Synaps3 wrote on 2022-08-28, 20:06:

I thought it could be a bad cap, but I'm thinking otherwise now because why would it be perfectly stable once it's finally booted windows?

Because bad caps get better when warm. You can test this theory by unplugging it from power for a day, using hair drier to heat cpu power area and then power on

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-08-29, 16:56:

Because bad caps get better when warm. You can test this theory by unplugging it from power for a day, using hair drier to heat cpu power area and then power on

Thanks, I'll try that. I'm also going to try to check the caps. I should mention none of them look bad.

But does anyone else here have a KT880 board (any brand)? I'm curious if this is just a buggy platform to begin with. I stopped using MSI boards in my modern builds because of BIOS problems, so I'm wondering if this was just one of those boards that had a bad BIOS? I doubt it could be this bad and people would still put up with it though.

Could be a faulty bios chip.
Not unheard of.

It's still not resolved. I just ignored it for a while after trying everything apart from replacing caps that ALL look completely fine. Not to mention, why would it then be 100% stable once inside Windows. Makes no sense. It's got to be some weird BIOS thing. I've had other MSI boards with BIOS issues. Seems to be a theme with this brand. I can tell the BIOS is not quite the standard "Energy Star" with the text in the exact normal format for a BIOS.
I started looking for new motherboards, but I'm kind of constrained cause I want support for Dual Floppy drives, DDR400, and Athlon XP 3200. It would significantly open up my options if there was some PCI (NOT ISA) floppy controller that supports two floppy drives, but they don't seem to exist, so I'm fully reliant on the motherboard having that feature.

I want to buy another MSI KT880 Delta OR a gigabyte GA-7VT880. Anybody have one? I will pay significantly more than it's worth. I don't want to deal with this anymore.

Synaps3 wrote on 2022-08-29, 19:27:

But does anyone else here have a KT880 board (any brand)? I'm curious if this is just a buggy platform to begin with.

Platform is normal, implementation is like usual 🙁
I have K8T800as from jetway, and it`s peace of crap

I just ignored it for a while after trying everything apart from replacing caps that ALL look completely fine.

it's you in vain, it`s first to need do. Even no measure capacitance and ESR, just replace right away.

gigabyte GA-7VT880

Of those schematic diagram of matherboard that I have seen, Gigabyte is the least weird.

I ended up finding a GA-7VT880. It's a super rare board, but I found it on a Polish site (I don't read Polish). I didn't have the equipment to replace the caps on the MSI at my new place and didn't want to buy stuff just to find out it doesn't fix the problem anyway. Considering that the MSI board has such a weird BIOS which is not the standard Award Energy star. Instead, it's got MSI logo there and the text is a little weird - like not from a native english speaker. Clearly a modded BIOS by MSI which is probably buggy.

The Gigabyte just arrived and I love it so far. I think it's the best Socket 462 board (and clearly one of the latest releases). It has a VRM cooler (small, but other boards don't have any). I compared side by side from photos KT600 and KT800 boards by MSI, ASUS, and Gigabyte. MSI and Gigabyte seemed to have better physical quality. The ASUS was lacking many capacitors and the VRMs were way TOO SMALL. So I went with Gigabyte cause it had best physical quality and the BIOS was a normal traditional Award energy star with no weird modifications.

I just did a memtest on the GA-7VT880 and it's perfectly stable. No locking up like the MSI. I'm happy to stick with this board.

Something to note: I'm not sure if the dual floppy support is going to work though. The BIOS does support it and the manual says it supports, but when I booted Windows PE, the floppies had tons of errors "no disk exception..." Cancel, Try Again, Continue. And these drives worked fine on an older PIII board with VT82C686B southbridge. I selected the right Drive A and B in BIOS (doesn't have swap A, B though 🙁 Maybe once I actually install Windows, it will work.