I would check those 3 black capacitors close to the inductor for the memory rail with an ESR meter.
I would also check back of the board for any scratches on the traces between the northbridge and ram slots.
also corrupted bios can cause this issue.

Try flashing the BIOS

I couldn't find any broken traces at first glance. The capacitors will have to wait, since my ESR meter is currently lent to an colleague. 🙁

The corrupted BIOS hint is interesting. I removed the BIOS chip...

...cleaned the pins and tried to reseat it...

...but now i'm only getting FF diagnostics code. It seems the board won't even go to C0/C1 anymore. It doesn't matter if a cmos battery or the chip itself is present.

Is this an indicator, that maybe the chip is toast?

EDIT: Just saw zuldan's post right now. Hate to say, but at the moment i don't even have an EEPROM programmer, so i'll have to finde someone who can flash the latest BIOS for me.

What is the voltage on the CR2032 battery ?

I know this is a shot in the dark but try this :

With the motherboard turned off, remove and insert the video card 2 or 3 times to clean any oxidation on the contacts.

And you can try to reset the bios.

Sometimes there are weird things with no logic explanation...

Sorry for the late response. I had to find someone in Germany who could flash the BIOS chip for me! 😀

Anyway - even with a newer BIOS version (which should support the installed CPU), i can't even get the Board back to C0/C1 diagnostic error. It doesn't matter if the chip is inserted or not (or CMOS battery is present), it just hangs at FF.

At this point i'm really lost becaus it seems i'm one more step behind than when i started. 😁

Progress of some sort...

I cleaned all ports again, reinserted the CMOS chip a coulple of times and now the system seems to at least recognize the chip again. Unfortunately i'm now stuck again at C1 error:

So i'm basically back to square one... 😒

Maybe this link will help: https://blog.theretroweb.com/2024/01/20/award … /#Version_600PG

C0 is for "Early chipset initialization: Disable shadow RAM, L2 cache (socket 7 and below), program basic chipset registers".
C1 id for "Detect memory: Auto detection of DRAM size, type and ECC, auto detection of L2 cache (socket 7 and below)".

I don't know if your POST diagnostic card shows last code of the step at which is triggered the problem or the code for the next step.

I think you can't do anything if the problem is chipset related, so check for any possible problems with SD-RAM - if RAM sticks are healthy/working, contacts of the RAM sticks, contacts in RAM slots, etc.

My 2 cents: The manual for this mobo is oddly specific about RAM sticks: "SDRAMs used must be compatible with the current Intel PC133 SDRAM specifications."
I would suggest trying a different RAM stick. Also I noticed on the photos your JEN jumper is in different positions, so which way is it now? If you disabled the software CPU configuration then you must set DIP switches properly. I don't remember if P3 will allow multiplier changes but with all DIP switches off you are set to 133MHz and 2.0, which it might not like.

Sorry for the late response - had some "real life" problems getting in the way of the not so important "fun problems" with retro hardware. ^^ Anyway - i'm still on this project! 😀

The JEN jumper is different in the pictures, because i tried automatic setting or manual setting of bus and CPU frequency but that didn't change anything. I'm convinced that it is a RAM issue, but since i tried couple of different PC133 ram sticks i' starting to think there might be a problem with the slot or some capacitors, as Karbist mentioned.

At the moment the board is a a friends house who is better equipped with tools (and skill) and he's checking some components. I'll post an update, if i know anything new.

Have you tried PC100/66 sticks too? I know it sounds a bit funny, but I've had PC100 sticks work and PC133 fail with VIA 694.

Just a small updated to give some kind of closure on the issue.

My friend did some more reasearch and we could identify the Northbridge to be at least part of the issue. Reballing the chip solved the problem but now it seems the Southbridge is completely toast and needs to be replaced. Very annoying!

Since at the moment i don't have a suitable replacement part at hand, the project will be put on ice. Will keep you guys updated if anything changes. Would really love to get the board up and running again, but right now the reasonable part of my brain says to keep my hands of that stubborn thing! xD