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Thread: Trying to figure a motherboard

  1. #1
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
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    3

    Question Trying to figure a motherboard

    I am new to this forum but from what I have read this is the place to be. I am at work right now and do not have the motherboard in front of me but I tried to commit to memory as much as possible.

    It has:
    1. 4 x PCI slots
    2. 1 x AGP slot
    3. 2 x DIMM slots
    4. 2 x DDR slots
    5. built in sound
    6. built in LAN
    7. 2 x USB ports
    8. built in game port
    9. 2 x serial ports
    10. 1 x parralle port
    11. 1 x modem slot
    12. has a 423 pin socket set with an adapter for P4 processors

    The mother board is bright red. the IDE 2 and the DDR slots are also red. There is no P4 power slot. It has a bright orange 1.5 inch by 1.5 inch chip near the processor slot that has PC400 on the top. On the game port there is a sticker that says "EA=0007951B23A". There is also an unusual part that I have never seen on a motherboard before. Along the side opposite from the ports near the memory slots that is a, for my best discription, long set of perment jumpers. This part is about 7 inches long and at first look looks like a bunch of jumpers lined up close together, but looking closer they are not movable.

    I know the guy that gave me the motherboard had a P4 2.4 ghz processor in it. I am now using a IntelĀ® PentiumĀ® 4 Processor Northwood 2.4GHz, 400MHz FSB, Socket 478.

    I can not get to a bootup screen. I am using a 450 w power supply and a GF fx 5200 128 mb video card. I am also using pc2100 ddr 256 ram. The processor fan is plugged into the motherboard. When I power on the harddrives rev up, all fans come on save the video card ( I don't know if it comes on on bootup or just whne over heated), and I hear what sounds like the hardrive cycling through a load up for about 10 - 15 seconds. Then things go constant. Keyboard lights work (num lock, etc) Although I can not power down unless I flip the primary power switch on the power supply. Pressing the power button does nothing.

    I think that's all the info I have. I figured that the bios needed to be reset to get the graphics working again but Without knowing the motherboard I can't get the manual to tell me which jumpers to set to reset the bios.

    Let me know if I have left anything out. Thanks for the help.

  2. #2
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Jul 2003
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    United Kingdom: Bridlington
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    17,188
    Hi,

    1. Do you know the make of motherboard?
    2. Check all your connections...........the power button not working is suspicious......is everything connected to the right place............try holding the switch for about 15 seconds.....some recent boards have a built in delay, which they don't mention.........it is to protect you from small children and hyperactive pets I have also seen them where you have to hit the power then the reboot buttons.............same idea I think?
    3. The fan should be working on your videocard when you boot up.....they are not automobiles!............check the connections
    4. Try another videocard, any 8Mb or better AGP will do..............even a PCI card whilst we are troubleshooting.....I am afraid you may have already fried your video card........I nearly did that myself when the fan got disconnected on a Radeon 9700 ($$$$$!)

    Let me know how you get on.

    Cheers

  3. #3
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Posts
    1,210
    a few things..

    Is it that you see absolutely nothing on the monitor ? do you hear beeps, have the small speaker plugged in ? I'd strip it to just PSU, CPU, memory and do as nihil suggested.. put in another video card.. no floppy/HDD/cables or other cards should be present.

    if you can see the screen at first boot.. hit your pause/break key and copy down the bios string that should be at the bottom of the screen.

    it'll look something like this ..
    62-0413-00999-00101111-071595-000000-M748MR-H

    with that info and other identifing stickers you see (sometimes slikscreened on the mobo) we should be able to identify the motherboard.. as to finding the reset jumper for the bios... most likely you'll find a three pin header near the bios battery.. just unplug the AC cable from the power supply (or shut off switch on PSU) then move the jumper from pins 2-3 to 1-2, then back.. (it might be that your moving from 1-2 to 2-3 depending on mobo type)

  4. #4
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Posts
    143
    socrates777 -
    As noted by sumdumguy above, look on the motherboard itself for the manufacturer, model and revision numbers. They are sometimes printed along the edges of the board - many times in white lettering. DO check your connections as suggested by nihil and you might try reseating your graphics card as well as your RAM. I've saved myself a lot of time by reseating RAM or a graphics card . . . before stripping a system down to the bare minimum to try and determine the problem area. The problem you describe is one I've become all too familiar with (no monitor display and non-responsive power supply) and 9 times out of 10 was linked to a memory module that had gone bad or which was not securely seated. I'm sure you know this already but, remember to turn off and unplug your power supply before opening up the case . . . otherwise a bad graphics card or RAM stick will be the least of your problems.

    V.
    All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

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