Dead battery? Some boards behave weirdly when it dies.

It is actually a new battery. Was installed only a few months back.

Reset it. See what happens. It's asking for a system disk. Ie it can't find an os.

I tried resetting the CMOS. Moved the cmos jumper from 1-2 to 2-3 position. Also removed the CMOS battery for a while. However it did not help.

BIOS corruption. Not sure what caused it (could be just an old eeprom) but the Bios Checksum error says some thing in BIOS code got scrambled.

Try using another good known CMOS battery and see what happens.

If you have a chip programmer, use that to reflash the BIOS. If not, try the bootblock recovery. If that doesn't work, you're left with hot flashing the chip, or buying a chip programmer, or having someone flash one for you...

Horun wrote on 2024-12-28, 18:20:

BIOS corruption. Not sure what caused it (could be just an old eeprom) but the Bios Checksum error says some thing in BIOS code got scrambled.

Looks like a bit rot. Easy-peasy taking to account the photos and if you have a programmer (tl866 or something close will do the job) at hand. The winbond is in a socket, just remove it and re-flash it with a programmer. If you can't find the bin file from the MB manufacturer web site, look for it in https://theretroweb.com/. Worst case, you need to source a new EEPROM if this one is really a goner, but I doubt it.

In case you don't have a programmer at hand, hope you have a spare 3,5" FDD and a decent 1.44MB FD, formatted with DOS sys files (or FreeDOS). Floppy emu (gotek) will also do the job. This fancy Award bios will let you boot from a floppy drive and let you re-flash the BIOS. You will still need the bin file and executable to do the bios flashing. May be an extra parameter to the execution will be necessary to skip the comparability check since the current BIOS is mangled. In general is doable.

Will try using one of the above methods. Meanwhile I am also curious to understand if a failed BIOS could cause the onboard video output to blank out during a post? As explained earlier, the video output was only through the pci card and didn't work with the onboard vga port which is strange.

stealthjoe wrote on 2024-12-28, 23:30:

Will try using one of the above methods. Meanwhile I am also curious to understand if a failed BIOS could cause the onboard video output to blank out during a post? As explained earlier, the video output was only through the pci card and didn't work with the onboard vga port which is strange.

Not surprising when you only have the bootblock - some of them will only have a display if you use an ISA video card.

Horun wrote on 2024-12-28, 18:20:

BIOS corruption. Not sure what caused it (could be just an old eeprom) but the Bios Checksum error says some thing in BIOS code got scrambled.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-12-28, 22:02:

If you have a chip programmer, use that to reflash the BIOS. If not, try the bootblock recovery. If that doesn't work, you're left with hot flashing the chip, or buying a chip programmer, or having someone flash one for you...

Horun and Repo Man11 are quite right here...I got this "BIOS checksome error" message many times in the past and also guess it's some kind of bit rot - at least something which destroyed a part of the BIOS in some way - OR a partly defective EEPROM/Flash and the only thing you can do is reflashing the BIOS OR replacing the chip which houses the BIOS (the EEPROM/Flash) itself.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-12-28, 23:51:

stealthjoe wrote on 2024-12-28, 23:30:

Will try using one of the above methods. Meanwhile I am also curious to understand if a failed BIOS could cause the onboard video output to blank out during a post? As explained earlier, the video output was only through the pci card and didn't work with the onboard vga port which is strange.

Not surprising when you only have the bootblock - some of them will only have a display if you use an ISA video card.

My guess is that the part which initializes the onboard VGA (the onboard VGA's BIOS is integrated into the motherboard's BIOS) got damaged. If the main BIOS would be f***ed up then the board wouldn't be able to show a screen with the PCI card!? Or did that change after Award BIOS 4.51 and AMI BIOS 6.xx/7.xx?

Sooo long story short, just get a fresh flash of the motherboard's BIOS to the old chip (if OK) or another chip.

kind regards
soggi

Update:
I followed the steps mentioned in the above posts. Tested it on another PC and it indeed booted from the floppy. I also created a Gotek image using the required files and that worked in a VM as well (booted from the image and the AWD Flash tool ran). Now for the real deal. I connected the Gotek device to the board and switched on. It prompted "Detecting Floppy Drive A media" and poof........stalled. Then I used the floppy drive and disk from my main retro PC, created the files and tried booting, but the same result. I also tried different variants of the AWD flash tool, but no go. It doesn't proceed beyond "Detecting Floppy Drive A media". Not even an error message.

Now I am thinking that the floppy controller (if any) on the board has also been nuked. Looks like there may be more issues than expected.

stealthjoe wrote on 2024-12-29, 15:57:

Update:
I followed the steps mentioned in the above posts. Tested it on another PC and it indeed booted from the floppy. I also created a Gotek image using the required files and that worked in a VM as well (booted from the image and the AWD Flash tool ran). Now for the real deal. I connected the Gotek device to the board and switched on. It prompted "Detecting Floppy Drive A media" and poof........stalled. Then I used the floppy drive and disk from my main retro PC, created the files and tried booting, but the same result. I also tried different variants of the AWD flash tool, but no go. It doesn't proceed beyond "Detecting Floppy Drive A media". Not even an error message.

Now I am thinking that the floppy controller (if any) on the board has also been nuked. Looks like there may be more issues than expected.

I doubt that. I've tried bootblock recovery a number of times, and it has only worked maybe once or twice for me. Because it can work, I always recommend it as a first step for those who don't have easy access to a chip programmer. Odds are excellent that everything will work fine once you reflash or replace your BIOS chip.

Here's a good video that shows what the bootblock is, how problematic the recovery process can be, and how to do a reflash by hot swapping the chip on a working motherboard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45UQ8Y8rl4s

soggi wrote on 2024-12-29, 00:56:

Horun and Repo Man11 are quite right here...I got this "BIOS checksome error" message many times in the past and also guess it's […]
Show full quote

Horun wrote on 2024-12-28, 18:20:

BIOS corruption. Not sure what caused it (could be just an old eeprom) but the Bios Checksum error says some thing in BIOS code got scrambled.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-12-28, 22:02:

If you have a chip programmer, use that to reflash the BIOS. If not, try the bootblock recovery. If that doesn't work, you're left with hot flashing the chip, or buying a chip programmer, or having someone flash one for you...

Horun and Repo Man11 are quite right here...I got this "BIOS checksome error" message many times in the past and also guess it's some kind of bit rot - at least something which destroyed a part of the BIOS in some way - OR a partly defective EEPROM/Flash and the only thing you can do is reflashing the BIOS OR replacing the chip which houses the BIOS (the EEPROM/Flash) itself.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-12-28, 23:51:

stealthjoe wrote on 2024-12-28, 23:30:

Will try using one of the above methods. Meanwhile I am also curious to understand if a failed BIOS could cause the onboard video output to blank out during a post? As explained earlier, the video output was only through the pci card and didn't work with the onboard vga port which is strange.

Not surprising when you only have the bootblock - some of them will only have a display if you use an ISA video card.

My guess is that the part which initializes the onboard VGA (the onboard VGA's BIOS is integrated into the motherboard's BIOS) got damaged. If the main BIOS would be f***ed up then the board wouldn't be able to show a screen with the PCI card!? Or did that change after Award BIOS 4.51 and AMI BIOS 6.xx/7.xx?

Sooo long story short, just get a fresh flash of the motherboard's BIOS to the old chip (if OK) or another chip.

kind regards
soggi

Now you have me wondering. My assumption was that if it POSTs to the screen that says "Boot block BIOS" then it only has the boot block to work with, and if you are seeing a display then the boot block supports whatever video card is installed. But that assumption could be false; the only way I can think of to be sure you're booting into the boot block rather than a corrupted BIOS that makes it appear that you're booting to the boot block would be to short a pair of pins on the BIOS chip as Bits und Bolts does @ 8:25 in this video. https://youtu.be/45UQ8Y8rl4s?t=503

I remember nuking my KT7A's BIOS back in 2002 and all the boot block did for me was offer false hope. The again, with my state of knowledge back then it's quite possible that I didn't have the autoexec edited correctly. The good news was that when I contracted Abit to buy a replacement BIOS chip, they sent me one for free!

stealthjoe:

If you have the possibility to flash the BIOS with a programmer or via hotflash then DO IT, don't fiddle around with this floppy recovery stuff. If you can avoid diskettes when it comes to flashing the BIOS (or other critical stuff) then AVOID them! When hotflashing the BIOS on another board then don't use AWDFLASH, use UniFlash instead - if this tool doesn't flash the BIOS, the chip isn't compatible with the donor board. If you want to try other ways (f.e. flashing via NIC or some other PCI card) then you have to try flashrom, but this is much more complex. Latest AWDFLASH and UniFlash are available from my website's tools section (-> https://soggi.org/motherboards/bios-update-fl … h-utilities.htm), flashrom's website is https://www.flashrom.org/.

Repo Man11:

Sorry, can't watch YT on this machine...it would explode. 🤣

It's a bit hard for me to understand what you're meaning. I just know this "ISA graphics card shows screen when it wants to recover the bootblock" thing, never heard this works with PCI cards...but maybe this has been changed after Award BIOS 4.51 and AMI BIOS 6.xx/7.xx!? I only recovered a BIOS this way one time and this has been an AMI 6.xx BIOS which was very easy to recover with the floppy method.

But if there's any other choice I wouldn't fiddle around with floppies...

kind regards
soggi

@Repo Man11 - Thanks for the video. Here in the video, it looks like creator was able to get into the floppy with ease. This is the stumbling block for me as of now as the floppy drive light is constantly lit up with no progress once in the Bootblock page. I even used the ribbon cable from my other PC which worked perfectly there. If I use the cable in the opposite way, I get the "INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" error.

@soggi - Thanks for the utilities. Will check them. Unfortunately, I don't have an EEPROM programmer nor a similar donor board to hotflash. The only other way I can think of is to contact a computer repair shop which deals with BIOS services. But since this being an old board, skeptical whether it could be feasible.

An eeprom programmer is one of the most valuable tools anyone doing vintage can have and pays for itself with just one use. With it you could check your prom and see if it is still good, and if is can flash it.
One note about making a bootblock flash recovery disk: Never test it on a working computer because if you did it proper it will/could write to it's eeprom messing it up. The proper command line structure for a boot black flash forces a bios write....

Yeah...like Horun said, a programmer is very valuable - especially if you don't have another board to hotflash (for that it mostly only needs support for the same type of EEPROM/Flash, the rest doesn't matter normally). Because I own a wide range of boards, I don't have a programmer until now...but have to buy some one in the future, it's easier to handle and there's lower risk.

stealthjoe:

Depending of were you are situated you can also ask VOGONS' users to do that for you for a couple of bucks.

kind regards
soggi