Page 3 - Repeated USB Failure on MSI 865 MB's

This is probably irrelevant, but my MSI 865PE Neo2-PFS also came from ZipZoomFly.

Although it experienced a lockup, after which the USB didn't work, the southbridge appeared undamaged and continued to work properly (except for the lack of USB support).

Cinder:
Thanks for your advice on sending the motherboard directly back to Asus. I'll do that.

Boxbuilder:
Yes, I think that ZipZoomFly being the source of both motherboards is a coincidence, but interesting.

However, I would say the failure mechanism looks like an ESD (electrostatic discharge) problem. That would explain the random nature of failures and the differences in how the motherboard fails (a smoking IC or just a dead USB port).

USB 2.0 ports and Firewire ports are high speed ports, and therefore can't tolerate a lot of capicitance on the lines, so they can't take on too much static protection. Unlike most other computer ports, USB is designed to be plugged in out fairly often and easily, which increases the number of potential ESD events the USB lines can see. USB ports have ground around the signal lines, which should help protect it (grounds touch first, so a static zap harmlessly goes to ground), but I notice my iPod connector's design is much more marginal. The signal lines and ground are so close together they may be in a race to see which touches first in a random insertion.

To make things worse, we're now in the middle of winter, where indoor heating can drive indoor humidity down to 20-30%, which can increase static zap voltages by a factor of 10 or more, so its pretty easy to generate a static charge of a few kV (barely detectable by a human) to several kV (a mini lightning bolt). A normal IC will have a 2 kV static protection on it, so you can kill it without even feeling a zap. If Intel shipped a lot of bad Southbridge chips that had a lower level of static protection than 2 kV, and we're ripe for a problem.

When MOS devices fail, they usually create a pin hole through the junction, which causes a resistive short to Vcc or ground. Depending on the quality of the short, it can either smoke the IC of just kill the USB port. I guess I can understand the range of failure modes people are seeing.

JJC

what ever happend to holding one of the black (ground) cables in your case when u work in it?

I'm not talking about good ESD practice when working inside of a computer case. I assembled my computer in my basement (higher humidity, no carpet) and used a static strap during assembly.

Both of my failures occurred after the computer case was closed and sealed. I was just trying to be a normal consumer, plugging in my iPod, and 2 motherboards failed.

JJC

Thanks for the excellent information, which clears up a lot of things. Like yourself, I experienced the failure when the computer was closed up and I was in "consumer mode". At the time I had an HDD in a Vantec enclosure plugged into a front panel USB port and no other USB devices.

Sounds like you hit it right on the head, JJC, good post.

It wasn't a conclusion. I was specifying a means of preventing damage via static electricity.

We are one of the largest computer stores in our city and we have been using the MSI 865 Neo2-V almost exclusively for our 800fsb computer systems. We have also been experiencing this problem with the boards. We have been having customers bring their computers back with this. It has also happened on the Asus P4P800 board as well. The problems started just about a month ago and has been getting worse lately with more and more boards coming back. If anyone finds a solution for this please drop me an e-mail at troyg@apluscomputers.com

This problem is actually much larger than I think anyone even realizes. I'm seeing somewhere around a 25% failure rate on those Intel southbridges. FYI: The MSI 865GM2 board doesn't seem to be affected by the USB problems. Does the GM2 have a diff chipset then the PE Neo's?

-Cinder

I think maybe you are the only shop in your area that actually cares about its customers.. I definetly congradulate you on that one!!

~Patrick

Just a quick update on the status of my 2 failed Asus P4P800-E Deluxe motherboards.

I received the 1st repaired motherboard back from my internet motherboard supplier, ZipZoomFly, yesterday. I installed it and it works fine.

However, I’m totally paranoid about continued usage of the USB or Firewire ports. Is a repaired board any better than the previous motherboards that failed, or is this another time-bomb waiting to happen? I did plug in my iPod and it worked okay, but that happened a few times with the earlier boards, prior the ICH5R Southbridge chip spontaneously smoking. I feel sorry for you guys trying to make a living with this uncertainty hanging over your heads.

As an aside, in my original post in this thread sent on Feb 4th, I mentioned that ZipZoomFly wasn't covering my motherboard, since the smoked IC was considered motherboard damage, but they were going to forward it back to Asus. Well, Asus got it and did repair it, and sent it back to ZipZoomFly. ZipZoomFly then sent it to me. So ZipZoomFly did stand behind the warranty. In fact, ZipZoomFly sent me the repaired board via FedEx, which isn't the cheapest option, so I'm grateful for the response they gave me. Based on their positive performance, and since my earlier post gave them a negative connotation, I feel an obligation to pass this message along and give them an atta-boy. URL

JJC

We have built about 100 or so systems with MSI boards and never ever had a problem, until this week. 2 systems building both 915 chipsets and both garbage, I am happy to have found this forum and see we are not the only ones. As of today both are being RMA'd and MSI is off our list of vendors. We will try ASUS and see what happens next.

Man, I love it when I see that our forums have made a difference in the world


Welcome aboard PC Fixxer

What was the primary board you used from MSI for those 100 or so systems? Were they 865 based?

The problem has finally spread over to the 865G chipset for me. A customer just last week plugged a Flash drive into a MSI 865GM2. Southbridge wasn't visibly blown, however the southbridge would get VERY hot when computer was plugged in and power off. So hot it burned my damn nuckle after being plugged in for less than 10 seconds. I have at least 40+ Asus boards now in the field since I originaly discovered the problem. I haven't had a single southbridge on any Asus board fail yet.

-Cinder

Just to weigh in here. I am in esentially the same boat as cinder55. Medium sized dealer. We carry mostly Gigabyte boards. We've also been running into exactly the same problem with them. Both the 865 based and our lower end 848P boards have been blowing in the same way. Started just a month or two ago. Looks to me like it's going to be an industry-wide problem. We are desperately looking for a non-Intel based board to replace them.

Very frustrating though, isn't it? Little or no support so far from Gigabyte. My wholesalers don't want to look at it as their problem. It's Intel's problem, from their perspective.

Oh well. It's the business we're in.