Hi,

I picked up a cheap Socket 3 M918i (I'm fairly sure it's an M918i) motherboard that was listed as being for parts. The board it'self looks to be in fairly good condition although has a slight curve to it.

With a post card inserted it stops on "FF 2A" 9 times out of 10 with nothing on the screen, the other 1 time out of 10, it posts to the very nostalgic 1993 AMI GUI BIOS. For the AMI BIOS that the board uses the codes are as follow:

FF

Flash ROM programming was successful. Next, restarting the system BIOS

2A

Initializing the different bus system, static, and output devices, if present

When using a 4 digit POST card, is it the first 2 digits that were the last code or the last 2 digits?

So far I have replaced the dead CMOS battery (CR2032 thankfully) and reseated the BIOS chip (assuming it may be stalling on FF).
I've reseated the graphics card/tried different PCI slots, reseated the CPU and RAM (assuming it may be stalling on 2A).
Jumper settings have been set appropriately for the SX2-50 I am using for testing as per the download here - https://www.elhvb.com/webhq/models/486pci/m918i.htm

Knowing that the board has a slight curve to it may imply that there is a cracked trace or solder joint. Given the error above for "2A" where would be best to start checking for a crached trace/solder joint?

Any thoughts on where to start will be much appreciated.

Thanks
Jim