NF7-S v1.2 bios 1.5 will not boot.

Having trawled through previous post I believe I may have the bios corruption problem!

When I turn on my PSU the red LED on the motherboard lights. When I turn on the PC the green LED lights, CPU fan, chipset fan case fans etc on come on. The HD LED lights for a while then goes out. During this process I get nothing to the monitor. There are not unusual beeps and the PC seems to just stay like that. Oh and its not just a display problem as when the HD ligh finally goes out the number lock key has not effect so its not just sitting there fine with no display.

I have tried the following:

holding down the Insert key while booting - (multiple times)
clearing the CMOS - (multiple times)

I have had boot problems a couple of times before and clearing the CMOS worked fine so I don't think I am doing anything wrong although I have not tried removing the ATX power connectors or removing the battery yet.

What would be the easiest way of proving/identifying the problem. I have access to a second completely identical system so I can replace components in order (swap bios chips?).

I also have access to a Tbird 850 100fsb - I have heard this can resolve boot problems in some cases!

I thought I would try the ram first (easiest), the graphics card then the Tbird 850 - a little nervous of the CMOS chip really don't want to break another mb.

Any other suggestions/pointers??? See below for my system details and how I got into this mess!

--- Please help ---

Thanks Shaun

My system.

Chieftec case (360watt chieftec psu)
NF7-S v1.2 bios 1.5
Single stick 512mb twinmos PC2700 cas 2 (Dimm 3)
Sapphire 9100 128mb
WD 80GB (SE)
XP1700+ (Tbred 'B') Jxxxx
Coolermaster HAC-V81
Sony DVD
Aopen CD/RW

What i was doing.

Nothing too dangerous - I was attempting to find the stable limit of the memory and CPU.

12x166 worked fine (vcore up 0.025)

Checking the ram/fsb ram - expert (6 2 2 2)

stable at 10 x 179
unstable at 10 x 180

dropped the multiplier (only trying to check fsb)

still unstable at 8 x 180

loosened timings (8 4 4 3)

stable all the way to 8 x 188
8 x 190 - would not boot re-set cmos - fine
7 x 189 - would not boot re-set cmos - fine

loosened timings (15 7 7 3)

7 x 189 - would not boot re-set cmos NOT fine - re-set cmos etc etc !!!!

Been doing some more reading.

If I plug in the bios chip from the other mb and it boots is the idea to then (while the pc is running dos prompt) pull the good bios replace with the bad and flash it!?

Is this safe!?

I really don't want 2 bust boards!

Thanks again

Shaun

what is the other board?

As long as you have a proper Bios Extraction tool, you should be okay, but be advised several people have done this without success, even after flashing the dead bios.

Jeff7477,

Idential NF7-S (v1.2) bios 1.5.

Actraiser,

Oh great, at least if I swap the BIOS and it works I will know 100% that its the BIOS chip.

All,

Does anyone think it could be anything else?

Thanks everyone

Shaun