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Adaptec 29160 issues, BIOS not working unless card is bended?

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First post, by Justin1091

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Hi all,

Bought a Adaptec SCSI 19160 card, noticed performance was really bad and saw a couple of ic legs were pushed together. Contacted the seller (on eBay) and he send me another one. Seems it's a 29160 this time.

So, installed it and reinstalled Windows 2000. All ok, it was twice as fast as the 19160. After installing some Windows updates the system asked for a reboot. Still fine, did a couple of more reboots. Then, installed GPU drivers and rebooted again.
Now the Adaptec card doesn't display it's BIOS anymore on booting and I can't get into it's configure screen anymore. Tried the card in my modern PC, same issue.

Took it out couple of times and sometimes got the blinking DOS cursor and both PC's then freeze.

Now, I discovered when I push the card down while it's installed, it gets detected 100% of the time. I only need to push it down until the card's BIOS is on screen. After the HDD detecting I can let go and the card functions fine.
This is obviously annoying, any way to check what's the cause? It has a BGA chip which gets a little warm, pushing that one won't fix it, also pressed a bit on the bios chip but that doesn't work either I think.

So it only has issues with initializing it's BIOS, any ideas? I don't see any scratches or other damage, it looks brand new actually. If required I will post some photographs here.

EDIT: I should add that regardless of bending the card it always get's an IRQ and is seen by the PC's BIOS. Only issue is the SCSI BIOS thats not working unless bending/pushing down the card. I also tried different PCI slots and I've cleaned the PCI connector of the card.

Thanks!

Reply 1 of 7, by Justin1091

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Update: instead of pressing it down until after the HDD detection, pressing it down until I see the Adaptec copyright is enough (1 second).

Nobody has an idea? 😒

Reply 2 of 7, by chrismeyer6

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The only thing that comes to mind is when the card is inserted is it fully seated in the slot. I've had a similar issues with a build cause I somehow used standoffs that were about 1.25mm too short and the motherboard sat just a tad to low for the cards to make a proper connection in the slot

Reply 3 of 7, by Horun

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chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-11-19, 23:10:

The only thing that comes to mind is when the card is inserted is it fully seated in the slot. I've had a similar issues with a build cause I somehow used standoffs that were about 1.25mm too short and the motherboard sat just a tad to low for the cards to make a proper connection in the slot

Yes ! Too short of standoffs or long a "tang", another thing is a slightly off angle backpanel so when you tighten down the screw it lifts the front up slightly.
Have had a few ISA and PCI cards with one of the above issues.

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 4 of 7, by cyclone3d

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Can you remove the slot bracket and then see if it works fine when inserted all the way?

If so, you may be able to adjust the bracket a bit so it allows the card to sit deeper in the slot. Might want to also try cleaning the edge connector. Oxidation does funny things.

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Reply 5 of 7, by Justin1091

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Hey, thanks for the suggestions.

I tried pushing it down into the slot instead of flexing the card but no difference. Also removed the bracked, and used contact spray to clean the pci connector.

Reply 6 of 7, by Justin1091

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Quite sure that it's somewhere near the bios chip area, when I put in the PCI screw so the card is firmly installed it won't work. Pressing the bios chip while making sure the card isn't flexed or bended makes it boot okay.

Reply 7 of 7, by Warlord

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I have several of these cards. Your card is broken. Ask for refund. You can try re flowing it in the oven or something. if you had a microscope you could look for bad solder joints etc. This is all assuming you tried the card in other pci slots and the same thing happened which you didn't say or i skipped reading.

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