ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

[chromium]

Hi all.

A few years ago a built a kick-ass DOS/Windows 98 SE retro gaming PC with a an AGP Voodoo 3 3000 and ISA Soundblaster Vibra 16. It was working beautifully.

I pulled it out of the cupboard to play with it last year and it came up with a CMOS Checksum Error. I guess that was normal as it had been sitting dormant for a while.

The problem is, I can't get into the BIOS. When I power on it shows the VGA bios screen, then it shows the CPU type, does a quick memory test, looks for a Primary Master HDD. Then it says "CMOS Checksum Error - Defaults Load, press F1 to continue or Del to enter setup"

It doesn't seem to respond to the keyboard. I am using a known working PS/2 keyboard (I tried it in another PC to confirm). This is also the keyboard I was using on this PC before it stopped working.

I inspected the board and found a bulging cap, I was hopeful! I replaced the cap and still nothing, I can't get into the BIOS. I've tried resetting CMOS, reseating BIOS chip, changing RAM, changing GPU, etc, but nothing helps

No problem, I thought. I'll just buy a new one an eBay. Um maybe not, have you seen the prices of these things??? I guess this is now some sort of classic highly sought after board, so I am now even more desperate to fix it.

I checked the fuses near the PS/2 ports for continuity and they seem ok. I'm also getting 5v from the PS/2 port with a PSU connected.

I'm hoping that somebody here might be able to help me get this board up and running again. Is a full recap likely to fix the issue or is there something more sinister going on here? I'm not sure if the PC isn't detecting the keyboard, or maybe the BIOS is corrupted, or the Keyboard controller has blown, or something else entirely.

Sorry for the long post. Any help would be very much appreciated.

TL;DR My motherboard posts, but I can't get into BIOS. I replaced a bulging cap and it didn't help. Please help!

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

show us photos of the whole board with the caps on it visible. if its affected by the capacitor plague, a full recap might fix it. caps can fail without bulging. also make sure the psu also doesnt have any bad caps in it!

[chromium]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

show us photos of the whole board with the caps on it visible. if its affected by the capacitor plague, a full recap might fix it. caps can fail without bulging. also make sure the psu also doesnt have any bad caps in it!

Thanks for the reply. I could only see one cap bulging, which I replaced. I'm hoping it's another one that has gone bad, but isn't showing it

I was thinking of getting an ESR meter to test them without having to desolder the lot.

I'd be surprised if it's the PSU. It's a 750w Corsair HX that has been happily running a Ryzen 7 5700X and GTX 1080ti

Here's the pic:



Thanks!

[SMDFlea]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

Have you checked the CMOS battery voltage

[chromium]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

Have you checked the CMOS battery voltage

Yes, I have. It was putting out 3v. I also bought a brand new battery to try.

[Dan81]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

Replace every cap. The little buggers can stay I suppose, but the bigger ones (anything higher than 330uF) MUST go.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

yea looks like a boardful of tayeh caps. tayehs are listed as a junk cap brand here. replace them all with panasonic fr caps with the same size and specs.

[chromium]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

Thanks all. Yeah they are Tayeh. I'll do a full recap. I just wanted to see if it was worthwhile and was likely to fix this issue

[ala_borbe]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

also kindly consider eeprom reprograming
sometimes with this ols boards/bios nvram gets corrupted and bios needs to be reprogrammed

[chromium]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

also kindly consider eeprom reprograming
sometimes with this ols boards/bios nvram gets corrupted and bios needs to be reprogrammed

Yeah, I also thought it might have been something like that. I'm going to recap anyway, but failing that I'd be interested in doing the BIOS reflash.

How would I go about doing it? Would something like this do the trick? https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/CH341A-2...r/283083169035

I've also managed to score a cheap BE6-II v1.2 board as a backup. It was cheap because 2 of the memory slots don't work, so there might be another attempted repair job coming there I was only using 1 x 128MB stick in my current machine anyway, so hopefully it will be ok. What would the likely causes of memory slots not working? More bad caps? I guess it could even be something to do with the Slot 1.

[Dan81]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

Nope, on these old boards it's all bad caps' fault. These are known to exibit these issues when the caps are bad.

[zunasthegreat]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

Had the same issue today with an old Soltek P4-478 board that I've recapped ~10y ago. Check the leads of the battery holder and if they make good connection. It posted after I did 3-4 clear cmos / battery remove.

[chromium]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

Had the same issue today with an old Soltek P4-478 board that I've recapped ~10y ago. Check the leads of the battery holder and if they make good connection. It posted after I did 3-4 clear cmos / battery remove.

Mine POSTs, but I can't enter BIOS. Is that the same issue you had?

[zunasthegreat]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

Yeap same, board posts but keyboard doesnt work and u can't either enter bios. CMOS Checksum error or GPNV error something. I did replace a suspect cap near the CR2032 bat and now it boots just fine. Another folk told me it might be aging CMOS chip or something related to the I/O chip (ITE/Winbond).

[chromium]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

Yeap same, board posts but keyboard doesnt work and u can't either enter bios. CMOS Checksum error or GPNV error something. I did replace a suspect cap near the CR2032 bat and now it boots just fine. Another folk told me it might be aging CMOS chip or something related to the I/O chip (ITE/Winbond).

Interesting. So replacing a cap near the battery fixed the issue? I've ordered replacement caps for the whole board, but I might try replacing the ones near the battery first. Thanks.

I also thought it might be something to do with the CMOS getting corrupt somehow. I'll try replacing caps first and take it from there

[zunasthegreat]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

That board was a mess 90% of the caps needed replacement, Capxon/evercom etc. I had some minor ones left. After the minor ones replacement its booting fine. Also I had to re-cap a FX 5500 (4-5 1000uf 6.3/10v) with a hillarious symptom, that card has 128-bit and 256MB VRAM. If you start the pc funky colours will appear on the screen and graphic corruption will occur when u load into OS. Some times after 2-3 hard resets the machine will post without glitch but with 64-bit and 128MB VRAM, will then work fine. In rare cases the card might pick up 128 Bit and 64MB VRAM. I just flashed a 64b/128MB VRAM bios and let it be.

CMOS chip can turn bad or lets say weaken, most times u can re-flash it and it will be fine. Saw that on a NIC card that forgot its MAC address and some Jetway board.

[chromium]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

Ok, well that's disappointing.

I spent hours replacing all 27 capacitors and it didn't change a thing.

It posts, but I still can't get into the BIOS.

Should I look at trying to reflash the bios next?

[chromium]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

Hmm, I can't see to be able to edit my post.

Anyway, I think it could also possibly be related to the W83977EF-AW I/O chip.

It looks like it will be fun replacing that

Hmmm, I actually noticed some corrosion or something on the pins of W83977EF-AW. I've tried cleaning it up with isopropyl. Maybe I need to reflow it

[ala_borbe]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

try another ram stick
try withot hard drive and optical drive
try checking capacitors and coild around PS/2 ports
try usb keyboard

you still have a possibility of problem with bios

regards

[chromium]

Re: ABIT BE6-II Posts, but can't enter BIOS

try another ram stick
try withot hard drive and optical drive
try checking capacitors and coild around PS/2 ports
try usb keyboard

you still have a possibility of problem with bios

regards

Already tried:
A different ram stick
Replaced ALL capacitors
USB Keyboard.

I didn't check the coils.

I think the issue is with the corrosion around the Winbond W83977EF-AW. I believe that it contains the keyboard controller. I desoldered the IC and there are corroded pads and and also corroded traces around and underneath it

I may attempt some micro surgery at some point and try to fix the traces/pads, but it'll be a miracle of if I can pull it off at my skill level. It'll be a fun challenge though