VOGONS


First post, by feipoa

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Anyone know how to troubleshoot the case whereby only the +12V LED of a PCI-based POST card is illuminated? -12 V, 5 V, an 3.3V LEDs are not lit. I tried 2 power supplies with the same result. Motherboard doesn’t show any signs of life. Motherboard is a P3TDE6 (dual Tualatin). It worked a second ago, and then it didn’t after moving it to a case. Aside from the move to the case, the only other change was adding the RAID card and swapping from CPUs with S-Spec SL5XL to SL6BY. Swapped back to SL5XL, but still no signs of life.

CPU fans spin up. Keyboard lights blink. I measured about 33-ohms between +5V and GND. Power supply stays energised.

Considering that the power supply stays engaged, I’m wondering why the POST card doesn’t show more voltages. Does the PCI bus not receive its power directly from the power supply? Is the north or south bridge feeding the PCI bus power?

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 1 of 4, by quicknick

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ISA slots are powered directly from the power connector, I never payed attention to PCI but I suspect it's the same. With a needle probe (and PCI pinout handy), check continuity between ATX power connector and corresponding pins inside the PCI slot. I'd do that first on a working board, then on the problem one. That would give some hints at least.
Are voltages ok at the power connector?

Reply 2 of 4, by Thermalwrong

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Is this the super cheap ISA/PCI post card? It seems not since you're using PCI and that can't be reversed, but I had the same problem today as well - however it was just a sily reason: I had inserted the ISA edge in the wrong direction.
Thankfully nothing blew up and the two motherboards I was testing still work.

All the voltages in both the ISA and PCI slots should be powered directly by the AT / ATX power connector, so you can check for shorts there? I would give it a go without the RAID card next.

Reply 3 of 4, by feipoa

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I put the PCI POST card into another motherboard of the same chipset (Tyan S2567) and, both, the +12V and +3.3V LEDs illuminate. Note that the POST card is installed into a 3.3V PCI slot.

There are two 5A linear voltage regulators on the board: RC1585M and SPX1581T5. The 1585 outputs 1.5 V and the input reads 3.3 V. The 1581 outputs 3.2 V and the input reads 3.3 V.

Each CPU contains two corresponding n-channel MOSFETs. The voltage between the rain and source per pair read 3.12 V and 1.79 V. I currently have coppermine CPUs installed and I beleive the 1.79 V corresponds to the voltage of the coppermine.

The motherboard has two ATX power connectors, which make it easy to read the power-on voltage of the PSU at the motherboard.

12V = 13V
-12V = -13.13V
5V = 4.96V
-5V = -5.3V
3.3V = 3.28V

These numbers, along with the numbers of the linear regulators and mosfets seem normal to me. Are they?

So what is causing 3.3 V not to reach the PCI slots? Is there a on/off voltage relay controlled by the north bridge perhaps?

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 4 of 4, by feipoa

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I checked the 3.3 V pins on the entire PCI slot and 3.3 V is reaching the slot, so there must be some other check that the POST card is performing prior to engaging the 3.3 V LED. On the Tyan board, I've noticed that the +12 V LED comes in about a half second before the 3.3 V LED. So there must be some routine that the motherboard is getting hung up with.

I'm at a loss. Any ideas to test?

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.