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ABIT BH6, is it dead?

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First post, by retrogamerguy1997

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So this is has been an ongoing situation with my motherboard that all started with a sound card. I bought a sound card off of ebay some time back and well it worked but the DOS support wasn't working due to IRQ conflicts (was still good for Windows games). I was told to try to resolve it in the BIOS only then to realize that there was no way to really do it and the documentation showed something that didn't match up with what i saw on my screen. So I was told to update my BIOS, which then didn't work and the BIOS was totally borked with no way to enter it and requiring a recovery disk. I was later sent a floppy drive, 2 disks, and one cable. the floppy disks were wiped during transit so I remade the disks myself by putting in the floppy drive in my pentium 4 system and doing it there. So once I did that, I put the floppy drive in the system with the ABIT BH6 motherboard and used the recovery disk to try and reflash the bios again. It failed to do so. It was suggested that the chip might have been faulty but just in case I was told to reseat it. I didn't have a proper chip pulling tool and really had a though time getting it out. But it did come out and then I reseated the chip and made sure it was fully in. After powering on the system again, now all I got was a blank screen and the only activity was the fans spinning. So I was sent another bios chip, one that is known to be working and flashed with the latest bios for the board. Put it in, and still the same thing; fans spin but nothing on screen. I was told to then remove the ram and all the cards and disconnect the drives in hopes that there would be beep codes, but nothing. Fans spin up, but no beep codes. And this is where I've hit a dead end.

Reply 2 of 59, by retrogamerguy1997

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Doornkaat wrote on 2021-05-14, 16:08:
What board revision are you using? What CPU are you using? Have you tried reseating the CPU? Is the EEPROM socket visually ok? […]
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What board revision are you using?
What CPU are you using?
Have you tried reseating the CPU?
Is the EEPROM socket visually ok?

I don't know the specific revision, but it's somewhere in the 1.0x range.
The CPU I've been using is a pentium 2 350mhz
I would attempt to reseat the cpu, but I can't remove it. at all.
I looked at the PLCC socket and other than cracks in the plastic in the corners, I don't see any issues with the traces or pins.

Reply 3 of 59, by Doornkaat

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The cracked corners may cause a contact problem. Hard to tell without pictures of course. Try pressing the socket together and see if you get any no memory beeps when starting the board. (with CPU, without RAM and with socket still compressed)
Also why can't the CPU be removed? You know how to handle the rentention clips, right?
I think the board revision is usually found on the sticker on the lowest ISA slot. But since you're using a Pentium II it doesn't matter right now.

Reply 4 of 59, by retrogamerguy1997

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I wasn't able to remove the cpu because one of the retention clips broke off years ago.

Here's a picture I took of the socket area last night.

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Last edited by retrogamerguy1997 on 2021-05-14, 17:16. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 5 of 59, by weedeewee

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retrogamerguy1997 wrote on 2021-05-14, 16:48:
I wasn't able to remove the cpu because one of the retention clips broke off years ago. […]
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I wasn't able to remove the cpu because one of the retention clips broke off years ago.

Here's a picture I took of the socket area last night.

file.php?id=109981&mode=view

The photo isn't coming thru, at least for me it isn't.

on a slot 1 board, removing the cpu would be as easy, or hard, as seating in a tight isa, pci or agp card.
Though with the retention clips broken, it could be slightly annoying. pulling the sides a millimeter or two away should easily disengage the clip. slide something in, like a thin rigid piece of clamshell to keep the clip disengaged.
Then pull on the cpu. they always advise to pull evenly, though pull one side a little then the other and go back and forth until the cpu is completely released.

Right to repair is fundamental. You own it, you're allowed to fix it.
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Reply 6 of 59, by Doornkaat

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weedeewee wrote on 2021-05-14, 17:02:
retrogamerguy1997 wrote on 2021-05-14, 16:48:
I wasn't able to remove the cpu because one of the retention clips broke off years ago. […]
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I wasn't able to remove the cpu because one of the retention clips broke off years ago.

Here's a picture I took of the socket area last night.

file.php?id=109981&mode=view

The photo isn't coming thru, at least for me it isn't.

Same here. 🙁 edit: fixed😃

on a slot 1 board, removing the cpu would be as easy, or hard, as seating in a tight isa, pci or agp card.
Though with the retention clips broken, it could be slightly annoying. pulling the sides a millimeter or two away should easily disengage the clip. slide something in, like a thin rigid piece of clamshell to keep the clip disengaged.
Then pull on the cpu. they always advise to pull evenly, though pull one side a little then the other and go back and forth until the cpu is completely released.

Good description! 👍 On a SECC cartridge (the type that goes all the way around) it might be enough to just push into the hole for the retention clip with a flat screwdriver until it licks in the retracted/disengaged position with a click.

Last edited by Doornkaat on 2021-05-14, 17:17. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 8 of 59, by Doornkaat

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retrogamerguy1997 wrote on 2021-05-14, 17:17:

Re-uploaded the image

Works now.
The crack doesn't look too bad but it's still worth a try to squeeze the socket together a bit and try to start the motherboard.

Reply 9 of 59, by Doornkaat

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Btw. I vaguely remember having to deal with multiple BIOS versions when I got BH6 boards without EEPROMs.
Could it be you got a wrong BIOS for your board revision? The revision may be relevant after all! 😅

Reply 10 of 59, by retrogamerguy1997

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reseated the cpu and same result.

Btw. I vaguely remember having to deal with multiple BIOS versions when I got BH6 boards without EEPROMs.
Could it be you got a wrong BIOS for your board revision?

even with the original chip I got this problem after reseating it.

The crack doesn't look too bad but it's still worth a try to squeeze the socket together a bit and try to start the motherboard.

I can't seem to squeeze it, I don't feel anything moving when trying to close the crack.

Reply 12 of 59, by retrogamerguy1997

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Doornkaat wrote on 2021-05-14, 17:29:

You probably wouldn't feel it move with that small of a crack. I'm not putting too much hope into this but did you try it anyway?

I attempted to, maybe I did it wrong but but my left hand in there and squeezing the corners to try and close two different cracks was challenging. But yeah, same result.

Reply 13 of 59, by Doornkaat

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Btw. you said your original flashing of the original EEPROM went wrong and recovery failed as well. Putting the original EEPROM back in probably won't help you much in getting the board working again or figuring out wether the new one has the correct BIOS on it.

Reply 14 of 59, by retrogamerguy1997

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Doornkaat wrote on 2021-05-14, 17:32:

Btw. you said your original flashing of the original EEPROM went wrong and recovery failed as well. Putting the original EEPROM back in probably won't help you much in getting the board working again or figuring out wether the new one has the correct BIOS on it.

yeah it doesn't matter whether I use the old one or the new one it's the same thing.

Reply 15 of 59, by evasive

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could be a case of 2 bad bios chips or :
a completely flat bios battery.
Put in a new CR2032 coin cell battery from a blister package with an expiry date somewhere in the future.

Reply 16 of 59, by retrogamerguy1997

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evasive wrote on 2021-05-14, 17:38:

could be a case of 2 bad bios chips or :
a completely flat bios battery.
Put in a new CR2032 coin cell battery from a blister package with an expiry date somewhere in the future.

Well if it was a battery issue, I should still get beep codes or something. But when the system was working the bios settings were able to be saved even after unplugging the machine. and the person did test the bios chip before sending it to me.

Last edited by retrogamerguy1997 on 2021-05-14, 17:42. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 17 of 59, by Doornkaat

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What I mean is for whatever reason your original flash attempt went wrong. The original EEPROM most likely doesn't contain a working BIOS for your board.
We also don't know wether the new EEPROM contains the right BIOS for your board revision. Please look up your board's revision and ask whoever flashed the EEPROM for you what version they used.

Right now we can't confirm there's a working BIOS on either EEPROM which makes remote troubleshooting near impossible.

I don't think there's any recovery method for a bricked BH6 besides removing and reprogramming the EEPROM either. What method were you suggested to try with the floppy drive?

Reply 18 of 59, by retrogamerguy1997

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Doornkaat wrote on 2021-05-14, 17:42:
What I mean is for whatever reason your original flash attempt went wrong. The original EEPROM most likely doesn't contain a wor […]
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What I mean is for whatever reason your original flash attempt went wrong. The original EEPROM most likely doesn't contain a working BIOS for your board.
We also don't know wether the new EEPROM contains the right BIOS for your board revision. Please look up your board's revision and ask whoever flashed the EEPROM for you what version they used.

Right now we can't confirm there's a working BIOS on either EEPROM which makes remote troubleshooting near impossible.

I don't think there's any recovery method for a bricked BH6 besides removing and reprogramming the EEPROM either. What method were you suggested to try with the floppy drive?

I was given a DOS 6.22 boot disk image. told to remove everything except for the 3 core ms-dos and config.sys to make room. Then add in the flash tool, bios image, and then a premade autoexec.bat. i also had to edit the config.sys to make sure files that were removed weren't listed in there. The tool ran unattended since after the floppy boots the keyboard stops working.

Reply 19 of 59, by retrogamerguy1997

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pulled out the board, the sticker says v1.01 which lines up with what the information I had earlier. Originally the chip had the HN version of the BIOS and was told to flash the SS version of the BIOS. That flash chip I was given contained the SS version of the BIOS. both the HN and SS bioses are only for the 1.0x revisions