VOGONS


First post, by NickJ80

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I have an Intel AN430TX motherboard with the integrated Yamaha sound chip that will start to boot, get through the memory check, but freeze shortly after before the POST beep. The text on the screen is displayed perfectly until it freezes and then there's some corruption. I've tried several different processors (a Pentium 133, a Pentium 166, and a K6 200), different memory modules, different video cards, and different power supplies. No other peripherals are connected to the motherboard. I have a second AN430TX that has an integrated ATI 3D Rage II+DVD but no integrated audio. The second board boots with all combinations of the components I tried in the other, including the K6 200 that I've read shouldn't work. The first attached image is of the board that freezes during boot, while the second is an image of the board that boots without a problem. Anyone have any ideas what might be going on with the motherboard that would keep it from booting? Bad capacitors? Corrupt BIOS? Bad power regulator?

Reply 1 of 19, by Hedgie

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Silly idea but try a cmos fresh battery. The other thought is does the problematic board have any bad capacitors?

Reply 2 of 19, by NickJ80

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I've tried clearing the CMOS and have a fresh battery installed ,and looking at the capacitors on the board, they visually all look ok.

Reply 3 of 19, by Hedgie

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Well another thought is corrupted or a bad bios. If that is the case as was with my first pc. It's not an easy fix. You would need to be able to flash or replace the bios rom.

Reply 4 of 19, by Cobra42898

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with a fresh battery the date and time part should go away.
try removing and reinstalling the ram, and/or try the memory one at a time if you have more than one module.
that bios has either been reflashed, or the computer was sold very late. a P15 bios with a 98 date? p2 was out beginning in 97.

Searching for Epson Actiontower 3000 486 PC.

Reply 5 of 19, by mpe

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If it is the BIOS then Intel boards usually have bios recovery option which you can use if the main BIOS gets wrong. Check the manual.

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Reply 6 of 19, by evasive

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There is ONE jumper on the board that has 3 positions, 1-2, 2-3 and OFF alltogether (so take it out). If you take it out and power on the board it will try a recovery bios from floppy that should contain the bios update for that particular board.

Reply 7 of 19, by NickJ80

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Thanks for all of the advice! My suspicion has also been that somehow the BIOS has been corrupted, but this would the first time in almost 30 years working with computers that I've seen that so I didn't want to jump to conclusions. Looking at the manual, there is indeed a BIOS recovery option. Now I just need to track down a valid BIOS and try to flash it this evening. Thanks again!

Reply 9 of 19, by NickJ80

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Fantastic! I'll give it a shot tonight.

Reply 10 of 19, by NickJ80

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I was able to successfully flash the BIOS via recovery mode, clear the CMOS, and it's still not really working. Unlike the previous BIOS that froze so hard during boot that not even the keyboard status lights would change, the keyboard status lights update when caps lock, num lock, or scroll lock are pressed. Additionally, while the previous BIOS would boot with a USB keyboard plugged in, this one will not.

Reply 11 of 19, by NickJ80

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The K6 200 CPU gets a bit further.

Reply 12 of 19, by PC Hoarder Patrol

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NickJ80 wrote on 2020-10-02, 01:36:

..Additionally, while the previous BIOS would boot with a USB keyboard plugged in, this one will not.

Is that even with USB legacy set to 'enabled' in the BIOS? - from P08 omward the default value was set to 'disabled'

Reply 13 of 19, by NickJ80

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Unfortunately, I cant even get into the BIOS config. The system locks up before I'm able to.

Reply 14 of 19, by NickJ80

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Sadly, I haven't made any more progress with this motherboard. I'll probably try to track down other BIOS revisions to try, but I'm not hopeful. I'll likely have to abandon this particular board. I'm open to other ideas if anyone has any. Thanks again to everyone.

Reply 15 of 19, by PC Hoarder Patrol

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NickJ80 wrote on 2020-10-03, 16:38:

Sadly, I haven't made any more progress with this motherboard. I'll probably try to track down other BIOS revisions to try, but I'm not hopeful. I'll likely have to abandon this particular board. I'm open to other ideas if anyone has any. Thanks again to everyone.

There's a good selection, upto & including P10, here

http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/intel-legacy-files … 20AN430TX/BIOS/

and a copy of the full bios history

The attachment 4A3NT0X0.86A Standard BIOS Production Builds.DOC is no longer available

Reply 16 of 19, by NickJ80

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That's a great help. Thanks.

Reply 17 of 19, by Doornkaat

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Could you try disabling onboard cache?
I've had similar problems with defective cache chips before.

Reply 18 of 19, by shamino

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Do you have a multimeter?
I would try measuring voltages if you can (while the system is trying to run). Low voltage somewhere could cause problems like this.
I'm not suggesting you swap PSUs, I'm wondering if you can verify that the voltages are actually good when using this board.

Reply 19 of 19, by NickJ80

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I've tried several different BIOSs at this point, with no real improvement.

Regarding disabling the onboard cache, the board does not provider jumpers to disable it. The cache can only be disabled in the BIOS, but the system freezes before I'm able to enter the BIOS.

As for a multimeter, I do have one, but I'll admit that I'm really a novice when using it. I've used it to test continuity and voltage levels coming directly from power supplies, but not much more. I'm not really sure what to test directly on the board itself, but I can poke around a bit and see if things look somewhat sane.

Thanks for the suggestions.