Time for a BIOS chip?

This would be funny if not so tragic. My rig as stated in my sig is alomst dead.
I had just adjusted my FSB to 135mhz and was watching PCAlert. It start to sound and alarm like a British police car. Alternating mid and low tones. The CPU temp was only about 50c. Then I noticed one of the voltages was low. Next thing I know the voltage goes to 10.xx (It's a +12 line).
I rebooted to set the BIOS back to defaults (thinking that was the cause). I had just loaded defaluts and before I could save and exit the PC shut down. So, I think the BIOS is stuck in limbo.

Then I noticed smell of burning nylon before I pulled the plug.

The burning smell was from the main power connector. One pin on the corner had melted the nylon housing. I suspect the connection was loose and overheated.

What I've done so far:
Replaced the power connector on the main board. (no sign of damaged traces)
Replaced the PSU.
Left the battery out for 3 days.
Performed the BIOS Clear routine (with battery in).
Stripped it down to AGP, HD, RAM, CPU fan.

What it does:
Press power button - HD, CPU fan, PSU fans spin up.
Power LED lights.
No video.
No beeps.
No HD light unless I also hook up the CD/DVD data cable. Then I get the HD light until the others go out.

Powers off when I hold the power button for 4 seconds.
Nothing gets warm, but then I'm afraid to leave it on for more than a minute.

I think that's it. I'm realy scared I have a cooked mobo and it's only a week old.

Help me if you can...

I am really sorry to tell you this, but it looks like you had a faulty PSU and it cooked your mobo

Let's hope that is NOT the case.

Some possibilities are that it could have blown a cap or a mosfet or something, go ahead and check those and see if there is anything abnormal with them. Usually when the 12 drops though, it just gives you less stability becuase it does NOT have ENOUGH power, so hopefully it is something else.

Wait a sec. I think I got it!!! You were in the BIOS when this happened right? I hear that when the comp suddenly turns off while you are in the bios you can and most likely will lose your BIOS. So possibly all that you need is just a new BIOS chip!

Anyways, whatever it is, good luck to you and I hope it is not anything seriouse.

-0Cer

Ok I got one suggestion on how to help narrow finding the root of your problem. I would see if one of your friends would let you test your parts 1 by 1 in his comp, proccessor and all. Especially if you dont get any video I would check it in another rig to make sure its not the problem. Hope my suggestions help and you can get your rig up soon, I recently lost alot of hardware and having my main rig down stuck.

Ouch... It sounds to me like your mobo died Melting power connectors are NEVER a good sign, since it had to have a LOT of power running through it to melt it.... And that power probably went straight into your mobo.

If you want a last ditch attempt, try booting without ANYTHING (video card, memory, CPU, etc) and see if it beeps. If it dosen't work, try just having the CPU in. If neither works, your board's probably fried IMO

JigPu

If there was that much power running through it, there must have been so much that the mobo read 10, but it could have been ALOT more than 10, like so much it was throwing the mobo off in its reading. If that did happen, just pray that it was only the mobo and nothing else. Sorry this happened Let's hope for the best.

-0cer

I think this is the best forum I've ever used, and that is directly related to the members.

Anyway, I'm very limited as to testing. I don't have any contacts with similar PC's.

I may buy a new mobo, at least it will come with a new BIOS. If I just buy a BIOS replacement I may still have to buy a new mobo too.

I pulled everything out. I only have the mobo, CPU+fan, front panel connections. Same behaviour.

Two things to ponder:
1. I don't think excesive power went through the mobo. I think the connection on that pin was not solid. If it was just touching then the normal current would be enough to heat the pin. After all it's only the pin that burned. No wires, no mobo traces are discolored.

2. I was in BIOS making changes when it turned off, never to return. Additionally, the power button responds to the 4 second hold feature. That is a BIOS setting.

Hook up a floppy drive, insert a floppy and see if it tries to access the floppy.

If it does try to access the floppy you may be able to revive your MOBO (provided that it is your BIOS causing the problem), read this BIOS recovery guide.

I also suggest you download the DrDOS (Caldera DOS) boot disk from Bootdisk.com instead of making your own boot disk.

**EDIT** BTW: Welcome to the forums.

tsk some people don't know how to welcome someone properly so.....



WELCOME TO THE FORUMS

another link to try:

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/service/faq/faq/esc_faq_answer.php?Q_LIST=11&General=all&NA=2

Norris said:

I think this is the best forum I've ever used, and that is directly related to the members.

Anyway, I'm very limited as to testing. I don't have any contacts with similar PC's.

I may buy a new mobo, at least it will come with a new BIOS. If I just buy a BIOS replacement I may still have to buy a new mobo too.

I pulled everything out. I only have the mobo, CPU+fan, front panel connections. Same behaviour.

Two things to ponder:
1. I don't think excesive power went through the mobo. I think the connection on that pin was not solid. If it was just touching then the normal current would be enough to heat the pin. After all it's only the pin that burned. No wires, no mobo traces are discolored.

2. I was in BIOS making changes when it turned off, never to return. Additionally, the power button responds to the 4 second hold feature. That is a BIOS setting.

Click to expand...

Well, if the power button responds to the 4 second hold feature, maybe it is just that part of your BIOS got zapped from when it shut off while you were in it. I read somewhere on here about someone who was at a lan party and they shut off the power strip while he was in the BIOS and he needs a new BIOS. I have heard many other storys about similar things happening as well. But if your mobo was totally gone, either you would not be able to get it to power up, or once you did, that 4 second thing would not work.

dead mobo

look for Tmod on these forums he has bios chips for all mobos for $15 and will even reprogram your old one for free heres his thread
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=254483
15 dollars is better then buying a new mobo

I just read a thing on how to reflash your BIOS chip your self. Well technically it is performing a "hot flash." Hold on just a sec. lemme go get that link.

EDIT: http://www.geeksonline.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=734

I'd say dead motherboard too since I know quite a few people with dead MSI boards now. The only thing I could think of is pressing insert key while booting. It works on abit award bios board to clear the bios but since you already took out the battery I dout that would work.

I have fried a bios chip on my KT4-Ultra. I over clocked the mobo up to around 2.7Ghz with no drives only vga, ram, and a barton 2500+... The cooling was a maze3 water block with a 5 gallon bucket filled with kold water and 10 pounds of dry ice. The mother board froze over and chilled the memory. After about 20 minutes I recieved alien symbols in the bios and then it krashed. After it thawed out It worked fine. But Ive fried the bios after this when it would not post in windows, it failed to detect the IDE channels. The bios was not able to be flashed from a floppy or RAM drive,... rma the board and pray for a replacement. Oh yah get a board with locked pci and agp slots.

sounds like you need a new bios chip. check www.excaliberpc.com 2 see if they have one for you.
good luck

never mind i just looked and i didnt see anything for MSI just abit bios survival kits. if you know someone with the same mobo you could to a "hot swap" with the bios chip and then do a bios update to bring that chip back. if thats even the problem

Ifyou think the bios is your problem and don't have another motherboard to hotflash, you should take a look at badflash.com. It is kind of expensive, so I'd use it only as a last resort and only if I was certain that a bad bios was my problem.

Thank all of you for the help! What a great family this is.
My Computer is running!!

Replacing the power connector on the main board, new 600w PSU and a new BIOS did the trick. While I was at it I lapped the heat sinks (CPU and another on the board). I used Arctic Silver 5 (the real thing).

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