ASUS Motherboard won't boot to any device

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by BITBOYC, Jun 1, 2008.

  1. BITBOYC

    BITBOYC Private E-2

    Hi All,

    I'm hoping some of you clever people out there can save me a few bucks by not having to buy a new motherboard - 'cause I'm out of ideas with this one.

    Basic problem is that my system won't boot to any boot device (floppy, CDROM, RAID, SATA, USB external) the cursor just sits there flashing at the completion of POST (i think its completed anyway)

    Specs:
    motherboard: ASUS P5WD2-E Premium
    AMIBIOS V02.58
    storage: 2 Striped SATA drives (Intel RAID)
    2GB DDR2 RAM
    nVidia 7600 GT graphics card

    What happened?
    computer has been running without a problem for a couple of years
    was burning DVD - doing a backup (hence really need to get the system back) when it completely froze (not sure if this has anything to do with the resultant problems)
    powered down
    rebooted to arrive at a flashing cursor in the top left corner of screen and nothing more

    Investigation so far
    Can boot to bios and adjust all settings no problem
    Within bios
    RAID set is found (have also verified that independent SATA drives are found and seem ok)
    CDROM is found (have verified by swapping)
    Can change boot sequence in settings
    have disabled all 'non-essential' onboard peripheral devices (audio, USB, additional SATA controller, 1394)
    have reset CMOS
    have swapped CDROM and floppy drives and cables
    can <F8> for boot device selection and choose any device - but it will not boot to any
    F8 boot device list detected USB external mass storage

    one time it did boot to Windows Install disk in the DVD - I went to repair and did chkdsk and storage passed ok but when rebooted it failed again

    Does anyone have a suggestion on what I might try do next?
    What does AMIBIOS do after selecting the boot device on F8 that might help diagnose whats going on?

    thanks in advance, Bitboyc.
     
  2. Grayfox

    Grayfox Private E-2

    try a bare bones

    nothing but CPU, RAM,onboard VGA(if it has it) & HDD
     
  3. BITBOYC

    BITBOYC Private E-2

    thanks Grayfox - have done this, including removing connections to the hdd
    no onboard video so only have pcie card installed

    get the same response
     
  4. slopyjoemess

    slopyjoemess Private E-2

    looks like a Virus...Mabye?:confused
     
  5. Grayfox

    Grayfox Private E-2

    viruses don't affect motherboards

    they can affect the MBR of the HDD
     
  6. slopyjoemess

    slopyjoemess Private E-2

    he said it has the problem when he gets the pointer up so mabye thats a reson:confused

    as he said the completion of the POST
     
  7. Grayfox

    Grayfox Private E-2

    this once happened to me, but it happened to me while i was gaming with an overclocked system

    it the motherboard just took 10 mintues to get to the point where the FDD/ODD/HDD load starts
    but it didnt load anything

    80% the motherboard is dead

    if your motherboard allows flashing from the CMOS try it

    may not work or may make it worse
     
  8. davismccarn

    davismccarn Specialist

    Get the free version of http://www.memtest86.com and put it on a floppy or burn the ISO to a CD.
    Set your BIOS to factory defaults and unplug everything except a keyboard, the video, and the device you put Memtest onto. Don't forget to unplug an internal card reader if you have one.
    If Memtest won't boot, take your system down to one stick of memory and try each one individually.
    You also might want to inspect all of the USB ports carefully. I had a similar problem that was caused by a mangled port.
     
  9. Grayfox

    Grayfox Private E-2

  10. davismccarn

    davismccarn Specialist

    Because it will enter setup; the system board has already tested: 64kb memory for scratch purposes, the interrupt and DMA contollers, the keyboard port, the floppy controller, the hard disk controllers, and it has initialized the video card. As these tests are performed, the test number is sent to a specific I/O port which is what the "diagnostic card" displays. We're past that and the card won't help us.

    The most likey culprit is memory. As I said, the BIOS tests 64K which it uses for keeping track of where it is; but, if the boot code gets read into memory and is then corrupted (it isn't in that 64K), viola, a blinking cursor and no further progress is visible.
     
  11. BITBOYC

    BITBOYC Private E-2

    thanks for the help guys but still no luck!

    Have now tried:
    swapping out RAM to single module (and various combinations including installing borrowed RAM)
    reduced RAM clock speed
    checked connectors including USB for bent pins etc - all appear ok
    left the cursor blinking for 30 mins or so in case of any odd timeouts
    pulled all connections from the motherboard except keyboard, vga, panel and DVD (ie fans, internal connectors, hdd, fdd)

    Whats the chance of the bios itself has been corrupted somehow (? power surge) at the point of booting then would this explain the symptoms since RAM has been eliminated??
    Does a bios typically do some sort of crc-like self-check?

    Is there any way of 'flashing' the bios without booting to a floppy first??
    Can I get a replacement bios chip and drop in?
     
  12. davismccarn

    davismccarn Specialist

    We're at the last resort; but, unzip this and copy it to a floppy: http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5WD2-E Premium/WD2EP0604.zip
    Then, from their own instructions:
    Use built-in EZ Flash BIOS to Refresh

    1. Download latest ASUS BIOS from ASUS WWW and rename the BIOS filename to "xxxxx.ROM" (xxxxx represents the motherboard model you used, eg. P4C800 BIOS is named p4c800.ROM), and save the file in a floppy disk.

    2. Reboot the system.

    3. When the system is at POST after reboot, please hold down "Alt" + "F2" to view the following image. You may start executing EZ Flash utility. Please place the floppy disk with latest BIOS inside and insert into the floppy drive.

    PLEASE RESET EVERYTHING TO DEFAULT OR FAIL-SAFE, AFTERWARDS!
     
  13. BITBOYC

    BITBOYC Private E-2

    thaks for that one too, was worth a try....

    followed the bouncing ball and updated the bios ie ez-flash found the floppy and then the cd then loaded where it loaded read the ROM and reprogrammed without a problem

    then rebooted but no banana, just sits there blinkin' at me

    obviously nothing wrong with the perpiherals or the interfaces to the peripherals though which makes this even more perplexing

    anyone recommend a nice Gigabyte motherboard?
     
  14. BITBOYC

    BITBOYC Private E-2

    To close this out - hate unfinished responses left hanging around with support.

    After slow time trying different approaches eventually tracked the problem to being a faulty core in the Pentium D chip - go figure.

    Unwound changes back to original state minus cpu and all is fine. Interesting challenge in the end.
     

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