Member Avatar for jingkun

I have an old lan party socket A board. This board was working great and then one day just stopped working. I've tried different ram, new power supply, i've tested the cpu in other boards (worked fine), etc. etc. Basically it all comes down to the board and i've tried reseting the cmos, different processors, psus, hard drives, ide cables, no matter what it just wont hold load across the board. The heatsink fan spins like normal the hard disk spins, no graphical out put at all. The one thing that i see could really be a problem is that its a full atx board in a mid atx case so the right 3 posts on the board aren't ground or even attached to the case for the matter but its been in this case and worked fine for the past 5 years. What could this be?, and what can i do to fix it? Thanks.

  • 3 Contributors
  • 6 Replies
  • 88 Views
  • 1 Day Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by sittas87

Dani AI

Generated

Good troubleshooting by and sensible prompts from and . For readers who hit the same symptom — system powers (fans/HDD spin) but no POST or video — here are concise, practical checks and why they matter.

The on‑board coin cell powers the RTC/CMOS that stores BIOS parameters. When that cell falls below roughly 2.7–2.8 V the BIOS can lose settings or fail checksum checks, which can stop device initialization and lead to no POST or no video. Measure the cell with a multimeter first; a fresh cell should read close to 3.0 V. Replace with the correct type and orientation if it’s low.

After any CMOS work, enter BIOS setup and manually confirm date/time, primary video adapter (AGP vs PCI), memory timings and voltages, and boot order. Older Socket A/AGP boards sometimes need AGP/PCI or voltage settings adjusted after a CMOS reset; reseat the GPU and try the board with minimal components if a video card won’t initialize.

If the problem persists, bench the board on a nonconductive surface and attach a PC speaker to decode beep codes. Check for bulging/leaking capacitors near the CPU/VRM and southbridge, verify PSU rails with a meter, and ensure all case standoffs are correctly positioned so the PCB is not shorting to the chassis. For vintage boards with suspected BIOS corruption, a reflash or replacement socketed BIOS chip is possible but weigh repair cost against replacement. For background reference see CMOS battery and Power-on self-test.

Recommended Answers

All 6 Replies

Member Avatar for HoustonIT

Sounds like you've troubleshot it pretty thoroughly. It's got to be a bad MB.

Member Avatar for jingkun

Wonderful, any idea of how to fix it? Caps, resistors, where would i start? I really don't have the money to buy another board unless I find one for $20 that has an 8x AGP slot.

Member Avatar for jingkun

I just did a bit more testing after replacing the cmos battery (although this battery came out of another computer, possibly same problem) and this time around I got it to stay on up until it tried to enable the video card. So I'll post back when I get the chance to get another battery. P.S. Sorry for the double post, I can't seem to find an edit button.

Member Avatar for sittas87

Ola Friend
in the current state that it is,does it give aniy beeps?
what happens when you remove all the ram does it scream,beeps etc.
you say theres power (fans spin etc) but theres no display right?

Member Avatar for jingkun

Oops figured it out. I went to Walgreens earlier and got some 2032 batteries. Put one in and it booted right up, no problems. Battery was old so I guess it makes sense.

Member Avatar for sittas87

ohk congrats on that.
cheers for now

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.