MSI K9N Neo MB
Enermax 330W PSU
AMD Athlon 64 2X 6000+ CPU
8 GB Ram
3X 500 GB Sata HDD (Seagate NTFS), (WD Fat32), Hitachi NTFS/EXT4)
Dual boot Windows XP Pro SP3 / Linux Mint 19.3
About 2 weeks ago this machine starting freezing up mid operation. Sometimes while running several app’s, other times when nothing was running at all and I would find the screen/pointer frozen in the morning and had to restart. Keyboard and mouse did nothing. After the 3rd event I opened the case to check if the HDD cables were seated properly, and they were all fine. But I did note that there were 3 blown capacitors. I had just replaced 5 Cap’s 9 months previously, so that ticked me off. (I guess this is a common issue with MSI MB’s?)
Then I began doubting the reliability of this machine and wanted to backup certain data to my laptop, which I first attempted by transferring files to a thumb drive. The machine would always freeze during file xfer to the USB drive. Then I tried booting into Linux Mint to xfer files, but Linux would not boot at all. (“Lfence Not Serializing”) Eventually I did an F8 start into “Windows With Networking” and did my backup that way. (I should have done this first). Over the next couple days I booted into Safe Mode more than once and the machine never froze up even after several hours of backing up files using my Home Network.
Eventually I tried to boot off of my WinXP install CD and go to the Recovery Panel, but after many attempts the CD would not boot. Then I tried my trusty USB Rescue thumb drive (which has a dozen utilities on it), and some of them would start to load, but eventually they all froze up. I think my very old CD-RW might have issues, but that doesn’t explain why I cannot boot off of a USB flash drive.
I noticed more than once now, the PWR LED on the front panel blinked on and off in 2 second intervals until I hit the PWR button or unplugged the cord. This was right after a failed boot cycle. I can’t find any information if this is a diagnostic indicator of what might be wrong.
At the moment the machine will not boot off anything except the C: XP drive. If I try to boot normal the machine will eventually freeze up. Actually I can force it to freeze by copying files to a USB drive. That does not seem to be a problem though using a WiFi connection to my laptop. On the other hand, if I can make it to the F8 menu and start windows in “Safe Mode with Networking”, then the machine has run for several hours without any freeze issues.
I don’t know how long those cap’s have been blown, or how to trace a MB circuit to identify what they might all be affecting. I’m not even sure the blown cap’s are the sudden freeze problem since I had previously run with blown cap’s for at least a year.
Along the way I have reinstalled all the chipset drivers, the RealTek audio and Ethernet drivers, and went into the BIOS and set “Optimal Defaults”. No joy.
Any suggestions?
Wolf
Enermax 330W PSU
AMD Athlon 64 2X 6000+ CPU
8 GB Ram
3X 500 GB Sata HDD (Seagate NTFS), (WD Fat32), Hitachi NTFS/EXT4)
Dual boot Windows XP Pro SP3 / Linux Mint 19.3
About 2 weeks ago this machine starting freezing up mid operation. Sometimes while running several app’s, other times when nothing was running at all and I would find the screen/pointer frozen in the morning and had to restart. Keyboard and mouse did nothing. After the 3rd event I opened the case to check if the HDD cables were seated properly, and they were all fine. But I did note that there were 3 blown capacitors. I had just replaced 5 Cap’s 9 months previously, so that ticked me off. (I guess this is a common issue with MSI MB’s?)
Then I began doubting the reliability of this machine and wanted to backup certain data to my laptop, which I first attempted by transferring files to a thumb drive. The machine would always freeze during file xfer to the USB drive. Then I tried booting into Linux Mint to xfer files, but Linux would not boot at all. (“Lfence Not Serializing”) Eventually I did an F8 start into “Windows With Networking” and did my backup that way. (I should have done this first). Over the next couple days I booted into Safe Mode more than once and the machine never froze up even after several hours of backing up files using my Home Network.
Eventually I tried to boot off of my WinXP install CD and go to the Recovery Panel, but after many attempts the CD would not boot. Then I tried my trusty USB Rescue thumb drive (which has a dozen utilities on it), and some of them would start to load, but eventually they all froze up. I think my very old CD-RW might have issues, but that doesn’t explain why I cannot boot off of a USB flash drive.
I noticed more than once now, the PWR LED on the front panel blinked on and off in 2 second intervals until I hit the PWR button or unplugged the cord. This was right after a failed boot cycle. I can’t find any information if this is a diagnostic indicator of what might be wrong.
At the moment the machine will not boot off anything except the C: XP drive. If I try to boot normal the machine will eventually freeze up. Actually I can force it to freeze by copying files to a USB drive. That does not seem to be a problem though using a WiFi connection to my laptop. On the other hand, if I can make it to the F8 menu and start windows in “Safe Mode with Networking”, then the machine has run for several hours without any freeze issues.
I don’t know how long those cap’s have been blown, or how to trace a MB circuit to identify what they might all be affecting. I’m not even sure the blown cap’s are the sudden freeze problem since I had previously run with blown cap’s for at least a year.
Along the way I have reinstalled all the chipset drivers, the RealTek audio and Ethernet drivers, and went into the BIOS and set “Optimal Defaults”. No joy.
Any suggestions?
Wolf