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Asus P2B BIOS error

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First post, by stealthjoe

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Hello,
I am facing an error in my Asus P2B BIOS while booting up. Getting a message as follows:
"Hardware Monitor Found An Error. Enter Power setup menu for details. Press F1 to continue".

I entered the bios setup and then power setup menu. Here I noticed that the +5v was in red. It was displaying 4.4 beside it. Later tested my PSU with a multimeter and all the +5V pins measured 5.5V.

I didn't face any unusual lockups/restarts/boot loops with the installed OS (Win 98). Let me know how to fix the issue and if it is something to be worried? Thanks.

Intel 845GEBV2, Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz, Geforce FX5600 256MB, 512MB RAM, 160GB HDD, Sound Blaster Live! SB0100 - Win 98/XP

Reply 1 of 17, by Doornkaat

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Did you test the PSU while it was running in the system or disconnected from other hardware?

Reply 2 of 17, by stealthjoe

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Doornkaat wrote on 2023-01-31, 14:42:

Did you test the PSU while it was running in the system or disconnected from other hardware?

Tested the PSU while it was disconnected from the board and any other hardware. Specifically each of the +5V pins in the ATX power connector.

Intel 845GEBV2, Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz, Geforce FX5600 256MB, 512MB RAM, 160GB HDD, Sound Blaster Live! SB0100 - Win 98/XP

Reply 3 of 17, by Doornkaat

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stealthjoe wrote on 2023-01-31, 15:18:
Doornkaat wrote on 2023-01-31, 14:42:

Did you test the PSU while it was running in the system or disconnected from other hardware?

Tested the PSU while it was disconnected from the board and any other hardware. Specifically each of the +5V pins in the ATX power connector.

You'll need to test your PSU under load. Without load those measurements don't mean much. The pins are all connected to the same +5V plane on the PSU btw. Measuring one pin is enough and you don't need to measure at the ATX connector specifically. You can just use one of the other wires for convenience while the system is running.😃👍

Reply 4 of 17, by TheMobRules

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Doornkaat wrote on 2023-01-31, 15:44:

You'll need to test your PSU under load. Without load those measurements don't mean much. The pins are all connected to the same +5V plane on the PSU btw. Measuring one pin is enough and you don't need to measure at the ATX connector specifically. You can just use one of the other wires for convenience while the system is running.😃👍

I agree, just test the voltage on one of the molex connectors while the system is running.

Also, if that turns out OK you can disregard the BIOS voltages (usually you can set them to "Ignore" or similar). On boards of that era, they are extremely unreliable and it's not uncommon for those values to be way off.

Reply 6 of 17, by Horun

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Agree but "unloaded" volts on some PSU are never in spec (why they say minimum load on many PSU), even cheap PSU tester draw 1amp+ for 5v and 12v.... just sayin...
Simple test is with board connected and powered up then use one of the Molex connectors for IDE/CDROM power and check +5. If less than 4.7v then you have a PSU issue.
Check the +12 too, if less than 11.4 same thing.....

added: Oops misread previous posts, already said use the Molex with board running....
damn it has been a bad day and not getting better 🤣

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Reply 7 of 17, by stealthjoe

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Thank you all for your replies.Will test the board under load in the weekend.

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-02-01, 02:23:

this looks bad as its over ± 5%. Most likely too high with no load and then sinks too low with load., needs new caps.

New caps for the board or PSU?

Intel 845GEBV2, Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz, Geforce FX5600 256MB, 512MB RAM, 160GB HDD, Sound Blaster Live! SB0100 - Win 98/XP

Reply 8 of 17, by stealthjoe

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Just tested my board under load. Measured the voltages in the molex connector and noted the following:
+5V pin - measured +5.02V
+12V pin - measured +13.5V
I am surprised as to why the +12V rail is so high.

Also below is the power management screen in BIOS . There are indeed differences. +5V rail shows as +4.5 and +12V rail shows as +13.1V:

The attachment P2B bios.jpeg is no longer available

The chassis fan error is obvious. However, the other 2 are worrying. Any thoughts?

Intel 845GEBV2, Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz, Geforce FX5600 256MB, 512MB RAM, 160GB HDD, Sound Blaster Live! SB0100 - Win 98/XP

Reply 10 of 17, by aaronkatrini

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Do you have a second , modern and known-good PSU for testing?

Reply 11 of 17, by weedeewee

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rasz_pl wrote on 2023-02-05, 09:26:

Measure 5V on the motherboard, ATX connector might have bad conductivity. I had few cases of melty charred ATX pins over the years.

THIS !

I've been bitten by this myself. measuring the voltage on the connector and everything checks out.
Measuring the voltage on the mainboard and suddenly it is way too low.
All due to corrosion or wear on the connector causing a bad contact with a higher resistance, causing a voltage drop.

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Reply 12 of 17, by jtchip

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@stealthjoe, as others have pointed out, your +5V at idle and +12V under load are out-of-spec, over the ± 5% threshold. I'd look at recapping or replacing the PSU.
That said, my Asus P2B rev 1.02 has a similar issue with its hardware monitoring chip under-reading the +5V and +12V lines for at least a year. In my case, the +5V used to read around 4.7V, not low enough for the BIOS to warn but below the +/- 5% threshold of 4.75V that the hardware monitoring software (MBProbe) in Windows 98 starts warning. Again, measured at the Molex it's within tolerance, don't remember the exact value, probably around +4.96V. The system works fine, no random crashes, and I use it mostly in DOS anyway, on the rare occasion it's actually used. The ATX power connector is fine.
Then I swapped PSU from a no-name one to an Enlight/High Power (I got a new PSU and just cycled it through the various machines). This one reads +5.03V in the monitoring sofware (at idle in Win98) and +5.13V on the Molex. The +12V line reads +12.04V in software, +12.26V at the Molex.
The +3.3V and Vcore are fine and are measured directly by the hardware monitoring chip. +5V and +12V go through a voltage divider so I wonder if the resistors have simply drifted out of spec after nearly 25 years.

Reply 13 of 17, by stealthjoe

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aaronkatrini wrote on 2023-02-05, 09:32:

Do you have a second , modern and known-good PSU for testing?

Got a new higher quality PSU (Ant Esports 400W) and measured the voltages. This time the +5V volts measured as 4.8V and +12V measured in the range of 12.9-13.1 V. The power management screen shows an error as soon as the voltage gets to 13V.

The attachment Voltages.jpeg is no longer available

Then measured the voltages on a different board (M6VLR) using the new PSU. Interestingly, the +12V read between 12.84 - 12.96 V and the +5V read +5.1V.

The attachment Voltages 2.jpeg is no longer available

So, I am thinking whether it is an issue with the PSU as the +12V measured more or less similar to the earlier one.

Intel 845GEBV2, Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz, Geforce FX5600 256MB, 512MB RAM, 160GB HDD, Sound Blaster Live! SB0100 - Win 98/XP

Reply 14 of 17, by aaronkatrini

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I'm thinking the second PSU is also bad. Or at least not properly regulated. I've never heard of Ant Esports 400W PSU, but by a quick google search I can see there are no proper reviews, also the layout looks like a rip-off of the Corsair VS400, most likely it's a low-quality Chinese one, I'd open it up and see on the inside, you can tell a lot by the brand of the Capacitors it uses.

Reply 15 of 17, by Gmlb256

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^ Never heard of the Ant brand either. I would recommend Corsair, EVGA, Seasonic or Lite-On brands if a real high-quality PSU is desired.

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Reply 16 of 17, by stealthjoe

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It is actually a local brand. In fact first got fooled by the similarity with Antec graphics and went by Amazon reviews 😀 Neverthless, as stated above will stick to the well known high quality ones. Any idea about the Antec one?
https://www.antec.com/product/power/vp450p-plus

Intel 845GEBV2, Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz, Geforce FX5600 256MB, 512MB RAM, 160GB HDD, Sound Blaster Live! SB0100 - Win 98/XP

Reply 17 of 17, by PARKE

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Just three years of warranty would put me off.