I posted this on a few technical message boards, but I thought I’d improve my chances of resolving this problem by asking this here as well.
My MSI K7 Master motherboard had a bug that I thought I resolved by correcting the 3.3v rail on my PSU. It used to halt at a blinking cursor at boot, freeze randomly, and lose connection to USB devices. Adjusting the 3.3 rail pot on the PSU fixed the problem. However, I recently reformatted and upgraded my hard drives and the problem has resurfaced even though the 3.3v rail is at the proper level. I needed to boot to the cd-rom drive to install win2000, but every time I tried to enter the BIOS the computer would halt at a blinking cursor. So I flashed the CMOS with its jumper and I got in and changed my boot order. But, now every time I boot up I get a “CMOS checksum error.” Hitting F1 lets the computer go ahead and boot into windows. I’ve read that this is a standard error message after flashing the CMOS and all I need to do is enter and update the BIOS. But, the halt problem is preventing me again, and flashing the CMOS again didn’t work this time. I’ve tried flashing the BIOS off a boot disk to no effect. Any ideas? Thanks for you help.
Sounds like your BIOS chip may be failing. Contact MSI for a pre-flashed replacement. BTW, the process of updating the BIOS is called flashing, switching the jumper CLEARS the CMOS.
I can replace the chip myself? What do I need, a soldering iron? Is it very easy to damage the board?
At what point does the the BIOS halt? Without any further information, it is likely to be a problem with the power supply.
It’s like this: Boot up, mhz and ram count up fine, all ide devices get detected, and then I hit delete to enter the BIOS and almost immediately the screen goes blank except for a blinking cursor. If I don’t hit delete I get the cmos checksum error, and hitting f1 allows the computer to go ahead and boot into windows.
Right now the three suspects are the mobo, the psu, and the cmos chip itself.
If the BIOS chip is at fault, you can replace it yourself rather simply. You do need to obtain a new chip from the manufacturer, if the board is under warranty they should just send you one for the price of S&H. It’s usually just a flat rectangular chip that goes in a socket behind the PCI slots, and all you need is a screwdriver or similar object to gently pry the old chip out of the socket, then slide the new one in.
I’d contact MSI before you do anything, though. They can precisely diagnose the problem.