alexanrs wrote:

He probably means that little square chip with a paper label glued on top. The Intel chips are the chipset.

That chip most likely some PAL chip (5 pins on each four sides).

Most likely the BIOS chip is on top left corner, the chip under sticker. Something like 20 pins on two sides.

If you have network booting turned on, turn it off.

Jepael wrote:

alexanrs wrote:

He probably means that little square chip with a paper label glued on top. The Intel chips are the chipset.

That chip most likely some PAL chip (5 pins on each four sides).

Most likely the BIOS chip is on top left corner, the chip under sticker. Something like 20 pins on two sides.

Now THAT is a chip that looks annoying to remove... let alone resolder it.

You only need:

CPU, RAM, and Graphics Card to boot.

Disconnet all HDDs, CDroms, extension Cards (soundcard, network, scsi, etc)

All things from Ps2 (mouse, and for a test the keyboard too), and USB if it has one...
oh look at the usb ports if the shielding plate makes a short circuit on the usb ports (heard about this Problem)

Thanks to all of you for the input on this. I was working on another project computer for a friend, so I had to back-burner the P200, but I'll see if I can't boot it tonight if I actually remove all the drives and expansion boards. If that works, I'll just re-introduce hardware until I find the problem part.

The USB short issue is an interesting one. I'll take a look at that as well.

Alright, so I finally had time to open this beast up again and try a few things. I was hoping to double check the RAM and the expansion cards (which, themselves, are attached to an expansion card) in the hope that it was as simple as removing a component that had gone bad.

Fortunately, taking out the expansion card holding the card slots allowed the computer to boot without issue, so I was able to isolate it to one of those cards.

Here's where the plot thickens: it appears to have been the SB-16 (CT2980) I had installed in an ISA slot as the computer boots with the Yamaha sound card and Voodoo 2 card installed without incident. I'd say it was a software conflict, but both cards were installed the last time everything had been working, so I'm left to assume that something went wrong with the SB-16 either around or during the move. Thing is, I have NO idea what could have gone wrong. There are no bulging or leaking caps, nothing was bent or broken off, etc. and yet it gives a "Plug and Play Error" now if I boot with it installed.

If it helps at all, the output from this card seemed a lot more low level than what I get from the Yamaha card. I suppose that could be a sign of caps that simply aren't doing their job, but I don't know that it would be enough to prevent a boot.

Is the card salvageable or should I consider it junk and have it recycled? Seems a shame to do the latter as it's complete in box, but no real need to keep a busted card around.

You could try the system with only the SB16, I'd try different slots as well if you can.
To be really sure, if you have another PC with ISA slots give the card a try in there as well. I have a few cards that don't like certain systems for whatever reasons.

chinny22 wrote:

You could try the system with only the SB16, I'd try different slots as well if you can.
To be really sure, if you have another PC with ISA slots give the card a try in there as well. I have a few cards that don't like certain systems for whatever reasons.

I may try it in my 486 when I get that up "on the bench" properly.

The strange part here is that the SB16 was working fine prior to my move. Granted, I wasn't a fan of its lower output level relative to the Yamaha card, but it functioned and didn't impact the system's bootup whatsoever. I actually had both the SB16 and Yamaha installed so I could use "REM" in Autoexec.bat and Config.sys to switch between them and it created no problems.

While it is possible that it somehow nudged that one micrometer necessary to throw off the slot connection, due to its age and my belief that it was stored (albeit in box) in non-climate controlled circumstances, I'm left to assume that something on the board must have gone bad (the lack of visible trace issues or rust leads me to the caps, but I could be speaking beyond my competence here).

I'll definitely give it a whirl in the 486 though to be sure. Just seems weird it would go from being 100% to 0% in the same box if there wasn't some kind of electrical failure in the board itself.