Ongoing saga of PC Boot Problem 4

[Crustyoldbloke]

OK, new thread without the 90 odd previous postings. Now where were we?

Jay, just tried disconnect on HDD with boot up disk. POST beep was good - same result though. I've rechecked all of the jumper settings.

Die dulci fruere!
Phil
24 Beers in a case, 24 hours in a day.......coincidence??

 

[DBSSP]

Interesting....man, this is becoming quite the "Throw-a-Road-Flare-in-the Case!" type problem. Have we tried a new or at least different CPU? Jay
"If the words up and down were reversed, would you trip and fall or trip and fly?"

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

No we haven't tried a different CPU, but since it is showing up on screen, albeit wrongly, tells me that at least it's working.

I wish there were some secret keystrokes to get into the BIOS, or someone could tell me what all the jumper numbers are for.....they're colour coded on the multipliers, green, red and yellow.

I could try changing one of them and see what the result is. Any idea of which to try first? Die dulci fruere!
Phil
24 Beers in a case, 24 hours in a day.......coincidence??

 

[DBSSP]

hhmmm...your book says nothing about them? I wonder what the website has to say about the board...what's the model number? Jay
"If the words up and down were reversed, would you trip and fall or trip and fly?"

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Jay, I don't have a book - that's the problem. I've done a quick search on Google using the MOBO name : P5SS ME v 1.2a, but I didn't come up with anything useful.

Die dulci fruere!
Phil
24 Beers in a case, 24 hours in a day.......coincidence??

 

[DBSSP]

P5SS ME?.....Found it! It's an ECS board..

http://www.ecsusa.com

Let's see what we can find shall we. Jay
"If the words up and down were reversed, would you trip and fall or trip and fly?"

 

[DBSSP]

http://www.ecsusa.com/ecsusa/www.ecs.com.tw/products/socket7.htm

You'll see a Zip file you can download. P5SS-ME Jay
"If the words up and down were reversed, would you trip and fall or trip and fly?"

 

[DBSSP]

You'll have to be my eyes for the download as I can't download a thing right now. Let me know if you see anything. Jay
"If the words up and down were reversed, would you trip and fall or trip and fly?"

 

[DBSSP]

Wow, you can get this board for $18 with free shipping, lol. I'll be going to lunch so I'll be back, just keep updating here to let everyone know what's happening! Jay
"If the words up and down were reversed, would you trip and fall or trip and fly?"

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Downloaded, read, copied and pasted below.

P5SS-Me
The P5SS-Me mainboard is a micro ATX board measuring 243.8 mm by 198.2 mm and using a 4-layer printed circuit
board. This is a socket-7 board which supports a wide range of Pentium and Pentium-compatible processors which
adhere to the socket-7 pinout. The P5SS-Me is supplied with an AGP 3D-graphics controller and a 3D-audio controller
pre-installed on the motherboard. The high level of integration contributes to the stability of the system, and means that
the board is ready to use with the addition of just a socket-7 CPU and a DIMM memory module. This is an economic
platform which provides entry-level through to business-class Pentium performance for minimum cost.
PROCESSORS
Pentium 100/120/133/150/166/200MHz
Pentium processor with MMX technology 166/200/233MHz
Cyrix/IBM 6x86MX PR166/PR200/PR233 Cyrix/IBM 6x86 MII series CPUs
AMD K6 166/200/233/266/300MHz & K6-2/K6-III series CPUs
CHIPSET
SiS530 System Controller & SiS5595 PCI System I/O Chipset
Graphics: Integrated video sub-system with SiS530
Elite PCI Audio - CMI8338
PnP Super I/O chip - Winbond W83877F
MEMORY
Three 168-pin DIMMs Sockets for SDRAM (Ready for PC100)
Maximum: 1GB
SYSTEM BIOS
Award 2MB Flash ROM
Supports Plug and Play 1.0A, AMP 1.2, Multi Boot, DMI
Full Support for ACPI Revision 1.0A specification
I/O INTERFACE
Supports Plug and Play I/O function
One - EPP/ECP mode parallel port
Two - 16550 high-speed serial I/O port
Dual PCI IDE interfaces - support four IDE devices (PIO mode 4, DMA Mode 2, Ultra DMA 33/66)
Supports 360K~2.88M Byte, 3 Mode FDDs
PS/2 keyboard and PS/2 mouse connectors
ATX Power Supply Connector
Two sets of USB connector
Other ports
IrDA / ASKIR Header
One fast IR Header (Optional)
Green indicator LED Connector
CPU Fan Power Headers
Internal Modem Ring Wake-Up & LAN Card Wake Up functiohs
RTC & BATTERY
SiS5595 included 256 bytes CMOS SRAM
Coin Type Li 3V
EXPANSION SLOTS
1 ISA slot, 3 PCI slots (With one ISA-PCI shared slot)
FORM FACTOR
microATX (243.8mm*198.2mm)

Of and there are 2 image files, one a jpeg of the MOBO and the other is gif of the layout.
Die dulci fruere!
Phil
24 Beers in a case, 24 hours in a day.......coincidence??

 

[DBSSP]

Send me those and I'll review them over lunch, if you don't mind.


jwizard@cham-cor.com Jay
"If the words up and down were reversed, would you trip and fall or trip and fly?"

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

All files sent. Have a good lunch. 17:19 here.
Die dulci fruere!
Phil
24 Beers in a case, 24 hours in a day.......coincidence??

 

[DBSSP]

Alright, I've tried everything to get a manual on this thing to no avail. So now we have to go to the jumper "try-it-and-see" method. Just move the jumper one step at a time and reboot. Should be the set next to the socket. Jay
"If the words up and down were reversed, would you trip and fall or trip and fly?"

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Jay

I've tried at least one different setting for each of the three coloured mutiplier settings; no change, still can't get the keyboard to work. The screen reports the same even with different settings, so I feel that we're not getting as far as "reading the hardware".

The three white jumper settings are for CMOS, Keyboard and Audio. Clearly the keyboard jumper is required for powering it up, but when I enable it, there's no difference. The old MOBO was configed as disable and it used to work.

Stranger and stranger.
Die dulci fruere!
Phil
24 Beers in a case, 24 hours in a day.......coincidence??

 

[DBSSP]

hhmmm...I say take a break for the day (or evening for yourself) knock back a pint and start fresh tomorrow. I will look some things up tonight and hopefully get a much clearer path to a solution. Jay
"If the words up and down were reversed, would you trip and fall or trip and fly?"

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Sounds like a great idea Jay.

I've just spoken with my friend the PC builder. He says that he has seen this sort of behaviour before, but he never analyses it, just grabs another bit of hardware and changes it until everything works. He suspects either power supply or CPU.

Oh well, time for a jar or two. I'll say cheers to you on the first one.

Goodnight @ 20.00
Die dulci fruere!
Phil
24 Beers in a case, 24 hours in a day.......coincidence??

 

[JimInKS]

I did come accross the following at

http://eshop.awadesign.com/supportFAQ.asp?ID=5&CatAbr=MB

Hope it helps!

How do I setup the EliteGroup P5SS-ME Systemboard?

Jumpers: (JP3, JP4, JP5), (3 jumpers, 2 pins each). These jumpers set the System BUS multiplier. Please refer to page 39 in the user manual or look on your CPU.

(JP6, 5 jumpers, 10 pins) This jumper sets the core voltage of your processor. Failure to set this jumper properly can result in damage to your processor. Look on the top of your CPU for the proper core voltage.

(JP7, 4 jumpers, 2 pins each) These jumpers set the frequencies for the System Bus, PCI Bus, & memory Bus. Double check your processor Bus speed, failure to set properly could result in damage to the processor and loss of data integrity.

(JP9, 1 jumper, 3 pins) This jumper enables and disables the onboard audio card. The default setting is enabled.

BIOS: The integrated video display shares memory, the BIOS options allow 2,4, or 8 Megs to be reserved. (The default setting is 8 Megs.) Also set the Init. Display first option under the Integrated Peripheral menu to (Onboard) if using the onboard video display adapter.

Special Notes: If using only (1) memory module, you must install the DIMM into bank one or you will not get a video display. Load your drivers in the following order.

Reboot the system and your all set.

 

[mainegeek]

Looked at your original post. If you are still having
problems with it hanging on "verifying dmi pool" then
the master boot records probably screwed up. Hook everything
up. Insert a boot disk into floppy and start up. It will start to read the floppy and then it will stop. After a few minutes it will read the floppy again and boot. At the a: prompt type so it looks like this. A:\fdisk /mbr <hit enter>
when it has finished accessing floppy, then remove boot disk and reboot. If that doesn't work then you might want to consider re-partitioning and re-formatting. I suspect the hard drive is your problem.

 

[Crustyoldbloke]

Good Morning from a sunny and warm Kidderminster in England's central region. It's 08:30 and I'm at my desk.

Thanks JiminKS for the link and info. Since I transplanted everything from the old to the new MOBO, the jumpers really shouldn't be an issue.

MaineGeek, sorry to say the PC doesn't get anywhere near the reading of drives at present.

Today I thought I might look towards divine inspiration or even better still, intervention.
Die dulci fruere!
Phil
24 Beers in a case, 24 hours in a day.......coincidence??

 

[DBSSP]

Oh my, what a morning! Anyway, so now were at the crossroads of what to do. Have we tried a different PSU yet? We've tried about everything else I believe except for anything extraordinarly different. Perhaps Sir PC would like a pint in the evening as well? Seriously though, we could try the PSU, could try a different cpu, or the board could just be a bad board (it has been sitting for sometime). Jay
&quot;If the words up and down were reversed, would you trip and fall or trip and fly?&quot;