Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - $40 Motherboard $100 Case Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

skaven · 06-05-2005, 09:46 PM

Oh man...that board is a piece of junk! I used the K7SEM in an office deployment I did a couple years ago. Bought 45 of them to build 40 systems...ended up having to return 18 boards because they were DOA.

Based on stats like that, I'd imagine you've just got a dead board.

But all prejudices aside, try the following:

1. Verify that the PSU works by unplugging the 20-pin ATX connector and using an unrolled paper clip to connect any black wire with the green wire. The PSU should come on (and any components connected to it should fire up)

2. If the PSU is working hook everything back up and use that same paperclip to short each pair of pins on the header block (i imagine the reason you're so frustrated is that you can't find the power headers). So short pins 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, etc. until the system fires up. If you can't ever get the PSU to come on, you've got a dead board.

3. If the PSU fires up but the system never POSTs (no beeps, no video signal, etc), then check that everything is seated properly. Disconnect all peripherals that you possibly can and try again. On cheap boards like the K7SEM, the BIOS sometimes freaks out when something isn't connected properly. For example, if you've got two devices on one IDE channel both set to "master", most modern boards will figure it out and at least POST but ignore both devices...cheap boards generally will not. Disconnect all IDE devices, the floppy drive, any PCI cards. Try firing it up with just CPU and RAM installed.

4. If it still won't come on/POST...send that puppy back...you've got a bad board.

5. If you do get the board to come on, but are getting a pattern of beeps from the speaker (you may need to hook a speaker up to the headers on the board), then you've probably got a problem with your CPU or RAM. Since the video card is built in, if it's busted then you'll have to send the whole board back anyway.

Good luck!

06-05-2005, 09:46 PM	#9 (permalink)
skaven Insane Location: Austin, TX	Oh man...that board is a piece of junk! I used the K7SEM in an office deployment I did a couple years ago. Bought 45 of them to build 40 systems...ended up having to return 18 boards because they were DOA. Based on stats like that, I'd imagine you've just got a dead board. But all prejudices aside, try the following: 1. Verify that the PSU works by unplugging the 20-pin ATX connector and using an unrolled paper clip to connect any black wire with the green wire. The PSU should come on (and any components connected to it should fire up) 2. If the PSU is working hook everything back up and use that same paperclip to short each pair of pins on the header block (i imagine the reason you're so frustrated is that you can't find the power headers). So short pins 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, etc. until the system fires up. If you can't ever get the PSU to come on, you've got a dead board. 3. If the PSU fires up but the system never POSTs (no beeps, no video signal, etc), then check that everything is seated properly. Disconnect all peripherals that you possibly can and try again. On cheap boards like the K7SEM, the BIOS sometimes freaks out when something isn't connected properly. For example, if you've got two devices on one IDE channel both set to "master", most modern boards will figure it out and at least POST but ignore both devices...cheap boards generally will not. Disconnect all IDE devices, the floppy drive, any PCI cards. Try firing it up with just CPU and RAM installed. 4. If it still won't come on/POST...send that puppy back...you've got a bad board. 5. If you do get the board to come on, but are getting a pattern of beeps from the speaker (you may need to hook a speaker up to the headers on the board), then you've probably got a problem with your CPU or RAM. Since the video card is built in, if it's busted then you'll have to send the whole board back anyway. Good luck!