A7V BIOS/Fan Speed Tale of Woe

[Festeron]

Here's my tale of woe:

Asus A7V Rev.1.01.

I successfully flashed to 1011, and browsed the newly available
options. I carelessly chose the CPU Fan Speed check, when my fan
doesn't report its speed. Now I get nothing at boot but a medium beep
and an automatic powerdown. It doesn't get as far as VGA initialize
or POST.

Here's what has been suggested to me, all without success:
Unplug, remove battery, short solder pads to clear CMOS
Unplug, remove battery, wait three hours to clear CMOS
Unplug, remove battery, wait three days to clear CMOS
Use a three-wire fan from another computer in the CPUFAN connector

How can I tell when the pads are truly shorted? I used a voltmeter to
make sure they had continuity, then shorted them for >30 seconds.

Why won't this CMOS clear - even after being unplugged for days?

As a last resort, what's the procedure for getting the BIOS to another
machine where it can be reflashed? In other words, how compatable
does the other mobo need to be to receive this BIOS chip?

Thanks in advance,
Troubled in Toronto

 

[Paul]

Here's my tale of woe:

Asus A7V Rev.1.01.

I successfully flashed to 1011, and browsed the newly available
options. I carelessly chose the CPU Fan Speed check, when my fan
doesn't report its speed. Now I get nothing at boot but a medium beep
and an automatic powerdown. It doesn't get as far as VGA initialize
or POST.

Here's what has been suggested to me, all without success:
Unplug, remove battery, short solder pads to clear CMOS
Unplug, remove battery, wait three hours to clear CMOS
Unplug, remove battery, wait three days to clear CMOS
Use a three-wire fan from another computer in the CPUFAN connector

How can I tell when the pads are truly shorted? I used a voltmeter to
make sure they had continuity, then shorted them for >30 seconds.

Why won't this CMOS clear - even after being unplugged for days?

As a last resort, what's the procedure for getting the BIOS to another
machine where it can be reflashed? In other words, how compatable
does the other mobo need to be to receive this BIOS chip?

Thanks in advance,
Troubled in Toronto

So, you are saying your CPU fan doesn't have a tacho signal ?

Simply find a second fan with a tacho signal, and plug it into the
CPU fan header. Plug the CPU fan into another header on the board,
so the processor still has cooling. Enter BIOS and fix problem.
You can always unbolt a CPU fan from another PC and use it
temporarily.

A second option, is try the clear CMOS operation again. Unplug
the computer and wait for the +5VSB LED to stop glowing. That
means +5VSB is drained. You could unplug the 20 pin connector
from the motherboard, to make sure there is no current left in
it. Remove the battery. Short the battery terminals together
in the battery socket, as there is now no power on the board.
There should be two pieces of metal in the socket for contacts
and short those together for at least 10 seconds, to drain
any remaining juice. Reinstall battery and start computer,
hoping that the _default_ is not fan monitoring enabled.
I expect the default is probably not the way you want it.
If that is really the case, then the tacho fan technique
mentioned above, will be your only escape, short of hot
flashing the BIOS chip on another computer (risky).

For hot flashing, the interface type of the ROMs has to be
the same. I.e. An LPC ROM can be programmed in another machine
that uses an LPC interface. To be sure, download the datasheet
for the bad ROM and the datasheet for the donor machine's
ROM, to see how compatible the interfaces are. Fortunately,
your board uses a dual in line package, so that should be
easy to hot plug (whereas a PLCC would be a lot tougher to
do without damaging something - PLCC sockets are springy
and like to toss the ROM around).

If you cannot make any progress with either solution, visit
badflash.com and pick up another BIOS chip flashed to the
old version of BIOS.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Norm]

Here's my tale of woe:

Asus A7V Rev.1.01.

I successfully flashed to 1011, and browsed the newly available
options. I carelessly chose the CPU Fan Speed check, when my fan
doesn't report its speed. Now I get nothing at boot but a medium beep
and an automatic powerdown. It doesn't get as far as VGA initialize
or POST.

Here's what has been suggested to me, all without success:
Unplug, remove battery, short solder pads to clear CMOS
Unplug, remove battery, wait three hours to clear CMOS
Unplug, remove battery, wait three days to clear CMOS
Use a three-wire fan from another computer in the CPUFAN connector

How can I tell when the pads are truly shorted? I used a voltmeter to
make sure they had continuity, then shorted them for >30 seconds.

Why won't this CMOS clear - even after being unplugged for days?

As a last resort, what's the procedure for getting the BIOS to another
machine where it can be reflashed? In other words, how compatable
does the other mobo need to be to receive this BIOS chip?

Thanks in advance,
Troubled in Toronto

Check here...in the forums.
http://www.a7vtroubleshooting.com/

 

[Festeron]

I said:
You said:

Simply find a second fan with a tacho signal, and plug it into the
CPU fan header. Plug the CPU fan into another header on the board,
so the processor still has cooling. Enter BIOS and fix problem.
You can always unbolt a CPU fan from another PC and use it
temporarily.

Thanks for the suggestion, Paul, but that's been tried already. I'm
assuming that the third wire on the fan I tried was the tacho signal.
I suspect that there is some kind of RPM threshold that this fan isn't
meeting. I even revved it up with a can of compressed air, which
didn't help.

A second option, is try the clear CMOS operation again. Unplug
the computer and wait for the +5VSB LED to stop glowing. That
means +5VSB is drained. You could unplug the 20 pin connector
from the motherboard, to make sure there is no current left in
it. Remove the battery. Short the battery terminals together
in the battery socket, as there is now no power on the board.

This suggestion is something new - shorting the terminals in the
battery socket itself. Up until now, I've been shorting the solder
pads on the mobo [even tried from underneath]. Worth a shot.

There should be two pieces of metal in the socket for contacts
and short those together for at least 10 seconds, to drain
any remaining juice. Reinstall battery and start computer,
hoping that the _default_ is not fan monitoring enabled.

I suspect that the default is "Not enabled", since I've booted into
the OS at least once on the new BIOS.

I expect the default is probably not the way you want it.
If that is really the case, then the tacho fan technique
mentioned above, will be your only escape, short of hot
flashing the BIOS chip on another computer (risky).

For hot flashing, the interface type of the ROMs has to be
the same. I.e. An LPC ROM can be programmed in another machine
that uses an LPC interface. To be sure, download the datasheet
for the bad ROM and the datasheet for the donor machine's
ROM, to see how compatible the interfaces are. Fortunately,
your board uses a dual in line package, so that should be
easy to hot plug (whereas a PLCC would be a lot tougher to
do without damaging something - PLCC sockets are springy
and like to toss the ROM around).

If you cannot make any progress with either solution, visit
badflash.com and pick up another BIOS chip flashed to the
old version of BIOS.

Thanks for all your time and suggestions, Paul. I'll try the shorting
of the battery holder next.

Can you offer any explanation as to why the CMOS is still there after
several *days* of no power, no battery?


Mark

 

[Festeron]

Thanks for the pointer, Norm, but that's where I got most of these ideas from.

I'll try posting there if Usenet fails me


Mark