Spent the evening having a series of failures...
First, decided to try out this ASRock 775i65G motherboard.
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Trying it with my usual CompactFlash test card failed, as it seems this board does not like CF cards. So I set up a DOS install on an SSD and that seemed to work fine. The board came with a 3 GHZ Pentium 4, but I wanted to try it with a Core 2 Extreme X6800.
This would necessitate a BIOS update as the board had only v2.2 installed and apparently v2.8 is needed for Core 2 X support. Upon attempting a BIOS flash, the system spontaneously shut off. After a reboot, it would not fully boot up, powering off after getting part way through POST.
Figuring that the BIOS might be messed up, I removed the chip and attempted to read it via my USB programmer. Unfortunately, it complained about an improper chip ID.
Tried another chip and same issue.
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After some further testing, I decided to check the PLCC32 adapter. After checking continuity, it looks like a couple of the pins are somehow bridged. I don't think it's worth trying to desolder and fix this thing, so I just ordered a new adapter from Amazon.
Meanwhile, I also discovered this random SMD capacitor on my work bench. I'm thinking it must have fallen off some piece of hardware, but I have no idea what. I'll have to go through some of the recent hardware I've been testing and see if anything has stopped working.
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