Pm8m3-vh motherboard restarts

[IcyBurn]

I have a pm8m3-vh motherboard version 4.1 thats I decided to get a Pentium D 945 for since it suppose to support it. The problem is it restarts randomly with bsod all the time with the Pentium D 945, but if I put the Pentium 4 524 back in there's no problem at all.

I tired different bios,psu,ram, unhooked everything down to just a hard drive and fresh install of xp. I replace bad caps under heatsink even though bad, Pentium 4 524 never had problems. It can sit in bio all day long no problem. All temps are in good range.

Bio version 3.3
Ram 1gb stick super talent
Hard drive Seagate ST3160212SCE 160GB
Windows xp pro sp3
PSU delta electronics 350 watts


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[DaveLembke]

Looking online I cant seem to find any supporting information stating that the Pentium D 945 3.4Ghz is supported. Manual online suggests it tops off at 3.2Ghz and no mention of supporting Pentium D "Presler". It looks like its intended for Prescott only CPU's. Also the Pentium D 945 is a 95 watt CPU and the Pentium 4 524 is 84 watts so its more demanding of the VRM's and ( questionable capacitor health after partial or full repair ). The link in the manual is a dead link too. MSI gave up on this board long ago for adequate support.

Info on the BSOD you have that points to Motherboard & CPU Pair not happy or power supply unable to keep up with load or Caps near VRM's : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine-check_exception

Does the motherboard actually recognize this Pentium D 945 and run it at 3.4 Ghz? Usually if a board does not recognize the CPU you will have 1 of 3 issues.

- No boot with a CPU failure beep code or no beep code at all. ( Most Common )
- Microcode error at post that you can get past and have it run under a different CPU type ( More Common )
- No Microcode error, but it assumes a lesser CPU identity and runs at a lower clock ( Rare ).. ( I havent seen an instance of this since the Pentium III Slot 1 days in which a system that only was suppose to support up to a Pentium II 450Mhz was upgraded from a Pentium II 350Mhz to a Pentium III 550Mhz and the bios detected it as a Pentium II 450Mhz and ran the Pentium III 550Mhz underclocked at 450Mhz and stated that it was a Pentium II when it had a Pentium III 550Mhz in it in an old beige Compaq computer. )

Specifications
CPU
• Supports Intel® Pentium® 4/ Prescott (LGA 775) processor.
• FSB @ 800/533MHz.
• Supports Intel P4 Prescott CPU up to 3.2GHz, and Intel P4 Prescott Celeron CPU.
(For the latest information about CPU, please visit
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_cpu_support.php )

http://us.msi.com/support/mb/PM8M3V.html#down-manual

I'd go back to the Pentium 4 524 and run that to have a stable computer to use if this is your only computer. A better healthier motherboard with further upgrade path for Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad could be bought to support the Pentium D 945. I'd go with a Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4Ghz or better myself vs a Pentium D as for the Core 2 Duo's are better performing. If you want to go with a Core 2 Quad though, the prices of these for both Core 2 Quad and motherboards that support the Core 2 Quad's are still quite pricey because these Core 2 Quads are still a well performing CPU for average gaming etc when paired up with a good video card etc.

[IcyBurn]

Your gotta look for the PM8M3-V H with the h at end, version 3.0 and 4.1 pcb version support dual core. Version 4.1 has 3 pci slots. This info is from msi and here

It did recognize the Pentium D 945 and its 3.4ghz when I had bio version 3.0 but it wouldn't start after the bio check it just restarts. I updated bio to 3.3, 3.4 and 3.5 but went back to 3.3 but these 3 version booted to desktop but all restart from bsod eventually.

Its just a web browsing and media listening computer nothing major. Just trying to boost speed for 5 dollar processor

CPUID txt included.

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[DaveLembke]

hmm... info online at link you provided suggests 3.5 for the Pentium D 945, and your at 3.3 after downgrading back to 3.3 from 3.5 for stability reasons.

Pentium D 945 (3.4GHz, C1, 95W)    800    17    SINCE 3.5

I'm thinking that the motherboard you have is just not able to keep up with that CPU. MSI has been known to have issues. The motherboard is happy with the other Pentium 4 CPU but not the better $5 CPU upgrade. Also the FSB of the P4 is 533Mhz and this Pentium D is 800Mhz, so the bus is running faster with this Pentium D and the motherboard might be struggling at 800Mhz FSB.

* Last check would be to make sure RAM sticks are DDR400 and not DDR333 which are being overclocked to 400Mhz to match the CPU FSB of 800Mhz.

Other than that, thoughts are that you will want to either downgrade back to the Pentium 4 or replace that motherboard. You have already gone the correct direction with trying to solve this with BIOS updates and 3.5 is worse than 3.3 with that Pentium D.

If you want better performance you might be able to pick up a refurb SSD pretty cheap like $35 for a 40GB and have that for the OS and swap and set up your 160GB HDD for just extra storage. I placed a 30GB OCZ SSD that I bought for $29.99 at newegg into a Pentium 4 2.8Ghz HT system with a older SATA 1 controller and it made the Pentium 4 2.8Ghz HT system run much quicker. This wasnt long term use, I just wanted to see how well or bad a Pentium 4 would handle a SSD and it made it feel quite snappy for booting and launching programs. BUT a SSD will not help in the processing power though so if you hitting a performance barrier which is because the Pentium 4 is hitting constant 100% utilizations and lagging in processing power then the SSD wont make any difference for a processor intensive application running.

[IcyBurn]

I had bio 3.5 but it was no better. Ram is pc3200. It was just an attempt to get it faster some. It's not my main pc so the P4 will just be put back in.

One other thing is not all the time but it will sit on desktop no restarts at all till you start making the cpu work on opening and running programs then it will bsod eventually if not instant,  but it is faster with the Pentium D. So it must be running it some what right.

[patio]

I'd try another PSU...even if you have to borrow 1 for a day...

[IcyBurn]

I tried 2 plus the one from my current pc to be sure. Its 350 watts thats running athlon 64 x2 5000+, 4x1gb sticks and amd radeon hd 6570. But it made no different, still bsod.

No idea why it dont work when msi site says it supported. I'll just leave the P4 in it.

[DaveLembke]

No idea why it dont work when msi site says it supported. I'll just leave the P4 in it.

The motherboard itself is stressed outside of healthy conditions with the better CPU is the problem. In your initial post you stated that the board already had bad caps that you replaced.

 

I replace bad caps under heatsink even though bad, Pentium 4 524 never had problems.

Its quite possible that the VRM's were stressed by the lack of healthy caps and so even after replacing the caps, the VRM's are just enough for that P4 to run fine, but the Pentium D is drawing more than the VRMs can keep up with.

If your still checking back here, you could take a peek at core voltages using CPU-Z. But my guess is that with the Pentium D the issue your having is that when idle or when not working a heavy processing load the voltage is somewhat steady, but when the CPU goes to 80- 100% for both cores it may be dipping the voltage because it cant keep up with the additional current demand in which the CPU drops below the minimum healthy voltage known as the drop out voltage in which the CPU fumbles to a BSOD unable to error correct for a quick dip in power to the CPU. I have seen the bad caps cook VRM's ( Voltage Regulators ).

The motherboard you have is outside of its intended spec for operating conditions because you have one or more stressed components I feel. And the most likely components are the VRM's. These are not as easily replaced as for they are surface mount and require special tools. I have replaced one before by cutting the legs off the dead one at the body, and taken one off of a donor board and soldered the legs of the replacement overtop of the legs of the dead one. But you have to be quick and precise with the soldering iron as for you want just enough heat to bond the legs, but not too much that the surface mount pad that the leg connects to delaminates from the PCB.

Easiest is obviously to run it with the P4 and know in the back of your mind that this system could fail sooner than later due to the motherboard being previously stressed.

[IcyBurn]

I think it did fail few days after P4 was back in computer freezes on windows xp screen loading, i tried to install it over and it freezes on installing devices about same spot all the time were it should have the windows pop ups to put pc name in. I checked core voltage in bio and it jumping all around 1.20-1.50.

[DaveLembke]

I checked core voltage in bio and it jumping all around 1.20-1.50

Did you replace all capacitor near the CPU that are tied to the VRM's or just the ones that seemed visibly troubled?

If you only replaced some but not all, if the VRM's are not trashed you could try replacing the other caps that havent been swapped out yet. Your motherboard has 2 cap types and the solid state caps you dont have to worry about. The caps that are troubled if any still remain are the can electrolytic type.

If you had an oscilloscope and probed the caps you should see a somewhat smooth constant voltage with the CPU at rest/idle. When the electrolytic caps fail I have seen them induce a severe ripple and they can weigh down the VRM associated with it. Removing the cap the worst part of the ripple goes away, but the filtering from the VRM to the CPU core is gone. Adding a healthy cap back to the circuit of the correct uF, Voltage, and making sure the polarity matches to the cap you removed you might be able to get a smooth voltage output to the CPU core again.

For the most part though... unless you already have the caps and havent replaced all of them around the CPU, your best bet is to get a replacement motherboard or another used system cheap or free. I recently got an older free Core Duo 1.83Ghz Toshiba Gaming laptop computer with GeForce 7300 GPU from Freecycle https://www.freecycle.org/ that just needs a new battery if I was to use it away from an outlet, so it has to be powerd off an outlet because battery life is about 5 minutes after full charge, as well as a nice Toshiba 27" TV for free so that I can play older video games that require the CRT TV, such as NES games with the gun wont work with modern flat screens etc and FREE is GOOD if it works !!! 

I gave this laptop to my daughter to use for homework research etc as for if she kills it, it was free anyways, and we can keep an eye on her to make sure she sticks to her homework on it at the kitchen table vs her using her desktop Dell Core 2 Duo E4500 that i also got for free that is up in her room as her personal desktop in which she likes to play games, chat with friends on FB, and not do research on it when she should etc.   

[IcyBurn]

I changed all the caps around cpu and ram with used caps I had but were good from what the esr meter read. This board is filled with ost caps that I hear are bad caps to begin with. The picture you seen that msi has of the board is false of what caps are on it, there's no polymers caps, all are electrolytic caps.

The caps that went bad were the six under the heatsink that were 680uf 4volts. I didnt have none so I went to a surplus store that carries capacitors and they only had 680uf in 50 volts so I run a 24awg solid core wire from the spots on board to the caps and mounted then safely. I do this many of times with motherboards I can't get the right cap size unless ordered online and it works again no problem plus it gets relocated away from heat.

I gave up on the motherboard and bought a used Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L REV 2.4 with 4gb Samsung ddr 2 6400u and Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz with heatsink and fan for $35 but Im upgrading that to a Core 2 Quad, Q8300 2.50 Ghz for $23. Hopefully all works, not bad for $58 bucks plus a Rosewill REDBONE tower for $42.74. Just waiting on it all to come.

[DaveLembke]

Good deal on the Core 2 Quad for $23. I was looking on ebay a short while back for any Core 2 Quads as an upgrade for my wife from her Core 2 Duo E6600 and the price tags were still above $50 for them used. Since the Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4Ghz is plenty anyways with the 4MB Cache I gave up on trying to hunt down a cheap upgrade for her.

Performance of that board replacement compared to what you had prior will be a significant upgrade.

Btw... I thought I was the only person out there who replaced capacitors at times relocating them and running a wire pair to the thru holes of the original cap position on the board. Good minds think alike.    I was out of bread board the one day and so I ended up hot glue gunning them to the back of a parallel port on the motherboard to secure them as well as squeeze some hot glue around the legs of the cap to insulate them from any future contact with anything. And if the caps are the only problem you can fix the motherboard and continue to use the board with replaced and relocated caps.

Hopefully you have better luck than I have with a Rosewill case. I have had issues with mATX cases where its a struggle to get the hard drive in if the motherboard is stuffed first and impossible to get the motherboard in if the hard drive is stuffed first. My solution for this clearance conflict was to flatten the wings on the 3.5" drive cage that is rivoted to the frame of the chasis and this then allowed for the hard drive to be installed after the motherboard was installed first with the hard drive entering the 3.5" drive cage at a 45 degree angle vs normally straight on in which the drive would rest on the wings, and with the wings bent flat out of the way you then bring the HDD back into normal position to line up with the 4 mounting holes. Additionally when removing the Front Panel there is no knock out to install a hard drive from the front of this case, so its a design flaw. (* I suppose if you had installed a motherboard that didn't already have its CPU and heatsink installed that is the only way to avoid bending the wings in the HDD mounting cage. ) This is the first case I ever ran into with special relation conflicts like this and I have built many other mATX systems. Difference is that the others had the ability to install the HDD through the front of the case so there was no issues with a motherboard that already had a CPU and Heatsink installed.

Best of luck with your upgrade

[IcyBurn]

Yeah Hopefully all goes well with what I bought.

I can solder pretty good on electronics. I do my own repairing if i can find the problem, but when it comes to computers motherboards I can't get the solder to melt really and I use a 45 watt solder iron with 60/40 rosin core. I get the caps out easier then putting wire or cap back in. Stuff just wont melt specially on the positive lead thats had a square solder spot. I had some burn the hole up and solder didnt melt. I scrape the solder lead to clean it for better contact but still never really works.

Got any tips on getting them out easier? I pried caps off of there leads and soldered to then on the board but sometime they cant be solder to.

You do what you can when you don't got money to get some new or used pc stuff or its just a set up you like. So if replacing a cap and running wire and gluing it to some spot gets it working again then I have no problem with that. Might not look oem or nice but its moved out of the main heat area. Popsicle sticks work good before board failed.

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[DaveLembke]

Cool Pic... I've never gone the route of axial caps like this.

The soldering problem is caused by 2 problems.

1.) The traces in the motherboard act as a heatsink, and so the heat required to get the solder to flow is a lot, but small soldering irons have their heat sink away from them and struggle to then bring the temp back up to melting point of the lead and so I have seen with irons that arent heavy enough have the lead stick between the trace or thru hole and tip of iron when the heat is sinked away and the lead solidifies because its below melting temp. Also seen where trying to get the heat necessary with a soldering iron that isnt heavy enough cool the traces or barrel out of the thru hole because the heat is applied too long.

2.) I have generally carefully lifted the caps off of the board leaving their legs still soldered in. I then clip the top larger section of the leg off and discard it in trash. I then wrap the wire around the leg on top side of board. I then use a drop of flux and then use 60/40 and solder the wire that is wrapped around the leg post to it. I then tug test to make sure it flowed fused to the leg. Problems you can run into with this method is a iron that isnt heavy enough to account for heatsinking from leg stuff in the board to wide large trace. Also electrolyte left behind from removing the cap body can cause solderability issues. As well as I have seen many legs that are tinned aluminum or other allow that doesnt like to bond with 60/40. So if the wire is wrapped around the base of the leg that was tinned by the manufacturer, you can usually get it to flow the solder around the fresh copper and bond with the tinning on the base of the leg of the old cap.

*With repairs like this, I would suggest to always apply a glob of hot glue on the exposed legs to insulate. This way if popsicle stick or how ever else way that they are adhered to the motherboard pops off causing them to hang free, you dont have risk of a short to other components or chassis ground. Hot Glue gun is my favorite tool for PC modding and tacking parts in place. On one case I ended up relocating the NIC LEDs to the front of my PC case. A simple mod of running a wire pair from each of the NIC's Activity LED to a new LED since the original LED in the NIC's was removed and too small and not enough leg left to reuse. Drilled small holes in front panel just a hair larger than the LEDs to slide into the mounting location, solder the legs to the wires with correct polarity, and a glob of hot glue to bond them to the front panel. Performed this mod because I wanted to know when there was Network activity without having to have a mirror behind case to look at to see the rear from the front.

[IcyBurn]

Never knew the board traces were that much to act as heatsink. Like I said I did the leave the leads in board and solder to them but like you said sometime it dont stick to it. You ever tried heating the board up with hair dryer or heatgun to help the solder iron any? Ill have to try it on the next one to see if it helps any.

I never insulate the leads on any I done. The solid core wire hold them in place even before hot glue specially on smaller caps, but its a good idea for protection.

The nic led on front is cool, I never thought of but it dont bother me if its blinking or not as long as internet working Im fine.