HELP: System Locks During POST; Can't Get Into The Bios *PROGRESS!*

[Dan]

Yesterday I pulled two 256MB DIMM's from my system, leaving one 256MB DIMM in the number one slot. Subsequently things became increasingly unstable and the system crashed several times. After a few reboots the system wouldn't boot into Win2K and I'd get a BSOD identifying bootvid.dll as the probable culprit.

Last night I reset the bios to default safe options, changed a couple of settngs and tried to repair Win2K. As part of that I "repaired" the master boot record. Now the system locks during the POST. Sometimes I can't get any image on the screen, sometimes I get a garbled black and white image. When everything appears normal the system hangs during the POST. If I try to get into the bios I get as far as the first screen and then it hangs.

I've tried different RAM, RAM in different slots, a different video card and a different monitor. I also tried clearing the CMOS via the jumper and left the CMOS battery out of the system overnight. (I should note that with a different video card I sometimes get as far as a checksum error message before it hangs.

If all else fails I'd like to set either the FDD or CD-ROM as the first boot device so I can reinstall Win2K. What should I do?

 

[MaxImuMAdVaNtAgE]

yuck...it sounds like your bios need to be flashed, but of course you have to boot in order to do that, and in order to boot you have to pass the post!

it sounds like this happened when the ram came out...i haven't herard of this since edo ram sticks (and rambus), but do you need to pair your ram on your board? maybe putting it all back in would let you get it past the post...

sorry i don't have any good ideas, this is an ugly one...my only suggestion is it is a bios issue that needs flashing

MaxImuM

 

[Rostig]

It sounds like you might be screwed. If you cleared the CMOS, and it still will not start, your bios may very possibly be corrupted. You might have to send your MoBo back to the manufacturer to have the BIOS flashed. I am glad that I am not in your position. Lang lebt die aryan Leute.

 

[BadThad]

Oh man, I feel 4 you. That's a heap of $hit you got yourself into.

I would try the hot flash method for the BIOS. Find someone with a mobo same as you, boot their system to a DOS prompt, pull out their BIOS CMOS chip, insert your CMOS and flash it. It's been done a few times that I've read around here with good success.

The only tip is to pull the CMOS chip out half-way before starting so it's barely in there. That way its real easy to pull out the good one and put yours in.

Good Luck!

Are you on Team AnandTech?

 

[Dan]

Well, it's definitely something with the mobo. Like Rostig said, probably a corrupted bios. (I wish I knew how it happened, what went wrong, etc.) Fortunately, I still have my Abit KT7 and Duron 700MHz on hand. I popped them back in the system and I'm up and running again.

I bought the mobo at Fry's Electronics 15 days ago. According to EPoX's site, during the first 30 days I have to take it back to Fry's; EPoX honors the remaining 11 months of the warranty. The kicker is that this is the second EPoX from Fry's. The first one was DOA and I exchanged it the next morning for the one that just went belly up on me.

Obviously, I don't want a third replacement from them. ("Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.&quot I'll start a thread in the motherboards forum re: a good alternative but what do you guys think? I have a T-Bird 1.33GHz chip and a Thermalright SK6/Delta 60mm HSF combo. I've also got two 256MB sticks of PC-133 SDRAM arriving from Crucial tomorrow so I guess I should stick with that rather than getting a DDR board.