of time because of this and I understand it was my fault but Antec doesn’t help make it clear that this EA 500 PSU is underpowered for today's needs.

Lesson #7 –Also highly recommend you use eXtreme PSU Calculator advanced version for $2 to calculate AMPs you need. That would have saved me about 10 hours if I had done it to start.

Lesson #8 –I cannot get 4 channels of 1 GB 1066 memory to run even at 800. Can only boot with two. Use 2 x 2GB if want 4 GB, though have read some are down on having 4 GB because system is inefficient trying to use extra RAM. Don’t know truth but read that trying to solve my problems.

Lesson #9 – Love my Intel SSD. Yes, it's that fast if you've read the reviews. You feel the speed in what you do minute to minute, which I don't always with an upgrade since I'm mostly an Office, Quicken, Acrobat and IE user.

I have MSI K9A2 Platinum, Phenom X4 9950, 4x1 GB DDR2, new GPU with 512MB DDR2, Intel 80 GB SSD, Raptor and couple peripherals. Corsair TX650W Model CMPSU-650TX, 52 AMPS +12Volt power to be safe.

 

[RazberyBandit]

Odd... I've had a K9A2-CF for well over a year without even the slightest hiccup. Hard to believe MSI's flagship AMD-based board is really that much of a dog while the step below it isn't. I only ran into one problem with mine and that was setting up the SmartFan option in the BIOS properly. Seeing as I had never used such a feature, I contacted MSI's tech support and they answered every concern I had.

To the OP, king-pin:

PC2-5300 RAM with what CPU? You should be using 6400 or 8500, depending upon what model Athlon X2 or Phenom processor you're using. That could be your problem right there.