Troubleshooting an Acer Altos 9000 Pro
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| techiem2 Jun 29, 2007 12:24 PM EDT |
So I acquired this beast a while ago, and now I'm trying to get it working.
Apparently something is wrong with it.
It's a Dual PPro 200 with 48MB RAM. I have no drives attached and have removed the extra expansion cards. When I turn on the machine, it prints the following POST messages then stops. ------------------------------------ 048768 KB Memory Good 02 Processor(s) in System The BSP CPUID = 619 The 2nd CPU initialized successfully, CPUID 619 --------------------------------- There's a couple more blank lines then a blinking cursor after the last message. It seems to sit there indefinitely. I've tried hitting the bios access key several times before it hits that point, but it didn't work. Any Suggestions? I do have a second motherboard for it that I could try if I need to, but I'm hoping I won't have to resort to doing that (I don't even know if the second motherboard is good or if the one in it is a replacement and the extra is dead). Thanks! This would make a nice "little" box if I can get it working (and maybe upgrade the RAM a little). Mark II |
| NoDough Jun 29, 2007 12:29 PM EDT |
Sounds like your BIOS is dead. It's probably soldered to the MB too. If that's the case, I don't know how you fix it beyond unsoldering the flash bios chip and either plugging it into a programmer, or replacing it. I hope I'm wrong. |
| techiem2 Jun 29, 2007 12:32 PM EDT |
hmm The chip is socketed. So the question is, do I try just swapping the chip with the other board? Or just flat out swap boards? |
| techiem2 Jun 29, 2007 12:37 PM EDT |
Well, I swapped the chip and it's doing the same thing. So I guess I'm swapping the mobo. |
| Aladdin_Sane Jun 29, 2007 12:52 PM EDT |
techiem2: What was your expectation beyond the flashing cursor? Was there some bootable media anywhere in the system? If not, the response does not surprise me. My understanding of Motherboards is that no messages can be seen on the screen if the BIOS has failed. At best you get scrambled video output, but usually nothing at all. The messages are coded in the BIOS, not the CPU, as I understand it. I'm not sure about PPro, but later P3, P4 and modern systems that I know can POST with just one CPU (must be in the CPU0 socket). (Slotted dual-CPU systems from Intel required a "dummy" CPU board in the second slot to complete POST.) The MB may have an FCC ID on it. If so, you can go to fcc.gov, get the manufacturer, and if lucky, the docs to the MB online. This would probably be really helpful to understand what you are looking at. |
| techiem2 Jun 29, 2007 1:05 PM EDT |
Generally, most mobos would look for disks and such after checking ram and cpu(s).
And during the same time allow you to enter bios setup.
After that it checks for boot devices and boots something or gives you some sort of boot failure message. This doesn't seem to be getting to the point of checking for disks and allowing you to enter setup. This actually has both cpus in it (this particular machine uses a riser card that houses both cpus. I found the manual for the machine but it's not overly helpful. I swapped the motherboard and it's doing the same thing as before. I'm starting to wonder if it's something with the CPU riser card.... |
| NoDough Jun 29, 2007 1:13 PM EDT |
Any word from the previous owner about what caused the failure to begin with? |
| Aladdin_Sane Jun 29, 2007 1:53 PM EDT |
No, there is not, by long tradition, a message that tells you, "No disk found" or some such in *most* OEM BIOSes (taking the wide breadth of the industry back to 1981 into account). Connect a FDD and try to boot to a DOS floppy: *That* does not require a working IRQ to boot, only a non-hosed DMA channel and i/o port, per the 1981 spec. The BIOS thing has always annoyed me because it is hugely insensitive to end users and techs trying to diagnose these problems. The standard MB makers are much nicer about leaving such messages in the BIOS for you, but OEM's like Dell pull that message on purpose, but the purpose has never been clear to me except to say "F the end user." |
| techiem2 Jun 29, 2007 1:53 PM EDT |
Nope. It was included with some other old stuff given to the school by a local hospital. They give us stuff when they're cleaning out now and then. |
| jdixon Jun 29, 2007 2:45 PM EDT |
Try reseating/replacing your memory. Though most bioses will give a beep code if they have memory problems, it's possible this one doesn't. |
| techiem2 Jun 29, 2007 4:13 PM EDT |
hmm. Worth a try. I only stuck the first 2 simms back in when I swapped boards. I'll try a different pair later. |
| techiem2 Jul 09, 2007 4:46 PM EDT |
Well, it appears to be alive now.
It was a combination memory/bios issue apparently.
I pulled all the ram out of the box and tossed in a random pair that was in my spare parts.
The pair I put in posted fine and allowed me into bios.
None of the pairs that were in it originally would.
The difference I noted was that the stuff in it before was all EDO, but the stuff I had wasn't.
Once in the bios, I noticed that ECC was enabled.
I disabled it, swapped my ram set out for one of the EDO pairs, and the box posted fine again.
So apparently enabling ECC in the bios on that machine with non-ecc EDO ram is a bad thing. :) It's sitting there now with 48MB of EDO ram. I'll have to dig out my stash later and see if I can get it higher. :) Thanks for the help. Next step: hooking some drives up and getting it booting something! |
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