Legit Reviews

Hi,

I had this old PCChips 810 LMR motherboard stored, and I decided to bring it up to life, it used to be working, but I needed to use the PSU in another motherboard.

After one year, in storage, I decided to get a new PSU to revive it, it was installed in a case, with nothing, but the CPU and an AMD Duron, 850 Mhz.. I think ... without memory or any expansion cards, so when I upgraded my old MSI MX 4000 card in my other AMD motherboard I decided to add it to this old one ...

Ok, here is where my problems started, as I added 1 DIMM, and it showed no video, when i started, the PS was working fine and as i checked the +5v and +12v lines, and the HD was spinning, and apparently booting, but it no video display at all, I tried several memory combinations, connecting the onboard VGA interface first, testing it with the MX 4000, plugged and unplugged, nothing both outputs were dead, i also tested the memory and the monitor with another computer and they worked fine ... I even purchased a new Kingston DIMM, to see if that was a compatibility issue, nothing, same thing, no video output at all ... Tried several memory combinations, and nothing ... I did a visual check of the motherboard components and everything looked fine, no rust nothing that could lead to a clue, i even CLEARED the CMOS several times, every time I attempted a new configuration to no effect ....

I tested everything with add on cards, without any cards, with the HD and without anything, same problem, no video ...

If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know ...

Wow I hope you figure it out. Here is a thought, does the mobo require that a CPU fan is plugged into the correct mobo fan header for power?

Last AMD system I had did the exact things you mention until I smacked myself and realized its BIOS or a setting in the BIOS prevented boot until it could "see" a fan plugged in on the correct "CPU FAN" power header. I think later patches made that default to off or at least added an option to turn it off (at your own risk).

Try moving the CPU fan's power to a different plug on the mobo, if it still doesn't post with the onboard or spare video cards, I'm not sure where to go. Its possible the onboard vid is disabled AND you have a bad AGP vid card... unlikely, but stranger things are out there. Got another video card or way to test the one you are using at the moment? Slap the pieces you're not sure of in another machine so you can start over logically with known good parts.

Well, that's really unusual, the motherboard indeed has another fan connector, and the AGP card is the one I just upgraded from my other system ... so it's working perfectly ...

There are only two fan headers and one is for the CPU, the other is for the internal fan, BTW the CPU fan is working fine ... although noisy as hell ...

both memory and video card worked in other systems, what didn't is video output ... I checked everything and nothing seems burned or rusty, as I lack proper measuring equipment, I can't say if the DAC is outputting anything ...

I will try what you suggest .. thanks for the tip ...