MSI Z77A-GD65 Bootloop / Powercycle

Joxrox

Honorable
Feb 13, 2014
5
0
10,510
Hey forum,
I have been using my MSI Z77A-GD65 motherboard for litecoin/dogecoin mineing for a few weeks now and it gave me no problems. However Windows 7 was not detecting all 6 of my R9 280x cards, so I decided to switch to Linux. Long story short, I tried Xubuntu and had some driver issues so today I thought I would swap over to regular Ubuntu. I burned it to a disk and tried booting from it, but I got a black screen. Since I had my monitor plugged into one of my graphics cards, I assumed it was driver related. Without shutting down the PC, I swapped the monitor over to the motherboard VGA output. After doing so, the screen would not even detect a signal, so I shut down the PC. When I booted it back up, a black screen with some red and yellow text said that there was some problem (or corruption) with the BOIS, so I waited until it said "Completed. Please reboot PC". So I did, and now the motherboard shuts off as soon as I press the ON button.

What I have tried so far:
A different power supply (I was using 2 for my mining rig)

Testing the voltages of the board as it starts to boot using the "V-Check Points". All the voltages were correct exept for CPU core and CPU_GFX voltages, which did not show any anything in the short time a had to check them.

Flipping the built in switch on the motherboard to use the backup BIOS.

Checked all the cables to ensure they are all properly seated.

Reseated the RAM and swapped the sticks to the other slots.

Removed all unnecessary hardware including the GPUs, fans, CD drive, and extra DIMM.

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I am not sure what the problem is, and any feedback would be greatly appriciated. At this point, I believe the CPU is dead, but I wanted to have some suggestions before I buy new parts. Thanks in advance for your help! (And sorry for the length)

Mining rig parts:
CPU: Intel Celeron G1620
Motherboard MSI Z77A-GD65
RAM: 2 x 2Gb Kingson HyperX 1600 MHz
GPU: 6 x XFX R9 280x 3GB
 
1) How can you use 6X r9 280x because your MB only has 3 pcie slot.
2) What is you PSU? Make sure your PSU has enough 6pin and 8 pins pcie power connectors. If you use 6X GPU you need 6X6pin and 6X8pin.
3) You may need other CPU like i3, i5, not the Celeron, even you use the pc for mining.
 

Joxrox

Honorable
Feb 13, 2014
5
0
10,510


To connect all 6 cards to the motherboard using powered raisers (4x 1 -> 16 and 2x 16 -> 16)
I am running a Corsair AX1200 and a Corsair TX750. As I said, the CPU has been fine for a few weeks now. Before this problem, I aslo tried an extra i5 2500k, but decided to use that in another build.
 
Maybe the PSU or the 4X powered raisers have compatible problem. Do you use only the ax1200 or use both by the external PSU method? Also you said win7 was not detecting all 6 of my R9 280x cards, which is just happening ? Or that was fine before but all the GPU have not been detected recently.