Check for shorts on the power connector. I would also suspect the CF adapter. Keep it out until you restabilize the system.

The issue you describe reminds me of my CUBX-E board with RTC problems. Check that crystal oscillator. A scope comes in handy.

Stop use of "issue" PSU
Test known good PSU
if it works original may be "borked"

do you have a POST analyser card ?
strip all components and only try to boot with CPU and RAM.. does it beep?

I have had motherboards that turn on immediately after you plug in the power and they were working fine
some of them start behaving normally after the CMOS system and battery is working properly

To my knowledge plugging the IDE/Floppy cable "upside down " never caused the destruction of the motherboard...

Good luck!

Thanks for the input everybody, getting a post tester and looking into how to troubleshoot the RTC stuff that was mentioned.

I tried with a known working PSU with nothing attached other than the video card and it behaves the same. I guess that means that the PSU isn't necessarily bad, but not necessarily good either.

Wasn't there another thread about one of these boards dying with the same symptoms?

I even have a different 430TX board (the Anigma 586 that's pictured on The Retro Web) that is also broken, but I remember it turning itself on with the battery removed as well.

i have an asus sp97-xv, i had problems with mine getting video out, after pulling the ram and re-seating i managed to get something up on screen, though when i turned it on it would be 50/50 wether it would actually work in my case it turned out to be shitty edo ram, i swapped it out for sd ram and it fixed the problem.

in your case i suspect its bios related, as you said pulling the cmos battery stops it from powering itself on, i have had the same problem with a couple of motherboards though much later ones, one is a 775 socket gigabyte board i've been using as an internet browser for the last 6 years and it has had exactly the same problems your describing.
every so often when i plug it in it powers itself on and i get nothing up on screen i have to pull everything out including the cmos battery, along with powering it on and off multiple times, eventually i get it working again, the problem is most likely bios corruption, this board has dual bios probably for that reason, and eventually i manage to get it to boot from the backup bios, its done it many many times over the years.

the other board i have that has a similar problem is an asus 1155 socket, if i change any bios settings related to overclocking the cpu or ram, it willpower itself on and off repeatedly and i get nothing on screen, setting the cmos jumper doesn't fix it, i have to pull the battery.

in any case i suspect your bios may have corrupted, its rare but it does happen, in the case of my 775 socket board it happens fairly often, and can happen for no reason at all, in some cases bios chips can just outright die as ive recently found with my og xbox, that chip has 4 sectors, 3 backups all completely dead, i get nothing on screen and the hdd doesn't even spool up.

anyway its definitely something to look at, see if you can reflash your chip or get a replacement, if it is the problem, fit a bios saver for dual bios in case it happens again.

I found the other thread. I wonder if that user is still around because I thought of measuring voltage on every pin of the VRM controller and comparing to a working board to try to narrow down why the CPU wasn't getting power. I went for the VRM because of that Anigma 586. On that board, the CPU stayed cold, but the switching FET in the VRM was burning hot. I still don't have a spare power supply to use for testing, so I haven't figured out what's wrong with that one.
No POST or picture from Asus TX97-XE

There's also this one, but it had a much newer (not officially supported) CPU:
asus TX97-XE issue

It looks like both the TX97 and SP97-XV have a weak 3.3V regulator, even though they're both ATX boards. I don't know why you would put a tiny 3.3V linear regulator on a board that already has 3.3V supplied to it.

Got the tester in, interesting about the 3.3v issue. The motherboard didn't boot far enough to even show any codes or beeps on the display on the tester, but the 3.3v light and the "irdy" light were the only two LEDs not lit.

If it's bios related maybe I can eventually get it running long enough to update the bios. I've never tried to flash anything just directly only the chip.

One of the threads that was posted talked about a power regulation part breaking and sending too much power everywhere and frying the CPU and who knows what else, hope that didn't happen 😒

A lot of motherboards back then didn't connect 3.3V to the PCI slots.

I looked up pictures of the TX97-X (instead of the TX97-XE), and I don't see the 3.3V regulator circuit at all. It might actually use the 3.3V rail from the power supply instead (as Intel intended). Do you have a multimeter? If you do, you can make the same voltage measurements as I suggested in the other thread. If you don't, a simple thing to check is if the CPU is warming up.

I've got a multimeter, next time I mess with it I'll try and get that figured out.

I wound up finding another tx97-x, if that one works correctly I could use that to compare it

x73rmin8r wrote on 2024-08-31, 17:34:

Got the tester in, interesting about the 3.3v issue. The motherboard didn't boot far enough to even show any codes or beeps on the display on the tester, but the 3.3v light and the "irdy" light were the only two LEDs not lit.

If it's bios related maybe I can eventually get it running long enough to update the bios. I've never tried to flash anything just directly only the chip.

One of the threads that was posted talked about a power regulation part breaking and sending too much power everywhere and frying the CPU and who knows what else, hope that didn't happen 😒

if you have an msdos floppy/boot disk, it might give you some indication if anythings happening, if its reading it and the light on the A: drive is flashing you may be able to flash the bios blind with a blank screen by setting up a floppy disk to auto boot/flash, i've had to do it a few times and just leave it 15mins or so to make sure its flashed. if the bios is completely dead it might not do anything, if you dont have a chip programmer, then any motherboard with the same bios socket can be used along with uniflash by hotswapping the chip.

x73rmin8r wrote on 2024-08-31, 17:34:

the 3.3v light and the "irdy" light were the only two LEDs not lit.

So the RESET signal remains lit? That's a problem you need to investigate. It will prevent the motherboard from going into the boot process. Unfortunately such error could mean a bad chipset. Check the RESET connector first, and see if it's shorted out. The reset signal must light up for a second then turn off right away.

Hello

Could you manage to fix the board ?

thanx

iirc the TX97 had problems with a chip having to do with power good/vrm/etc control. Might be worth a google.