Another crazy No-boot Error 43

[KyRange]

Well, I should have listened to the old theory of ,"If if aint broke, don't fix it". Anyway, all was working fine, but I got this wild notion to upgrade my ram from 128 to 256. So... I carefully dismantled the cpu, and removed and replaced the the mem strip. Then, upon power-up, nothing on monitor, and board showed the infamous "Error 43...". Tried rebooting several times. Checked all cables, and tried again... nothing. So, I removed the battery, and replaced with a new one. Then when attempting to boot, the monitor does come on, but shows, "CMOS settings wrong, CMOS display type wrong, Press F1 to run setup". But, keyboard is totally unresponsive... so, I tried booting several more times holding the 'del' key to enter the bios... still nothing. I even tried booting with disc 1 of the OS in the floppy, which did nothing. In fact, the floppy drive did not even seem to run... no light. :( :cry: I then checked the ps voltages (5 & 12)... both good. I finally concluded I must have damaged the mb, so I replaced it with a known good one, first with the 128, and then with the 256 (and, yes I put the mb on a firm surface for ram replacement).... exact same results. Where do I go from here??

Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
John

[Petersueco]

My bet goes for a RAM stick in bad shape. If the monitor don't show up is it probably the RAM.

Also try to place the video card in a different slot ans see what happens.

Pater Holmquist.

[KyRange]

Peter,

I greatly appreciate your expedient reply. You were more or less correct in stating there was a potential problem with the ram. It was apparently not properly seated, for after removing and replacing it firmly but carefully, voila... light on the screen. Then, since I had removed the battery, I naturally had to re-configure the bios settings, and apparently all is back to normal. I think I have again learned my lesson... "If it aint broke, don't fix it". Thanks again.

John

[Y-my-R]

I bought 2 d8b's the other day, and one of them gives me exactly the same error (CMOS Settings Wrong, CMOS Display Type Wrong, Press F1 to Run SETUP), and pressing F1 on the keyboard shows no reaction. This is on the old mainboard CPU.

Also, on the PS2 keyboard I'm using (with AT adapter), the NumLock/CapsLock LEDs are flashing quickly. This keyboard works fine on the other unit I have (although that one's the new mainboard type).

I tried re-seating the RAM and all cards while I was at it. Tried the other RAM slot. Tried putting the Video card into another slot. Removed every other connection to eliminate other components as the source of the problem... but the symptom stays the same. Removed the battery for a while... heck, because I felt there's nothing to lose, I even just pulled the BIOS chip and reseated it (this usually reliably clears the BIOS immediately from my past PC experience, but is of course a bit of an extreme move).

Does anyone have any ideas what else this could be, or was able to resolve this type of error?

The thing is, I don't really have another ancient RAM stick to try (not sure if the one from the other new-board unit fits, but it boots nicely now, so I don't want to disturb it). Since I do get video and it does count through the RAM without errors, I'm kinda thinking it's probably something else.

One potential cause is, that I found one of those copper shield pieces of metal that goes around the connectors lying loosely on the mainboard when I opened up the unit. So, this one might have shorted stuff out on the board. This unit was sold to me as bad, though... after a tech supposedly went through it. But that guy should really have caught loose metal pieces flying around inside the case. I know I'm out of luck if it shorted something out... still, any other thoughts?

[arjepsen]

I would continue the process of elimination.
You've tried reseating the ram - did you try other ram sticks? Have you tried the ram sticks on another motherboard?
You moved the graphics card to other slots - also try it on another motherboard.

Try the regular method of clearing the bios: disconnect any power, move the jumper to the clear cmos position, and leave it there for quite a while to really drain the capacitors (someone even suggested leaving it for 24 hours).

I think you mentioned trying the keyboard on a different macine.
Can you try a different keyboard? Maybe see if you can find an old AT one to try.

Another thing - you bought it as being bad?
Wonder if the bios chip itself is bad - maybe a flash gone wrong?
If one of your other machines have the same motherboard, you could try changing the chip.

By the way, you mentioned this starting out when you tried to upgrade the ram.
Are you using compatible ram? Does it boot if you just use the original stick alone?

[Y-my-R]

Thanks for the response, @arjepsen !

You're right... I'll need to continue the process of elimination, which in my case means to hunt after parts.

I guess I might have to put this off a bit, since I do have one working d8b now (that I don't want to mess with), but I somewhat expect it to break down at some point. Then would be a good time to try swapping RAM sticks, video cards and the likes between the two, to see if I can narrow down where the problem comes from. I don't have any extra parts and no extra keyboard... so, I'd have to hunt down all that stuff and spend more money on this... eventually, I will.

I took the battery our when I stopped troubleshooting last time. That was days ago. I'll try powering it on again when I get home.

Interesting thought about the BIOS chip being bad. Unfortunately, one unit has the "old board" and the other the "new board". The "old board" is what's not working. So, I can't swap the BIOS chips between them, since it's totally different hardware.

The guy who had this problem starting with trying to upgrade the RAM, was KyRange, who started this thread. For me, the problem was present when I first tried to power on the CPU for this one. The person who sold them to me, had them serviced in 2006, and the service guy's cards are still stuck to the desks and CPUs... and the seller isn't very interested in working on things like that himself, so I don't think he ever opened those units after getting them serviced last. So, I'd at least "expect" that it's supported RAM. But I'll look into this some more as well.

Thanks for all the tips, and if I get anywhere with the troubleshooting, I'll follow up here, in case it helps someone else. Thanks again!

[Bruce Graham]

Hey Y-my-R;

The BIOS Chip isn't hardware specific that I know of. It should work with both motherboards. It finds the hardware and tells you what it is. You will need to set the CMOS in the BIOS chip depending on which mother board you have as it handles things differently.
There is tons of info about this and other this in the Database thread at the top of this forum.

You can also buy Ram chips for the d8b on ebay for a reasonable price.

Best of luck. Post back.
Bruce

[Y-my-R]

Sorry, took me a while to get playing with this again.

I do really appreciate the response and suggestion, but from my understanding what the BIOS on any computer does, is that it is the basic operating system that has information about all the hardware on the mainboard and it's interfaces to the outside world (Basic Input Output System). So, it should actually be VERY hardware specific.

I do a lot of "Hackintosh" stuff, running Mac OS on PC hardware. And there, it's also crucial for getting your hack to work, to have the exact right BIOS revision for the exactly right mainboard, to avoid hardware not being recognized.

In that sense, I don't really want to pull the BIOS chip from my working "new mainboard" that uses completely different hardware (Celeron 300), and put it in the "old mainboard" (Pentium 166). Essentially, even the connectors for the mouse, Memory slots and everything are different between the boards, so I can't imagine them being exchangeable, considering that the BIOS is what has all the information for the hardware on the board, to make it work together.

I do appreciate the suggestion very much, though, since I'm still stuck with this... but don't want to risk the BIOS chip from my working board for an experiment on the non-working board that may leave me with two non-working ones.

In the meantime, I tried another PCI video card (that I realize would not work with the Mackie OS due to lack of drivers... but may have let me get into the BIOS), but to no avail. I also tried all PCI slots with the original video card and with the other one I have. Same problem.

I tried another PS/2 keyboard (I still don't have an AT keyboard), but it behaved exactly as the other one.

Anyway, there are still plenty of things to try once I get the hardware to do so (AT keyboard, different memory stick, etc.), but as mentioned, I'm not really in a hurry since I have one of the two d8b's I have working (and am using the other one with a ProBox as a control surface now). But I do appreciate the input!

Oh, and just to be complete, I did have the battery out since my last post, so, there was definitely no residual power stored in any of the capacitors or something...

Alright, I'll post back if I manage to make any progress with this, but it might end up being weeks (or even months), whenever I get access to hardware that let's me test some more things.

Thanks again for all the suggestions!

[Y-my-R]

Oh, and I just decided to pull the working unit apart after all, and at least try the memory stick. Same result (in both slots).

Before that, I tried a memory stick in the bank of 4 super-old memory slots, that I still had on an old Soundcard (EWS64 ISA card), but that didn't even show anything on the display (I think for that old memory, you always needed pairs. A single stick doesn't work - at least not for computer use, but only for samplers and the likes that were designed that way).

I know this memory stick works in the other unit, so it shouldn't be the memory at this point (unless they have totally different supported brand/model types of memory. The pins seemed to match at least, and it still counted through the memory.

I get more and more convinced that this board is fried. Probably because of that copper shielding piece that came loose and bounced around the unit, apparently. It probably shorted something out.

But heck, I can use both of them (one as a mixer, one as a control surface), so I can't complain. Got them together for $200

Thanks again, everyone. Just typing all this out, in case it saves someone from doing exactly the same troubleshooting (even though the root cause may of course be different for every case, even if the error message is the same... just like between the first poster on this thread and me).

Thanks again for the help and suggestions!

[Bruce Graham]

Best of luck. Stay in touch.

Cheers
Bruce