I've got two mobos that don't POST...what the heck do I do with them?

G

gaeko

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 23, 2003
Messages
90
It's a loooong story, but I had an Asus A7N8X that used to work fine till my Radeon 9800 Pro decided to go out...BIOS was showing artifacts. Got a new card through RMA and the problem was the same. Went to clear the CMOS, and when I tried booting up, I never got a display again.

I decided I wasn't ready to upgrade my system (i'm a college student and funds are real real tight) so I bought a Saitek nforce2 board through hardforums and received it today. Well I booted up the machine with the new mobo and I successfully got into bios. Changed some settings, then rebooted....and then...*dead*. No beep, no post, nothing. I switched out EVERYTHING, CPU, RAM, video card, even bought a new PSU. Once in a while I could get the system to beep and go into bios, but as soon as I rebooted, I got nothing.

Arrrghhhh, I have no idea what's going on . I stayed home from work just to get my system running and wound up spending the ENTIRE day troubleshooting it. I should have just stayed at work and made money to buy a new system.

I had an old computer lying around, a no-name mobo with a VIA chipset and an Athlon XP2000 in it. At the current moment I am using it, and installing Windows on it.

I am super super frustrated because:

1) I wasted a whole day troubleshooting my computer
2) I wasted 50 bux on a mobo that is busted
3) I have no clue what the problem was

I just want to know what the probleem was, so I can continue with my life! It's going to KILL me!

Anyways....thread title, what am I going to do with the two busted motherboards? I don't understand how they could have broke, but they are not POSTing.

Also, do you guys have suggestions on what motherboard/CPU combo I should buy? I've been out of the hardware game for a couple years and I just really need a system that's going to be stable. Honestly, I was perfectly happy with the performance I was getting out of the XP2500. I'm guessing i'm gonna go with the AMD64 3200 unless someone tells me otherwise.

This didn't mean to be a rant, but I guess I just really needed it! Thank you for reading!
 
"I'm guessing i'm gonna go with the AMD64 3200 unless someone tells me otherwise."

Get a Venice core 3000+ and an Asrock Dual SATA2-939 mobo. SHould be able to get both for well less than $150.
 
jbmx4life said:
"I'm guessing i'm gonna go with the AMD64 3200 unless someone tells me otherwise."

Get a Venice core 3000+ and an Asrock Dual SATA2-939 mobo. SHould be able to get both for well less than $150.
Click to expand...

Wow...didn't realize a CPU/MOBO combo could be had for so cheap!
 
Mobo
CPU

=

$161.80 + shipping (for brand new stuff)

go to the FS/FT section and search for em if your ok with used.
 
Another thing to try is: Hot flash a bios chip with the A7n8x bios and try seeing if that will do the trick. It's not difficult, but is a little tricky, google for more info.
 
diredesire said:
Another thing to try is: Hot flash a bios chip with the A7n8x bios and try seeing if that will do the trick. It's not difficult, but is a little tricky, google for more info.
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Hmm....I would like input from others on this. Is there a good chance my BIOS got corrupted? If so, how could that have happened? I actually have access to a buddy's computer who has an A7n8x-e, so I theoretically could try hot flashing. I'll have to look into this some more.
 
I'm surprised that no one else has mentioned this.

PSU, If your PSU has gone it could be taking out your Mainboard and Graphics card.

Check you PSU first before fitting anything new to it.
 
jnex26 said:
I'm surprised that no one else has mentioned this.

PSU, If your PSU has gone it could be taking out your Mainboard and Graphics card.

Check you PSU first before fitting anything new to it.
Click to expand...
I never mentioned it because he said he bought a new PSU in the OP.

As far as hot flashing goes, it's not a difficult process like i mentioned, Just get a Bios chip remover (or have a steady hand, i typically use a nail clipper's "hook" file) and pry the chip out.

Basic process:

Turn on a good computer. After it posts, boot using a floppy drive to a boot prompt. Run a flash utility (I don't remember the utility i used, i think it was called uniflash), you'll want one that can flash any file, regardless of chip size or ID..

After the computer is booted to a boot disk, you can safely* (sort of) remove the bios chip while the computer is on.. this is why it's called "hot." Not all motherboards are capable of this, there was a lot more detail to this...

Just after running uniflash with the bios file on the disk, remove the chip as mentioned above (pry each corner successively to avoid shorts) and then place the corrupted/bad flashed bios chip into the socket. Proceed to press enter, and wait for the flash to complete. If all went well, you should have a fully functioning motherboard again, provided the bios chip was the problem in the first place..

If you have a friend with the same motherboard, and same revision, you might save yourself some time by trying your bios chip in his board.. If it posts and runs fine... you know that's not the problem... It'll probably save you some time, too..

I'd check out dfi-street.com for some more info on "hot flashing." It was a pretty common practice back in the NF2 Infinity days, IIRC. I used this trick to revive a A7N8X, too.

One Caveat: I doubt from your description that you have a bum bios, I would guess it's a memory issue.

If you have a good friend who is willing to help you troubleshoot, swap parts in and out of his board one at a time, when the symptoms re-occur you can bet it's that component, I'd try memory, Video, CPU, Bios, HDD. (not necessarily in that order, HDD is probably the easiest to check after memory).

Just a few ideas to get you started.

Cheers.


*I'm not taking any responsibility if your crap gets screwed, here..
 
I greatly appreciate your help. I have two NForce2 motherboards, and tested both with known working components. Using just CPU, Vid Card, and RAM I could not get either to beep at all.

I have a strong suspicion that my current PSU is bad, At the current moment I have a computer up and running, altho the mobo is an old old VIA chipset. I bought a 430 Watt PSU to run it, and it works fine. When I plug in my old PSU (the 350 watt in my sig) the system doesn't beep so i'm pretty sure it's bad. Very frustrating too since I bought it only a couple months ago...fortunatley it's under warranty.

I might try swapping BIOS chips, but I have a feeling it's not a bad BIOS. Can you screw it up without attempting to flash it?
 
gaeko said:
I greatly appreciate your help. I have two NForce2 motherboards, and tested both with known working components. Using just CPU, Vid Card, and RAM I could not get either to beep at all.

I have a strong suspicion that my current PSU is bad, At the current moment I have a computer up and running, altho the mobo is an old old VIA chipset. I bought a 430 Watt PSU to run it, and it works fine. When I plug in my old PSU (the 350 watt in my sig) the system doesn't beep so i'm pretty sure it's bad. Very frustrating too since I bought it only a couple months ago...fortunatley it's under warranty.

I might try swapping BIOS chips, but I have a feeling it's not a bad BIOS. Can you screw it up without attempting to flash it?
Click to expand...
It's possible, but very unlikely, it sounded to me originally like you had already ruled out the PSU, if the PSU is perhaps bad, i'd definitely look into that first, hot flashing isn't exactly an option one would like to jump to ;)
 
gaeko said:
Hmm....I would like input from others on this. Is there a good chance my BIOS got corrupted? If so, how could that have happened? I actually have access to a buddy's computer who has an A7n8x-e, so I theoretically could try hot flashing. I'll have to look into this some more.
Click to expand...


I just replaced the BIOS chip in my A7N8X a couple of weeks ago. I was overclocking and it wouldn't post after reboot.

To have them flash your chip is $5 and for a new chip/flash is $25 shipped.
 
diredesire said:
It's possible, but very unlikely, it sounded to me originally like you had already ruled out the PSU, if the PSU is perhaps bad, i'd definitely look into that first, hot flashing isn't exactly an option one would like to jump to ;)
Click to expand...

Well i'm pretty sure my PSU was bad, so I bought a new one. With the new PSU, both mobo's don't POST, beep, or anything.
 
gaeko said:
Well i'm pretty sure my PSU was bad, so I bought a new one. With the new PSU, both mobo's don't POST, beep, or anything.
Click to expand...

Sorry i don't know if you've covered this previously, but maybe your bad PSU fried your boards.
 
AcidBurn said:
I just replaced the BIOS chip in my A7N8X a couple of weeks ago. I was overclocking and it wouldn't post after reboot.

To have them flash your chip is $5 and for a new chip/flash is $25 shipped.
Click to expand...
I did a search on hot flashing and came up with this thread. I believe I killed my board the other day and am looking into hot flashing. I want to know who "them" are in your post. I do not have another motherboard of the one that is ruined so hot flashing is going to be difficult without having to buy something. Is there a service that can do it for me cheaper than buying another board?
 
yes, badflash.com, and a guy on the DFI-Street forums will flash a chip for you... good luck.
 
Thank you, I will check it out. A new mobo is $70 so $25 is a great deal. I notice that they don't list Intel in their "short list" of supported mobo manufacturers so I hope this doesn't mean I am out of luck.
 
Staples said:
Thank you, I will check it out. A new mobo is $70 so $25 is a great deal. I notice that they don't list Intel in their "short list" of supported mobo manufacturers so I hope this doesn't mean I am out of luck.
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This is probably because intel boards often have the BIOS chip soldered onto the board. If you are able to get this off, i doubt it would be a problem to get it replaced... Is your BIOS chip socketed?
 
I think your cpu might be dead. Did you make sure you were static free? :D
 
diredesire said:
This is probably because intel boards often have the BIOS chip soldered onto the board. If you are able to get this off, i doubt it would be a problem to get it replaced... Is your BIOS chip socketed?
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This was my fear. I looked at the board last night and could not figure out even where the BIOS chip was. I figured that maybe it was not detachable and then not seeing Intel as a supported motherboard made me even worry a little more.

I will have to get back to this thread with whether or not I can get the bios chip off. The motherboard is linked below. I figure it this way. I have done everything in my power to revive the board. The flash said it worked but on reset, I hear nothing but long beeps. The board is toast now so I don't have to be gentle trying to remove the bios chip.

http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/d101ggc/
 
Staples said:
This was my fear. I looked at the board last night and could not figure out even where the BIOS chip was. I figured that maybe it was not detachable and then not seeing Intel as a supported motherboard made me even worry a little more.

I will have to get back to this thread with whether or not I can get the bios chip off. The motherboard is linked below. I figure it this way. I have done everything in my power to revive the board. The flash said it worked but on reset, I hear nothing but long beeps. The board is toast now so I don't have to be gentle trying to remove the bios chip.

http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/d101ggc/
Click to expand...
In that picture, there is a small, squarish brown socket at the top left corner, that's your bios socket :D
 
Well, it is possible that the board got damaged when it was shipped to you. How was the packaging? Anti-static bag?
 
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