HELP - Socket A XP3200 upgrade problem

yan · 31 Mar 2006 at 10:27

Help ###

No didnt discharge the psu and havent done so before...

Can that normally be a problem and how do you do it? So you think this might have damaged the mb and/or both cpu's?

kitfit1 · 31 Mar 2006 at 11:30

yan said:
No didnt discharge the psu and havent done so before...

Can that normally be a problem and how do you do it? So you think this might have damaged the mb and/or both cpu's?

To discharge the psu, pull the power plug and turn the comp back on. The fans will spin for a second or so, that way the capacitors in the psu and on the mobo will discharge anything left in them. I doubt it has done any damage but it may well have corrupted your bios, thats why i suggested hotflashing if you can. If you can't hotflash, head over to DFI STREET and pm TMOD he can supply a preflashed bios for a small fee.

yan · 31 Mar 2006 at 12:47

ok, whats DFI street...?

yan · 31 Mar 2006 at 12:50

Also do you know if you can still buy these mb's from anywhere?
(DFI NF11 UNTRA INFINITY) as I want to use my SATA h/d's as they are...

manveruppd · 31 Mar 2006 at 14:36

Interesting read, didn't know the DFIs had a jumper to set the FSB /OT

On the matter at hand, are you sure the CMOS was reset properly when you reset the jumper? Sometimes there's some residual charge in the battery. To be certain it's completely cleared, you should discharge the PSU as described above and leave the computer unplugged with the CMOS jumper set to 'clear' for a few hours.

Also, is it possible you somehow got the 'clear' and 'normal' positions of the CMOS jumper wrong, or you confused the CMOS with the FSB jumpers and accidentally booted up with the CMOS jumper set to 'clear'? May sound like an unlikely scenario but it happened to me once! (Yea, look upon me and marvel at my noobishness!)

In my defense though the jumper settings in the MSI's manual were printed the wrong way round

This WILL kill your BIOS, although if you reflash your BIOS chip on another motherboard it'll work just fine once more.

kitfit1 · 31 Mar 2006 at 15:17

DFI STREET is here. The only way to get hold of an Infinity now is second hand. But i am shure that your mobo is ok, all you need is a bios flash. As Manveruppd has mentioned, are you shure that the cmos clear jumper is in the right position?

yan · 31 Mar 2006 at 15:41

help ####

Definitely didnt get the jumpers mixed up, but I did only leave the jumper in the discharge position for 10/15sec.. I did remove the battery after that to check its voltage, but again for only 30sec or so...

Once a cmos is cleared though do I really need to do a bios flash? Shouldnt the pc now post and then before it hangs, you enter the bios (press del normally) and install defaults...? It should then boot normally and it can be flashed at will...

Maybe I've got this wrong...

manveruppd · 31 Mar 2006 at 15:52

Try discharging again with the battery out and the PC unplugged, and leave it for an hour or two. It shouldn't need reflashing after clearing, unless you accidentally booted-up with the jumper set on clear and scrambled it.

brightside_ · 31 Mar 2006 at 15:55

know it sounds stupid, but is the monitor okay? I had a problem with none posting, and it turned out my monitor was, well, dead (still had the standby light working for some reason though) If it's got a normal startup beep, might be something do do with the monitor, like the VGA cable etc.

kitfit1 · 31 Mar 2006 at 15:59

10/15 secs for a cmos clear is nowhere near enough time. In your instruction manual it says 30secs minimum, should really be 30mins minimum. Once you have done a cmos clear you should'nt need to do a reflash. But in your case you have gone about it the wrong way;
1:you did'nt discharge the psu and mobo.
2:you pulled the cpu and ram with the psu and mobo still charged.
3:you did'nt clear the cmos for long enough.
The result is almost certainly a corrupted bios. The only answer is, reflash the bios.

yan · 31 Mar 2006 at 17:14

help ####

So it looks like I have a corrupted bios.. Do I still need to reflash it before it will post? ie. by buying a new bios chip..?

If I leave the jumper on and the battery out for a longer time, clear the cmos, so whether corrupted or not it will be cleared... this should allow it to post and I can load default settings?

One other ques.. if you disconnect the mains lead from the psu and switch on the pc, as its a pc (front mounted) switch and not a direct switch on the rear of the psu will it make any difference?

Monitor is definitely ok.. using with another pc.

Thanks again for all the advice...

kitfit1 · 31 Mar 2006 at 17:25

yan said:
So it looks like I have a corrupted bios.. Do I still need to reflash it before it will post? ie. by buying a new bios chip..?

Yes.

yan said:
If I leave the jumper on and the battery out for a longer time, clear the cmos, so whether corrupted or not it will be cleared... this should allow it to post and I can load default settings?

No, it's allready corrupted. You can only recover it by a reflash.

yan said:
One other ques.. if you disconnect the mains lead from the psu and switch on the pc, as its a pc (front mounted) switch and not a direct switch on the rear of the psu will it make any difference?

It won't make any difference now, but had you done that it would have discharged the psu and mobo.

manveruppd · 31 Mar 2006 at 17:28

yan said:
So it looks like I have a corrupted bios.. Do I still need to reflash it before it will post? ie. by buying a new bios chip..?

If I leave the jumper on and the battery out for a longer time, clear the cmos, so whether corrupted or not it will be cleared... this should allow it to post and I can load default settings?

Clearing the CMOS just sets the BIOS back to default values:

It shouldn't need reflashing after clearing, unless you accidentally booted-up with the jumper set on clear and scrambled it.

You will only have corrupted the BIOS if you tried switching the PC on while the CMOS jumper was set to clear, unless there was some sort of power spike when you last switched on the computer or something. Discharge the PSU and mobo, take out the CMOS battery, set the jumper to clear and leave it like that overnight, then it will have completely reset itself.

One other ques.. if you disconnect the mains lead from the psu and switch on the pc, as its a pc (front mounted) switch and not a direct switch on the rear of the psu will it make any difference?

That's the best way to discharge the PSU, and you ought to do this before working inside the PC anyway, or so the safety-minded tell us. Don't do this with the CMOS jumper set to clear though (not sure if it will harm it but best play safe).

BruceLee · 31 Mar 2006 at 17:34

Are you sure your board will accept 200FSB chips?

I know my old board wouldnt so max chip was a 3000XP.

yan · 31 Mar 2006 at 18:06

Ok thanks for that I'll give it a go over the w/e...

yan · 3 Apr 2006 at 09:55

HELP again ###

So still no luck.. I discharged the main psu and left the bios discharge jumper in place for two days with the battery removed and still no post.. Also I never attempted to start the pc with the jumper in discharge position..

Can someone tell me is the bios stored in the cmos memory, that is powered by the battery? People have mentioned 'flashing' the bios... CMOS memory is volatile ie. needs power, flash does not.. so removing the battery and discharging will clear it. I assume the socketed 32pin device is the cmos device? Unless it is a split CMOS/Flash part, once the CMOS is powered down it is cleared. Shouldnt the mb boot with with no bios and wait for a default one to be loaded..?

Any last ideas... and why would a new CMOS device help... unless it also has some flash?? Confused and frustrated....

Defcon5 · 3 Apr 2006 at 10:09

yan said:
Can someone tell me is the bios stored in the cmos memory, that is powered by the battery? People have mentioned 'flashing' the bios... CMOS memory is volatile ie. needs power, flash does not.. so removing the battery and discharging will clear it. I assume the socketed 32pin device is the cmos device? Unless it is a split CMOS/Flash part, once the CMOS is powered down it is cleared. Shouldnt the mb boot with with no bios and wait for a default one to be loaded

What do you mean by flash does not need power?

The mobo wont boot with no bios, cant you just buy a new bios chip and slot it in

manveruppd · 3 Apr 2006 at 10:21

Sounds like you've scrambled it earlier on unfortunately... Strange, as nothing you've described doing in this thread should've done it in my experience. Clearing the CMOS doesn't make you need a reflash, it just resets the BIOS to defaults. It's actually non-volatile - the battery is just there to maintain the clock working when the computer's off. I've had PCs whose CMOS battery died and they were still working, they just always displayed the year as 1980 no matter how many times I fixed it.

yan · 3 Apr 2006 at 10:51

help ###

Ok that sounds more like it... the bios is stored in flash not CMOS ram and the battery is only there for the clk. So why in the manual is the jumper called
'CMOS data clear' is this just for the clk?

I meant with flash it does not need any power to keep its contents when the pc is off? So once the bios flash is corrupted the only way is a new flash device...

I'll see if I can get a new chip from DFI street.. :mad:

manveruppd · 3 Apr 2006 at 13:31

Yes but your settings are stored in the CMOS which is why you need to clear them and revert the BIOS to defaults if you mess up (like when I tried to change the multi on a non-unlocked CPU

). If it IS that (it could still be your mobo), then you can reflash it by hot-swapping on any other Socket A board, so try calling in a few favours before you go to the expense of buying another chip. THere's also a dutch company somewhere on the net that reflashes them for you, I found out about them when I was trying to fix my MSI but I don't have the link handy. If I find it I'll repost.