Do you have any way of externally flashing the latest official BIOS?
Edit: Also what is your current BIOS string?

Doornkaat wrote on 2020-05-17, 13:38:

Do you have any way of externally flashing the latest official BIOS?
Edit: Also what is your current BIOS string?

No way of externally flashing BIOS unfortunately.
BIOS string is: 62-1201-000000-00101111-071595-v694v686-1v133001-f
Version shows as: A6309MS V3.2 12012000
Released: 12/01/00

At least it seems to be the right BIOS string.
Are you sure your don't have another motherboard with the same IC socket avaliable to hot flash the EEPROM?

Doornkaat wrote on 2020-05-17, 14:07:

At least it seems to be the right BIOS string.
Are you sure your don't have another motherboard with the same IC socket avaliable to hot flash the EEPROM?

The only other motherboards I have with the same IC socket are the one I'm replacing and another one with leaking caps which hasn't been powered on in over 10 years so neither are particularly suitable. The reason I went for a new old stock board was partly because I don't have working ATX boards like this.

If the only option is flashing the latest version to the EEPROM I may have to resort to finding another board to use unless there are cheap solutions for flashing? If I do aim to get a new board would it be better to just spend more on something I can guarantee works and give up with the MS-6309 or is it likely that flashing the latest BIOS in a cheap board will solve the issue?

I'm wondering if some capacitors on the board may be on their way out and are causing issues with voltage regulation?

Yes, these boards were notorious for capacitor problems, even when nearly new. I worked at the Packard Bell helpdesk and witnessed the start of the capacitor plague, with these boards and the related 6199VA (Slot 1 version) at the forefront.

So definitely check the capacitors and assume dead until proven otherwise. If you suspect bad voltage regulation, measure the voltages. Tbh you would bave been better off fixing the known capacitor problems on the original board rather than taking (and losing) the gamble on a 'new' 20-year old one...

dionb wrote on 2020-05-17, 14:34:

I'm wondering if some capacitors on the board may be on their way out and are causing issues with voltage regulation?

Yes, these boards were notorious for capacitor problems, even when nearly new. I worked at the Packard Bell helpdesk and witnessed the start of the capacitor plague, with these boards and the related 6199VA (Slot 1 version) at the forefront.

So definitely check the capacitors and assume dead until proven otherwise. If you suspect bad voltage regulation, measure the voltages. Tbh you would bave been better off fixing the known capacitor problems on the original board rather than taking (and losing) the gamble on a 'new' 20-year old one...

The original board looked beyond repair or at least beyond what I'm willing to do in terms of repairs (caps had taken to eating the board). The purchase was a little impulsive, should probably have done some more research. The 'new' one had been tested, but without attempting to boot whoever tested it wouldn't necessarily have noticed anything wrong. Thought I'd see if anyone had any opinions before giving up on this board though.

Holovox wrote on 2020-05-17, 14:50:

dionb wrote on 2020-05-17, 14:34:

I'm wondering if some capacitors on the board may be on their way out and are causing issues with voltage regulation?

Yes, these boards were notorious for capacitor problems, even when nearly new. I worked at the Packard Bell helpdesk and witnessed the start of the capacitor plague, with these boards and the related 6199VA (Slot 1 version) at the forefront.

So definitely check the capacitors and assume dead until proven otherwise. If you suspect bad voltage regulation, measure the voltages. Tbh you would bave been better off fixing the known capacitor problems on the original board rather than taking (and losing) the gamble on a 'new' 20-year old one...

The original board looked beyond repair or at least beyond what I'm willing to do in terms of repairs (caps had taken to eating the board). The purchase was a little impulsive, should probably have done some more research. The 'new' one had been tested, but without attempting to boot whoever tested it wouldn't necessarily have noticed anything wrong. Thought I'd see if anyone had any opinions before giving up on this board though.

How can you test a board without booting?

CoffeeOne wrote on 2020-05-17, 15:02:

Holovox wrote on 2020-05-17, 14:50:

dionb wrote on 2020-05-17, 14:34:

Yes, these boards were notorious for capacitor problems, even when nearly new. I worked at the Packard Bell helpdesk and witnessed the start of the capacitor plague, with these boards and the related 6199VA (Slot 1 version) at the forefront.

So definitely check the capacitors and assume dead until proven otherwise. If you suspect bad voltage regulation, measure the voltages. Tbh you would bave been better off fixing the known capacitor problems on the original board rather than taking (and losing) the gamble on a 'new' 20-year old one...

The original board looked beyond repair or at least beyond what I'm willing to do in terms of repairs (caps had taken to eating the board). The purchase was a little impulsive, should probably have done some more research. The 'new' one had been tested, but without attempting to boot whoever tested it wouldn't necessarily have noticed anything wrong. Thought I'd see if anyone had any opinions before giving up on this board though.

How can you test a board without booting?

What I mean is that the board was listed as tested. Whoever 'tested' the board may have just seen it was able to get to the BIOS screen and assumed that meant the board was working fine so didn't actually attempt to hook up a drive and boot from that drive.

Holovox wrote on 2020-05-17, 15:08:

CoffeeOne wrote on 2020-05-17, 15:02:

Holovox wrote on 2020-05-17, 14:50:

The original board looked beyond repair or at least beyond what I'm willing to do in terms of repairs (caps had taken to eating the board). The purchase was a little impulsive, should probably have done some more research. The 'new' one had been tested, but without attempting to boot whoever tested it wouldn't necessarily have noticed anything wrong. Thought I'd see if anyone had any opinions before giving up on this board though.

How can you test a board without booting?

What I mean is that the board was listed as tested. Whoever 'tested' the board may have just seen it was able to get to the BIOS screen and assumed that meant the board was working fine so didn't actually attempt to hook up a drive and boot from that drive.

So you tried only to boot from floppy disk?
Maybe the onboard floppy controller is broken.
Ok, you wrote you tried to boot from CD-drive, too. What happened when you tried that?

This sounds silly, but can you boot from hard disk, maybe you have a small bootable ide disk with MS DOS5.0 (or whatever) around?
Creating a bootable harddisk on another PC should not be a big effort (if not yet available), I would definitely try out.

I know it is some time since this thread has opened but same problem here with a ms-6368. Has anyone a suggestions how to fix this problem?

we don't know if OP ever solved the issue, we don't know if he was able to boot from a CD. He just siad he swapped out drives and the computer wont boot, but he didn't emphasize that meant from all types of media.

All he said was he couldn't boot from a floppy and was mainly focused on that. So can you see if you can boot from a CD? If you can boot from a CD than that really narrows the possible issue down.

Op also claimed to have swapped different floppy cables, and different floppy drives. Unless you have tried other floppy cables and drives, and made sure they were plugged in the right way, you may not have the same issue as OP described.

He claimed that he swapped out the Ram as well with known good ram. The only thing he never said he swapped out was the CPU. In my days I have only seen 2-3 CPUs ever bad. But yeah Linus dropped his CPU and broke it and I've recieved a P4 from the factory when it was new not work. Have had CPUs not work right anymore from overclocking too much its very rare.