First post, by BonesK
I've been lurking on this forum for a month or so now reading the knowledge base y'all have accumulated, and I must say, I really like the forum. With that out of the way, I've managed to run into an issue that I haven't found an answer for anywhere that someone here might be able to help with.
Upon going through some old boxes, i found my first motherboard. I took it out of it's original case years ago after the power supply and MFM harddrive i had hooked to it at the time failed, put it in the box and pretty much forgot about it. No idea who made it, but that's not really my issue. I've been rebuilding it (I say rebuilding, but it has really been more of planning, and finding parts so far) for fun/nostalgia, but the only original component is the motherboard and the 5.25" floppy drive, and the old MFM card.
Anyhow, after firing it up after all these years, I've got a post error I wanted to run by everyone. First errors are "CMOS Battery State Low" and "CMOS Display Type Mismatch", (different video card, dead battery; replace the battery and fix the setting is easy enough), next one however is "Keyboard Error", which then ask me to press F1 to resume, which doesn't get me far since the keyboard is non responsive. Upon turning it on, the Number, Caps, and Scroll lock keys do light up for a second,then go back off, and the corresponding keys don't turn them back on.
I took this to mean the keyboard was bad, but after checking it on another computer, i found it to be in perfect working order. The AT socket on the board is good, checked it with a continuity tester, so that rules that out. Upon checking http://www.bioscentral.com/postcodes/amibios.htm it list "Keyboard Error" as being caused by a timing error. The timing error thing got me thinking, is it because the keyboard i used is younger than the board, or is that even a thing? (Keyboard has the AT connector, but also has a windows key, so i take that as being pretty late in the AT connector life cycle)
Unable to prove that theory, I've come up with 2 others, either the keyboard chip doesn't like the dead CMOS battery, or maybe the keyboard chip is dead. Any Suggestions?
Thanks in advance, and I'm sorry that that post seems to ramble as much as it does.
Here's a picture of the board, the keyboard used and the POST screen. When the test was done, the only card installed was a VGA card, and the CMOS battery had not yet been removed. Picture of the mother
board was taken after removing the battery.
Motherboard: http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u206/blood … nt/IMG_0439.jpg
POST Screen: http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u206/blood … nt/IMG_0440.jpg
Keyboard: http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u206/blood … nt/IMG_0441.jpg
