MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum - won't POST

[Quentin]

I'm hoping someone here has seen this problem. I've got an MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum that won't POST. It's out of the case on an antistatic pad with just an Opteron 144 CPU, PSU, video, keyboard, speaker and 1 stick of RAM. When I flip the PSU switch on the CPU, chipset and PSU fans immediately spin up (even before I short the board's case power switch pins). Shorting the power switch pins has no effect - no POST as expected, just the fans still spinning. No video display and the speaker never makes a sound. None of the four diagnostic LEDs light either.

I've tried different RAM, RAM slots, video (PCI and AGP) and PSU with no change. Cleared CMOS, even removed the battery for an hour. Don't have another CPU handy. Could this be a corrupt BIOS? Or something much worse...

Thanks for any ideas!

 

[Avg]

I have a different board with the same syntomps (sp?) and I couldn't figure out what the problem was, my best guess is that it is the bios because there is no physical damage on the board, the original owner said it stopped out of the blue after a normal shutdown, no random shutdowns, nothing that could help me find out for sure. If possible try to hot flash your bios if you can, in my case the bios chip was soldered onto the board so I couldn't even try that.

 

[Quentin]

Thanks, Avg! Yes, same here with this board, no obvious physical damage and the capacitors all look good, too. It's possible it got zapped somehow but I'm hoping it's just the BIOS.

I have tried another CPU now with no change. However it was an Opty 165 but I think a dual core should work. Even if it's an old BIOS that doesn't support DC I'd hope it would POST as a single core.

I'm thinking of doing a hot swap flash like you said since there's not much to lose. I should be able to do it in my AN7 as it also has a 4MB flashROM but need to doublecheck that they use the same type ROM. At least I could get the latest 1.D BIOS that I know supports dual core.

A shame your board wasn't socketed. No excuse for them to not kick in a few pennies for a socket when BIOS corruption is so common.

 

[Quentin]

I just tested my Opteron 144 in a Gigabyte K8NS and it POSTed fine. No problems, went into the CMOS setup poked around, looked at PC Health and its BIOS temp was 20C. Also tried my Antec SL400 and RAM and they worked in that system.

So the CPU is fine, guess it's time for the hot swap flash...

 

[Quentin]

Got the Neo2 working, it POSTs fine now with my Opteron 144! So figured I'd give an update in case this can help someone else.

I want to thank TMod for his thread over at http://www.biosmedic.com/forum/index.php that said the SST 49LF004B has replaced the 49LF004A and 49LF040. Though his BIOS compatibility chart says compatible chips must be in the same column in the chart and the 49LF004A is in another column, the 49LF040A is in the same column as the AN7's W39V040AP. So I figured the MSI's 49LF004B was compatible, and it is - the hot swap worked.

Figured I'd give the syntax for a small batch file I wrote (named go.bat):

@echo off
cls
ECHO Last chance! Are you sure you're ready to update your MSI K8N Neo2 BIOS!!!
ECHO Press Ctrl+C to abort - or
pause
AWFL833D.EXE W7025NMS.1D0 /py /sn /wb /f /e


I removed the AN7 ROM and put some dental floss in the socket then barely pushed back in the ROM and booted from a DOS floppy. Ran go.bat and it paused before the flash. I popped out the ROM and put in the MSI's ROM then hit Enter and the flash proceded normally. Powered off, put the AN7 ROM back in and the AN7 was fine.

Put the newly flashed ROM back in the MSI and same problem, fans spin up but no go. But this time when I shorted the power pins the fans stopped. Then I shorted them again and the fans started and I got a monitor signal - and a POST! So the problem was a corrupt BIOS and I now have a good 1.D BIOS flashed to the ROM.

It's alive!

 

[piotrr]

That's some ninja CPR. You rock!

 

[Quentin]

Thanks, I'm really glad it worked out! The Neo2 was $50 "as-is" on ebay so I figured it would have a problem. It was a bare board plus the USB/diagnostic D-Bracket2.

Right out of the box the two cables from the bracket were plugged into the USB and FireWire ports so that's why the four diagnostic LEDs didn't light up. After I got it running I discovered that problem and plugged the LED cable into the proper port and had LEDs. Sure would have been helpful if I'd read the manual.pdf a little better when I could have used those LEDs!

 

[Quentin]

Another update: I was given a dead K8N Neo2-F (same PCB as the Platinum but missing two chips so no firewire or second LAN port). Otherwise it's identical and uses the same ROM and same BIOS as the Platinum so I tried another hot swap in the AN7 after normal troubleshooting didn't help.

The Neo2-F came to life also and now runs great just like the Platinum!

So if normal troubleshooting doesn't pan out it's sure worth buying a new flashROM or trying a hot swap flash. Odds are good that will work.

One more update, after the hot swaps, the LAN port (and the firewire on the Platy) didn't work but another flash with the ROM back in the proper board and using the /nvlan and /nvguid switches with the IDs from the motherboard stickers fixed this problem.