Three years ago, I built my own desktop computer, based on AMD’s Athlon x2 series. I used an MSI K9VGM-V motherboard, which I thought should have been pretty solid. But, it’s been slowly dying. Last year, the on-board sound failed after a reboot. Now a few days ago, one of the PCI slots failed after a reboot. I am not living in the same area, so I’ve ruled out a power company problem. And it certainly isn’t too much heat, because it’s Winter here. And everything is dust-free and clean. Maybe I damaged it or touched the components too much when I put it together. Are motherboards supposed to just die slowly like that?
Newsuse33 wrote:
> Three years ago, I built my own desktop computer, based on AMD’s Athlon
> x2 series. I used an MSI K9VGM-V motherboard, which I thought should
> have been pretty solid. But, it’s been slowly dying. Last year, the
> on-board sound failed after a reboot. Now a few days ago, one of the PCI
> slots failed after a reboot. I am not living in the same area, so I’ve
> ruled out a power company problem. And it certainly isn’t too much heat,
> because it’s Winter here. And everything is dust-free and clean. Maybe I
> damaged it or touched the components too much when I put it together.
> Are motherboards supposed to just die slowly like that?
If we assume that the failure of the sound was not that the BIOS data
got changed, it is likely that the catalytic capacitors are failing.
Many MB manufacturers use inferior units. I use ASUS MB’s and had a
power glitch kill one, but otherwise good results.
Larry
Quite likely. I’ve had that problem happen to three different MSI boards.
Hard to generalise from a sample of one. I’d mention the MSI Athlon board that served me well for a few years, but then that was made a few years ago, and quality of manufacture may have gone down, in short, another sample of one. So just write it off as bad luck, and buy a different brand next time so that you can’t blame the same manufacturer again. 
I haven’t bought from MSI again, but that is because I liked other boards better.
PS: Catalytic capacitor? Is this a capacitor that converts car exhausts? Maybe electrolytic capacitor is the term you wanted.
Yeah, I guess bad capacitors would cause that. Thanks, guys.
I have used MSI boards for years without any problems.
That’s not to say you didn’t get a bad board.
Usually them kind of problems are caused by heat,inadequate power supplies or power surges.
I have also used Asus boards with out much problems.They are just a little more expensive.
Do any of the capacitors look a bit swollen? Are any of them getting hot?
No signs of capacitors bulging or oozing liquids. My electronics teacher says that capacitors can dry up, and then they just become a resistor. That could impede current flow enough to disable a device. Maybe that’s what happened.
I used MSI Boards exclusively for years. Good price and great features. But my experience in the last few of years is anything after 2 years is borrowed time. They arent what the used to be I’m afraid. For 3 years my business used MSI+AMD for all system builds. We have moved to Gigabyte boards and CPU is customer choice. asus make a good product but yes, a little pricey.
saltyp wrote:
> I used MSI Boards exclusively for years. Good price and great features.
> But my experience in the last few of years is anything after 2 years is
> borrowed time. They arent what the used to be I’m afraid. For 3 years
> my business used MSI+AMD for all system builds. We have moved to
> Gigabyte boards and CPU is customer choice. asus make a good product but
> yes, a little pricey.
What is the cost of downtime?
The cost of downtime is probably more than the cost of spending a few extra bucks for a better board.
You just get unlucky sometimes.
My old ASUS videocard killed itself and I know an ASUS engineer who explained to me it was quite common with that card. (Good thing I know the guy, as I had modded my card and thus voided warranty… he did however know how to fix the problem)
My MSI motherboard suicided like 3 times, again just bad luck picking that product in particular, nothing to complain about MSI’s service is impressive though… got a new motherboard every time, and the last one must have been slightly better as it still works to date. (acts awfully strange when more then 4 disks are hooked up though so I it’s not doing it’s job in my server anymore but somewhere else)
A Soltek motherboard with an ALI chipset is proving itself to be near indestructible… so big brands do occasionally screw up, and smaller ones don’t necessarily have to be bad.
I do prefer the bigger ones as service will most likely be easier to obtain, but I wouldn’t stick to any in particular cause they all got the occasional bad apple.