• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Mini-ITX Socket P

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.
Dooms101

Dooms101

Member
​
Joined
Dec 28, 2009
Location
under a heatsink
Here's a board you probably don't see here too often. It's a Commell LV-673 mini-itx socket P board. I bought it as-is in the classifieds for barely anything and I am trying to get this sucker to post. It came with some Kingston half-height Value Ram DDR2 and a Pentium M 750 (1.86/2M/533). I can give the board power and make it turn on, but I cannot get it to post.

When I got the board the CPU fan (some 40mm Foxconn chipset fan on a super slim heatsink) was choking up, so I blew out the dust, took it apart, cleaned it, and lubed it. Now the fan is great but it made me think the CPU might be the problem. So I removed the HSF and what do you know. It was probably the s**ttiest TIM application I've seen, and the top of the CPU die was discolored looking. I cleaned up both surfaces and the chip looks fine now, threw on some AS5 and the board still wont POST. Not even an error code beep. I email the TS at Commell but I doubt they'll say anything useful.

Anyone have any ideas? I am thinking either the CPU is bad or their might be something with the board...
 
Do you know if this board/CPU combo worked in the past? Because IIRC the PM 750 isn't a socket P CPU. I think it's socket M or even older.

Edit: A little digging around tells me the Pentium M 750 Dothan is socket 479.
 
Last edited:
I am really not 100% sure... The board basically looks brand new, there's not the tell-tale sign of even a speck of dust anywhere on it so I doubt it was ran for very long, if at all. The board says it supports Celeron M and Pentium M socket P chips (excluding the Celeron M 4xx chips which are socket M and I just happen to have a working Celeron M 430...)

The chip that came with it is:
Code: 
RH80536 750
7542B429 SL7S9
Which according to Intel is a socket P chip... do you think it might be incompatible?
 
Well Commell has a few tech documents for this board on their site, and one of them is a "test report". In this they tested 2 different CPU's for compatibility and they only had the Pentium M 730 and 760 tested. I have a 750... it's very possible they didn't add support for my chip. Good thing a 730 is about $4 on eBay :D
 
The PM 750 should work in that board if the 730 & 760 work. That's not socket P though - same FC-PGA478 layout, but socket P supports a newer generation of CPUs.

Can you get a RAM Bad or Missing beep code by trying to boot without anything installed? It the board out of a case with no drives installed?
 
Okay, well I just read up on all the mess of Intel mobile sockets... So, I am not really sure what socket I am looking for but if this 750 appears incompatible than a 730 is only $4. I had a socket P, a socket M, and a socket 478 CPU all sitting next to the 750 and they're all really similar. I am gonna try and boot with nothing in it and see if I get an error beep.

Edit: It's out of its case and on a box, I used a multi-tester on the PSU I am using and it checks out. I tried booting with no CPU or RAM and with no CPU but still not a beep. Would this behavior be a result of a bad BIOS chip and/or corrupt BIOS? It looks like the BIOS chip has been tampered with a bit.
 
Last edited:
It does have an on board speaker and I've also plugged in a working one. The tech support emailed me back this morning and gave me some instructions on sending back information, so hopefully I can get somewhere with that. I'll report how it goes later on.
 
Trottel said:
That is not a socket P motherboard. Not even socket M.
Click to expand...
Yeah I finally figured that out lol. Before I didn't know any of Intel's mobile sockets besides socket M. I thought it was socket P but this board obviously doesn't support the Core series. It's a mFCPGA479M. I really hate Intel's way of introducing new sockets all the time, it makes it really annoying to upgrade chips.
 
Pull the battery out for 15 minutes to clear the CMOS. Then test the mobo with CPU & heatsink installed, but with no memory. Is there a P4 CPU power connection on the board? Power connected to it?
 
I've tried clearing the CMOS already (although I'll doing it for 15min as my method might not have been right). The power options are either a 12v P4 or a 12v mini-DIN connection, I am using a P4 connection off an ATX PSU. Of course I had to jumper the PSU to power on because the board doesn't use the 24pin connector. I verified the voltage with a multi-tester.
 
Dooms101 said:
Yeah I finally figured that out lol. Before I didn't know any of Intel's mobile sockets besides socket M. I thought it was socket P but this board obviously doesn't support the Core series. It's a mFCPGA479M. I really hate Intel's way of introducing new sockets all the time, it makes it really annoying to upgrade chips.
Click to expand...

Well, that is annoying. Also there is a real problem with those mobile sockets, since Intel refers to several as socket 479. The one you have is from 2003-january '06.
 
Well I got word back from tech support at Commell and after exchanging quite a bit of info, he told me he thinks my board is just 'bad'. So... that's a major bummer. I can't really spend anymore money on this thing... so any ideas of what to do?

If anyone wants it, just send me a PM and you can have it free + shipping (flat rate 2-day is $10.30 btw)

I am really bummed about it, but that's what you get for buying as-is I guess.
 
Yeah I really wish I knew what was wrong with it. I've never had a motherboard just all-out quit on me. It seems more likely that a cap has blown, or there's bad parts in it... but I think I've eliminated those. I am pretty sure it's a bad BIOS chip and I could get a new one with the latest BIOS version for ~$27 at biosman.com, but I have other things do to. So like I said, it's free for the taking!
 
WAIT!!! We finally have progress here! I have no idea why... but I never checked the stupid CMOS battery. I suddenly remembered to after staring at the board looking for signs of defects. The 3v battery was barely putting out 0.9v using a multi tester. So I dropped in a new one and it seems like the board is staying 'alive' now instead of dying out after only a few seconds. :thup:

Maybe a new CPU and/or RAM is all it needs! Hopefully.
 
It doesn't POST or make any beeps, but at least the connected drive stays on (tells me it's hung on POST). Another good sign is that the drive takes about a second longer to turn on immediately after turning the board on when memory is in. I figure the POST process checks RAM before a DVD drive, so seeing that it takes longer for the drive to turn on when memory is in compared to no memory tells me the POST process is checking RAM :D

I'll get a 730 soon and hopefully see if it'll post. Also... the RAM's sticker almost looks melted over one of the IC's... maybe it's bad too? I'll have some DDR2 systems laying around soon so I'll test it in one of those.
 
Go bare bones with just the mobo, PSU 20 pin, P4 4 pin connector, 4 pin molex (I think that's for your PCI-e 16x), CPU with heatsink & fan connected to the CPU fan header, speaker, and 1 stick of known good DDR2 RAM.

Also connect a PS/2 keyboard & mouse, and monitor to the onboard video. Don't connect anything else - you're only trying to POST & get into BIOS.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Y
Looking for some cpu/MB upgrade suggestions
Replies
17
Views
523
yurit1337
Y
T
Need a mITX 1151(300) motherboard. Suggestions?
Replies
2
Views
461
tRidiot
T
R1S8K
Trying to fit a mini itx motherboard on Dell Optiplex 7010 case
Replies
8
Views
1K
R1S8K
R1S8K
Voodoo Rufus
Z97 Asus Maximus Impact VII overclocking
Replies
12
Views
873
Voodoo Rufus
Voodoo Rufus
G
Jonsbo A4 mini ITX case ARGB cables need to shortened but what is best way?
Replies
11
Views
1K
Woomack
W
Back