A7V shuts down immediately at boot-up (single long beep)

[JY]

Hi,

I have an old A7V (socket a) rev.1.02 with bios 1011 (it's the version with
the promise ATA stuff included...) that I was prepping for donating to my
mom after upgrading to something more recent, and as I was adjusting the
Bios settings, I think I broke something.

I was toying mostly with the alerts (warning "beeps") when I saved bios
settings and rebooted... and this time, before anything could appear on the
screen, the computer made a long beep and shut itself right down. Note that
I was only playing with Bios settings -- not adding or removing any
hardware, or moving the case around in any way.

I tried again a few times, same thing. Figuring that maybe the CPU was too
hot, and I turned on a feature designed to "protect" it, I'd wait a few
hours for it to cool and try again.

Same results. Long beep, and immediate shutdown.

Tried removing PCI cards one by one, same with AGP video card... same
results. Put everything back in, same results.

I was told there was a way to reset the motherboard via dip switch... is
that true? If so, is there an image somewhere showing how?

Thanks.

PS: There is no floppy drive on this computer, and putting a bootable
Windows CD in there hasn't helped. Computer just shuts down way too fast.

 

[Paul]

Hi,

I have an old A7V (socket a) rev.1.02 with bios 1011 (it's the version with
the promise ATA stuff included...) that I was prepping for donating to my
mom after upgrading to something more recent, and as I was adjusting the
Bios settings, I think I broke something.

I was toying mostly with the alerts (warning "beeps") when I saved bios
settings and rebooted... and this time, before anything could appear on the
screen, the computer made a long beep and shut itself right down. Note that
I was only playing with Bios settings -- not adding or removing any
hardware, or moving the case around in any way.

I tried again a few times, same thing. Figuring that maybe the CPU was too
hot, and I turned on a feature designed to "protect" it, I'd wait a few
hours for it to cool and try again.

Same results. Long beep, and immediate shutdown.

Tried removing PCI cards one by one, same with AGP video card... same
results. Put everything back in, same results.

I was told there was a way to reset the motherboard via dip switch... is
that true? If so, is there an image somewhere showing how?

Thanks.

PS: There is no floppy drive on this computer, and putting a bootable
Windows CD in there hasn't helped. Computer just shuts down way too fast.

There are a number of reasons for a computer to shut down rapidly
like that.

1) CPU heatsink not making good contact. CPU overheats instantly.
If your motherboard has Asus COP (overheat detection/shutdown chip),
the computer shuts down very fast. (If it doesn't have COP, the
Athlon will burn up.)
2) BIOS detects no CPU fan connected to the CPU fan header. That
should take a few seconds to detect.
3) CPU core clock accidently set to ridiculously high frequency.
This causes the CPU to overheat, as in (1). If running in jumper
mode, verify that DSW settings didn't get jostled and changed.

I expect none of these apply to you.

To start, I would try clearing the CMOS. In the user manual, there
is a section "Forgot the password?", on the page after section
4.3.2 "Keyboard features". It will instruct you to short the CLRTC
solder points together. They are located very close to the CR2032
CMOS battery. (Note: _Always_ unplug the computer and wait for
the green LED to extinguish on the motherboard, before clearing
the CMOS. That prevents the ORing diode from +5VSB from getting
damaged when you short CLRTC.) A procedure for clearing CMOS
is here "How do I clear CMOS?":

http://www.a7vtroubleshooting.com/info/bios/index.htm#7a

After the CMOS is cleared, press <delete> on the next boot,
enter the BIOS, and do "Load setup defaults" or the equivalent.
That should reinit the CMOS data, if it hasn't already corrected
itself.

The a7vtroubleshooting site contains info on the A7V family,
and there is also a forum, if you want to post questions or
search previous questions. When searching, change the "Max Age"
field in the search page, from 7 days, to 1000 days, to get
more hits.

HTH,
Paul