Near Dead P2B-DS

[Old Man]

P2B-DS rev. 1.06(DO3) - BIOS Revision 1013
Board ran fine for about 2 years with pair of PII - 266's
Starts up, but hangs where I would expect to see
"Updating ESCD". Hate to scrap it. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.

 

[P2B]

P2B-DS rev. 1.06(DO3) - BIOS Revision 1013
Board ran fine for about 2 years with pair of PII - 266's
Starts up, but hangs where I would expect to see
"Updating ESCD". Hate to scrap it. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.

Since you *expect* to see "Updating ESCD", the first thing you should do
is replace the battery, as that message should only appear if you have
changed processor, memory, BIOS settings, or jumper settings since the
last boot.

If that doesn't help, the usual procedure applies - strip it down to one
processor, one stick of memory, and a video card only. If it still won't
boot, try clearing CMOS memory. If still no go, a POST diagnostic card
is required for further troubleshooting - otherwise peripherals can be
reconnected one by one until the problem is isolated.

HTH

P2B

http://tipperlinne.com/p2bmod

 

[Old Man]

Thank you for your reply. Really appreciate your answer.
Tried all of your suggestions except for clearing CMOS.
Feared that board might not boot at all if I did.
Different CPUs, memory, video cards, etc. No help.
Had not even thought about POST diagnostic card.
I think I know someone that has one.
Have seen your website, all very good info and obviously
the result of hard work and advanced hardware knowledge.
That is reason I hate to scrap this board. Was hoping this
was a known problem with a known solution.

Thanks again.

Ding

 

[P2B]

Thank you for your reply. Really appreciate your answer.
Tried all of your suggestions except for clearing CMOS.
Feared that board might not boot at all if I did.
Different CPUs, memory, video cards, etc. No help.
Had not even thought about POST diagnostic card.
I think I know someone that has one.
Have seen your website, all very good info and obviously
the result of hard work and advanced hardware knowledge.
That is reason I hate to scrap this board. Was hoping this
was a known problem with a known solution.

Thanks again.

Ding

Very unusual to see a problem so late in the POST. To confirm I
understand the symptoms correctly... when you power on with no drives
connected, just cpu, ram, and video - it gets as far as displaying the
PCI device listing, but does not display the DISK BOOT FAILURE message?

If that's the case, I doubt the POST diagnostic card will tell you much,
all I can suggest is:

- try another keyboard / no keyboard
- clear CMOS (this is very unlikely to make it worse)
- try a known-good BIOS chip

P2B

 

[Old Man]

Inline

Snip, Snip

Very unusual to see a problem so late in the POST. To confirm I
understand the symptoms correctly... when you power on with no drives
connected, just cpu, ram, and video - it gets as far as displaying the
PCI device listing, but does not display the DISK BOOT FAILURE message?

Correct, that is exactly the symptom. Started out that it sometimes would
not boot, one or more power on - off cycles and it would boot. Problem
got progressively worse over about a month until it would not boot at all.
If I have changed anything and it should display "Updating ESCD", it does
not. As I don't know exact sequence of events that is occurring, I have
little idea of what to check.

If that's the case, I doubt the POST diagnostic card will tell you much,
all I can suggest is:

- try another keyboard / no keyboard
- clear CMOS (this is very unlikely to make it worse)
- try a known-good BIOS chip

Tried no / different keyboard - no help. Tried resetting CMOS to
default - no help. Had not thought of BIOS chip failure, I will check
it using my EPROM burner next chance I get.

P2B

Thanks for your help.

Ding

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

P2B-DS rev. 1.06(DO3) - BIOS Revision 1013
Board ran fine for about 2 years with pair of PII - 266's
Starts up, but hangs where I would expect to see
"Updating ESCD". Hate to scrap it. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.

Have you checked the power supply? Some of your symptoms point in that
direction.

 

[Old Man]

Fixed it! Problem *was* bad BIOS chip. Original chip on board
was Mosel-Vitelic V29C51002T-90P. My programmer won't
handle this chip. Pulled Atmel AT49F002NT-12PC from a
regular P2B and reprogrammed it in my programmer with 1013
BIOS for P2B-DS. Board now goes right on thru and will boot
from floppy.
Thanks again for your help.

Ding

 

[P2B]

Fixed it! Problem *was* bad BIOS chip. Original chip on board
was Mosel-Vitelic V29C51002T-90P. My programmer won't
handle this chip. Pulled Atmel AT49F002NT-12PC from a
regular P2B and reprogrammed it in my programmer with 1013
BIOS for P2B-DS. Board now goes right on thru and will boot
from floppy.
Thanks again for your help.

Thanks for posting the follow up - good to know it's fixed, and we
learned something in the process.

P2B