MSI K7 Pro Ver. 1 not POSTing? \ VOGONS

MSI K7 Pro Ver. 1 not POSTing?

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First post, by cj_reha

Posted on 2018-04-03, 21:41

cj_reha Offline

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Joined: 2016-11-03, 02:09
Location: Virginia, USA

Hi all,

Recently I found a lot of eight computers on the curb, as well as three printers and a monitor. Inside an ATX case was an MSI K7 PRO Ver. 1 motherboard, complete with an Athlon 600mhz CPU. I cannot seem to get it to POST, no matter what I've tried.

I've tried:
Swapping memory in all 3 slots, known working sticks
Reseated CPU
AGP, PCI, and ISA video cards in different slots, known working cards
Different power supplies
Out of case on bench
Replaced CMOS battery with new 2032
Tried it with No RAM/video card

As soon as I switch on the power supply, the motherboard spins up. The power switch is seemingly unresponsive. The board's fans spin up and the keyboard lights up, but it does not beep or display a picture. It just sits there with the fans spinning. The CPU does get warm to the touch.

There are 4 LEDs on the board stacked in a vertical fashion. At power on, all four light up to red. Is this a diagnostic code?

Thank you for your assistance, CJ.

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Reply 1 of 2, by dionb

Posted on 2018-04-03, 22:04

dionb Offline

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Posts: 5794
Joined: 2017-12-23, 15:35
Location: Amsterdam

MSI boards from this era were infamous for their awful capacitors. Upshot: the vast majority of dead ones can be resurrected with new caps. Given that you don't mention it, it sounds like you haven't checked them yet. If you're not sure, post a pic showing the tops of the biggest capacitors around the socket. Caps can subtly fail without bulging and leaking, but there was nothing subtle with the failure you saw on the MS-63xx boards like this 😉

Anecdote:
Back in the day two friends of mine bought a batch of about 50 dead MS-6340 boards (uATX SoA with Via KM133A chipset). This was when SoA was still current. They spent a couple of weekends re-capping the whole pile. 90% booted and survived a stress-test afterwards. They managed to sell over 40 of them. For two students, this was very welcome income. And it earned them eternal fame, of course.