Hi All. I think I have a problem with a motherboard that I hope you can help me with. I bought the motherboard, CPU and memory as a secondhand bundle that I was assured was working ( an attempt to upgrade from a Pentium Pro system!! ) Here are the specs: M/B - Asus A7V8X ( not MX ) FSB333MHz Processor - Athlon XP2200+ Memory - 512MB DDR333 Graphics Card - S3 Savage Pro 32Mb PCI PSU 400W I've tested the CPU, memory, graphics card and PSU independantly in another machine and they seem to be working fine. The motherboard power LED lights up and when I switch on the main power switch everything seems to kick in ( drives, CPU fan etc ) but then nothing happens! The screen remains blank ( the monitor doesn't even come out of standby mode and switch on ), but more worryingly, I don't get any BIOS beeps, just a couple of electrical clicks coming from the speaker! I've left it on for a good few minutes but still no joy. The seller had an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro installed and some have suggested that the PCI card is the problem and that the BIOS needs to be reset to default settings to get rid of a possible setting to AGP. This still begs the question as to why I get no POST error beeps indicating that the graphics card has not been detected! Any help greatfully appreciated! Thanks in advance, Salvatore.
That board is supposed to have the ASUS Post reporter, right? In any case, this would mean that the video card is detected, but not working properly. Try this: Get hold of an old (working) PCI-based video card and use that instead of the AGP card. Use any of the available PCI slots and boot, then see what happens. This method isolates not just the AGP card itself, but the AGP slot as well. This will clear up your doubts about the video card.
Hi Bobbyk, I apologise if I didn't make myself clear in my original post, but I do not have an AGP card, the ATI card I mention above is one the seller had used originally. The card I have is the PCI one. I tried swapping this out for an older PCI card and I got the same results. I'm not sure if this motherboard has the POST Reporter as it is an optional feature. Thanks, Salvatore.
OK, here’s the results: Components ( see original post for specs ): CPU, PCI graphics card, memory, PSU 400W. All tested independently and working fine. Setup: Motherboard outside case on anti-static material ( no shorting problem ). Mouse and keyboard plugged in. Testing: Cleared CMOS. Powered on with nothing on the motherboard ( apart from CPU! ). Then tried all combinations of slots for PCI graphics card and all slots for memory. Result: No change from original symptoms. I’ve yet to try an AGP card but don’t hold out much hope. I’ll try this as a very last resort before I send the boys round to the sellers address… ;o)
Hi! You won’t believe how, but I managed to get it working..! After clearing the CMOS and not getting any joy, I made the assumption that the CMOS had correctly reverted to it’s defaults. I was also pretty damn sure (99.99%!) that all the components were 100% ok and there weren’t any compatibility problems with the motherboard and components. The only thing left in the chain was the flash rom itself. Just for laugh I levered out the rom chip and cleaned all of the contacts on the chip with a bit of emery paper. I shoved it back in, turned on the power and hey presto, that single BIOS beep was music to my ears, and she booted up! After 4 days of headaches, all it turned out to be was a dry contact..! ;o)) One to make note of..! Thanks for your input, Salvatore.
Congrats! I'm glad you got it working properly. Sorry we couldn't really help you.. but thanks for posting all the results and testing as it may help someone in the future.
