VOGONS


First post, by maw

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hey,

Does anyone know if this board is supposed to POST or boot at all without a Dallas RTC chip installed? I desoldered mine in preparation for a replacement (planning to socket it), thinking the board might just behave like it has a dead or missing battery — but instead, it does nothing except briefly flash all three keyboard LEDs on power-up.

Could it be that the system expects a basic handshake or signal from the RTC, and without any chip present, it simply freezes? Like even a dead Dallas chip still provides some minimal response or pinlevel behavior that the board relies on, but with no chip at all, there is nothing on the bus and that causes it to hang?

Thanks

ASUS P/I-P55T2P4 (REV. 3.10) | Pentium1 233 | 32MB EDO | ATI Rage 128Pro 32mb | 3DFX Diamond Monster 3D | SB 16 CT2230 MT32-PI (DOS/Win3.11) | SB Live CT4760 (Win98) | 8GB Kingspec DOM | CD Drive | Dos 6.22 / Win3.11 + Win98

Reply 1 of 5, by Horun

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My guess is yes. Have a few boards that play dead w/o the Dallas. Award PnP bios step 07 "test cmos interface"and halts if no interface..

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 2 of 5, by Major Jackyl

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I have a ASUS P55TVP4 and when I had the RTC out, it pretty much acted like there was no CPU, mem, etc. All dashes on the diag card and a whole lotta nothing. I just tested another Dallas board (Gemlight GMB-P55IPS) and it's stone dead without it as well. Seems normal.

Main Loadout (daily drivers):
Intel TE430VX, Pentium Sy022 (133), Cirrus Logic 5440, SB16 CT1740
ECS K7S5A, A-XP1600+, MSI R9550
ASUS M2N-E, A64X2-4600+, PNY GTX670, SB X-Fi Elite Pro
MSI Z690, Intel 12900K, MSI RTX3090, SB AE-7

Reply 3 of 5, by maw

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Thanks a lot for the responses. One less thing to worry about today. Appreciate it! 😀

ASUS P/I-P55T2P4 (REV. 3.10) | Pentium1 233 | 32MB EDO | ATI Rage 128Pro 32mb | 3DFX Diamond Monster 3D | SB 16 CT2230 MT32-PI (DOS/Win3.11) | SB Live CT4760 (Win98) | 8GB Kingspec DOM | CD Drive | Dos 6.22 / Win3.11 + Win98

Reply 4 of 5, by akimmet

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The Dallas RTC module is multifunction device. Without it the motherboard will be missing its CMOS settings RAM and it's real-time clock. Most motherboards will fail their power on self test without it.

Reply 5 of 5, by maw

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got the replacement and the board is working fine again 😀 a happy me

ASUS P/I-P55T2P4 (REV. 3.10) | Pentium1 233 | 32MB EDO | ATI Rage 128Pro 32mb | 3DFX Diamond Monster 3D | SB 16 CT2230 MT32-PI (DOS/Win3.11) | SB Live CT4760 (Win98) | 8GB Kingspec DOM | CD Drive | Dos 6.22 / Win3.11 + Win98