Problem with MSI K9N Sli Platinum

[Diego Adrada]

Greetings!
My computer has worked very well for several years with this Board, but now I have the following problem:
By the time I turn on the PC, it stays frozen on the screen showing the MSI logo.
The only way to pass that screen is turning off the PC and press the button "Clear CMOS", then turn on the pc again, press F2 to load default options and it loads Windows normally but this does not works any USB port.
The next time I reboot or turn off the PC, it has the same problem and I have to repeat the above steps.
Any idea what might be happening?

Board: MSI K9N Sli Platinum
Bios: Version 1.11
PSU: ATX-750W 8A
VGA: ATI HD 4770
AMD Athlom X2 4200+ 64 bits
MEM: Kingston 2x1gb
HDD: Samsung 1Tb 7200rpm
OS: Windows 7 64bit Ultimate



Thank you very much!

 

[clutchc]

Have you changed the CMOS battery recently? It might be losing the BIOS settings if the battery is dead. Doing the CLR CMOS thing would reset the BIOS to default again.

 

[Diego Adrada]

Yeah, I've already try with a new cmos battery. But the problem persists.

 

[clutchc]

Normally, I would recommend running a full virus scan, and then running CCleaner to get rid of junk files and registry errors.
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
But your issue seems to be something occurring well before Windows ever enters the picture. In fact you say Windows works fine once you get past the POST screen. So I'm going to say, the problem appears to be board related. Since the CMOS battery isn't the problem, that would leave a defective component on the board itself; possibly the BIOS chip.

Have you tried downloading/flashing the latest BIOS for the board? Or even a fresh download of the same BIOS?

Have you ruled out a bad memory stick? Run Memtest. http://www.memtest.org/
Or even Windows own memory diagnostics. Although it isn't as thorough as Memtest.

You might try disconnecting the drives, and all but 1 stk of RAM in the 1st slot. See if it will then allow normal booting to BIOS. If so, Then see if it will pass POST and get to the place where it would look for the missing boot drive.



Btw, what did you mean by "...but this does not works any USB port"?

 

[Diego Adrada]

Normally, I would recommend running a full virus scan, and then running CCleaner to get rid of junk files and registry errors.
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
But your issue seems to be something occurring well before Windows ever enters the picture. In fact you say Windows works fine once you get past the POST screen. So I'm going to say, the problem appears to be board related. Since the CMOS battery isn't the problem, that would leave a defective component on the board itself; possibly the BIOS chip.

Have you tried downloading/flashing the latest BIOS for the board? Or even a fresh download of the same BIOS?

Have you ruled out a bad memory stick? Run Memtest. http://www.memtest.org/
Or even Windows own memory diagnostics. Although it isn't as thorough as Memtest.

You might try disconnecting the drives, and all but 1 stk of RAM in the 1st slot. See if it will then allow normal booting to BIOS. If so, Then see if it will pass POST and get to the place where it would look for the missing boot drive.



Btw, what did you mean by "...but this does not works any USB port"?

Thanks a lot for your answer!
I've already tried flashing the latest BIOS, also de de RAM Memory Test and disconnecting the drives.
About USB ports, What I'm saying is that when I perform the steps mentioned, load Windows but none at all of the USB ports work.
Best regards!

 

[clutchc]

I see. Once in Windows, the USB ports don't work...
That is looking more and more like a board failure. The USB ports are part of the south bridge. A very important part of the MB. There are two main chip sets that control almost everything; the north bridge and the south bridge.