New A7N8X-X dead

[Hank G.]

I just installed an A7N8X-X motherboard. The setup went smoothly. I
installed a non-OEM AMD 2600+ CPU, configured frequency, multiplier and
memory speeds correctly. The bios accepted all settings and the computer
booted normally. I had the computer boot.several times. No problem.

I was running Recovery Console to recover from an earlier hard drive crash
as a result, seemingly, of a corrupt bios on the motherboard that the
A7N8X-X was replacing. Recovery console had just started was sitting at the
C prompt waiting for my commands. I had not done anything with it yet. Left
the keyboard for a bathroom run. Came back and the screen was black. The
"standby" l.e.d. was blinking on the monitor. I hit the spacebar. NOTHING.
The screen did not come back on. I rebooted. NOTHING. No bios screen, no
bootup. Just the cd drives blinking briefly. Inside the computer the green
motherboard LED is lit, all fans including those in the power supply and the
graphics card, are running but the computer will not boot.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Barry Walsh]

I just installed an A7N8X-X motherboard. The setup went smoothly. I
installed a non-OEM AMD 2600+ CPU, configured frequency, multiplier and
memory speeds correctly. The bios accepted all settings and the computer
booted normally. I had the computer boot.several times. No problem.

I was running Recovery Console to recover from an earlier hard drive crash
as a result, seemingly, of a corrupt bios on the motherboard that the
A7N8X-X was replacing. Recovery console had just started was sitting at the
C prompt waiting for my commands. I had not done anything with it yet. Left
the keyboard for a bathroom run. Came back and the screen was black. The
"standby" l.e.d. was blinking on the monitor. I hit the spacebar. NOTHING.
The screen did not come back on. I rebooted. NOTHING. No bios screen, no
bootup. Just the cd drives blinking briefly. Inside the computer the green
motherboard LED is lit, all fans including those in the power supply and the
graphics card, are running but the computer will not boot.

Any help would be appreciated!

I had similar symptoms with a corrupted bios on an A7N8X, had to hot
swap it to re-flash, but it worked.

 

[Hank G.]

Thanks, Barry, for that helpful information.

This motherboard was replacing one with a damaged bios. I am suspecting,
strongly, that the drive has a bios-destroying virus on it despite Norton
not finding one on the drive. It wouldn't be the first time Norton has
missed
viruses or worms.

 

[Barry Walsh]

Thanks, Barry, for that helpful information.

This motherboard was replacing one with a damaged bios. I am suspecting,
strongly, that the drive has a bios-destroying virus on it despite Norton
not finding one on the drive. It wouldn't be the first time Norton has
missed
viruses or worms.

The A7N8X's just like killing their own bioses on a random basis.

 

[Paul]

Thanks, Barry, for that helpful information.

This motherboard was replacing one with a damaged bios. I am suspecting,
strongly, that the drive has a bios-destroying virus on it despite Norton
not finding one on the drive. It wouldn't be the first time Norton has
missed
viruses or worms.

If this happens a lot to you, get a BIOS Savior from ioss.com.tw.
This is a hardware device, that gives you two BIOS chips. You
can boot with one of the chips, then flip the switch to select the
second BIOS chip, followed by using your awdflash program to program
it. This allows one chip to get zapped, without losing the use of
your computer. (Of course, if you have a bios-destroying virus,
and you just flip the switch and reboot, it is possible to zap
both BIOS chips. If one chip gets zapped, you have to repair it
immediately on the next boot, for continued coverage. Since you
would be booting to your floppy flashing disk, you want that to
be virus free.)

Some vendors of the BIOS Savior offer a programming service as
well, so you can get the BIOS chip on the Savior pre-programmed
before it is sent to you. This is an expensive option, but
might allow you to get up and running again faster than RMAing
the board.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Robert Jackson Marley]

however the RMA process for Asus is smooth...it took them about two weeks to
send a brand new board to me (actually 2 brand new boards one being a7s333
and the other a7n8x deluxe) both had corrupted bios's

 

[Hank G.]

I have a damaged A7N8X deluxe with an intact bios. A friend damaged it
trying to install a CPU onto it...backwards. I took it rather than letting
him toss it out.

I wonder if the bios chip is the same. I could swap that one onto my board.

 

[Paul]

I have a damaged A7N8X deluxe with an intact bios. A friend damaged it
trying to install a CPU onto it...backwards. I took it rather than letting
him toss it out.

I wonder if the bios chip is the same. I could swap that one onto my board.

Just be careful inserting it. Look for an alignment dot on the
top of the chip. Remove the mis-programmed flash chip and make
a diagram of what the correct orientation of the chip should be.
Sometimes the socket will have a tiny arrow printed in the
plasic, that lines up with a dot on the chip.

PLCC sockets are a pretty tight fit when they are new, so you may
have fun removing and inserting chips. You can get a couple of
different models of "chip pullers", and these are gadgets that
grip the chip by two diagonally opposite corners. This helps
prevent damage to the pins on the chip and socket. This is a
fancy one:

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog_name=CTLG&product_id=276-2101

Generally, the model of the motherboard has to match, to have
a flawless recovery. Different models of A7N8X family use either
2Mbit or 4Mbit flash chips, so that is one difference. Worth
a look in any case.

Paul