Yet another dead MOBO

Patrick_B · Sat Mar 08, 2003 11:54 pm

Allrighty, I've either fried the BIOS chip or the MOBO, can't tell.

Now, I am not exactly sure if I oughta order a replacement chip...could it be possible that I've fried an actual motherboard component? Then getting the chip would be a waste of cash right?

Soyo SY-eEHM v1.1 (1 MB of cache): no POST, no Beep!, the fans and CPU are alive and kicking though.

Should I/ shouldn't I get a new chip? Chances are X% to ressurect the thing?

Thanks
Patrick

Mon Mar 10, 2003 10:55 am

Please give us a little more background:
Did you mean SY-5EHM V 1.1 ?
What happened last before it died ?
Why do you think the BIOS is fried ?
You say the CPU is alive - have you tested it in another motherboard?
Do you have another motherboard with the same shape of BIOS ROM socket ? If so you could try a hot-swap re-flash using the techniques described athttp://www.pppr.sk/rainbow/hardware/hotflash.html

Patrick_B · Mon Mar 10, 2003 1:47 pm

Soyo's SY-5EHM V 1.1 , that's it thanks.

I was actually hot-swapping when the accident happened.

I managed to fix the other computer's BIOS and while I was busy working on it, the fact that the Bios chip sockets are facing opposing directions on each mobo slipped my mind.

I ended up inserting the chip the wrong way, therefore the chip became very very hot and that’s it, it’s given up the ghost since then.

I am not going to hot-swap re-flash in a long time; I'm just too dumb for that sort of stuff.

Anyway, any chances that this little stunt might have damaged some of the motherboard's compnonents? Any chances that the chip just fried and by replacing it the motherboard will live again?

Thanks for replying to my post,
Patrick

Think I'll flip a coin about buying the chip...

Mon Mar 10, 2003 3:02 pm

Most likely you just killed the BIOS chip - it would have been trying to pull the 5V and/or 12V supply rails down to less than 1 volt. I've done that in the past.

Mon Mar 10, 2003 4:32 pm

I managed to kill ~5 Flashroms in two years this way but the mainboards never got damaged in any way
Just replaced the Flashrom and Board was working again

Patrick_B · Mon Mar 10, 2003 6:07 pm

Cool, I'll probably get a replacement chip then... I know it's old technology and all but the thing is just so cool, it's a baby-AT/ATX hybrid with loads of neat features stradling socket 7 / slot 1.

Thank you for the feedback.

Patrick
...on his way to eBay

Wed Mar 12, 2003 1:42 am

I managed to kill ~5 Flashroms in two years this way

Just 3 for me, but it is encouraging I'm not the only one

Patrick_B · Wed Mar 12, 2003 3:28 am

well... I killed a mere two units but it was out of shear incompetence and unbeatable stupidity.

it's quality not quantity,
so give the props to the pro...

Patrick

Wed Mar 12, 2003 9:57 pm

I have 2 killed PROMs (non-flashable) - they were already inserted backwards in the boards when I got them. Boards work OK after replacing the chip.

Patrick_B · Wed Mar 12, 2003 10:06 pm

I've already ordered them from eBay, from Biosdepot.
http://www.stores.ebay.com/id=5133188

Looks prettty reputable, I'll post something it and them as soon as I get the chips.

Funny thing is that one of the chips is fried for sure but the mobo still boots "normally" except for the error message: Flash Bios Not Recognizable (something like this), and it proceeds to windows...

I'll replace it nonetheless since that computer is not mine and I feel responsible.
Take care
Patrick

Patrick_B · Thu Mar 20, 2003 2:13 pm

well...I finally received the BIOS chip a day ago and I installed the Soyo one, booted the computer and it went fine, never got to check out the BIOS number really well it went by sort of fast, then it said updating DMI, etc...(forgot the actual order).

It started lookin for a hard disk (I had only a floppy and an AGP card in there), anyway SUCCESS I thought and switched off the computer.

Then in a moment of great euphoria I re-installed all the card and disks and re-booted the machine just to get greated by a ( 1 long, 2 shorts) beeps and no video display.

I tried flashing blindly with an autoexec and all, the floppy light comes on and it scans the floppy then it just stops where it ought to continue and run awdflash etc.

Help, maybe I should just get an ISA videocard, would it help?

Patrick

------

oups my bad...

it's one long 3 short ones (Keyboard Controller failure )
huh?

from bioscentral.com:
1long, 3short No video card or bad video RAM Reseat or replace the video card.

Fri Mar 21, 2003 1:13 pm

Patrick_B wrote:I tried flashing blindly with an autoexec and all, the floppy light comes on and it scans the floppy then it just stops where it ought to continue and run awdflash etc.

Help, maybe I should just get an ISA videocard, would it help?

from bioscentral.com:
1long, 3short No video card or bad video RAM Reseat or replace the video card.

Knowing you had a good BIOS, trying to flash it again would not have been my first step. You had just changed the environment by plugging a load of other stuff in.
When the floppy stops, the flash program should be running for two or three minutes - how can you be sure it's not flashing if you have no video ?
Did you take all the extra cards out again and disconnect the drives ?

Patrick_B · Fri Mar 21, 2003 8:43 pm

well... I went out and bought myself an ISA video cards on the cheaps. I can see said the blindman... the floppy stopped because I had to hit F1 to continue pass the error message.

(same time I purchased a 250W to replace the 200W power supply, there we go we're now accoding to specs req by mobo manual)

Yes I had taken everything back out again, and it still is. The next step is reintroducing every component , one at the time. It'll take a couple of days, assignments are pouring in.

You are right about not needing to flash the thing. I could tell that it wasn't flashing because the little light on the floppy stopped after "floppy seek."

But I haven't gotten past the floppy + ISA card + keyboard stage yet.

I'll post my results,

Thank you for replying my post
Patrick[/b]