For Those Experiencing the Infinite Boot Loop on P67A-GD65

Question

My story in a nutshell - bought the original (non B3) P67A-GD65 from Newegg on the first day it was available along with 8 GB (2X4 GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600 ram and Intel i5 2500k processor.  Received the items, hooked them up on a test bench (rubber mb supports so no grounding issues) along with a Corsair VX-550 P/S (both 24 pin and 8 pin leads plugged in), GTX-460 video card (2 PCI-E 6 pin connectors plugged in), the default Intel i5 heatsink and a known good USB KB and mouse.  Promptly experienced the infinite loop boot issue others have described - fans on h/s and video card spin up, 1st APS LED lights for a fraction of a second then all 6 light up for 3 to 4 seconds then APS LEDs go out and fans on h/s and video card spin down.  No beeps from speaker and no video signal to monitor.  After everything has stopped spinning (about 3 to 4 seconds), the power comes back on and the cycle repeats exactly the same way every time until I turn off the power supply.  Here is what I tried:
1.  Used only 1 stick of ram (tried in all 4 slots)
2.  Pulled 1 stick of DDR3-1600 ram from my working X58 system (again tried in all 4 slots)
3.  Different power supply (OCZ 520-ADJ)
4.  Known good PCI video card instead of GTX-460 (in case there was some problem with power draw)
Under each of these changes, the same infinite boot loop occurred.  Called tech support, they walked me through each step I had already tried and finally suggested I RMA both the MB and the CPU to Newegg.  Did so and the replacements worked fine from the start.
Then came the B2 stepping issue.  Notified both Newegg and MSI that I had one of the B2 boards.  Newegg notified me they had the new B3 boards in stock.  Arranged for cross shipment where they would ship me the new board and then I would return the old one.  Received the new one last Friday.  Put it on the same test bench as above and the same infinite boot loop is now happening on the new B3 stepping board.  Just to test, put the cpu, ram and GTX-460 video card back into the B2 stepping board and everything works perfectly.
Another test, since some people reported the infinite loop problem when they had failed to plug in the 8 Pin power lead to the mb, I unplugged the 8 pin connector on the working B2 stepping board.  The infinite loop problem is entirely different in this case.  When you press the power switch, the fans start to spin and the first LED lights for less than a second.  Then the LED goes off and the fans start to spin down.  After everything has stopped, it repeats until the power supply is turned off.
This is my first MSI motherboard after 15 years of Abit and Asus with the occasional Gigabyte or EVGA thrown in and I am not happy with the QC I have experienced with this board!
So to summarize, 2 of the 3 P67A-GD65 boards I received from Newegg have had this infinite boot loop problem.  Apparently, I have to RMA again.  Am I lucky or what???!!!
Monte

Answer 1

Quote from: BMSliger on 16-March-11, 00:05:11
If it was the chipset causing this problem, it seems it would be a widespread complaint among all vendors.  I have looked at the Asus and Gigabyte boards and do not see this particular problem described and certainly not multiple users reporting the same problem.  I am giving up on this and will arrange an RMA and will see if I can talk Newegg into an Asus board for only the price difference.  MSI has a very good reputation in the industry, but it has been a disaster for me!!!
Thanks for your replies,
Monte
Frankly, I can understand your frustrations on the problem but it is not fair to judge a brand by looking at the number of complains in a forum. I can guarantee you, there are more RMAs out there from all other manufacturers even before an user even knows that a Forum ever exist for them to post for enquiry and most of them aren't an IT engineer or hardware engineer by self.
If you want to compare, I have also been in this industry for more than 15 years and I have many DOA boards from other manufacturers as well and DOAs after RMAs are common to me. When you handle thousands of PCs, laptops and mainframes, such things are really common.
Back to your problem. Maybe I didn't make it clear on how I want to describe on my previous post for your issue in words. I am referring to having a chance to let the system boot into BIOS or past BIOS after multiple times of rebooting, then you can try to flash the BIOS. This is also not uncommon as I have encountered systems which are problematic but are able to boot into Windows after 15 to 20 times of infinite reboots by itself.
How about processor? Tested it in another system yet? Or is this another unless suggestion to you?