VOGONS


First post, by ultranothing

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Basically what that says. I've been looking for hours but unless I'm completely missing it, there's just no good info on how to reset the CMOS on this board. The manual shows a picture of a little black blob in between two chips on the bottom right of the mobo, and says to reset the CLRTC by shorting the solder points. Very generic, not very informative graphic there. But when you look at the spot it's referring to, there's like a dozen or more little solder points and capacitors and whatnot. So I'm not really comfortable sticking metal objects just any old place all over the mobo, ya know-know?

So here's the diagram ASUS gives me for how to reset the CMOS:

MyFNnEH.jpg

Looks pretty simple! But then when you actually look at the board, you see this:

M0kgxzF.jpg

I'm at a pretty big roadblock right now with this retro build. I'm not getting any signal to the monitor from the AGP video card. I've tried it with another known-working AGP video card and still, nothing. So I thought maybe I'd reset the bios. Maybe if someone could help me figure out which two solder points I'm supposed to short, I can reset the bios, realize that that wasn't the problem, and then bug you with more questions? 😁

Reply 1 of 11, by Vynix

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You could try removing the CMOS battery and leave it out for a few hours, this should clear the CMOS if you cannot find the jumpers.

Proud owner of a Shuttle HOT-555A 430VX motherboard and two wonderful retro laptops, namely a Compaq Armada 1700 [nonfunctional] and a HP Omnibook XE3-GC [fully working :p]

Reply 2 of 11, by ultranothing

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Vynix wrote on 2021-03-04, 18:09:

You could try removing the CMOS battery and leave it out for a few hours, this should clear the CMOS if you cannot find the jumpers.

Probably the safer method. I'll do that, thanks 😀

Reply 4 of 11, by Sphere478

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yeah screw that, kill power, pull battery and short plus tab to minus tab on battery holder. done!

Sphere's PCB projects.
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Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
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SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
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Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 5 of 11, by majestyk

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This usually works.
But the CMOS volatile RAM is not hooked to the battery alone but - decoupled by diodes - to the standby voltage from the PSU as well.
So if you have an ATX PSU, switch off the machine, switch off the PSU switch, remove the battery and short the battery tarminals, there´s still a chance that the capacitors for 5V stby in the PSU are still (partially) charged. They won´t be discharged by shorting the battery terminals due to the decoupling. The data in CMOS can survive when there´s just 0.5V or less.
Shorting the two solder-pads will discharge all sources. Another way would be pulling the mainboard´s ATX plug before shorting the battery terminals

Reply 7 of 11, by shamino

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Try holding DEL while powering up, then try the same with INSERT.
I can't remember which of those did the trick, but one of those brought back a P2B-D for me a long time ago after I had pretty much given up on it.

Slot-1 is very fiddly, if you haven't reseated the CPU at least a few times then do so. I think I almost always have to fiddle with them before they work.
There could be lots of reasons for it not to POST but I'll hold back unless you want to go into other troubleshooting suggestions.

Reply 8 of 11, by Sphere478

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ultranothing wrote on 2021-03-04, 21:41:

Thanks everyone! I never got the monitor to turn on. I tested the slot with two other AGP cards and none of them would work, so I concluded that the board was trashed. Gotta love eBay!

try pci, different ram, different cpu, different psu

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 9 of 11, by darry

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ultranothing wrote on 2021-03-04, 21:41:

Thanks everyone! I never got the monitor to turn on. I tested the slot with two other AGP cards and none of them would work, so I concluded that the board was trashed. Gotta love eBay!

Is the CPU known to be good ? If you are using a socket 370 CPU in a slotket type adapter to Slot-1, are you certain the CPU is supported by the slotket ?

Reply 10 of 11, by Horun

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Sphere478 wrote on 2021-03-05, 02:51:
ultranothing wrote on 2021-03-04, 21:41:

Thanks everyone! I never got the monitor to turn on. I tested the slot with two other AGP cards and none of them would work, so I concluded that the board was trashed. Gotta love eBay!

try pci, different ram, different cpu, different psu

darry wrote on 2021-03-05, 02:55:
ultranothing wrote on 2021-03-04, 21:41:

Thanks everyone! I never got the monitor to turn on. I tested the slot with two other AGP cards and none of them would work, so I concluded that the board was trashed. Gotta love eBay!

Is the CPU known to be good ? If you are using a socket 370 CPU in a slotket type adapter to Slot-1, are you certain the CPU is supported by the slotket ?

ALL This ^^
You never mentioned what CPU you are using, what RAM, what PSU, or if you have a PC speaker attached to hear if it beeps, etc.
Basically you said "I have a P3B board and plugged some things in and it don't work". It is really hard to guess the issue and it may not be CMOS related.
Just an observation..

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. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 11 of 11, by aaronkatrini

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Don't give up on an Asus motherboard that easily, follow all the steps mentioned above. Also I wanted to add a trick I always try with great success: Contact Cleaner Spray for Electronic components! You should find them for 5 euro or so in most hardware stores and it absolutely works. Lets face it, many of the hardware we deal with are 20+ years old now, and depending on where these components were stored, one can expect a little oxidation on the slots.