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abit VA6 appears dead.. suggestions needed

Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2002 3:36 pm
by jdesan
I was given this board, actually two of them, from a guy at work. One had the BIOS missing so I figured he was trying to flash etc. and screwed something up. Well, it's dead for me too. Tried the standard procedures.. clear CMOS, etc. The board gets power. PS fan turns on etc. and PW LED lights. I have a stick of Memory, CPU and Video card installed. Is this all that's necessary to get at least a Video Signal to the Monitor? I don't get any beeps either.... BATT is good. I've seen some suggestions about using an ISA Video card. How would that make a difference?

Thanks for any help.

Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2002 1:59 pm
by NickS
If you don't get any beeps when you have CPU installed, speaker connected and no RAM, an ISA video card is unlikely to help.
Checklist of the obvious:
- Have you connected a soft-power-on-button ?
- Have you connected a CPU fan (if fan sensing is used on this board)
- Are you sure there is enough BIOS in the ROM to beep ?

If the BIOS is corrupt (e.g incompletely flashed) it may try to boot from floppy disk even if it can do nothing else. In some cases I have known this to need an ISA floppy controller. An ISA video card may display something during this "bootblock recovery" type of operation because the bootblock code may be so old that it does not support anything else. Check the FAQ on the main site for recovery procedure if the motherboard tries to use the floppy disk.

If the wrong BIOS has been flashed into the ROM including bootblock, you are stuffed and you will need to re-flash the ROM either in another motherboard or a prgogrammer.

Or your board(s) may be completely dead. Do they all do the same ?

Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2002 3:15 pm
by jdesan
Yes, both boards act the same way. I have tried all that you mentioned. It does not seek the floppy either. As you suggested the BIOS is probably hosed. I actually got a response from ABIT and they said they could get me a new chip for 12.00 plus 10 shipping etc. Guess that's not too bad. They want me to send the old chip in though. Don't see why they need or want it. As far as the Hot swapping thing. Someone said I could screw up both boards. How could that happen if I just attempt to flash the bad Chip? I was going to try it but now I'm scared to.

Thanks

Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2002 4:05 pm
by NickS
jdesan wrote:As far as the Hot swapping thing. Someone said I could screw up both boards. How could that happen if I just attempt to flash the bad Chip? I was going to try it but now I'm scared to.
Well, it's possible
- if you manage to short 5v or 12v to some other pin, or
- if you do not take precautions aganist static electricity, or
- if you plug the chip in reversed on a badly designed board and blow a track through over-current, or
- if you break the pins on the other chip while taking it out.

Done with care the risk is vey small. I have done it about 12 times. Once I thought I had damaged the other machine but it turned out I left the wrong BIOS chip in the machine.

Posted: Wed Aug 21, 2002 6:32 pm
by jdesan
OK, thanks Nick. I may get the courage to try it if I can't get a new Chip at a reasonable cost. I can go with BadFlash.com or another palce.. I think it's Mr.Bios... both around 30.00......Thing is if it still don't work I have no way of knowing if they gave me a bad chip or the board IS bad.....