# MS-7207 M/B Only POSTS every other boot



## CJTE (Sep 18, 2007)

Hey Y'all,
I've been working on this on/off for 3 months and haven't figured it out yet.

I (had) an eMachines T6534. eMachines/Gateway used an MSI board MS-7207 in their T-6000 series (and probably more than that). These boards are somewhat infamous for having an overheating North Bridge. One solution is to use a PCI Express Graphics card and direct the GPU Fan to cool the north bridge.
While my north bridge does get hot, I don't believe this is the problem I'm having. Most people with this problem are able to boot normally and then the system hangs (once it actually overheats).

In normal conditions, I'll press the power button to boot the machine. Everything fires up, but the keyboard lights never blink (I can turn numlock on/off repeatedly), the system never does the POST beep either.
So, I hold the power button down and the system shuts down, then I power it on again and it POSTS and boots fine.
Obviously thats on a cold boot, I don't remember how it responds to a warm boot (reboot from within the O/S) but I believe it had the same issue.

I've disconnected all the components, swapped RAM, swapped the Processor, and the Power Supply (not in that order).
I have another MS-7207 and all those components work fine on the THAT one.

No bulging capacitors.

I'm stumped. What kind of hardware problem would cause it not to POST on every other boot!?

EDIT:
I've cleared the CMOS too...


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## CJTE (Sep 18, 2007)

66 Views, no replies 

So either I'm crazy, or I've exhausted the troubleshooting and no one else can come up with any other ideas. Did I mention that I checked for blown capacitors...? (But why does it matter, blown capacitors wouldn't work once then stop, then work again)


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## The Merg (Jun 24, 2007)

I would look at the standard issue that the M/B might not be set in the case correctly. As in the other thread here, reseat the board and make sure all spacers are installed correctly.

- Merg


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## CJTE (Sep 18, 2007)

The Merg said:


> I would look at the standard issue that the M/B might not be set in the case correctly. As in the other thread here, reseat the board and make sure all spacers are installed correctly.
> 
> - Merg


I took the board out of the case. It's on my (oak) kitchen table. No shorts.
Ive reseated (and then removed) all connections on the board, including swapping the processor.
The motherboard has actually moved to a new case 3 times (it's not back in it's 3rd case so that I can use the table again).
When I was testing it, I had all components unplugged aside of the 20pin power connector, 4pin P4 Connector, a single stick of ram, the processor (and fan), and k/b & monitor.

No drives, PCI/Graphics cards, etc.
I've tried the system with everything installed, down to the bare minimum, with no change.

I don't see any shorts on the board, but how would a short only short exactly 50% of the time?

But thanks for responding


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## houskamp (Sep 14, 2006)

did you try another power supply?


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## afulkerson (Jan 14, 2007)

I had a similar problem to you and after much trobleshooting I finally replaced the MB and that fixed the problem. It sounds to me like either the MB or the CPU is bad.


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## CJTE (Sep 18, 2007)

houskamp said:


> did you try another power supply?


Unfortunately, yes. Ive tried 2 480W Logisys (different models), a Turbolink 450, and an Allied AL 300-ATX (300W). 
I started with a 350w that came OEM in the stock case (which is where I pulled this board from and installed a new board). Then went to the 450 (which I thought maybe was a coincidence, so I used my power supply tester which came back green and the LCD said everything was reporting near proper voltage).
Tried different RAM too.

Thanks SMOKE


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## CJTE (Sep 18, 2007)

afulkerson said:


> I had a similar problem to you and after much trobleshooting I finally replaced the MB and that fixed the problem. It sounds to me like either the MB or the CPU is bad.


Well, Ive already changed the CPU (went from an Athlon 3500 to an Athlon 3400). The Motherboard is bad I just can't seem to pinpoint how/why it's 'bad'.
It'd be one thing if it stopped booting entirely. Or, if certain parts of the board didn't work, etc etc etc.
But it works fantastically, 50% of the time :lol:


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## CJTE (Sep 18, 2007)

I've been pretty relentless with this thing.
Please don't think I'm trying to knock you guys, i'm really not. I'm hoping I miraculously missed something and one of you engineers/tinkerers will spark my bran (no "i") into figuring it out!


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## CJTE (Sep 18, 2007)

Problem solved.
The motherboard finally died today. I was in the middle of installing XP Media Ctr, rebooted the machine (turned it off, turned it on, turned it off) and it's not coming back any more.
I could try changing the RAM but I just don't want to dig that deep into it. For $80 I can get a new 939 board to put this processor in and it'll be over.


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