LED readout, FF after boot, but sometimes changes

[GeezerMan]

Should a board that has a LED readout for error reporting always indicate FF?
My other boards that had the LED, would show FF after the successful boot, and then would stay at FF until shutoff. The board I'm working on now shows FF when XP is loaded, but then will show various error codes while in windows after a few hours. Windows still works fine, but I'm not comfortable with error codes appearing.

 

[z1ggy]

My board had a problem once.. showed FF error...turned out that I just needed to clean out a TON of dust..possible that you are having that problem? After my fix.. FF was always on and never turned off.. I am not sure why but I would assume it is b/c the circuitry is involving some type of shift register and that register is holding that value of "FF" until a different value is input into the register. Consult your mobo manual to see what FF means though...for my old EVGA it meant that there was some unknown problem during the post. I am not sure if that helped at all, but from my experiences I wouldn't get too worried.

 

[GeezerMan]

FF is a good thing, you want FF to be indicated. It means a successful boot. It's when it shows other error codes within windows that I have a question about

 

[Modelworks]

The post code depends on which bios brand it is.
http://bioscentral.com/ has a list of the popular ones.

The bios is supposed to be transferred to ram once the board initializes.
If its changing after windows has loaded that could just be something wrong with the circuitry reading the post codes.
Windows takes over the bios functions after it loads and I don't believe it has any code in the system to support displaying post codes.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbs...os/bootSequence-c.html has a step by step account of what happens when you turn on the pc and the steps it goes through.

 

[GeezerMan]

Yeah, I have a list of the post codes in the manual. I'm pretty sure that after booting, it should just read FF. Everything runs fine, so who knows. I might try a bios update
Thanks for the step by step info , interesting.

 

[GeezerMan]

Well, I checked the Foxconn motherboard page, and found no newer updates for the chipset, BUT their liveupdate software located a chipset update.
It shows as the MCP55 driver, version 9.53, which Nvida does not have, so looks like there are changes made for Foxconn. The MCP55 should only be for the 590 SLI, which my board is, and yet Foxconn has the MCP55 version 9.53 listed as an update on their 570 SLI board, which I think is a mistake. Anyway, looks like that may have fixed it.
So far, been 6 hours and all I see is FF. Interesting that drivers can affect the LED codes like that from within windows.

 

[Heidfirst]

many of the codes are more status codes than error codes.

 

[GeezerMan]

Originally posted by: Heidfirst
many of the codes are more status codes than error codes.

That appears to be correct. I got some more "error/status codes" today while in windows, but Foxconn said it was normal. Here is their response. I don't think English is their first language :

"As differenet actives changes the code changes as well."

So, I won't worry about it, even though my other boards ( different brands) don't do it. Maybe just a bios difference.