Repeated USB Failure on MSI 865 MB's

Greetings,

I own a medium sized computer store in a small town. We sell roughly 500 computers a year. All of the systems are custom built by certified techs; and designed by me. I've been doing this for going on 9 years now. Primarily we use MSI motherboards. We have found them to have a very low failure rate...until recently. Recently we have been having a rash of Motherboards failing 865PE Neo2-P (MS-6728 Ver2). The PC's are all coming back with blown USB. We have been able to duplicate the situation in the shop by plugging in a USB Camera. Upon USB device plug-in the Southbridge either visibly smokes or the PC promptly locks up. This happens with devices that are not USB powered and devices that are. It happens weather you use the onboard USB on the backplane or the front connector on the Antec and Supertalent cases. None of these are considered "Budget" computers. All parts are what you would expect in a standard business class system. Here's the real kicker. Asus motherboards appear to solve all of the problems. We have seen strange error messages about power surges on the USB hub when no devices are plugged into the USB. I've emailed MSI with no solution.

One of the main problems with this industry is the lack of support OEMs like myself get from the manufacturers. Anyone have any ideas what could be causing all of these issues. It has happened on MSI 865 chipset boards and now MSI 915G Combo boards. The 915P seems solid. Bottom line is that in every situation where the MSI USB's failed I could put a Asus board in it's place and not duplicate the issue. If I put a MSI board back in the system it would come back at me 50% of the time with the same problem. Anyone else having a similar issue? It doesn't appear to affect any MSI AMD motherboards. Strictly an Intel issue at this point.

Hi,

I also am having a problem with an MSI MS-6728 ver 2. I have Win 2000 Pro installed with SP4 and no USB devices get recognised when I plug them in. The device manager recognises the 4 USB root hubs and says that they are working OK.

Microsoft HCL does not recognise this Motherboard, and they have changed the HCL to something else which is for XP only (and appears to be only relevant if you are buying new hardware), so the usual zero help from Microsoft.

Any ideas appreciated.


Thanks.

Well I posted on serveral forums, emailed MSI, and have exhausted all other resources to get information on this issue. I just have a hard time believing that we are the only ones with this issue. No response from MSI yet.

You aren't the only ones (unfortunately for me). At first I thought I had tweaked XP too aggressively, but I see that the problem has occurred for you in Win2K and during booting.

Mine worked o.k. for a few days, then it stopped recognizing USB devices - although all the hubs are o.k. in Device Mgr.

On the MSI forum, a moderator checked with MSI and was told the "cure" was to RMA the board.

Well I've been sending all of these boards back. The count on bad motherboards with blown southbridge and non functional USB is now above 30. Again it appears that the only actual affected models are MSI motherboards bearing the 865 chipset. The 865PE Neo and 865PE Platinum are the worst for sure. The RMA's I'm getting back from MSI do appear to be staying out in the field. MSI Needs to communicate with us system integrators the problems that they are having, instead of letting us eat shipping costs and waste money and resources on a problem they created. At least they have a 3 year warranty on them.... But as a whitebox system manufacturer and reseller I've now switched my entire Motherboard line from MSI to Asus. No problems since.

-Cinder

Wow! I can see why you are annoyed ... MSI must know there is a problem and yet they won't inform you. Did you have any good MSE 865PE boards at all?

Question: I've got a USB mouse, but not a keyboard, and a USB hard drive and memory key. Is there a definitive test I could do to establish that the problem in my case is really the motherboard and not something I've done to XP?

Thanks for your help!
-Charles

Well most of these 865 Motherboards that have bad USB also have a bad southbridge chip. On the 865PE Neo it's easy because they put a nice pretty sticker over the southbridge. When the southbridge blows you will see the sticker all puffed up. For the most part the motherboards function fine; except for USB. What I would do in your case to rule out a software issue is stick a temporary hard drive in the computer and load a fresh copy of XP on it. Load your drivers. See how it behaves. If USB is still dead; you are looking at a hardware issue.

-Cinder

Strange ... the Neo2-P that's got the USB problem doesn't have a sticker on the southbridge, just a silk-screened Intel logo. It looks o.k. and I never saw any smoke. However, I'll try your sensible idea about the fresh XP install and I'll post the result here.

The board I'm speaking of is MS-6728 Ver.1 It's actually called the 865PE Neo2. It has a Blue D.O.T. sticker on the southbridge.

I've got the MS-6728 Ver. 2, which -- no doubt for clarity -- is also called the 865PE Neo2. They cut costs by leaving off the blue stickers.

I'm curious to find out if your board indeed has a hardware issue. I had another customer today bring back a MSI 865 Platinum motherboard with blown USB. The numbers just keep climbing.

-Cinder

I have an MSI 865 PE/G Neo2 mobo, ~16 usb ports (not including the extra 2 supported) all in the green. I've used all usb ports with no problems. How many usb ports does that one have and do they have the status light with them. May be incomplete ground to the upper left usb port.

It has 4 on the ATX Back plane and another 4 on the motherboard front panel connectors. I've never seen a motherboard with LED's dedicated strictly to the status of USB ports. I do have the DLED dongle that came with the board if that's what you are referring to. I've used a multimeter to pin out the USB on both good motherboards and failed motherboards. There is no connectivity difference. I've also checked the difference between Asus and MSI. Both are identical when it comes to the pinout. Ground appears solid in otherwords.

-Cinder

Well, I installed another HDD (as you suggested) and installed my slipstreamed OEM/SP2 XP Home on it. My USB memory key wasn't recognized (although the LED in it flashed when the key was inserted in the USB port). So it must be the motherboard.

But it seems obvious from the small number of posters with the problem, that most 865PE Neo2 boards are o.k. Perhaps they had a batch of defective chips at one point in the production run, rather than a fundamental design flaw in the board. I'm going to try one more mobo (returnable) to avoid having to recreate my heavily customized XP installation on another mobo.

Stay tuned (and thanks again!).

Charles

I've finally obtained another MSI 865 Neo2 and built it up with the same hard drive and software as the one with the defective USB circuitry. After 24 hourse, the USB is still running fine.

BTW, an easy way to tell whether USB failure is hardware or software is:

1. Put a flash memory key in a USB port.
2. Reboot and press F11 when prompted.
3. If the hardware recognizes USB, the flash memory will be on the boot menu. Otherwise, it will not. (Prove it by removing the key and repeating this procedure.)