I bought a B-grade motherboard. It was just the board in a bag in a plain box. No problem...I have a box full of cables and stuff and I could download drivers, etc from the net.
I also had a second-hand CPU from a swapshop that later told me they don't test second-hand kit. Nice...if you ever want to sell broken kit, that's the place to go.
While looking over the manual to see if there was anything unusual, I found that it had a chassis intrusion detection system. Well, it would have done if the relevant cable and switch was with it. No problem, I didn't want it anyway. It's disabled by default - jumper cap on pins 1 and 2 of a 4-pin section. Hmm...the board came with it on pin 2 and the empty position where pin 3 would be. So I moved it to pins 1 and 2.
Build complete, I wasn't entirely confident about the board and CPU, but everything powered up fine...BEEP! Chassis intrusion! System halted.
Power down, remove the jemper. The manual says that enables the feature, but the manual could be wrong. BEEP! Chassis intrusion! System halted.
It looks like the board is faulty. I examine the board around the pins...maybe a connection has been scratched through. No.
OK, I'll put the cap back where it was. Over one pin shouldn't do anything, but I'm clutching at straws. BEEP! Chassis intrusion! System halted.
So I had a break and a shower. Duff board, bah. What a fuss.
An odd thought struck me in the shower. It seemed a bit silly, but it was only a 30 second job to check it.
The thought was right. It was the jumper cap that was faulty. With one of my spares on pins 1 and 2, the chassis intrusion feature was disabled.
A faulty jumper cap? In 20 years, I've never had a faulty jumper cap before.
I also had a second-hand CPU from a swapshop that later told me they don't test second-hand kit. Nice...if you ever want to sell broken kit, that's the place to go.
While looking over the manual to see if there was anything unusual, I found that it had a chassis intrusion detection system. Well, it would have done if the relevant cable and switch was with it. No problem, I didn't want it anyway. It's disabled by default - jumper cap on pins 1 and 2 of a 4-pin section. Hmm...the board came with it on pin 2 and the empty position where pin 3 would be. So I moved it to pins 1 and 2.
Build complete, I wasn't entirely confident about the board and CPU, but everything powered up fine...BEEP! Chassis intrusion! System halted.
Power down, remove the jemper. The manual says that enables the feature, but the manual could be wrong. BEEP! Chassis intrusion! System halted.
It looks like the board is faulty. I examine the board around the pins...maybe a connection has been scratched through. No.
OK, I'll put the cap back where it was. Over one pin shouldn't do anything, but I'm clutching at straws. BEEP! Chassis intrusion! System halted.
So I had a break and a shower. Duff board, bah. What a fuss.
An odd thought struck me in the shower. It seemed a bit silly, but it was only a 30 second job to check it.
The thought was right. It was the jumper cap that was faulty. With one of my spares on pins 1 and 2, the chassis intrusion feature was disabled.
A faulty jumper cap? In 20 years, I've never had a faulty jumper cap before.
