Abit BH6 is dead

Hot-swapping and Boot-Block flash & Boot block flash and floppy support
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jupiter
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I have two Abit BH6 motherboards, one works and one doesn't. The non working board does not post or beep.

I have:
- verified that the RAM is good (using the other BH6)
- used the PII 450 CPU from the working board
- removed all drives and cards except a PCI video card

When I power on, the fans spin up (power supply and CPU cooler) but no futher action is discernable. The caps lock light will not illuminate on the keyboard, no video is visible, and no sounds emanate from the speaker.

Any ideas about whether this is just a dead board, or whether there might be some bios tricks that can be applied? Any suggestions welcomed...it's a dead board now and can't get much worse.
Ritchie
BIOS Guru
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I would remove everything from the working board, and install it identically onto the non-working board, and configure it the same. Including external peripherals such as your keyboard, monitor, mouse, even power cables. For example I had a problem with a system recently which would not respond when a keyboard was present. In that case the main board was dead - indeed I initially did think it was the keyboard.
NickS
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Location: Thames Valley, UK

Does the CPU warm up ? If not, remove the board from the case and check for any burnt tracks. If you have electronics experience check the output from the voltage regulators.

Is the BIOS ROM swappable ?

Have you checked the CMOS battery ? Some boards did not boot if the CMOS battery was low.
jupiter
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This is strange. I haven't played with the box in question for several days and left it completely disconnected (no keyboard, mouse, monitor, power etc.).

I popped out the battery (cr2032) and measured 2.96 volts. It is nominally a 3V battery, so I think that's OK. I thought I'd check to see if the CPU got warm so I plugged in mouse, keyboard, and monitor (I have only one card installed: a diamond PCI video card), and powered it up. No drives were attached.

It beeped once and I got video! The diamond card identified itself and then post appeared to begin. The bios identified itself (I didn't write down the bios string, but it was dated 2000) and I got the option of pressing DEL to enter setup. I pressed DEL and nothing happened. I powered off and tried again with the same results. But it only 'worked' twice -- since then I have heard no beeps and seen no video. Wierd. Interestingly the bios identified the CPU as Pentium II 300 even though I have a PII 450 installed, but it could be that I had a PII 300 installed last time I successfully ran setup.

The CPU does warm up, and the bios chip is a removable Award PLCC. I see no evidence of burnt tracks, but I haven't checked the voltage regulator outputs. It seems like if it gets as far as it did that the board isn't completely toasted.

I have not yet switched the board and components with my working BH6.

If any of this sounds familiar, please comment. And thanks all for the suggestions so far.

David
jupiter
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It's even stranger than I thought. I replaced the battery with a new one and I was able to post and get into bios setup, but once I saved my changes the board wouldn't post. After much messing around I find that:
1. It will post from a cold boot if the battery is absent. To do this I unplug power, remove the battery, plug the power cord back in, and power up. It complains of a checksum error and asks me to enter setup (I think this is just a normal result of it not remembering my set values). I can make bios changes and save them. But since the battery isn't present, my changes are immediately lost.
2. It will not post if I have the battery installed.
3. Reversing the battery polarity yields the same results as if there were no battery.
4. Once I have working bios info using step 1, I can boot an OS, shutdown, and reboot, but only if the battery is absent and the power cord remains plugged in. It seems to be able to keep cmos settings using the power supply, but it doesn't seem to like to rely on the battery.

By the way, the bios id string appears to be:
06/28/2000 - i440BX - W83977 - 2A69KA1EC - SS

Has anyone seen this sort of behavior before, or have any advice? Thanks,
David
Ritchie
BIOS Guru
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I have a feeling that that mobo you are dealing with is basically dead and has a fault which is causing your problems and which will probably also cause other weird and random type behavior. I would be tempted to chuck that board at this stage.
Rainbow
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That BIOS is for Abit BH6 v1.0 board. Check the board that it really is v1.0 board.
Patched and tested BIOSes are at http://wims.rainbow-software.org
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
jupiter
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The board is v1.01, so I believe the SS bios is appropriate.
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