Mobo Mistake

Garibaldi

Hi all,

I've got an MSI K7N2Delta-ILSR motherboard which required a BIOS flash the other day. I used the MSI Live Update utility to get the latest BIOS, and flashed succesfully using the WinFlash utility. I re-started, and up popped a message about FDD failure, since I haven't had one connected in a long time, this wasn't much of a surprise, so I re-connected the floppy, and re-started. After this, I got a message "CMOS checksum error - defaults loaded" on boot. The system would then immediately hang. I checked the D-bracket LEDs, and these seemed to indicate a floppy drive controller error. So, I thought I'd start from scratch and set the Clear CMOS jumper. This is where the mistake pops up. I powered-up again, forgetting to put the jumper back in the normal position. Since then, I just get the above error, and no response to any attempt to enter BIOS setup, with the machine just hanging. So, have I blown my BIOS chip or is there another explanation (I don't think it's the mobo battery - an apparently common cause of this error).
If anyone knows how to fix this, the Cosmos is just dying to apportion you some good karma.

Cheers,

G

8T8

Try MSI's bios boot recovery steps

http://www.msi.com.tw/html/support/bios/note/boot.htm

Garibaldi

Too late to make a boot disk, I'm afraid. The machine hangs well before a command prompt is available.

Gurgle

Em, why

Garibaldi wrote:

motherboard which required a BIOS flash the other day

would a motherboard require a BIOS flash?

Doesn't anyone understand the 'if it works, dont fix it' concept?

Powering up with the CMOS jumper in the wrong place makes no difference, it certainly wouldn't have blown your BIOS chip.

You've fallen victim to MSI's biggest problem - the inability to write software for windows.

It is of course fixable, just find someone with an identical (un-****ed-up) motherboard and copy their BIOS chip to yours.

8T8

You dont require a command prompt for that to work you put a bios on a floppy disk and turn on the machine while holding down certain keys and it forces a bios flash at power on.

timeout

First make sure you got the jumper back on correctly. Disconnect HDs, CDROMs and floppy from the board, They are not really required to boot to BIOS and it might give a different error message.Also try removing the battery and discharging the board by unplugging the power cable and pressing the power button for 5 seconds.Then reinsert the battery and power cable.

Gurgle

8T8 wrote:

You dont require a command prompt for that to work you put a bios on a floppy disk and turn on the machine while holding down certain keys and it forces a bios flash at power on.

Too late!
What do you think is checking for those keys?
The Bios.

Garibaldi

Gurgle wrote:

Doesn't anyone understand the 'if it works, dont fix it' concept?

And therein lies the rub. It wasn't working properly. Prior to flashing, it would boot to windows and allow me to carry on as normal but I was unable to get in to BIOS Setup. Hitting the 'Del' key actually seemed to cause it to deliberately skip Setup, and proceed with the boot.

I've tried reseating everything, popping the battery etc. The one thing I haven't yet tried is the complete board discharge, as suggested by Timeout. I'll give it a whirl, but I don't hold out much hope.

Thanks for all the suggestions, gents. I may just use this as an excuse to upgrade, though. Socket-A is *so* last season. :rolleyes: :v:

Gurgle

Garibaldi wrote:

I may just use this as an excuse to upgrade, though. Socket-A is *so* last season. :rolleyes: :v:

Oh, let me know if your selling the CPU, mine is socket A from the season before that.

Garibaldi

I was going to stick it on E-Bay, but you can have first crack at it. It's an Athlon XP 3000+. There's 768 Mb of DDR RAM (3 sticks of 256) up for grabs too, now that I've ordered my new mobo, Athlon 64 CPU and RAM.