AS40GT Boots directly from floppy on powerup - Weird Problem - Problem Solved

[BarnyardMonkey]

A buddy of mine brought this board over today for me to check.

This is the first time i've seen this problem:

On bootup,it will go directly to this screen and post the following.
While trying to boot from Floppy Drive:

"Boot Bios or something rather at top of this black screen - Will check for exact screen"

"Keyboard not Detected"
"Reading from Floppy A:"

And if i put a bootdisk in the Floppy,it will actually boot it.
but there is no other screen that comes up before this to let me go into the Bios.
no post screen at all that shows CPU,Ram etc.

Soon as i power up,it goes directly to this screen.
And i can actually type after booting from Floppy,so no clue what it means by Keyboard not detected.


I've tried to Reset Cmos,pulled battery and nothing helps.


Shuttle AS40GT Socket 478
P4 1.6G
256Mb Crucial PC2100
PCI and AGP Vid Card - Tried both


If anyonr has ever seen something like this,or knows what may be the problem i'd appreciate any info.
I believe the BIOS may be shot though.


Thanks.



Shawn.

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

I would try a "Clear CMOS".

 

[st3]

This is a bit of a long shot but you might want to try installing the newest BIOS version. A friend of mine had an Aopen Mobo that wouldn't boot at all (it would just sit at "verifying DMI pool" or whatever) and after I updated the BIOS it ran like a champ.

 

[BarnyardMonkey]

I've tries to clear the Cmos when first getting the problem,and also tries removing the battery for awhile with no luck.


I also tried to flash the Bios since the only screen that would show up when powered up was the reading Drive A screen.so i put in a Win98SE BootDisk,then tries to flash.
it gave me an error the first 3 times or so about "Award Flash not up to date",or something on that line.
so i tried once more and it went through with the flah (So i thought),and then rebooted.

But after Reboot it kept doing the same exact thing.
when power was on,it went directly to the "Keyboard Not Detected Screen,and reading Drive A".

Didn't see the Video Card Screen,Main Post screen "CPU,Ram,Bios version screen".


I left the battery out all night and gonna try once more.
and maybe another flash if it does the same thing.


Thanks.



Shawn.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: BarnyardMonkey
A buddy of mine brought this board over today for me to check.
This is the first time i've seen this problem:
On bootup,it will go directly to this screen and post the following.
While trying to boot from Floppy Drive:
"Boot Bios or something rather at top of this black screen - Will check for exact screen"
"Keyboard not Detected"
"Reading from Floppy A:"
And if i put a bootdisk in the Floppy,it will actually boot it.
but there is no other screen that comes up before this to let me go into the Bios.
no post screen at all that shows CPU,Ram etc.

Sounds like a flash went bad, or perhaps the "Chernobyl" virus fried the BIOS. It appears that the boot-block portion of the BIOS is still good, which has minimal support for ISA VGA and the floppy, in order to re-flash the rest of the BIOS. You need to prepare a proper bootable flash-recovery floppy according to the mobo mfg's instructions.

Originally posted by: BarnyardMonkey
I believe the BIOS may be shot though.

Good hunch, I suspect that you are right. Hopefully a flash recovery disk can repair it.

 

[BarnyardMonkey]

Well i finally got this sucker to boot.

After it kept only readin the Floppy on Boot,i tried to flash with it and wasn't sure if it worked since the system was doing the same thing after flashing.
Then i pulled the battery and left it set for around 24 Hours.
After that,i got it to post.


Still believe maybe something is still flaky though since it don't want to post at all sometimes.
like maybe 4 out of 5 times it will post just fine,then that one time it won't do nothing.

Could me the PSU i'm testing it with.
the main problem is fixed however,atleast it will post like it should.


Thanks.



Shawn.