VOGONS


First post, by alexanrs

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Hello everyone,

Today I just found an old PcChips M571 here at my university about to get thrown away. I decided to test it and had a few issues:

  • I can't get it to work with onboard video, but I can see the POST screen just fine with a PCI video card (yes, I changed the jumpers accordingly)
  • In both cases, when I turn the PC on, the keyboard's LEDs flicker, but show no sign of life afterwards. The keyboard is working just fine on another mobo.

I triple-checked every jumper, tried booting with nothing but the video card, monitor and keyboard attached. POST screen asks for F1 but nothing works (not even Ctrl+Alt+Del and Num/Caps/Scroll Lock)
Is this board toast? Is there anything else I should try? I tried an USB keyboard but it doesn't even turn on (guess I'd have to enable USB in BIOS first?)

Reply 2 of 14, by alexanrs

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I found that website while assembling the system. Quite useful, but I didn't find anything that could really help me with this weird problems, unfortunately.
I might have to hunt for a decent Socket7 MMX-compatible board, since I do not have high hopes with this one. I really look forward to recreating an enhanced version of my first PC now.

Reply 4 of 14, by Skyscraper

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Dont throw the board away.

Its one the best PC chips socket 7 boards, it supports almost all socket 7 CPUs.
The USB and audio brackets are often missing so they are worth keeping in any case.

The keyboard connector is probably easy to fix.

New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.

Reply 5 of 14, by alexanrs

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There doesn't appear to be any issues with the connector's soldering. Is there any way to troubleshoot this?
Oh, and I forgot to mention. While booting the board issues two short beeps, pause, one short beep after the memory test (which succeeds). It is an AMI BIOS but I couldn't find what this means.

Reply 6 of 14, by devius

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alexanrs wrote:

There doesn't appear to be any issues with the connector's soldering. Is there any way to troubleshoot this?

By your description I'm almost certain that it's a broken trace. These aren't always immediately visible, and you have to look for them on both sides of the board. Some of them are extremely thin.

If you have a multimeter your best bet is trying to follow the traces out of the keyboard connector. In the continuity test mode check if each signal pin is indeed connecting to the destination pin. Although the traces are covered with a protective material, in most cases there will be some exposed pins along the way. Use these to find the trace (or traces) that is causing problems.

I recently fixed a 486 board with the exact same symptoms as you describe (flashing keyboard LEDs but keyboard dead).

Reply 7 of 14, by ratfink

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Have you tried resetting the bios? Take the battery out, leave it for 20 minutes then put a new battery in. It won't fix broken traces 🤣 but corrupt bios settings can cause weird behaviour.

Also I know it passed the memory test but as I'm sure you would have seen 2 or 3 beeps seems to indicate a memory issue [though I can't see anything about 2-pause-1 beeps]. Do you have other memory to test? Is it parity memory and does that matter anyway? Is it one of those boards that can take 2 types of ram but only 1 type at a time?

Reply 8 of 14, by alexanrs

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devius wrote:

If you have a multimeter your best bet is trying to follow the traces out of the keyboard connector. In the continuity test mode check if each signal pin is indeed connecting to the destination pin. Although the traces are covered with a protective material, in most cases there will be some exposed pins along the way. Use these to find the trace (or traces) that is causing problems.

Will try, thanks

ratfink wrote:

Have you tried resetting the bios? Take the battery out, leave it for 20 minutes then put a new battery in. It won't fix broken traces 🤣 but corrupt bios settings can cause weird behaviour.

The board had no battery when I found it, and yes, I did try resetting when troubleshooting (remove battery, change jumper, wait a few minutes, put it back again)

ratfink wrote:

Also I know it passed the memory test but as I'm sure you would have seen 2 or 3 beeps seems to indicate a memory issue [though I can't see anything about 2-pause-1 beeps]. Do you have other memory to test? Is it parity memory and does that matter anyway? Is it one of those boards that can take 2 types of ram but only 1 type at a time?

I used both the processor and RAM (4xSIMMs) from a working system (PcChips M535, with a i430vx if I'm not mistaken). I have since put them back on the other system and they are working perfectly.

Reply 9 of 14, by cdoublejj

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alexanrs wrote:

There doesn't appear to be any issues with the connector's soldering. Is there any way to troubleshoot this?
Oh, and I forgot to mention. While booting the board issues two short beeps, pause, one short beep after the memory test (which succeeds). It is an AMI BIOS but I couldn't find what this means.

continuity test, not certain answer. pin could be "fatigued ". could be a bad cap too. or dirt somewhere it shouldn't be. have tried "draining" the power?

Reply 10 of 14, by meljor

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When troubleshooting, ALWAYS start with one stick of memory. Start with a board as clean as possible: no mouse, no serial brackets, no ide or floppy cables etc. Only powerswitch button, psu, cpu, one ramstick and videocard.

Try an old pci usb card, maybe an usb keyboard will work that way, try it without the other keyboard and mouse attached.

asus tx97-e, 233mmx, voodoo1, s3 virge ,sb16
asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
asus p3b-f, p3-700, voodoo3 3500TV agp, awe64
asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
asus a7n8x DL, barton cpu, 6800ultra, Voodoo3 pci, audigy1

Reply 11 of 14, by alexanrs

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meljor wrote:

When troubleshooting, ALWAYS start with one stick of memory. Start with a board as clean as possible: no mouse, no serial brackets, no ide or floppy cables etc. Only powerswitch button, psu, cpu, one ramstick and videocard.

And I did... ofc using pairs, since I was using SIMMs.

meljor wrote:

Try an old pci usb card, maybe an usb keyboard will work that way, try it without the other keyboard and mouse attached.

I was under the impression that PCI USB cards offered no legacy keyboard/mice emulation, therefore wouldn't work before loading the drivers. Are PCI USB cards able to do that? If so, should I be looking for any specific cards?

Reply 12 of 14, by meljor

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worked for me once on a k6 system with a via based usb card, don't know the exact type unfortunately

asus tx97-e, 233mmx, voodoo1, s3 virge ,sb16
asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
asus p3b-f, p3-700, voodoo3 3500TV agp, awe64
asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
asus a7n8x DL, barton cpu, 6800ultra, Voodoo3 pci, audigy1

Reply 13 of 14, by Robin4

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Skyscraper wrote:
Dont throw the board away. […]
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Dont throw the board away.

Its one the best PC chips socket 7 boards, it supports almost all socket 7 CPUs.
The USB and audio brackets are often missing so they are worth keeping in any case.

The keyboard connector is probably easy to fix.

I think i have this board complete here.. But the onboard graphics isnt very fast i can say. Its included with mouse port..

~ At least it can do black and white~

Reply 14 of 14, by alexanrs

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I decided to inspect the board today with a multimeter. Didn't find any broken traces so far, but there were a few bent legs on an IC that looked like they were shorting..... and I ended up breaking one =(
Not that I had high hopes, the board shows plenty signs of abuse. BTW the IC with a missing leg now appears to be the onboard cache. I'd guess it couldn't interfere with the keyboard in the first place, and I might try to start up the board regardless (maybe hunt for a replacement IC??), but alas, I'm on the hunt for another board now.