Munx wrote:So I have a Biostar M7VIT BRAVO motherboard that I got months ago, however I only got around to try it out yesterday. I just cant seem to get it to POST. I can power it on, all the fans start spinning, however I cant get anything more out of it, not even a beep. I've tested a couple AGP and PCI video cards, cleared CMOS, used different RAM, unplugged everything but the CPU and Video card, still nothing. Unfortunately I only have a single socket A CPU to test (Athlon FX 2600 Thoroughbred, 333MHz FSB) however I'm sure it would react differently if that was the problem.
Not really - if the CPU wasn't working, this sounds exactly like how it would behave. Is it a known good CPU? Without a working CPU the code in the BIOS doesn't execute, so you'd get power but nothing else happens.
I don't know if that motherboard supports Thoroughbreds, but I looked it up and see that it's a KT400 so presumably it does (hopefully in even the oldest BIOS version).
If the CPU is running the BIOS code and then has a problem with the RAM, normally it would give you a beep code, but that might not be universal. Same deal if it has a problem with video. But again, I've just recently been working on a Dell that doesn't bother to beep when it has a video failure, so that's not universal either.
If the speaker is connected and there's no beeping, I believe most likely the BIOS code isn't being executed, which puts the problem somewhere between CPU, BIOS, PSU, or a board level problem (chipset, etc).
Have you gone over all the jumpers and made sure they're all set correctly/conservatively?
If the FSB is jumper controlled, I'd try setting it to the slowest possible FSB setting.
Could the PSU be the culprit? It's a cheap one but its new and 500W.
Or should I just accept I have a dead board on my hands?
PSU could cause this, and it's specs might be sub-optimal for the board, but I think the chance is slim of that being why it doesn't POST. It's possible though. Definitely try to minimize the configuration and lighten the load on the PSU as much as possible. If you have another working PSU to try, especially one designed for boards of that time period, then it's definitely worth a shot.
If you have a multimeter, you can check operating voltages and check for Vcore. Put negative on the PSU casing. 5v and 12v can be found on the molex connectors. 3.3v doesn't have a convenient place to test it though. If you want to get 3.3v, you might be able to backprobe it on the ATX power connector.
You can check Vcore by putting the positive probe on the large metal tab at the back side of the mosfets near the CPU. Half of them will show the input voltage to the VRM (probably 5v) and the other half should show Vcore. That large metal tab is a pretty easy place to probe without risk of accidentally shorting anything. But if you get concerned, wrap the probe with tape so that only the tip is exposed.
If you see bad voltage at an input somewhere then blame the PSU. If inputs are good but you see bad Vcore then it's a board problem, or *maybe* lack of VID signal from the CPU. If voltages look normal then the cause remains unknown. It can *still* be a bad PSU in that case - a multimeter won't show high frequency voltage fluctuations.
It could have a bad flashed BIOS. If you feel comfortable with the idea then you could try hotflashing it in another board, but that's tricky and somewhat dangerous.