Bios corrupted, or bad caps?

[Smith84]

Hello everyone. I'm new here, and I like the site! Anyway, I have a FIC SD11 mainboard. The mainboard looks ok, no bent, buldgey or leady capacitors. However it will not POST. When I turn it on, out of the case, on the mainboard box so it's not being short circuted by the case, with a know good CPU, known good memory, and known good video card, the fans spin, but no screen. I have a little PCI card that displays BIOS codes, and so I plugged that in, and it says ED and stays there forever. I looked the code up in the booklet and it means that it says "Init floppy" I thought it odd, that the computer wouldn't post because of an unplugged floppy, so I cleared the BIOS, no effect. I plugged in a floppy, still no POST, but the error code changed to EF which means "Floppy read error". Cleared the BIOS again, no effect.

So now I'm stumped. Why would the BIOS try to read the floppy, unless its looking for a BIOS ROM or something?!?

BTW: The CPU gets unusually hot for only 5 minutes of on time, but it is a Slot A with no fan, just a giant heatsink. I also tried a known good ISA card, but still no vid and same codes.

so... I am sad, that it doesn't work.

[sulbert]

Re: Bios corrupted, or bad caps?

Does the floppy LED light up?
What happens when you put a floppy in the drive that has the BIOS image renamed to amiboot.rom on it?

[willawake]

Re: Bios corrupted, or bad caps?

how about to flip the floppy cable over, maybe it is wrong. i had a wierd board one time that would not boot without floppy attached correctly.....sounds like something worse though.

what is the history of the board, when did you have it posting before and what happened.

[Smith84]

Re: Bios corrupted, or bad caps?

The LED does light up, and the cable was in there correctly. All the floppy does is the cranking sound. So I took sulbert's advice. I renamed a new BIOS to amiboot.rom and after a few more codes, POST!! I didnt know you could reflash like that, it was cool!

Now my only question is, how would the BIOS get corrupted? Is it going to happen agian? Btw, willawake, as to your history question, the board was in operation about a year, to six months ago, when it just wouldn't come on anymore. There was no power surges, or physical abuse of the board.... Could a dead CMOS battery have anything to do with it? Prob not, but....

[willawake]

Re: Bios corrupted, or bad caps?

sulbert is the man YEAH!!!! GO sulbert.

as to WHY? shit we will never know about that board...mysteries of life, call us when it happens again. but experience shows when something is up and not dealt with it will happen again.....

i wish we could hand out tshirts but we are too low budget.....

[Smith84]

Re: Bios corrupted, or bad caps?

Alright, cool! I'm very happy with my fixed board. Thanks, Sulbert!

[Chris1992]

Re: Bios corrupted, or bad caps?

Good thing it works now, but FIC were known to use badcaps. What brand are the caps?