Try going back to jumper mode and underclock the CPU a little, and bump the core voltage up slightly. When you Google the A7V you get lots of hits for the board not POSTing, and I had an A7V133 that I found was picky about the settings and POSTing.

I gave it a go but it's still posting erratically. I tried unplugging things again and when I unplugged the floppy it booted with this message. Excuse the crap picture.

It's strange because this was at stock voltage, bus speed, and multiplier settings with jumper free off.

Just in case, if you haven't already, I'd check if there's a newer BIOS available.

Might find hints, bioses, other useful stuff at a7vtroubleshooting.com

FYI, caps don't need to leak, nor be bulging to be defective.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-11-26, 23:07:

Just in case, if you haven't already, I'd check if there's a newer BIOS available.

Yeh the BIOS is flashed to the latest version. I reflashed it just in case.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-11-27, 04:55:

Might find hints, bioses, other useful stuff at a7vtroubleshooting.com

Cheers, a very useful site. Though I've done bascially everything they suggested already to no effect.

weedeewee wrote on 2021-11-27, 10:13:

FYI, caps don't need to leak, nor be bulging to be defective.

This is what I am thinking at this point. Possibly some of the caps are out of spec despite no physical signs of it.

A list of things I've tried:

• Reflashed the BIOS
• Cleared the CMOS and changed the battery
• Tried 3 different video cards
• Removed everything from the board
• Swapped the RAM
• Underclock
• Over and undervolt
• Reseated the BIOS chip + a little deoxit in the socket
• Changing between jumper free and manual settings

None of these have changed a thing. It's still booting very erratically, though when it does boot it seems to run just fine. I'll probably have to suck it up and recap the board when I have the time. Cheers lads

These were very picky boards indeed. I still liked them though.

Droidekafan wrote on 2021-11-27, 10:53:

Yeh the BIOS is flashed to the latest version. I reflashed it just in case. […]
Show full quote

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-11-26, 23:07:

Just in case, if you haven't already, I'd check if there's a newer BIOS available.

Yeh the BIOS is flashed to the latest version. I reflashed it just in case.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-11-27, 04:55:

Might find hints, bioses, other useful stuff at a7vtroubleshooting.com

Cheers, a very useful site. Though I've done bascially everything they suggested already to no effect.

weedeewee wrote on 2021-11-27, 10:13:

FYI, caps don't need to leak, nor be bulging to be defective.

This is what I am thinking at this point. Possibly some of the caps are out of spec despite no physical signs of it.

A list of things I've tried:

• Reflashed the BIOS
• Cleared the CMOS and changed the battery
• Tried 3 different video cards
• Removed everything from the board
• Swapped the RAM
• Underclock
• Over and undervolt
• Reseated the BIOS chip + a little deoxit in the socket
• Changing between jumper free and manual settings

None of these have changed a thing. It's still booting very erratically, though when it does boot it seems to run just fine. I'll probably have to suck it up and recap the board when I have the time. Cheers lads

Only thing I see missing from your list at first glance is to reseat the CPU HSF.

Setting these boards to jumpered mode (with correct jumpering even though these are locked out of the factory) and sometimes setting a slightly higher voltage could make it work more stable.
Also use of a single DIMM in the memory slot closest to the CPU socket and don't mix up memory densities if using multiple DIMMs.

EDIT: Reseating the graphics card may also do the trick.for some reason I overead you already tried switching graphics card, but I'd still try a crappy PCI one if you have one available Or try another graphics card (crappy PCI card if you have one).

It's been some years since I last worked with these boards so my memory is a lil rusty.

Not sure if this has anything to do with your problems, but back in the day when A7V was new it was a very cheap motherboard. My father got one for his very first desktop PC with 800Mhz duron and the motherboard failed within 2 years. Replacement A7V lasted 3 years after he got that one before failing too. This has just kind of left me with an impression that it isnt very good quality motherboard or we just had very bad luck with it. He gave me his not working desktop afterwards since it still had working parts and switched to using laptop after that. I am bad at throwing things away so I still even have the failed somewhere and even original box for it and that box has the original price sticker of 76 euros on it.

Tetrium wrote on 2021-11-27, 18:22:

Only thing I see missing from your list at first glance is to reseat the CPU HSF.

It's been some years since I last worked with these boards so my memory is a lil rusty.

I didn't mention it but I've reseated it a few times, I did go a little bit overboard wth the thermal paste (MX4, non conductive) to be sure it covered the whole die.

What brand are the capacitors? It's age puts it well inside the plague era, and as Weedeewee said they can fail and still look ok.

Most of the caps are Sanyo with a few Rubycons

Baoran wrote on 2021-11-27, 19:38:

Not sure if this has anything to do with your problems, but back in the day when A7V was new it was a very cheap motherboard. My father got one for his very first desktop PC with 800Mhz duron and the motherboard failed within 2 years. Replacement A7V lasted 3 years after he got that one before failing too. This has just kind of left me with an impression that it isnt very good quality motherboard or we just had very bad luck with it. He gave me his not working desktop afterwards since it still had working parts and switched to using laptop after that. I am bad at throwing things away so I still even have the failed somewhere and even original box for it and that box has the original price sticker of 76 euros on it.

Yah I've got one that works perfectly (Last I checked, touch wood) and a dead one I gave up on years ago. But my experience with Asus in general is the exact opposite of my experience with Hsing Tech group boards, the PCChips/ECS/Amptron crowd... "Of course it is!" the Asus fanboys cry.. but wait, that experience is that I've had 30% Asus boards continue to work and 70% die, whereas I've got 70% working Hsing boards and only 30% dead over the long term. "But they're much nicer boards!" Would be the comeback, sure than half the Hsing stuff, the other half of Hsing stuff is alright, but that still makes for slightly more NICE and also WORKING boards than Asus. Another two brands people would place the other way round are Gigabyte and MSI, I have bad luck with the former and great luck with the latter.

But anyway A7Vs in particular, and Asus in general, I've had them eat their BIOS on more than one occasion and they are one of the worst brands for acting up unless the CMOS battery is less than a year old. The one I had go dead, I was suspecting chipset failure because I swapped almost everything else out, but I didn't have a POST card at the time so could have missed something. Last desperate attempt was a toaster oven reflow, but that didn't do anything even temporarily.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-11-27, 23:02:

Baoran wrote on 2021-11-27, 19:38:

Not sure if this has anything to do with your problems, but back in the day when A7V was new it was a very cheap motherboard. My father got one for his very first desktop PC with 800Mhz duron and the motherboard failed within 2 years. Replacement A7V lasted 3 years after he got that one before failing too. This has just kind of left me with an impression that it isnt very good quality motherboard or we just had very bad luck with it. He gave me his not working desktop afterwards since it still had working parts and switched to using laptop after that. I am bad at throwing things away so I still even have the failed somewhere and even original box for it and that box has the original price sticker of 76 euros on it.

Yah I've got one that works perfectly (Last I checked, touch wood) and a dead one I gave up on years ago. But my experience with Asus in general is the exact opposite of my experience with Hsing Tech group boards, the PCChips/ECS/Amptron crowd... "Of course it is!" the Asus fanboys cry.. but wait, that experience is that I've had 30% Asus boards continue to work and 70% die, whereas I've got 70% working Hsing boards and only 30% dead over the long term. "But they're much nicer boards!" Would be the comeback, sure than half the Hsing stuff, the other half of Hsing stuff is alright, but that still makes for slightly more NICE and also WORKING boards than Asus. Another two brands people would place the other way round are Gigabyte and MSI, I have bad luck with the former and great luck with the latter.

But anyway A7Vs in particular, and Asus in general, I've had them eat their BIOS on more than one occasion and they are one of the worst brands for acting up unless the CMOS battery is less than a year old. The one I had go dead, I was suspecting chipset failure because I swapped almost everything else out, but I didn't have a POST card at the time so could have missed something. Last desperate attempt was a toaster oven reflow, but that didn't do anything even temporarily.

Those were the only asus boards I have seen fail personally so I must have been lucky and I always thought they were just bad because my father wanted to choose the cheapest one in their lineup.

Baoran wrote on 2021-11-27, 19:38:

Not sure if this has anything to do with your problems, but back in the day when A7V was new it was a very cheap motherboard. My father got one for his very first desktop PC with 800Mhz duron and the motherboard failed within 2 years. Replacement A7V lasted 3 years after he got that one before failing too. This has just kind of left me with an impression that it isnt very good quality motherboard or we just had very bad luck with it. He gave me his not working desktop afterwards since it still had working parts and switched to using laptop after that. I am bad at throwing things away so I still even have the failed somewhere and even original box for it and that box has the original price sticker of 76 euros on it.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-11-27, 23:02:

Yah I've got one that works perfectly (Last I checked, touch wood) and a dead one I gave up on years ago. But my experience with Asus in general is the exact opposite of my experience with Hsing Tech group boards, the PCChips/ECS/Amptron crowd... "Of course it is!" the Asus fanboys cry.. but wait, that experience is that I've had 30% Asus boards continue to work and 70% die, whereas I've got 70% working Hsing boards and only 30% dead over the long term. "But they're much nicer boards!" Would be the comeback, sure than half the Hsing stuff, the other half of Hsing stuff is alright, but that still makes for slightly more NICE and also WORKING boards than Asus. Another two brands people would place the other way round are Gigabyte and MSI, I have bad luck with the former and great luck with the latter.

But anyway A7Vs in particular, and Asus in general, I've had them eat their BIOS on more than one occasion and they are one of the worst brands for acting up unless the CMOS battery is less than a year old. The one I had go dead, I was suspecting chipset failure because I swapped almost everything else out, but I didn't have a POST card at the time so could have missed something. Last desperate attempt was a toaster oven reflow, but that didn't do anything even temporarily.

I was under the impression that Asus boards were pretty good. I still might recap the board but I have been doing a bit of reading on a7vs and they seem to have a fair few issues. I'll probably switch to my original first choice for this build which was a gigabyte board as I've had no problems with my other gigabyte systems.

Baoran wrote on 2021-11-27, 19:38:

Not sure if this has anything to do with your problems, but back in the day when A7V was new it was a very cheap motherboard. My father got one for his very first desktop PC with 800Mhz duron and the motherboard failed within 2 years. Replacement A7V lasted 3 years after he got that one before failing too. This has just kind of left me with an impression that it isnt very good quality motherboard or we just had very bad luck with it. He gave me his not working desktop afterwards since it still had working parts and switched to using laptop after that. I am bad at throwing things away so I still even have the failed somewhere and even original box for it and that box has the original price sticker of 76 euros on it.

One thing that was overlooked much more back then was the use of cheap PSUs. Of all the ATX systems I found, I'd estimate that about half had a cheap gutless wonder as a PSU and the other half had a good quality one (very rough estimates mind you). Having a bad PSU working under stress for a couple years would definitely have been hard on the motherboard.

Droidekafan wrote on 2021-11-27, 23:57:

Baoran wrote on 2021-11-27, 19:38:

Not sure if this has anything to do with your problems, but back in the day when A7V was new it was a very cheap motherboard. My father got one for his very first desktop PC with 800Mhz duron and the motherboard failed within 2 years. Replacement A7V lasted 3 years after he got that one before failing too. This has just kind of left me with an impression that it isnt very good quality motherboard or we just had very bad luck with it. He gave me his not working desktop afterwards since it still had working parts and switched to using laptop after that. I am bad at throwing things away so I still even have the failed somewhere and even original box for it and that box has the original price sticker of 76 euros on it.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-11-27, 23:02:

Yah I've got one that works perfectly (Last I checked, touch wood) and a dead one I gave up on years ago. But my experience with Asus in general is the exact opposite of my experience with Hsing Tech group boards, the PCChips/ECS/Amptron crowd... "Of course it is!" the Asus fanboys cry.. but wait, that experience is that I've had 30% Asus boards continue to work and 70% die, whereas I've got 70% working Hsing boards and only 30% dead over the long term. "But they're much nicer boards!" Would be the comeback, sure than half the Hsing stuff, the other half of Hsing stuff is alright, but that still makes for slightly more NICE and also WORKING boards than Asus. Another two brands people would place the other way round are Gigabyte and MSI, I have bad luck with the former and great luck with the latter.

But anyway A7Vs in particular, and Asus in general, I've had them eat their BIOS on more than one occasion and they are one of the worst brands for acting up unless the CMOS battery is less than a year old. The one I had go dead, I was suspecting chipset failure because I swapped almost everything else out, but I didn't have a POST card at the time so could have missed something. Last desperate attempt was a toaster oven reflow, but that didn't do anything even temporarily.

I was under the impression that Asus boards were pretty good. I still might recap the board but I have been doing a bit of reading on a7vs and they seem to have a fair few issues. I'll probably switch to my original first choice for this build which was a gigabyte board as I've had no problems with my other gigabyte systems.

I have my doubt about those exact 70/30 figures, but at least some ASUS boards seem to have had issues with suddenly dying for seemingly no good reason whatsoever. I do want to say this isn't my personal experience, my ASUS P2B simply never died and very few of all the ASUS boards that ended up in my lap turned out to be defective.

Another trick which might help (a trick I actually used fairly often because of how easy it is) is to remove the battery and leave it like that for at least a full day (or 3 days while I work on some other projects).
Put in a brand new battery and then power it on.

One other thing I remembered is that these boards really like having overspecced PSUs (so lots of power on 5v, like 30A especially when using something like a 1200 or faster Thunderbird). We had perhaps like 20 to 30 of these boards (A7V and A7V133) and we ended up having to use our best PSUs for these boards if we wanted them to run stable in any certain way (the weaker PSUs ended up being used in P2 and P3 machines).
Your PSU should be sufficient in this regard though.

How are you testing this board? Is it inside the case or on a workbench?

I had it in a case while I was testing it, I've disassembled it now since that case was for another project (plus it isn't period correct, the case was made in 2006) and I was only using it for testing

As for the battery I haven't left it out for a full day but I did leave it out for a couple hours as the manual says to remove it when shorting the pads to clear the CMOS.