Welcome to Vogons.

I get the same with my Kt3. It was also reported back when the board was current.

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/vo … -with-kt3.7344/
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/kt3-ultra2.5632/

My guess is that it is just part of the "jank" of early 2000s hardware. The card functions fine, which means it must be getting 3.3V. The POST code is a video initialisation failed code, but almost immediately the card initialises and POST continues. I'd chalk it up to bad BIOS coding and move on.

Thank you. Glad to be posting after using this site over the last few months to help build my retro PCs!

That makes the most sense to me. I've also been speaking with someone with a similar setup and they went as far as changing the AGP voltage in BIOS to 1.6V, at which point the board failed to POST, further supporting what you're saying.

smoothspeed wrote on 2025-11-13, 11:36:

Thank you. Glad to be posting after using this site over the last few months to help build my retro PCs!

That makes the most sense to me. I've also been speaking with someone with a similar setup and they went as far as changing the AGP voltage in BIOS to 1.6V, at which point the board failed to POST, further supporting what you're saying.

did you actually take the heatsink off the northbridge to make sure? in my experience the kt333ce version sometimes works and sometimes doesnt. i have a ecs with the CE version and is sometimes doesnt work. i also have a msi kt3 ultra 2 with confirmed CE version so not sure if ill have the same issue till i test it.

greasemonkey90s wrote on 2025-11-14, 02:49:

smoothspeed wrote on 2025-11-13, 11:36:

Thank you. Glad to be posting after using this site over the last few months to help build my retro PCs!

That makes the most sense to me. I've also been speaking with someone with a similar setup and they went as far as changing the AGP voltage in BIOS to 1.6V, at which point the board failed to POST, further supporting what you're saying.

did you actually take the heatsink off the northbridge to make sure? in my experience the kt333ce version sometimes works and sometimes doesnt. i have a ecs with the CE version and is sometimes doesnt work. i also have a msi kt3 ultra 2 with confirmed CE version so not sure if ill have the same issue till i test it.

Yeah, I removed the chip and it is the CE version. Oh, interesting; what do you mean the ECS sometimes doesn't work? As in, it fail to POST or you get crashes or something else?

smoothspeed wrote on 2025-11-14, 10:51:

greasemonkey90s wrote on 2025-11-14, 02:49:

smoothspeed wrote on 2025-11-13, 11:36:

Thank you. Glad to be posting after using this site over the last few months to help build my retro PCs!

That makes the most sense to me. I've also been speaking with someone with a similar setup and they went as far as changing the AGP voltage in BIOS to 1.6V, at which point the board failed to POST, further supporting what you're saying.

did you actually take the heatsink off the northbridge to make sure? in my experience the kt333ce version sometimes works and sometimes doesnt. i have a ecs with the CE version and is sometimes doesnt work. i also have a msi kt3 ultra 2 with confirmed CE version so not sure if ill have the same issue till i test it.

Yeah, I removed the chip and it is the CE version. Oh, interesting; what do you mean the ECS sometimes doesn't work? As in, it fail to POST or you get crashes or something else?

sometimes usb wouldnt work. lose the optical drive in windows. would act erratic.

Just a quick update to confirm that this motherboard does support 3.3V graphics cards and the beeps are due to a bios bug.

The above is supported by this German forum thread, where two conclusions can be drawn:

1. The motherboard does support 3.3V graphics card as evidenced by the photos of multimeters being used with this board for a 3.3V card and a 1.5V card.
2. The beeps were present from BIOS revision 1.5 on the MSI KT3 Ultra board (when using earlier revisions, there are no beeps). The earliest BIOS revision for the Ultra 2 board starts at 1.5.

smoothspeed wrote on 2025-11-24, 14:46:

Just a quick update to confirm that this motherboard does support 3.3V graphics cards and the beeps are due to a bios bug. […]
Show full quote

Just a quick update to confirm that this motherboard does support 3.3V graphics cards and the beeps are due to a bios bug.

The above is supported by this German forum thread, where two conclusions can be drawn:

1. The motherboard does support 3.3V graphics card as evidenced by the photos of multimeters being used with this board for a 3.3V card and a 1.5V card.
2. The beeps were present from BIOS revision 1.5 on the MSI KT3 Ultra board (when using earlier revisions, there are no beeps). The earliest BIOS revision for the Ultra 2 board starts at 1.5.

So the fix, desolder the onboard speaker. No more beeps.