Boards that work when they are reset.

[SonicSteve]

Good morning Badcaps friends,

I've seen a phenomenon a few times and I'm wondering if someone can explain it.
So far both boards that this has happened on are both ECS boards. I doubt that this is unique to ECS boards though.

2 or 3 times now I've seen a board that powers up and posts but doesn't show any video display. When you turn it off and back on or press reset this will often cause it to function normally. On some boards you need to unplug the power from the p.s. then plug in and this causes the the board to function. It's almost like something hasn't initialized or received proper power, then after a reset it's OK.

Has anyone else seen this? And if so did you find out why?

Both boards I can clearly recall this happening with are boards that I recapped. I'm wondering if this may be due to a poorly connecting capacitor even though they seem and look to be connected well. Is it possible that a capacitor could have a poor connection to the board even though it's in tightly and solder is in the hole? I am likely way off base here, really I'm just guessing.

This has been one of the more annoying issues I've come across.

[Spacedye69]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

Or caps that LOOK good but in fact are bad? I've seen boards and power supplies do similar things with bad caps.

[SonicSteve]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

The strange thing is though that I'm using a good P.S.
I've replaced caps that didn't seem to be bad simply because they were OST. I don't recall the board ever doing this before I recapped it. I used brand new caps. Some Samxon and the rest united chemcon.

I suppose this is why I wonder sometimes if a replaced cap can infact be connected poorly.

Can flux be in the hole? if it is could it be causing a poor connection? I just don't know.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

From my point of view, theoretically this could happen, if you don`t get the whole solderpoint to the right soldering temperature.
There is a lot of heat needed to melt the solder on both sides of a typicall board.
If you force the old caps out, you may dammage the inner plating of the hole (AKA via).
This can easily lead tho eradic or themperature dependent contackt problems.
It could even the case, that the new caps are to good (e.g. to low ESR )for the particular desing.
Resoldering with a high quality soldering iron or a cheap high wattage one can fix some of those issues.
Another posibility is to preheat the pcb with a cheap hot air gun from a hardware store (but do not overdue it, or you desolder your BGA chips...).

Personally i have had none of those problems with boards, but some of my recapped Enermax and other PSU`s have similare issues.
I duno, if that was due to the recapping or if there was an other failure right from the start.

[SonicSteve]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

Those are indeed some unpleasant possibilities. I don't know where to start!

[Odracir_PT]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

Hello to all.

Sorry for bumping a 3 month-old topic, but its nice to see this topic. And sorry for my english.

I have a ECS L4VXA2 board from a friend of mine and it doesnt post with CPU, RAM and Geforce 4 mounted on.

But without the AGP mounted on, beeped like this: "BEEP BEEP (pause) BEEP". 2 short and 1 long? I tried to google for phoenix beep codes and nothing was related to that "2 short and 1 long" beep sequence. Weird.

The mobo has no blown caps and looks as new.

PS: Some people say that mobo is very problematic and sometimes doing a reset will go sometimes. I dont understand the problem of ECS boards...

Thank you.

[Maxxarcade]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

Try clearing the CMOS and see if that fixes it. Some timings may be off in the BIOS.

I have an Asus A7V that won't POST until I press reset, then it runds perfectly. Kind of annoying...

One time I started it up and waited too long to press reset, and the CPU overheat alarm beep started going

[gdement]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

I've actually had the opposite problem on some BCM BC133KT-100 boards. They run fine on a cold boot, but when reset they have some percentage chance of going dumb. Once they fail to reset, they're stuck that way until they get power cycled.

[linuxguru]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

Check out the auxiliary supply and the +5Vsb rail in the PSU, as well as the PS_ON circuitry on the mobo (which can be difficult to trace).

[Odracir_PT]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

Hey guys. Thanks for the replies.

Until now, i didnt touch again the L4VXA2 mobo.

I tried to do Clear CMOS before, but it didnt work, no beep with the Geforce inserted. But when i have time i will try to do that reset trick.

I think its the mobo fault. Many people complain ECS of bad support and bad boards.

[bgavin]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

I see this often with older ABit boards, such as KG7.

I have one client with this exact problem. If he warm start, the video goes blank. When he restarts, he has to hit the RESET button after windows is down, to force a cold start. This is a KG7 board that I built with a fresh WinXP build.

I suspect this board has bad caps, like so many KG7 do. It will be interesting to see if recapping the board cures the warm start blankout problem.

[Tom41]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

The beep codes should be listed in the manual that came with your motherboard. If you don't have one, search for the motherboard model number; most manufacturers will allow you to download the manuals as PDFs.

I had a board do a beep code error; looked it up in the manual and found it was "bad or missing memory". The memory itself was perfect, and the caps on the board were all genuine Rubycon - with no signs of bulging or venting. The culprit turned out to be the Kobian Mercury POS, er, PSU - with a vented cap.

Caps can be bad even if they don't look it; the only way to check is with an ESR meter. Also, your PSU - or an expansion card such as the AGP video card - could have bad caps in it.

Not POSTing after a reset is a common symptom of bad caps. The Reset button on the case won't POST the motherboard; in many cases doing a 'soft off' on the PSU (holding the power button) is also inadequate. When you do a full power cycle - pulling the mains plug for 30 seconds - they sometimes work.

[gdement]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

Hello to all.

Sorry for bumping a 3 month-old topic, but its nice to see this topic. And sorry for my english.

I have a ECS L4VXA2 board from a friend of mine and it doesnt post with CPU, RAM and Geforce 4 mounted on.

But without the AGP mounted on, beeped like this: "BEEP BEEP (pause) BEEP". 2 short and 1 long? I tried to google for phoenix beep codes and nothing was related to that "2 short and 1 long" beep sequence. Weird.

The mobo has no blown caps and looks as new.

PS: Some people say that mobo is very problematic and sometimes doing a reset will go sometimes. I dont understand the problem of ECS boards...

Thank you.

Are you sure it's a Phoenix BIOS? I tried looking up the 2-short 1-long beep code in a PhoenixBIOS 6.0 R6 manual, but the scheme they describe in the manual doesn't match what you're getting.

The manual I have says that the beep codes consist of 4 groups of 1-4 short beeps each. The pattern represents the final 8-bit POST code when the error occurred.



It sounds like you have a load related problem. The GeForce4 is probably putting more strain on the board than the PCI card you used, so it's able to boot further in that case. You might be getting poor voltages somewhere, so the problem is made worse with the GeForce4 connected.

[Junk Parts]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

Switch out the video cards. Use a different PSU and see what happens. I think the video isn't posting or the PSU is pumping bad numbers to the mobo.

[Junk Parts]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

Another thing to think about. Are you overclocking this hardware? If so go back to the factory settings.

[Odracir_PT]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

Are you sure it's a Phoenix BIOS? I tried looking up the 2-short 1-long beep code in a PhoenixBIOS 6.0 R6 manual, but the scheme they describe in the manual doesn't match what you're getting.

The manual I have says that the beep codes consist of 4 groups of 1-4 short beeps each. The pattern represents the final 8-bit POST code when the error occurred.



It sounds like you have a load related problem. The GeForce4 is probably putting more strain on the board than the PCI card you used, so it's able to boot further in that case. You might be getting poor voltages somewhere, so the problem is made worse with the GeForce4 connected.

Its weird. I see a sticker saying Phoenix BIOS, but in the manual it says it uses a AWARD Bios... I dont understand, but for the beeps, it seems its a Award Bios...

Anyways, its known ECS mobos are really very bad.

But once again, i will give a try.

Thanks.

[hkivan]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

phoenix = AWARD

IIRC phoeinx brought AWARD years ago

[Odracir_PT]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

Update: I tried to clean the dust of the mobo, then tested and now it seems working with image. Its a Award Bios version 6.00.

I will try now to put the IDE cables and everything to see how this mobo handles and if it hangs or not.

[Odracir_PT]

Re: Boards that work when they are reset.

Well, it seems the board is Okay.

Thank you all for the support.