Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

[vinceroger69]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

I have just the basic CH341A. I've never changed jumpers and it's read all the chips I've stuck in/on it. I use version 1.18 that stj provided a while back. I run Windows 7. It needed drivers, I believe I got them from this YouTube link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0ChYNwunUE

The fact there was an issue with the POST and then it takes 3 hours to program, suggests to me that it's faulty.

diff have you got the v 1.18 software? ive had a quick search and cant see it? i need to reinstall my programmer and cant find my files i downloaded thanks

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

Vinceroger69,

When I paid for the software, it came with a program called ch341afree.exe. The About window shows version 1.4. I can send you 1.18 if you want, or I can try sending the ch341afree 1.4. Let me know what you want.

[vinceroger69]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

i have managed to re download the drivers again from the youtube link above but the software version is v1.11 i think so if you have the v 1.18 that will be great for what i need if for many thanks.
I have not seen stj on any forums lately i hope hes ok and keeping well etc.

[diif]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

Hi Vince, here's 1.18.
I PMd stj a week or so ago after noticing his absence but didn't get a reply.

[vinceroger69]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

Thanks guys its appreciated yes stj used too be in a few eevblog threads too last i can rember on this forum i think he said he was having to re locate so may of moved etc.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

I too noticed his absence and sent a PM a while back but never got a response. I really hope he's okay.

[vinceroger69]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

I think I'm going to just scrape this board. In the end, it costed 20$. Now that I replaced those two capacitors, none of the RAM slots work. 2.5v 820uF polymers. Blah!

After all the effort you have put into this pc its a shame but customers need to understand we cant repair all faults no matter how hard we try and want too fix it, at the end of the day i guess your out of pocket with the parts you have brought to try to repair it but how much time can you waste too when other repairs may need doing.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

After all the effort you have put into this pc its a shame but customers need to understand we cant repair all faults no matter how hard we try and want too fix it, at the end of the day i guess your out of pocket with the parts you have brought to try to repair it but how much time can you waste too when other repairs may need doing.

That last part is the hardest thing. After spending so much time, I want to continue, because I feel like if I don't get it, I've wasted all that time, but it does reach a point where you just can't afford to work on it anymore. Works getting backed up and even if I get the RAM fixed, what else might be wrong with this board? The USB ports didn't work, none of them...maybe the SATA port didn't either. Maybe restoring the old BIOS would fix that, maybe not.

I just gotta get this done and I think buying a board that's guaranteed to be working is the way to go at this point, even if it ends up costing the customer a little more money. Personally, if it was me, I would have probably just bought a new system. I explained this to the customer, but I always try to go with what they want. He was really adamant about having this specific one repaired for some reason.

[vinceroger69]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

yes i get what your saying maybe find the customer a working board then and once you have some spare time try to continue to fix the other board, atleast the customer will be happy. I have not done much with pc bios etc but you was making progress with it at one point, usb/sata memory etc does sound like bios issues.

[techman1025]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

Hi
Real easy no power to board put your meter on diode mode put red probe on ground and test each header pin for resistance only ground will have zero the rest of pin's should resistance ... then from there see maybe the left side of the connector in picture i see a 8 pin fet or or three pin fet from left to right see if any of them are connected to your pump connector just with meter ohms put it on buzz see whats attach .
Techman1025

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

Hi
Real easy no power to board put your meter on diode mode put red probe on ground and test each header pin for resistance only ground will have zero the rest of pin's should resistance ... then from there see maybe the left side of the connector in picture i see a 8 pin fet or or three pin fet from left to right see if any of them are connected to your pump connector just with meter ohms put it on buzz see whats attach .
Techman1025

The board with the pump header problem is now a parts board. I've been taking parts off of that trying to fix the ebay board (capacitors, BIOS chip, etc). If I had my BGA rework station, I'd maybe try a bit harder, because I'd be able to swap southbridges, but at this point, I think it's time to buy a 100% guaranteed working board. It's a bit more money (160$ish with shipping), but at least it'll work.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

i think the learning point from this experience is not to bother fixing oem boards especially if its from a crappy oem like hp. a lot of hp's stuff stinks of planned obsolescence all over it. might be better off with a new system from a better manufacturer!

[rhomanski]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

I might be wrong here but, years ago the repair shops were full of vcr's stacked from floor to ceiling from customers that said fixit and then turned around and bought a new one cheaper. They insisted on having theirs fixed too until it came time to pay.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

i think the learning point from this experience is not to bother fixing oem boards especially if its from a crappy oem like hp. a lot of hp's stuff stinks of planned obsolescence all over it. might be better off with a new system from a better manufacturer!

Yeah, you're right ChaosLegionnaire. But how do you convince another person of that? He's an avid gamer and knows a little about computers. I think he saw the Gigabyte board and recognized the name. For a proprietary system, this board isn't bad. It can handle 32GB of DDR3. He says he's got a game that requires 16GB of RAM. That's a lot of RAM! I told him we could buy a new, non-proprietary board and get more bang for his buck, but he really wants this fixed. I just don't get it. He said he's okay with going up to 300$. Heck, I think I could have bought the same system, hard drive, case, everything, for that price! 245$ (that includes shipping), for a used H8-1414, the same system he has. It's around 160$ for a working board, but we needed a new CPU as well, which was around 40$ or 60$ (I don't remember). It just doesn't make sense to me why he wants to pay for the board, CPU, power supply recap, etc.

[vinceroger69]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

one of those situations i guess where the customer is always rite atleast once its sorted you will have a happy customer you get payed and maybe he will recomend you too his family/friends etc.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

I might be wrong here but, years ago the repair shops were full of vcr's stacked from floor to ceiling from customers that said fixit and then turned around and bought a new one cheaper. They insisted on having theirs fixed too until it came time to pay.

I really hope this isn't the case here, because I've spent good money on the caps for the PSU, I spent 20$ on the board that I gave up trying to get working, I spent a lot of time on this system, I bought 60$ worth of DDR3 RAM just to verify that the RAM wasn't the problem, and now I'm spending 160$ or so on a replacement board that does work. It's just a lot of money. He's a bit of a friend, so he'll probably give me the 300$ and we'll call it good, but that's a lot of work for an okay system, you know what I'm saying?

The RAM we kinda needed, now when we get newer systems, we have verified good RAM to use for testing purposes. Granted, I don't get many desktops anymore, a lot of laptops and all-in-one touch screen systems, but not many desktops. This been kinda a nightmare system. Like everything just fighting me around the corners. Bad PSU, bad CPU (we verified when we got it to POST with the DDR3 in slot 2). Just horrible.

Even though the PSU needed new capacitors, I wonder if when he hooked up that small cable to the PUMP header, if that bad PSU took out the CPU and the board somehow.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

I'm going to replace the BIOS with the original, just to see if I can get the USB ports working. I got the 2nd and 4th RAM slots working, and so far, I can only find a seller for a new board in China, that actually guarantees it works 100%. There's one seller that lists it as working 100%, used. But when I asked if he'd guarantee that everything worked (all the RAM slots, SATA ports, USB ports, etc), he said because it's used, they cannot guarantee that everything works! I was thinking then maybe they shouldn't be selling it as used, but as-is! They even say in their post, 100% working! I look at their feedback score. They sold a lot of items but had something like 96.5% feedback. I click to read the posts, over the last 12 months, 177 negative feedback!!!!!

They were sending out dead boards, or completely different boards. People said they'd refuse to give them their money back or wouldn't answer their questions. The seller always responded with we refunded your money, liar! Or something along those lines. So I figured that be a bad place to get a new board...but I did find one where the guy actually tested all the RAM slots for me, just to make sure they worked. It's going to take a while to get it here. Customer says if we only got two RAM slots working (a maximum of 16GB of RAM), he'd be okay with it. So if I can get the USB ports working, I might be good with this used one.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

I'm reprogramming the BIOS chip. It's still slow as shit, but I've tried a few things. The manufacturers website (wch.cn) says their driver was released in 2016, but it turns out it's the same driver the CH341 Programmer software comes with, released on 6/5/2009, version 2.2.2009.6. Windows Update couldn't find newer drivers either. I'm running the program as administrator. I even tried an earlier version, 1.18, with no luck.

I set it to AAI Programming Mode under the Operate Options, which seems to have sped it up a little bit. I'll let you know how long this write takes. The chip is being detected as an SST SST25VF032B. The chip physically says PCT on it, but has the 25VF032B. This is the only 23VF032B the CH341 Programmer seems to list. I doubt that's the problem though.

According to the internet, the 25VF032B supports the AAI Programming Mode. I guess it can write more than one byte at a time (a word) or something like that. That's probably why it's going a _little_ faster. Something still wrong somewheres.

I've also contacted the manufacturer of the CH341 Programmer software and asked about why my device isn't detected when it's set to serial mode. He says he wrote his program to only support Parallel Mode, not serial. So I can never use this program and have the voltages set to 3.3v, if I understand everything correctly. Maybe that has something to do with the slow programming speed, I dunno. I'd like to try writing this in Linux. I see there's some Linux programs out there for the CH341 now.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

One hour, fifty eight minutes, six seconds. Faster than last time, but something still seriously wrong. This is a different chip BTW, same manufacturer and model number, but physically different chip.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Suggestions for an HP M3970CM repair.

So I noticed there's USB 3.0 ports on top of the case. I find the plug and header for them and plug that into the board, and the USB 3.0 ports work. But I still can't figure out how to get into the BIOS. The front of the case has USB 2.0 ports, that are also 100% dead. The back has two different sets of USB 2.0 ports, which are both dead. One has the ethernet port above it, the other one is just two small USB 2.0 ports. All USB 2.0 are definitely dead.

I put the original BIOS back on. It says it's version 7.05 and says hit ESC for startup menu. I hit that, nothing happens for some reason. I can turn the numlock on and off though. I think I'll put the board back into the computer now and try it with the hard drives and everything else hooked up.