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Does red LED = dead?

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v8440

Member
Joined
Sep 5, 2001
Hi all,

I have an AN35 ultra board. Today, I went to put a modem in the machine. The computer was turned off (obviously). As soon as I plugged the modem into the pci slot, a red LED on the board just below the AGP slot lit up. The machine would not turn on. Removing the modem and disconnecting the power did not help-the machine still won't turn on at all. The motherboard instruction manual says that the LED is to warn when a 3.3v AGP card is plugged in, as the board only supports 1.5v cards. It says that it will flash in that event. In this case, it does not flash. It stays lit whenever AC power is applied. Attempting to turn the machine on does nothing-no fans turn or anything. However, all the time AC is supplied, the red led, a green led up near the atx connector, and the led's on the network port all light up.

Since I wasn't messing with the video card (and didn't bump it), I think the board is probably screwed. I dunno for sure, but it's funny that the red LED would light before I even attempted to turn the machine on. Any ideas?
 
I have two lights on my sl75drv2 board, one indicates board power I think and one indicates that there is power to the DIMMS.

There are no such thing as "dead board lights" which come on when the board is damaged.

Try removing the modem and observe your results. If they are the same, keep the modem removed and reset your cmos by the jumper and try to boot up again. I highly doubt your board is damaged.

The card was fully installed when you gave it power correct? It's not real great to put power to a partially installed PCI card or DIMM, bad things can result. You should also have all power to the board disconnected before you finger around in there. ;)

That said, I've done the same thing probably a 100 times so I doubt you have a real problem... It's probably just being fussy. :)
 
Go back and reread my original post. I'm not asking if there's a universal LED that indicates a dead board, I'm asking if the AGP led staying on constantly (which is not described as possible behavior in the MB manual) means something is fried.

As I said in the first post, removing the modem did not help. As I failed to mention in the first post, resetting the bios also did not help.

When doing all of this, I had turned the machine off, but not turned off the AC switch on the back of the power supply.

*update* Removing the agp card and installing a pci videocard resulted in a successful post. Reinstalling the agp card at any time (with the machine turned off, of course) results in the red light of death and no attempt at post. The really sucky thing is, the agp card that was in there is a 9800 Pro 256.


IMOG said:
I have two lights on my sl75drv2 board, one indicates board power I think and one indicates that there is power to the DIMMS.

There are no such thing as "dead board lights" which come on when the board is damaged.

Try removing the modem and observe your results. If they are the same, keep the modem removed and reset your cmos by the jumper and try to boot up again. I highly doubt your board is damaged.

The card was fully installed when you gave it power correct? It's not real great to put power to a partially installed PCI card or DIMM, bad things can result. You should also have all power to the board disconnected before you finger around in there. ;)

That said, I've done the same thing probably a 100 times so I doubt you have a real problem... It's probably just being fussy. :)
 
I know what you are asking... I got the red LED of death when I tried putting in a 3v old POS S3 video card...

The part where you mentioned that you didn't unplug the mains power, or turn the PSU off makes me wonder if some card frying has happened... but if I am installing a PCI card, I don't always unplug the power cord either...

Did you ground yourself when you installed card and/or wear an anti-static band? You may have had some static discharge, which can fry circuit boards unfortunately...

My suggestion would be to de-build your PC down to the bare minimum of CPU and RAM, and unplug the ATX power connectors from the mobo... then reinstall the graphics card, and then reinsert the ATX connectors... don't hook up any HDDs or any other devices yet, then plug the mains power back in, and turn your PSU on... if the red LED comes on, I would assume it's a problem with that 9800 Pro... if you can, grab another AGP card and test that out...

Also were you doing any overclocking, or voltage adjustments before this occurred?
 
Another update: The 9800 pro works fine in other machines. But, the red light of death glows when it's put in my machine. A pci videocard works fine. So, I'm assuming that the agp bus is toasted somehow.
 
I would assume the AGP port has a problem if the card works fine in other computers... something to do with the voltage regulator to the port perhaps...

You may have to RMA the board, but I would check it with another AGP card first...
 
Have u tried bumping up the voltage for the AGP slot. I don't know if it will help, but worth trying. Also, can u flash the bios in the video card in another machine, worth trying.
 
There is no reason to flash his card bios in another machine if the card already works in another machine like he said.

People recommend flashing bios's way too often... It isn't a miracle cure. And even if it doesn't go wrong and give you bigger problems, when it goes right you can end up with conflicts that you didn't have previously.
 
Well I don't recommend flashing unless there is a problem or a possible way to correct things with other ways. In my book, this would qualify to atleast try it unless u feel u will mess up something. I had to flash my bios once to correct what the manufacturer called an "on/off " issue for my card. I admit it would be a long shot, but if somethings damaged u need to try to update it or u will spend a lot of money on someting that's not broken.
 
It is wise to unplug the power when messing with anything. I tried installing ram in a computer whose power was off but plugged in. Lights on the board came on and fans spun. I fried the ram stick and the dimm slot. Just because the power is off doesn't mean that no power is going through your board.
 
I'm having the same problem with the refurb 9800pro I just got from newegg. Solid red agp LED and no post when the 9800 is in it. It posts fine with my old 4600. Maybe bad 9800 or some sort of conflict?

I tried a cmos reset to no avail.
 
afaik the red led on shuttle boards means you don't have the extra power plugged in to your graphics card...
 
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