Dead motherboard

[BillDing]

:t Hello everyone! I'm just a beginner, I just bought a motherboard from a person and it's an older model which was never installed. I have the manual. The motherboard is a 586F61-PB w/pentium processor in socket #7,100mhz /66.Iset all the jumpers as per the manual.When I turned on the unit every thing lit up,such the keyboard,cd-rom drive, floppy drive and the monitor turned on.However at this point the omputer is dead. That is the post test does not start. any suggestions????? Bill :(

[Rocketmech]

Welcome to Sysopt.

Does it beep? Does the cpu fan spin? Try reseating the vid card and check the monitor cable. See what happens.

[BillDing]

Dead motherboard, The fan is running,I didn't get any beeps:(The monitor works on my Internet computer. Question? If I take my video card out of my working computer and plug it into the dead computer,what are the chances of screwing up my known good Vid card.? Does the monitor have to work in order for the post to run and give out beeps? Can I recieve the beeps with a bad vid card? Ty for helping,I know the 586 has no value but I need the experience>:)

[Bovon]

The most common reason for no video or POST beeps is due to the RAM modules not being seated firmly. Does this motherboard use SIMMs or DIMMs (do you know the difference?)

SIMMs must be installed in pairs...DIMMs work one at a time.

Using the video card from another system should not harm the card, but that is probably not your problem anyway. You will get a POST beep without any signal to the monitor if the board is alive enough to generate a POST. There are several different kinds of video cards, AGP, PCI and ISA...as well as onboard video in some later boards.

PS EDIT
You can also setup the board outside of a case on a phone book or something else simular. Connect the power supply, video, and ram...thats all...no keyboard, no mouse...nothing but the video, ram and power supply and a monitor. turn it on and see if you get anything to the monitor that way...if you do, then mount it in a case, or add the other stuff while its out side of a case. Most times, I get a complete system up and running before I ever mount the stuff in a case. Be sure the processor has a good heatsink and fan attached.

[BillDing]

My computer has Simm,single inline memory modules. It has 4 installed for a total of 64meg ram,I believe I will go to the workbench and remove and replace.Ty. Bill:)

[BillDing]

I reinstalled the simms memory,I checked the Vid card in my working computer, everything works except the POST will not load and I don't get any beeps.Is there any other way to check the mother board beside going to a service tech,or should I just junk the board. Is there any voltage readings I could check or resistance readings or mila amps.Bill :confused:

[Bovon]

Is the motherboard mounted in a case?..if it is, can you take it out and try it outside of the case?. Motherboards have been known to be touching some metal inside the case and grounding them out...when removed from the case, they worked ok.

[BillDing]

I have the mother board mounted with nylon spacers and nylon bolts. But I am going to remove the motherboard and check it like you suggest. Ty again:(

[Rocketmech]

Ah , but is the fan connected to the mobo? my bad.
You might want to get a new battery for it . Check the cmos clear jumper is not shorted with a shunt.
Recheck your case header connections . Maybe the reset and power switch connectors are in the wrong place or the polarity is wrong .
The power supply connectors must have the 4 black wires together at the center. If not the mobo is no good anymore. Other than that I think you should at least try Bovon's suggestion .

[pel]

sir,

usually when the post test doesnt start it usually it means that there are components connected to motherboard not communicating properly with bios. If you suspect that motherboard is the culprit, you can try removing all components (hard disk, cdroms, floppy drives and its connectors) just leave the video card with the keyboard attached. Remove the SIMM RAM too.

Now power up your motherboard, if it doesnt beep (one long beep continously) then you got yourself indeed a dead motherboard.

[BillDing]

Dead motherboard? maybe not. I finnaly got a sound out it. I removed all cables and pherifials and left only Vid card and keyboard,then I powered up. I got one long continuos beep. Maybe their is light at the end of the tunnel? Next I'm going to take mother board out of the case. I will mount the board on top of a Penney's catalog.Come back for the results.:t :) ;) right now I'm off to the hospital for some MRI's. They first have to take X-ray of the eyes for hidden metal foreign objects.Before I retired I was a pipefitter and was around a lot of metal grinding and welding.:)

[Bovon]

I don't read where you have cleared CMOS with the jumper yet. You should do this when you take the board out of the case to try it. Please also understand that just because you have stuck some ram modules in the sockets, they may not be seated down to the bottom of the socket properly. Some mainboards are especially diffucult to get the ram seated good. SIMMs of course have to be installed in pairs. They should be identical...ie...if two modules are used and one is a 16 mb module made by Micron, the other should not be a 16 mb module made by NEC, ect...and, they must both be 16 mb and of the same density ect. If you are trying more than two modules, remove one set...just get it going with one set of 2 ram modules.


One long P.O.S.T. beep is usually bad or not seated RAM modules.

Here is a note from the PhoenixBIOS website. Phoenix owns Award, whos BIOS chips we generally see in our mainboards. Yours could be AMI BIOS instead however.

AwardBIOS -- The only AwardBIOS beep code indicates that a video error has occurred and the BIOS cannot initialize the video screen to display any additional information. This beep code consists of a single long beep followed by two short beeps. Any other beeps are probably a RAM (Random Access Memory) problem. (NOTE: The BIOS chip may or may not be programmed by Award/Phoenix. The mainboard manufacturer has their own software people who modify the BIOS software, and there are several POST code beeps for Award BIOSes..but I have lost the link to those apparently.)


AMI Beep Codes
The following table describes the beep codes that are used by AMIBIOS:
Number of Beeps Description
1 Memory refresh timer error.
2 Parity error
3 Main memory read / write test error.
4 Motherboard timer not operational
5 Processor error
6 Keyboard controller BAT test error.
7 General exception error.
8 Display memory error.
9 ROM checksum error
10 CMOS shutdown register read/write error
11 Cache memory bad
7.1 Troubleshooting BIOS Beep Codes

Number of Beeps Troubleshooting Action
1, 2 or 3 Reseat the memory, or replace with known good modules.

4-7, 9-11 Fatal error indicating a serious problem with the system.


Consult your system manufacturer.
Before declaring the motherboard beyond all hope, eliminate
the possibility of interference by a malfunctioning add-in
card. Remove all expansion cards cards except the video
adapter.
• If the beep codes are generated even when all other
expansion cards are absent, the motherboard has a
serious problem. Consult your system manufacturer.
• If the beep codes are not generated when all other
expansion cards are absent, one of the add-in cards is
causing the malfunction. Insert the cards back into the
system one at a time until the problem happens again.
This will reveal the malfunctioning add-in card.
8 If the system video adapter is an add-in card, replace or
reseat the video adapter. If the video adapter is an integrated
part of the system board, the board may be faulty.

[BillDing]

:) I think I'm making some head way. I got into the standard cmos setup. I set the time and date. the post doesn't recognize the hard drive or the floppy I get error fail(40)and the message "CMOS checksum error"? :( :) how do u clear cmos? and why my manual shows J13 jumped to clear cmos. what will this do?

[Rocketmech]

The error is normal for a first time boot. Enter the CMOS Setup and from the main menu select Load Setup Defaults, press F10 , say yes to save , the system should restart. Re-enter the cmos setup again and from the main menu select , Standard Cmos Setup. Check that "auto" is selected for all your hard disks and drive A is "1.44m,3.5in." Chances are loading setup defaults should clear up the problem, but the error fail(40) could be you dont have the cables connected correctly also. Tip : the red wire on ribbon cables goes towards pin 1 at each connection. The floppy cables twisted end connector goes to the floppy drive.

[Bovon]

Originally posted by BillDing
how do u clear cmos? and why my manual shows J13 jumped to clear cmos. what will this do? Most all motherboards will have a 3 pin jumper header. The jumper will be (or should be) on pins 1 to 2...if you place the jumper on pins 2 to 3, you will remove the voltage from the CMOS ROM chip and restore it to factory defaults...most times, after doing this, you will get a CMOS checksum error until you go into the BIOS setup and make some changes. This jumper will save your **** if you go into the BIOS setup, make a change that the system cannot work with, and it fails to boot at all...resetting that jumper to clear (reset) CMOS will again allow the machine to boot, and get back into CMOS so that you can try again.

When you connect a hard drive, (or any IDE device) The red tracer on the ribbon cable must attach to the motherboards #1 connector as already mentioned. The red wire will also be the closest (next to) the power connector on the hard drive where the molex connector plugs into the drive power socket. In CMOS setup, there should be something that says 'IDE HDD AUTODETECT' do this to have the BIOS autodetect the drive.

[BillDing]

Hi again I got the motherboard on a cardboard shoe box. I can't keep the Standard CMOS setup setting. I make all the changes and set the clock and as soon as I turn it off,it reverts back to the factory setting' Jan 1,1996 an what ever time and award software INc" what's wrong.:( Bill..............

[biglaker]

BillDing,
If you saved the settings and your system did not remember them, then your battery may be dead/weak and probably needs replacement. Biglaker

[Rocketmech]

Did you save the changes before exiting? Otherwise , yes a new battery is needed.

[BillDing]

:) We have made a lot of progress ,from a dead motherboard to the point where i find I need a hard drive. what is the largest hard drive that I can use with a Pentium-s 100 mhx with out having to partition the harddrive? anybody :) ty

[biglaker]

BillDing,
Without knowing the specifics of your m/b and bios, it would be difficult to tell you the exact m/b size you could use. All hard drives need to be partitioned somehow. But I think maybe your question is how big is the largest single partition that you could put on the hard drive and still use the whole drive- and that can only be answered by knowing the m/b and bios details.
Did you save your bios changes and did they retain themselves after a reboot? If not, again you'll most likely want to replace the m/b battery before you go buying a hard drive. After all, if it turns out that the m/b were dead, and if you replaced it, then the largest hard drive that you could use would be one consistent with the new m/b, not the old. If you just want to get a bigger drive anyway, you could always buy a separate controller card such as the many sold by Promise. The 66 Mhz versions of these cards can be bought dirt cheap on Ebay. The 66 Mhz version would allow even say a 60 Gb to be used. Of course you would want to break a drive that large down into multiple partitions because it would take a LONG time to defrag a 60 gig partition with a relatively slow CPU as one would find on a socket 7 m/b.
Hope this helps, Biglaker

[Rocketmech]

Whats up with the old drive? Why do you need a new one?
As to "how large?" , it depends on the system bios and O/S. If I was to guess, I'd say 2.1gig for 1 partitioned drive if your on W95. If your running W98 , maybe 8.4gig .
Take a look in the cmos setup and look for LBA setting in the Standard Setup menu under hard disks.
Todays new hard drives come with installation software that will over come size limitations for older mobo's . Its a simple upgrade.
The cpu , Pentium 100 has nothing to do with hard drive limitations.

[Quan]

How big a hard drive can you install depends on your mainboard. If it is fairly recent it should works fine with large drive. Older mainboard has limitation and you have to use the hd utility that come with new hd these days.However, depending on what you plan to install, you may run into problem. Windows 98 is limited to 30 GB. Win2K/XP/Linux do not have this problem.