Award BIOS WatchDog function? - Fixed

[Jeff H]

Guys,

A buddy of mine has my old EPoX 4PDA2+ board with a Northwood 2.4GHz P4. Recently he's been getting a "Hit F1 to continue" message on BIOS post. Seems the WatchDog function is enabled and something is amiss in its eyes. There is also a reference to the keyboard in the post error message.

Don't know what prompted this, as he didn't enable the WatchDog function. Nor has he done any setting changes to the BIOS. System is not overclocked. He replaced the keyboard, but that didn't change the message. Only other thing I can think of is a weak CMOS battery. He's going to change that tonight, while I standby in case he needs to set up the BIOS again.

If the battery doesn't fix this, what do we look at next?

TIA,

Jeff

[I]Fixed! See last post.[/i]

 

[pcgeek11]

If he has a USB keyboard and the BIOS setting to enable USB Devices isn't turned on the system would fault for the keyboard not connected...

pcgeek11

 

[Jeff H]

pcgeek11, thanks for the reply. I don't know what keyboard connection he's currently using, so I'll check that out. I previously suggested he try another keyboard, just in case there was something that went wrong with the one he was using, and that didn't cause the WatchDog warning to cease.

Nevertheless I'll check out his keyboard status.

TIA,

Jeff

 

[Jeff H]

Here's an update: the keyboard he's using is PS2. He replaced the CMOS battery, no affect.

This gets weirder. He recently replaced a 15" NEC LCD with a Dell 19" LCD w/ USB. If he turns off the system, then turns on the LCD that in turn turns on the system. I've never heard of such a thing. I know that keyboards and mice can turn on an ATX system, but a monitor?

Anyone have anything to contribute to this weird system behavior?

I'm going over to his house tonight. I had him read back to me the system temps, and all were in line, except for the cpu, which registered (via the BIOS) at over 190F. I can see only two possible scenarios. One, the BIOS is simply not reporting the correct temp (cpu fan is spinning). The other is that the heatsink was dislodged during a recent house move. I told him to shut it off and leave it off until I can take a look at the heatsink.

Jeff

 

[Jeff H]

Went over to my friend's house last night. First off, the heatsink (Zalman CNPS5700D-CU) was totally plugged on the backside, with dust. This didn't contribute to the weird error message he's receiving, but it certainly wasn't doing anything to aid in cooling. We cleaned that up, applied to new Arctic Silver, and cpu temps dropped dramatically.

On to the error message. It reads: Warning! Insert Key presseed or Clock GEN. Watch Dog Reset. Please enter them in Setup, and save the settings before exit!
The only way to get to Windows startup is to press the F1 key. This system is not overclocked, and my understanding of the Watch Dog function is it will reset the BIOS if an overclock setup is outside of the system's ability to boot.

There is one newer BIOS available (again, board is an EPoX EP-4PDA2+). If there's a setting in the BIOS that is causing this, I don't know what it is, as nothing was changed by the user. I'm going to try to get a hold of EPoX tech support b4 we do a BIOS flash.

Do you guys have any other ideas what might be causing this error on POST?

TIA,

Jeff

 

[pcgeek11]

Did you try setting the BIOS to the failsafe default settings?

pcgeek11

 

[Jeff H]

pcgeek11, thanks for the reply. Yes, we tried both the Fail-Safe and Optimized Defaults settings, to no avail. I did get an opportunity to speak w/ EPoX tech support today and they offered the following suggestions: 1) run sfc /scannow, as the error message shows after the BIOS posts, 2) check for bulging or leaking capacitors, since the warning message shows on both cold and warm boot, 3) run BIOS update, which addresses the Watch Dog function.

My friend inspected the capacitors, and saw no evidence of leaking or bulging. He's currently running the sfc routine. If that doesn't address we'll do the BIOS flash in the next day or two.

Jeff

 

[Peter]

The "watch dog reset" thing is the machine failing its first boot attempt. The chipset then triggers another reset about a second later to give it another go, and if that fails too, reverts the CPU to failsafe (slow) mode for a 3rd try.
Short of genuinely defective hardware, that's mostly to protect against overclocking screwups.

 

[Jeff H]

Peter, thanks for the reply. I understand that the Watch Dog function is to protect against an overclock that might damage the system, or render it "unbootable."

But, why would this "feature" suddenly intrude on the boot process, when previously it didn't? And, why would it intrude if there had been no changes to the system, including overclocking? That's what I don't understand. No changes to the system, yet all of a sudden Watch Dog decides to get in the act.

Jeff

 

[Jeff H]

Guys, my last update, as we "fixed" the issue. We did the suggestions from EPoX tech support, including looking for bulging/leaking capacitors (none found), ran sfc (no bad files found).

As a final potential fix, we ran a BIOS update. Wouldn't run from a floppy, with the "save old BIOS" option, as it said it ran out of disk space. Couldn't run the "Alt-F2" option, as the original BIOS warning prevented that. I haven't run EPoX's MagicBIOS from Windows b4, so didn't want to jump right into that. So, we simply ran it from the floppy, w/o saving the old BIOS (why - it was crap anyway). Fired it up after the update and all is well.

I was so impressed by finally fixing this that when I got home I did some looking into the MagicBIOS function. I gave it a try on my 9NP+Ultra board and it worked like a champ! Two BIOS updates, two successes.

Jeff

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: Jeff H
Peter, thanks for the reply. I understand that the Watch Dog function is to protect against an overclock that might damage the system, or render it "unbootable."

But, why would this "feature" suddenly intrude on the boot process, when previously it didn't? And, why would it intrude if there had been no changes to the system, including overclocking? That's what I don't understand. No changes to the system, yet all of a sudden Watch Dog decides to get in the act.

Jeff

The watchdog reboots the machine - and flags to the BIOS that it did so - whenever it doesn't fire up, whatever the reason. Power supplies degrade, capacitors dry out, CPU fan motors die, CPU heatsinks clog - a multitude of reasons that don't involve anyone tinkering with the machine.

 

[Jeff H]

Peter, thanks for the reply. Whatever was tripping the Watch Dog function, a BIOS flash update seems to have "fixed" it. As I said, I spoke w/ EPoX tech support and they even suggested that bulging caps might be a culprit. Wow, I didn't think the bulging/leaking caps extended that far beyond the original issue.

Jeff