First post, by nathanieltolbert
Hello everyone! Sorry to be a bother again. I just wanted to go over a recent thing I got and the issues I am having. I have tried some different things to see if I could rectify it without posting, but I have been unsuccessful.
I purchase a ASUS K7M motherboard, with a G400 video card, and an Athlon Slot A 700MHz processor. The seller couldn't test them so I know there is a chance that a part might be defective, but they sold it for a very good price as it was untested. I remembered reading that this board can be a bit tetchy, but I thought for the price it would be fun to try troubleshooting. The seller even added some ram to the package, even though it wasn't listed, which I thought was very nice.
A week passes and it arrives. I set it up on my open test bench. I check the PSU I have and make sure all of the voltages are correct. For some reason I get this faint memory from back when I had one originally that the Slot A cpus were really finicky about power supplies. I check all of the connections reseat the CPU, make sure both sides latch. All seems good add the 256MB stick of RAM PC-100 with no issues or difficulties. I install the nice Matrox G400 card that came with it and then plug in my speaker and power switch. I press the button to power on. Fans all spring to life. The CPU fan doesn't sound like the bearing is going out. That's good.
No beeps. That's strange. Okay, pull the GPU and the RAM. Try again. Strange, 1 long 3 short beeps. Check AmiBIOS beep codes. Don't see this one. Must be the one for no RAM detected. Reseat RAM in Slot 0 on the board. Try again. Now I get 8 short beeps. Can't read/write to graphics memory. Okay! That's not finding the graphics card. Of course, because it's not plugged in. I turn off the system plug the Graphics card in, and double check all of the boards jumpers are set properly. Everything looks good. Press the switch. 8 beeps. Uh oh. Maybe the Gpu has died? Insert tested and working AGP card Rage IIC AGP. 8 beeps. Okay, maybe something is wrong with the AGP slot? I know they can be finicky. Plug in S3 Trio 64V+ PCI card. 8 Beeps. Huh, strange. Okay grab Cirrus Logic CL-GD5426 (I think?) ISA graphics card and plug it in. 8 Beeps. Okay, that's really strange.
I then hop online and start looking for others having the same issue. I find multiple listings in multiple forums but none of them say whether the person resolved the issue. There is a post here from 2017 but I didn't see a resolution for it either, but it did have a very handy link to the AMIBIOS post beeps, which confirmed the ones I found were the same. I look more, trying to dig deeper. I start looking to see if there were posts from back in the day. Can't seem to find anything aside of the fact that everyone comments that the AGP solution on this board is not an effective solution. That's fine, I have a Voodoo 3 3500TV that I planned to use once I get the adapter to VGA so I don't have to use the break out cable. I contact the seller and let them know what I'm encountering. They responded within an hour with common troubleshooting tips. A couple of which I didn't think to do. No good. So at this point I think maybe the G400 is bad, and something has happened to my ISA and PCI cards since the last time I used them. I test them all individually in an old 440BX board. They all work perfectly. I test the ram. 2 sticks. One 256MB stick and the other was 32MB (which is great because it conforms to the standards for my old Pentium 1 motherboards, so I can use it there perfectly). Memtest shows them to be 100% fine. I let the seller know I tried all of their tips and the problem is still unresolved. I removed the battery, and I also used a flathead screwdriver to bridge the two points to clear the CMOS settings as there aren't any pins on the board. Held it for 30 seconds. I replaced the battery with a brand new one. No change.
The seller contacts me with a link to a forum post where they were able to resolve the issue. Turns out they fixed it by unseating and reseating the BIOS chip. Okay. I use my tool kit and remove the chip without bending any of the legs. The socket makes some squeaky sounds. Check the socket and the legs. The legs are shiny and don't appear to have any corrosion on them. I check to see if there are any bent legs that might have caused the issue. Everything 'looks' good. I carefully line up the chip with the socket and reseat it. I'm not great at checking continuity, but it seems like the points on the bottom of the board and the tops of the legs of the chip show continuity? Okay, now that's all done, let's try again. Push the power button. 8 beeps. no post.
At this point I don't know if there's something wrong with the BIOS chip, the motherboard, or if the CPU is knackered. I unfortunately don't have any other Slot A boards, although one is on the way. I don't ,know when it will get here. But since this seems to be a common issue, I had hoped I had just missed all of the forum posts that fixed it. I grew up with this hardware and I still can't resolve the issue. I feel more and more stupid every day at this point. I wonder if I'm somehow being slipped lead at this point that I cannot resolve this issue. But I have gotten so much excellent help here that I thought that someone here undoubtedly knows a solution. The seller was super kind, even though it was listed as untested sold as parts, they offered a refund. I don't want that. I want to get the board working. I'm positive it can be done. I just have to know what I need to fix. Also, I think it was mentioned before, but there is a specific recommended EEPROM reader/writer that I should look into getting. If anyone can give me the name of that as well I would be very appreciative. I can't help but wonder if replacing the BIOS chip would resolve the issue, such that maybe there was some form of corruption to the chip. But I am only grasping as straws. Any help that can be provided is extremely appreciated.
Thank you,
Nathan
