Loop during BIOS boot for PCCHIPS M810L V7.1C

[jfulghum]

I'm having the following problems, can you assist ?


During the many boots required to install in new OS, the processor would get into an Looping boot process, and never get to the process of looking for any drive. The only way to stop it is to power down, and try again. I checked connections, they are solid. It appears either there is a bug with the BIOS (AMI) or Motherboard (M810L V7.1C). I've been on the PCCHIPS web site, but find no way to send them a question.

While on the PCCHIPS site I downloaded the AMI Flash Rom Update Utility, and guessed (on the required ROM - M810L v71c 021106S.ROM ) the web site had other drivers well documented, but not clear on the Flash Rom ) . This flash turned out to the same one already on the BIOS.

Anyway, I have this strange BIOS Boot Loop. Any Ideas ?
Where the markings on the MOB for the ID and version ?

 

[exocet]

First off, PCChips are very low quality boards and i've had plenty of experience with these things at work.

From what you're describing, i'm assuming that the computer continually reboots itself while it POSTs, but before it detects drives, correct? If you're able to enter the BIOS, the first thing i would try is to UNDERCLOCK the CPU settings and see if it will boot correctly. Also, if you have them available, i would try booting up using a different CPU and different RAM, and verify that the harddrive settings in the BIOS are correct.

What is the current date and version of your BIOS? Right now the PCChips site was down, so i was unable to check out the bios page. But i will say that flashing the BIOS has corrected a few problems for me in the past.

When troubleshooting a bad motherboard, you want as few variables as possible. Disconnect your floppy drive, CD ROM drives, sound card, NIC, your video card (if the board has onboard video and you can set it to use onboard in BIOS), modems, all RAM except one stick, and even your harddrives. See if you can get it to post and bring up the error message saying there's no OS found. If that works, plug in the harddrive and see if it still boots. Remember, all you need to get the computer to post is the motherboard, ram, cpu (with heatsink/fan of course) and some video to see whats going on.

One other thing to check out is to see if the heatsink is put on correctly on the CPU. The bottom of the heatsink will have a deeper cut strip on it to match up with the raised part of the CPU socket on the board. Even putting the heatsink on in the wrong direction can keep a machine from booting.

I hope some of this proves useful. Hopefully you don't have a plain bad board, but coming from PCChips, i wouldn't be surprised

 

[n2gun]

Check the PcChips Lottery Board at the link below. Though the board is an independant, their techs do answer some questions on there. Also maybe someone else has had the same problem.

http://www.stud.fernuni-hagen.de/q3998142/pcchips/

 

[jfulghum]

Thanks, I will all the above a try.