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bbear2
Premium Member
join:2003-10-06
dot.earth

bbear2

Premium Member

[motherboard] System won't power up

I have a M2NPV-VM ASUS MB. Several months ago I tried to flash the BIOS and it crapped out during. I thought I blew the BIOS. Put it away for a few weeks, took it out again and voila it was working. So I tried once again to flash the BIOS and same thing happened. So I put it away until this weekend when I really needed another MB. And to my surprise it was working.

I first did a bench test, BIOS booted without error, then cleaned it up, assembled it in case, loaded OS, updates, etc. Was running perfectly for 5 hours with many reboots.

I shut it down last night and this morning, nothing but the green light on the MB. It is dead. And I didn't even touch it. I took off the PON switch, shorted the PINs and nothing.

I'm looking for suggestions about what to do next and what to look for. I'm thinking of swapping the PSU, but I'm also thinking that there's something critically wrong with the board that's causing this (and the previous issues), and it wasn't a BIOS issue after all. Or, has anyone ever hear of self-healing BIOS, such that if it flashes wrong, let it sit a few days and it will fix itself?

psafux
Premium Member
join:2005-11-10

psafux

Premium Member

I'd put it away for a few weeks.

Unplug all unnecessary items from the motherboard & try again. If still nothing it is the board, power supply, processor, or memory. You could pull the memory and power it on, the system should complain about that. If not the board is almost assuredly shot.

Flaky BIOS flashes can cause all sorts of oddball behaviors.

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

norwegian

Premium Member

said by psafux:

Flaky BIOS flashes can cause all sorts of oddball behaviors.

Most certainly.

However if you can get it up running again, the minimum to me would be a bios recovery if you can using crash-free recovery.
Note: it says the recovery and flashing tool only supports VGA/RGB, so hopefully you have a monitor with the old blue plugs laying around.
The boards generally now are designed for recovery - although it is not fool proof.
It would be a better option than to try again, bad flashing will only create more problems.

Maybe if the recovery works and it is stable for a few weeks you can retry the flash.
bbear2
Premium Member
join:2003-10-06
dot.earth

bbear2

Premium Member

Thanks for the ideas. I was always under the impression that BIOS either worked or didn't. I never thought of it working partially. I'll post back after I have a chance to work on it more.
asdfdfdfdfdf
Premium Member
join:2012-05-09

asdfdfdfdfdf to bbear2

Premium Member

to bbear2
If you are shorting the power on pin of the power supply (the green pin 16) with a ground (one of the blacks next to it) and the power supply fan doesn't even spin then it sounds like the psu is dead. I would double check by removing ALL the power connectors in the system, makes sure you are shorting the green wire with a black wire. If the psu fan still won't spin then the power supply is dead. Also make sure you check the switch on the back and make sure it wasn't accidentally switched off.

Also don't try to flash your bios any more until you are sure you have resolved any stability issues and the system has run stable for a few weeks.
bbear2
Premium Member
join:2003-10-06
dot.earth

bbear2

Premium Member

It's up and running again. Here's how:
Pulled the PCIe graphics card out. Connected display via blue VGA to on-board graphics. No change. ---Unplugged the IDE cables (2). no change. ---Unplugged the power plugs from the two HDDs and the DVD. Bingo. It powered on.

Then... plugged in the 3 power plugs that I just unplugged and it still works. ---I plugged in the two IDE cables and it still worked. I booted it and can run everything normal again.

Now where do I go from here? I'm concerned that the issue is still about. I also don't know if I should do the crashfree and leave it at that; do crashfree and then flash; or change PSU or something else. Ideas?
asdfdfdfdfdf
Premium Member
join:2012-05-09

asdfdfdfdfdf to bbear2

Premium Member

to bbear2
I misunderstood you earlier. I thought you had tested the power supply by shorting it but you meant that you had disconnected the power switch from the motherboard and shorted the pins on the motherboard?

I don't think your problem is gone. I wouldn't mess with the bios any more for now. If the bios was messed up it wouldn't sometimes be completely dead and I don't think reflashing your bios is going to help anything. With the system this unstable you are more likely to brick the board. You probably either have a failing power supply or bigger motherboard problems than your bios. Tracking it down will be very difficult until its behavior stabilizes(most probably it will die and stay dead at some point).
bbear2
Premium Member
join:2003-10-06
dot.earth

bbear2

Premium Member

Problem resolved (I think). Since it was running pretty well for a while now I decided to put back the video card, DVI cable, etc. Still all was well. While the system was running, I figured I would move some of the extra wires out of the way of some fans, etc. and clean things up. When i touched the main power harness - whammo again; everything stopped except for the green light on the MB. I let things be, started up again fine, then I simply touched the main power harness again, barely moving it, and wham, again. This became very repeatable and all I had to do was to barely touch it and something would either disconnect or short out and everything stopped immediately.

So I switched the PSU, nearly yanked on the new main power harness several ways to make sure it wasn't the MB or the MB connector. All seems well once again.

Someday I might try to troubleshoot it to convince myself it really was something in the PSU wiring and not still a problem with the MB. Till then, gotta keep fingers crossed.
asdfdfdfdfdf
Premium Member
join:2012-05-09

asdfdfdfdfdf

Premium Member

good work. It sounds like you tracked the problem down.
I still wouldn't do anything, such as updating the bios, until it has run for a few weeks stable.
bbear2
Premium Member
join:2003-10-06
dot.earth

bbear2

Premium Member

Agreed. I am also still leery of the fact that the previous times I tried to update the BIOS I had issues and am now wondering if it was the power connector on the MB all along and not the BIOS. I guess time will tell or I'll have to put the old PSU in another system and see if I can reproduce the "broken wire" issue. Just seems like a very unusual issue (with the moving the main power wires of the PSU and it kicking off power) and one I've never seen before.