Acer A90 or A290

[rigeback]

I was given a bare bones mother board the other day and recognizing the CPU as a Intel Duo Core 4500 I decided to try and get it to boot up, I managed to get the CPU fan ruining and AGp card fan running but no post or video signal whats so ever, the key board and usb slots also seem dead. I checked all the fuses and caps on the board and all seem OK. some of the LDO's in the CPU area do not have 12 volt power going in or out!
The attached photos are not very clear due to the weather at present, the only service manual I've found for this board was on a Chinese web site, acer only give the owner manual which is as good as tits on a bull!
Anyhow the in the service manual they have the board hooked up to a 20 pin PSU although the board has a 24 pin slot, at present I've got it connected on 20pin but I do have a 24 pin PSU, if I connect the 4 pin 12 volt power near the CPU the board give the alarm, I think it was 4-5 long beeps and shuts down. Is it possible that he CPU is burnt or the onboard chip???

[rigeback]

Originally Posted by rigeback

I was given a bare bones mother board the other day and recognizing the CPU as a Intel Duo Core 4500 I decided to try and get it to boot up, I managed to get the CPU fan ruining and AGp card fan running but no post or video signal whats so ever, the key board and usb slots also seem dead. I checked all the fuses and caps on the board and all seem OK. some of the LDO's in the CPU area do not have 12 volt power going in or out!
The attached photos are not very clear due to the weather at present, the only service manual I've found for this board was on a Chinese web site, acer only give the owner manual which is as good as tits on a bull!
Anyhow the in the service manual they have the board hooked up to a 20 pin PSU although the board has a 24 pin slot, at present I've got it connected on 20pin but I do have a 24 pin PSU, if I connect the 4 pin 12 volt power near the CPU the board give the alarm, I think it was 4-5 long beeps and shuts down. Is it possible that he CPU is burnt or the onboard chip???

Just checked back with the service manual and I noticed the model number SA90, also read that can power the board with the 4-pin 12 volts, this is the link http://wenku.baidu.com/view/be524519...4b9d57b24.html

[joshnz]

24pin atx and the 4pin 12v must be connected

[Uranium-235]

I've had some where it worked fine /w 20 on 24 & 4 on 8

[rigeback]

Yes it should post with no problem using a 20 pin socket, I think there might be a short on the 12 volt rail or the video chip is fried!

[momaka]

Originally Posted by rigeback

if I connect the 4 pin 12 volt power near the CPU the board give the alarm, I think it was 4-5 long beeps and shuts down. Is it possible that he CPU is burnt or the onboard chip???

If the CPU or onboard chipset was dead, the board would be dead as well (i.e. fans spin and nothing else). The fact that the board beeps suggests that it's working fine but it's encountering an error during POST.

Make sure:
- To reset CMOS settings before doing anything else (remove battery for 20 seconds or more or use onboard jumper)
- There's at least 1 stick of RAM in the RAM slots.
- There's no wires or other metal objects shorting anything on the board
- 1 or more USB ports aren't broken and the pins inside shorted
- CPU has a heatsink on it and that the CPU fan is connected (some motherboards will shut down without a CPU fan connected or if the CPU overheats)
- There's no bad caps or at least check if there are any caps from a brand/series known to go bad (probably best to post here what caps are on the board)

Lastly, try a PCI video card. Also make sure your PSU is adequate to run the machine. No-name cheap PSUs can cause all sorts of random issues.

[rigeback]

Yes Sir, a stick of RAM made it post and identify the mobo as a Acer Aspire M1610 on the internal graphics, I tried to use a ATI Sapphire X1550 card that I've had laying around for awhile since it fits this board but it did not see it, possibly because the mobo is not grounded in a box yet. Unfortunately the mobo also came without a heat sink! for the test I have a spare P-4 sitting on the cpu.

[momaka]

Originally Posted by rigeback

I tried to use a ATI Sapphire X1550 card that I've had laying around for awhile since it fits this board but it did not see it, possibly because the mobo is not grounded in a box yet.

It shouldn't matter. I regularly test motherboards without the case, and they have always worked fine. Perhaps it wasn't seated properly.
At least the computer is running now . I too had computers trick me into thinking that they weren't working because I didn't install RAM. Actually that happened last week to another person at work, too. He thought he hosed the customer's computer. 5 minutes later I had the system running for him .

[rigeback]

Well its been an interesting few days, got every thing in an ATX box and installed win 7 pro and the board runs well, did some diagnostic tests with intel which went well however this sapphire card is not detected at all, found this site on badcaps which is full of good info http://www.invisiblerobot.com/pcie_x1/ where you can cut the board or the sockett of the PCIe, I cut the socket with a soldering iron and it works, well the fan spins but the board is still not detected, I guess there a fault on the board itself. The power supply shoud be adequate 450W 24pin connector and I did update the bios to the latest version, any ideas what could be wrong with board??
Summary

Manufacturer Acer
Product Name Aspire M1610
Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Professional
Chipset SIS 672+968
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4500 @ 2.20GHz
System Memory 2 GB
Hard Drive 1 Maxtor 6Y080L0 ATA Device, 76.33 GB
CD/DVD Drive 1 DVD-ROM DVD-16X5H ATA Device
Video SiS Mirage 3 Graphics
Total Available Graphics Memory 576 MB
Audio High Definition Audio Device
Ethernet Card 1 SiS191 Ethernet Controller
Serial Port Enabled
Parallel Port Enabled
UUID 001C2532634F20071028075643000000
Serial Number

[rigeback]

This PCIe board is still invisible even to win xp, the caps and solder look good and GPU does not look as if it was over heated, the heat sink assembly still has the original Arctic silver coolant. I was considering reflow of the GPU but hate to destroy the board although its useless to me if the operating system does not detect it! Any thoughts out there appreciated.

[momaka]

Try that graphics card on another computer if possible. If it doesn't get detected, then you know that's the problem.

[rigeback]

Good point Momaka, I would like to do that but this is the only board I have with this type configuration and the reason I tried the PCI-1 slot moddification, I will try warming up the caps on the board it has been on the shelf for more tham a year and might need some kind of reactivation before I resort to a reflow?

[momaka]

Originally Posted by rigeback

I will try warming up the caps on the board it has been on the shelf for more tham a year and might need some kind of reactivation before I resort to a reflow?

I doubt that will fix it, but try it nonetheless. If it doesn't work then try the reflow.

By the way, does your Sapphire X1550 have a power connector on it? If yes, did you connect it to your PSU? Most video cards won't work if they have a power connector and it's not connected.

Also, how are you planning to reflow the card in case none of the above works?

[rigeback]

No this card does not have a power connector that I can see, 5v is on the board and the fan runs, some times win7 indicates an Evo hardware has been added but it don't work when I connect the video. I've removed it for now and will probably try the hot air gun again on the chip.

[momaka]

If you're doing a heat gun reflow, do it this way:
1) Remove heat sink and fan assembly.
2) Remove any electrolytic caps that are close to the GPU chip. Not doing this can damage them with the heat gun, depending on how much they get heated.
3) Clean area around GPU from dust and other debree, then put flux (liquid and baste are both fine).
4) Place the video card on a metal grill or something similar that will allow you to blow air on it from both sides without having to move the video card.
The way I do it is I clamp two metal rods or pipes on a table so that they are sticking out of the table, then I place the video card on the pipes, with the GPU chip side facing up.
5) Heat the area under the GPU chip first and *not* the GPU chip itself on top. Keep heating until the flux starts smoking/bubbling. Once that happens, keep heating for another 10-20 seconds or so.
6) Finally, heat the GPU chip from the top side for another 20-30 seconds (or more, depending on how high your heat gun goes to). 220-225C would be preferable.
7) Turn off heat gun and let the video card cool. Do not move the video card until it has cooled down.

[rigeback]

Last time I used flux on the DV5000 mobo I had poor results and I was advised not to use it for re-flow! First time round I'll try without the flux and see if it works. This heat gun is far out, have to be careful as its rated for 400°c, it will liquidize the solder on a mobo within 3 minutes in an immediaqte area running at 230°c.

[momaka]

In that case, start by heating the video card on the bottom from far away (30-40 cm). After 40 to 60 seconds, move closer and continue heating for another 20-30 seconds. Finally focus the heat under the GPU area and continue heating again for another 20-30 seconds. After that heat from the top for about 10-20 seconds. If your heat gun is really strong and has no adjustable settings, increase the above mentioned distance. Temperatures above 250 C can damage the GPU chip.
If you don't want to use flux, at least put a small drop somewhere where it's not important - the flux will give you a good visual of when the board is getting hot enough.

[rigeback]

OK will do, the gun has temperature regulation but I prefer to do a dry run on some boards that I want to remove components from, this project is on hold though as you might have seen my other thread about the LC TV/monitor.

[rigeback]

I was having a random shut downs with this mobo and found the System board header connections were wrong, the shut downs are fixed but I also noticed this
Pull-up(330 ohm) to 5V_SB_SYS to SIO GPIO so I connected a jumper to J4 and reinstalled the PSIe card, still no luck though! The manual is located http://www.manualowl.com/m/Acer%20Co.../Manual/114168
The re flow of the card is still pending since I'm using the PC!