BP6 quit working, will not even POST now!

Tim

Unbootable, unPOSTable computer problem here.

Well, I finally got this Abit BP6 up and running on Windows 2000 today, and I installed a variety of antivirus software and a Sygate firewall. Today the computer got restarted about 12-15 times.

It has a new 450 watt power supply, Performance brand.

Everything's fine, so it was almost time to load up folding@home and put it to work.

According to motherboard monitor 5.3.7, both processors were 466 Celeron Mendocinos, but CPU 2 wasn't working. The gauges showed 467 Mhz on CPU 1 and 0 Mhz on 2. I ran it like that all day. Temps were 30-32 C on the CPUs. I have bigger than stock aluminum heat sinks on the CPUs, a thin layer of thermal compound, and 60 MM Foxconn fans.

When I got it, the stock 50 MM second CPU fan had bad bearings and was turning very slowly, so I expected that the second CPU was overheated and shot.

I pulled out the second CPU and went to restart. No POST. Put it back in, no POST. Tried swapping the CPUs back and forth, putting the 128 MB memory stick in each of the 3 slots, installing my 533 Mhz Celeron in each socket, no POST!

Same thing with another stick of 128 MB memory.

I even tried clearing the CMOS with the jumper. Didn't help. I pulled the CMOS battery out and tested it. 2.7 volts. I went to Radio Shack and got a new one which showed 3.22 volts. That didn't help.

When I start it up, I get no beeps at all, the monitor light stays orange, it doesn't flash green at all, and the hard drive will run for about 3 seconds. Only the fans seem to be working. Power stays on until I shut it off.

I tried removing the video and ethernet cards, no change.

WTF? And ideas on what to do here? The caps are all looking good, whether they actually are or not is currently unknown.

muddocktor

Tim, I have no actual experience with the BP6 so I don't know whether this is true for that board, but I've read that some Asus dually boards need some kind of jumper or something to operate in uniprocessor mode. Does the BP6 have to change a jumper or something for running with just 1 processor?

Also, since processor 2 wasn't showing anything even when the board booted, it's very possible that the mobo was going bad on you anyways and some other component gave up the ghost.

Tim

I don't think there's a jumper on the BP6 that has to be reset.

There's a well known reputation for bad capacitors on BP6's, but I can't imagine it working fine one minute and not working at all the next minute.

muddocktor

I'm not thinking a bad cap myself. I'm thinking that processor 2 might really be ok and the board was starting to fail, then some component other than a cap let loose and finished killing the board.

lemonlime

I still have an early revision BP6. I know there is a common problem with cold boots. I know with mine, it sometimes took up to 3 or 4 tries to get it posted. Once it started, everything ran flawlessly. I'm pretty sure I was able to run it in uniprocessor mode without changing anything. It autodetects the number of processors present during post. The early revision BP6's had the cap issues, however I ran a pair of 366's @ 550MHz for ages without any issues.. Maybe I was lucky..

You may want to double check for any kind of shorts, or even try to reseat the motherboard in your case. I had a similar problem with an old A7V333 asus board that I had, powered on for a few seconds, and shut right down..

Good luck

Tim

I'll try that tomorrow morning.

I'm also going to call Abit and see if they still offer repair / replacement for free on this motherboard. Mine is a Version 1.0 board.

Everything I've read says it's most likely a bad BIOS, but I don't see how that can just happen out of nowhere.

If I did have a BIOS update on a bootable floppy disk or CD, could it even be loaded now? If so, how?

I wonder if my Knoppix 3.6 CD will work. I'll try that tomorrow morning also.