I performed a CF change, in this one I have another HWINFO Ver program. 6.20, this version detects (as you can see), correctly the MB, and all the other details, but this is not the latest version, I don't have the next one, I should download it, but for the info it provides, this is already fine.

Now, I have to find a CF of a few GB, to use it as HD, then I would have to load a Windows, maybe since I have several 98SE, I would use ME, but I could do a multiple installation, with various Windows.

For the VGA, I think I'll change it, maybe an ATi, it will go instead of the i740, but it depends on how much memory it has on, the 740 has 8 MB, the quantity is all in all enough, the other might have less (4 MB), but they could be enough, if you don't need to display at high resolutions.

I have tried several times, to start the ASUS P2B-F with P3-500, unfortunately nothing, it seems that it is ready to start but the post codes do not arrive, I always display — —, occasionally turning off and on I get codes, but they do not flow, they stop immediately, the reset led flashes and even the keyboard leds, everything seems normal, but something prevents the start.

I tried to clean the Slot1, to spray IPA on the contacts, to press and tilt the CPU, to change CPU, in short, nothing gets a change, or a sign that you can start.

There would only be one thing, maybe maybe it could be the jumper setting, as far as multi and FSB, I have them on 5X and 100, but there are other jumpers that I don't know if they can prevent booting, one is AGPFS another is KBWK, and then JCPU (currently without jumper), finally JTPWR (also without jumper), I'll check but I don't think they are that important, but I could be wrong.

As you can see from the image, on the display it appears written 0F FF, I made further attempts, changing RAM and using the IPA on the contacts of RAM and BIOS chip, the end result is always the same, but I think I understand, there is probably not a failure to the MB, but following the suggestion of the post card, which seems to mean OFFF, the BIOS chip may have lost the content, maybe it has been rewritten badly, or as it seems more likely it came at the end of life, and this seems not to be so difficult on Slots1, or for this type of chip DIL32, specifically I have an AMTEL AT49F002NT chip, and the BIOS version originally written was the 1010, which has some additions and fixes, including Coppermine CPU support.

This is for me (at the moment) a problem, because I have no way to do the rewrite of the chip, assuming it is not faulty, in case it is broken, I would have to get a new chip or a recovery one, and rewrite it, here too it is a problem for me, I do not have a reader / writer for that type of chip, if you want there would be a simpler way, hot rewriting, but it must be done with a second working MB, and if something goes wrong, the MB to be repaired could become two, there would be a third possibility, order a BIOS chip Already programmed, and I'm evaluating this, but maybe it's cheaper to buy a PLCC32 chip adapter than to use one of those.

It is possible that it is trying to go into bootblock recovery mode, and that if you prepare a boot floppy with a fresh copy of the BIOS on it, and the files specified by maker, it will write it, reboot and come alive.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-31, 13:38:

It is possible that it is trying to go into bootblock recovery mode, and that if you prepare a boot floppy with a fresh copy of the BIOS on it, and the files specified by maker, it will write it, reboot and come alive.

Thanks a lot friend, in fact you might be right, I haven't tried connecting a floppy disk drive, I'll try to create a BIOS recovery disk, maybe I'll put a version later than 1010 on it, so I'd avoid having to update it, but it will be an attempt which I did in the past with a different motherboard, from that time I learned that the floppy must be perfect, it must not have defective sectors, this is very important for the success of the writing.

Since I didn't make any progress with the P2B-F, I change MB and take the Compaq Camaro alias MITAC 5114VU, the card, unlike the ASUS, shows some error codes, but stops almost immediately on the 2F 2E codes, a sign that something is wrong, understanding what 😨 is not easy, because it could have a customized BIOS and they could mean something else, I don't know if it's basically an Award or a Phoenix, however it would be interesting 🧐 to understand what 😨 corresponds to the 2F error code, maybe 🤔 could indicate something broken (or defective), and once this is resolved, the card should work.

But there is one thing 😨 that needs to be done, a careful inspection 🧐 of the tracks is needed, because the codes displayed can indicate where the problem is, but it could be a broken track causing the block 📒.

For this purpose I use the microscope 🔬, I identified a rather suspicious one 🤨, at least from what you can see, there could be an interruption, then there is another group of tracks, where there could be one or more damaged, but they could still be functional.

For these repairs, we'll see if I can do something tomorrow.

After trying to recover a couple of MB, I try with something theoretically simpler, an ASUS (obviously) K8N-E DeLuxe, I had put it waiting for further testing, it was not able to install Windows, from 98 to XP and even 7, but recently I found some CD-DVD players and even an IDE CF adapter defective, this made me doubt, that the installation was not successful because there was some defective HW.

Here was the idea, put HW better and already used on other motherboards, so we can understand if the problem was in the MB, so I start putting together the necessary pieces, and let's try booting from CD.

Booting starts up, loads the installation files into memory (I guess), but then when it has to write to the disk (a 40 GB HD SATA WD), it stays still or crashes!

I don't know if it's a memory problem, or the SATA controller, I'll try to use SATA RAID ports, but I don't think there will be a difference.

So, regarding the ASUS P2B-F I haven't tried yet ️ to connect the floppy , so for the moment no progress, ditto for the Compaq Camaro (Mitac), but for the ASUS K8N-E Deluxe, after a few attempts and changes of HW, I managed to complete the installation of Windows XP SP2, honestly I don't know why with the other Windows, it was not possible to complete the installation, and with that you!!!

The current final configuration is this:

AMD Sempron 2800+ CPU

768 MB RAM DDR 400 (256+512)

HD SATA WD 40 GB

VGA ATi 9200

But it is possible to see the details in the images, when the installation is finished, I ran some of the usual benches, and I should do more in the next few days, for the moment I am quite satisfied, because I thought I had to look for a fault (which is actually not there), and until now it works without any problem !!!

Here the bench and other images

Today I turned the MB ASUS K8N-E Deluxe back on, the BIOS reset, sign that the battery is low, yesterday I didn't check the voltage, at least that's the problem, I want to complete the Windows configuration, adding the drivers with the yellow sign !, there are not many, but you have to understand what they are.

In the meantime I took a look at the BIOS, I saw a strange voice, which I don't remember ever seeing, Instant Music Configuration, maybe it has a particular function, which makes the audio of the PC listen via speaker?

By speaker I don't mean the speakers, but the PC speaker, which is usually quite small, or even tiny.

I was interested to see if there was the multi X of the CPU, and if it could be changed with another value that is, if it was now 4X, could it be changed to 5X? Clearly the purpose is to make us an interesting overclock.

Additional benches performed a little while ago, nothing particular, but the results are I imagine quite normal, considering that the PC is currently quite dated, and that in the future very little can be done to improve it, you could add more RAM or change CPU with a better one, unfortunately it would always remain limited by the single-core CPU, as far as I know you can not put dual-core CPUs on the S.754, even if it were possible it would be quite difficult to find one at a low price.

But overall I like it, I have other S.754 that if we want are even more interesting, I think of the ASROCK K8Upgrade-NF3, which can be updated to S.939 or S.AM2, through a special board, for this particular motherboard I have a copy among those being repaired, it would be nice to fix it, but we will see later, because right now I have other MB, which I have to bring back to life.

These in the pictures the missing drivers in Windows, I haven't looked for them yet ️, but I hope they are easily found, I don't know if they can improve performance, rather I think they add the use of features, not available at the moment.

I solved the problem of low battery, but something very strange happened, with the new battery, the PC does not enter Windows and continues to reset itself, whatever type of boot you choose, even command prompt mode, this strange problem I had never had in any PC, it seems like a thing that is difficult to solve, but I will have to see to do other tests, to understand if there is something fault near the battery, even if it does not create any problem for me to keep it like this, in case I do not find this fault???

Finally, executed the 3DMark, 2000 and 2001SE benches, low scores as expected, not too different from those made with the P4 Willy 1700, this is a 1600 with PR2800+, certainly more efficient, but anyway if they counted as at the time the MHz, they would be almost on par.

Two motherboards, which belong to different generations, the first is a P4M900-X VER:1.2, the reduced format maybe is Flex ATX, unfortunately it has only one PCI slot, no AGP or PCI-E, so in case of problems with the VGA, you are practically obliged to get a Riser, which duplicates the PCI slot, so that you always have a usable one.

Another thing I don't like, is the single DDR and DDR2 memory slot, you can only use a 1 GB DDR 400 bench, or at most 2 or 4 GB using DDR2, the latter case is preferable, then of course it depends, if you use it to write or other Office, they can probably be fine even the single GB.

The other is an LS LUCKY STAR K7VAT, S.462 with VIA KT133 chipset, and SDRAM memories, in short, one of the first S.462/A.

Here the format is the traditional ATX, and you can install, all the AMD CPU with FSB 200 and 266, but personally I will put something like a Duron or an Athlon, if I want I could put an Athlon XP, but it would be a dual PC, and so I think something beyond the GigaHz.

Of this LS, I was provided with the paper manual and the original box, plus the shield to be mounted in the case 🏘.

That P4M900-X is nothing more than a MSI PM9M-V rebrand. I would avoid using it.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-04-03, 17:08:

That P4M900-X is nothing more than a MSI PM9M-V rebrand. I would avoid using it.

Thanks a lot friend, in fact I had noticed a certain resemblance, but apart from a few slightly bent pins (some of the 775s), the rest seems in excellent condition, perhaps it is from some branded PC, like HP or others, but just out of curiosity I'll try to put a CPU and RAM, and try to start it, although not soon, because I'm getting two S.423s, and other motherboards, and I have several waiting for repairs.

Another bench with the K8N-E Deluxe, I installed the AquaMark3 program, and started the bench, the results can be seen in the photo.

I can't tell if the score is normal or low, I only used this program recently, however it seemed quite slow to me, during the execution, some steps were a bit jerky, a sign that the frames were few.

The next ones will be the missing drivers, I have to download and install them, while the problem of the low battery remains for the moment, it will be difficult to understand why when the battery is new, Windows keeps restarting.

Here are two other MB, which I will try as soon as possible, both are from MSI, this brand is very well known and the boards are in most cases, qualitatively good, unfortunately like other equally well-known brands, some suffer from problems with capacitors, more than anything else because they are of poor brands.

Let's start with the MS-7173, a 775 with ATI chipset, in this card that I received, the change of 1000 uF 6.3V capacitors is visible, those used for the replacement are cheap, personally I would have used something else, but if they work, it's fine.

It has a limit in only two banks of RAM, both of the DDR2 type, the CPUs get to the maximum to the C2D E6XXX, FSB 1066, no Quad Core I think!?

The other instead is a card with i845 and S.423, an MS-6529, it would be my second 423, but this one has the SDRAMs, it currently has three of 128 MB each, but after doing the boot tests, I will move to three of 512 MB, to get a total of 1.5 GB .

The look is great, it looks almost new, I hope the CPU is an 1800 or a 1900, because they are frequencies that I don't have, that's why I could remove the heatsink and read what's written in the CPU, but I want to see the frequency from the BIOS screen.

Speaking of having within reach, I have a batch of three MB, which are as I had anticipated, a 423 and two 370.

Let's start with the 423, it has a 1.6GHz Willy P4 CPU, four banks for RDRAM, and it is produced by Intel, model D850GB (Garibaldi), unlike today's cards, there is no built-in audio, for me it's not a problem, I have various PCI sound cards, including Audigy Live! Etc..., the seller gave me a 64 MB RAM and a terminator, he probably doesn't know that all four must be occupied, so either another RAM and terminator, or two other terminators, apart from that I have the RDRAM I had on the 2000-423, basically four 128 MB modules, which make 512 MB total.

The 370 ASUS is a CUV4X, I've never had this model, because I usually prefer Intel CPUs and chipsets, here the chipset is VIA, I hope I'm lucky, and that it goes quite fast.

The other 370 is AOpen, I've never had MB of this brand, I hope it's good, and not too much done to saving, there is a PIII 600 installed, not really fast, but this can be remedied, changing to one of about 1 GHz.

I had RAMs for free, but a couple are from servers, I don't know if he used them on ASUS or AOpen, but maybe a look at the manual, removes the doubt.

I am gathering various ISA 8 bit cards, for an XT motherboard, this is a project that is slowly becoming a reality, I was thinking of self-building both the MB and some cards, for the MB I found one at a human price, for the cards instead at the moment nothing is cheap.