Hi, was this from ebay? I saw that card too.

Cheers,

Yup.

Do come card without ESD bag ?

I ask this quesition, because many retro PC thinker doesn't pay attention of ESD preauction.
ESD damage is often latent and give you a result with delayed dies of pc hardware.

To be honest not only did it not come in an ESD bag, it was wrapped in bubble wrap. Quite a cringe choice of packaging. Not good for ESD at all.

I’ll try to stay hopeful that ESD wasn’t the cause.

See if it works again once the card cools down. Given the way it was shipped and the size of VLB cards, the main F64300 QFP chip may have a loose leg.
If letting the card cool down allows it to work again then just reflow the legs on the QFP to resolve it 😀

You say the screen went black, but when trying to boot with the card inserted, is there any POST activity (either regular POST beep or "no video card" error beeps) or HDD/floppy access indicating that the system has booted? This could be important to determine how "dead" the card is.

Also have you checked for shorts or abnormally hot chips? All this in addition to what is mentioned above about some legs becoming desoldered, for this you can try to apply slight pressure on the main chip when turning on the system.

I forgot to mention that I have a thermal camera. The only areas that increase in temperature are the main F64300 chip as well as the LS245. I don't think either go past maybe 36 degrees C? I would need to check again for precise measurements.

I do get post codes. Award BIOS running a Sis 471 chipset. Stops on 0D 6F. Can't init the video adapter.

That figures about this card origin, thanks for answering, I was interested in that VLB too, Clean the contacts with alcohol and ear swabs?

Cheers,

If you have an oscilloscope, I'd check that crystal. I had a card that would intermittently fail due to a faulty crystal.

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-04-26, 23:27:

If you have an oscilloscope, I'd check that crystal. I had a card that would intermittently fail due to a faulty crystal.

Not pretty, but it is present.

Does the PC POSt with this card in it, without complaining about no VGA (Usually 1 long 3 short beeps)? If so, have you tried using a different cable or monitor?

Was the chip in the top-left above "2MB" ever populated when using the extra RAM?

Are there any fine metal particles sitting across the F64300 chip legs?

Have you used the same VLB slot often with another card? PCI/VLB slots can be intermittent with some cards if oxidised. A toothbrush & isopropyl alcohol work well.

appiah4 wrote on 2026-04-27, 08:09:

Does the PC POSt with this card in it, without complaining about no VGA (Usually 1 long 3 short beeps)? If so, have you tried using a different cable or monitor?

A few POST codes roll through, and then it stops at 0D 6F. I do not have a PC speaker hooked up at the moment. The back of the IDE controller card blocks the pin header.

MikeSG wrote on 2026-04-28, 13:36:

Was the chip in the top-left above "2MB" ever populated when using the extra RAM?

Are there any fine metal particles sitting across the F64300 chip legs?

Have you used the same VLB slot often with another card? PCI/VLB slots can be intermittent with some cards if oxidised. A toothbrush & isopropyl alcohol work well.

There was no chip in that socket when it arrived.

I suppose I can give it an anti-static brushing to see if there are any foreign particles.

I have used the same VLB slot with other cards. In fact, this system has been rolling through a decent number of VLB cards for various tests over the last few months. Returning to the other cards has allowed the system to boot without issue.

I appreciate the suggestions, everyone.

CkRtech wrote on 2026-04-28, 13:51:

A few POST codes roll through, and then it stops at 0D 6F. I do not have a PC speaker hooked up at the moment. The back of the I […]
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appiah4 wrote on 2026-04-27, 08:09:

Does the PC POSt with this card in it, without complaining about no VGA (Usually 1 long 3 short beeps)? If so, have you tried using a different cable or monitor?

A few POST codes roll through, and then it stops at 0D 6F. I do not have a PC speaker hooked up at the moment. The back of the IDE controller card blocks the pin header.

MikeSG wrote on 2026-04-28, 13:36:

Was the chip in the top-left above "2MB" ever populated when using the extra RAM?

Are there any fine metal particles sitting across the F64300 chip legs?

Have you used the same VLB slot often with another card? PCI/VLB slots can be intermittent with some cards if oxidised. A toothbrush & isopropyl alcohol work well.

There was no chip in that socket when it arrived.

I suppose I can give it an anti-static brushing to see if there are any foreign particles.

I have used the same VLB slot with other cards. In fact, this system has been rolling through a decent number of VLB cards for various tests over the last few months. Returning to the other cards has allowed the system to boot without issue.

I appreciate the suggestions, everyone.

Assuming Award BIOS 0D is Initialize VGA, 6F is initialize floppy controller. Not knowing which is the last step, try unplugging the floppy ribbon. Otherwise VGA initialization appears to be failing, but this usually would not halt a POST process...

I pulled the I/O card and plugged the speaker in. No beeps at boot. I can't recall if I have used this case speaker before, but the cone is intact and the wires are connected.

With the I/O card out of the way, perhaps I can scope the VGA BIOS pins to see if the system is talking to it.

Scoping VGA BIOS.

Channel 1 = Pin 20. Chip Enable. It is pulsing.
Channel 2 = Pin 22. Output Enable. Remains low.

Pin 22 also appears to be shorted to ground when the machine is off. Actually... I think Pin 22 /OE SHOULD be grounded.

Video BIOS Chip desoldered. BIOS dumped. Attached.

I doubled it to 64k and burned it to a Winbond W27C512. Soldered a socket to the VGA card, socketed the chip, and powered up.

No change.

CkRtech wrote on 2026-04-28, 17:55:

I pulled the I/O card and plugged the speaker in. No beeps at boot. I can't recall if I have used this case speaker before, but the cone is intact and the wires are connected.

With the I/O card out of the way, perhaps I can scope the VGA BIOS pins to see if the system is talking to it.

Motherboards often need an I/O card plugged in to respond at all. But a missing VGA card will give beeps.

Another thing to try is lowering FSB to 25MHz if that is possible. Could be some line buffering problem.

The LS245 chip (near BIOS) is testable while on the board.