P2B-F won't power up

Hot-swapping and Boot-Block flash & Boot block flash and floppy support
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Logos
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To make a long story short, something went wrong when I flashed the BIOS, and naturally the machine couldn't boot now.

So I tried hot swapping but none of the boards I tried could flash the dead BIOS chip successfully.

Now I plugged the dead BIOS back to the original board and it doesn't even power up at all. Absolutely nothing happens when I pushed the power button. None of the fans (PSU, CPU) were spinning, not even for a split second. Removed all non-essential components and resitted mobo, but same thing. Tried another PSU, and powering up without the BIOS chip but no help.

Do I have a truly dead motherboard? But how could it be possible, I thought only the BIOS chip is dead.
NickS
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Hi Logos
It could be truly dead if
- you didn't observe precautions against static electricity, or
- at some point you plugged the flash chip in wrong.

When you tried to flash the chip in another board, what was the problem ? Did you use Uniflash ? That is very flexible compared to most of the manufacturer utilities and could give you a better chance of flashing.
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes.
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Logos
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Yes I tried Uniflash. But I don't have access to a P2B series mobo, so I tried it on a (very different) TX97-E and K7S5A. In both cases, Uniflash gave a garbage screen when I told it to flash.
Rainbow
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Is it a SyncMOS chip? The garbage is a known bug and seems to be associated with these chips. You can try AMIFlash when hot-flashing, it might work.
Remove the battery, clear CMOS and reinsert it. Maybe it will help.
Patched and tested BIOSes are at http://wims.rainbow-software.org
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
Logos
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Nope, the dead chip is Mosel V29C51002T. Since the mobo doesn't even power up, it now seems very likely that in addition to the dead BIOS, the mobo itself is seriously screwed up (lightning surge through mobo?).

A new chip from badflash.com is on its way but it doesn't look like it will help...
Rainbow
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Mosel = SyncMOS. I don't have any of these chips to test.
Patched and tested BIOSes are at http://wims.rainbow-software.org
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
Logos
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Tried AMIFlash and apparantly it was flashing it (there was progress bar), but at the end I got:

Error 20 . Flash ROM cannot be correctly programmed.

Put the chip back to the P2B-F, and it still refuses to power up at all (power supply fan = off).

Does a dead BIOS prevent an ATX board from even powering up??
NickS
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Logos wrote:Does a dead BIOS prevent an ATX board from even powering up??
Yes, I'm afraid so, if it is dead not just "brain damaged". If you have a AT/ATX board you could try an AT PSU but it doesn't sound as though that will help in this case.

Which mobo did you try the AMIFlash hot-swap in ?
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes.
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Logos
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Which mobo did you try the AMIFlash hot-swap in ?
ECS K7S5A ver 3.1.
Denniss
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To check the Flashrom chip flash the K7S5A Bios into it and see whether your K7S5A runs with it or not .
If it's running it may be an incompability with used Flashprogs and Asusbios .
That's why I hold an old Asus P2B(rev 1.02. with Celeron 800) in my reserve pool .
Logos
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Got a new BIOS chip from badflash today, but still no power up. Looks like the mobo is really dead.
NickS
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Logos wrote:Got a new BIOS chip from badflash today, but still no power up. Looks like the mobo is really dead.
:(
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes.
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Rainbow
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Have you cleared the CMOS?
Patched and tested BIOSes are at http://wims.rainbow-software.org
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
NickS
BIOS Bodhisattva
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A long shot - are you running this out of the case ? If so, you will need to momentarily connect the two pins where the front panel switch attaches to power-on.
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes.
Emails *will* be ignored unless the subject line starts "Wim's BIOS forum"
Logos
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Have you cleared the CMOS?
Yes, even took out the battery for one night.
you will need to momentarily connect the two pins where the front panel switch attaches to power-on.
Done that too. Also tried the original case connector, and tried using the reset button as power button instead.

I've given up on this issue and bought myself a new mobo. But thanks for everyone's help nevertheless!
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