Is my G200LE dead?

[Pyrophos]

I had been saving this old G200LE and now when I tried to install
it, it appears to be dead. It POST (memory check, IDE-check), but
when the next screen (the one with details) should come up,
it freezes the machine up (it really stops, as it does not try to
boot from floppy or HD). I can get to BIOS and change the BIOS
settings, save them but after the "press DEL to enter BIOS"-screen it freezes.

The system is Abit BH6, Cel 300MHz, 2x128MB SDRAM, 2
network cards, SB 128PCI, CD, HD. The AGP-slot should work,
as it boots with another card.

(I would have posted this to Matrox Tech support forum, but they ban Yahoo mail addresses T_T)

I also tried searching for similar symptoms, but couldn't find exact match... tried the BIOS-recovery utility, but as the machine freezes, it was no use.

[Goc]

If you can get a PCI vga card, try using that to boot and recover bios on your G200...

[Pyrophos]

Wuhwuhwuh, IT WORKS

I finally got it working!

In case some hunchbacked nerd like me is interested, here is what I did:

The card worked nicely in another machine, and I thought that the motherboard / other PCI cards were the culprits. Just to make sure, I still upgraded the BIOS of the G200 and removed the PCI cards one by one. Finally, without PCI cards, it booted.

The I inserted the cards back one by one and noted that my other ethernet card (Intel EtherPro 100+) was the culprit. Removed the soundcard (since this was a server, the soundcard was not needed) and changed the order of the ethernet cards.

Then it worked. This is what I should have done before anything else... just how stupid can you be?

Small problem remains: When started with power-button, it does not boot. I have to wait about 10 seconds and the press the reset-button before it boots. Since this is a server and rebooted max 2 times a year, I can live with it, but if somebody knows a solution, I'd be happy.

Reminder: In my experience Abit BH6 has given me so much headache, I need to seriously consider buying shares of medical companies.

Edit: Forgot to say thanks for your effort!

[Pace]

Have you had a look at the capacitors on that board recently? I wouldn't run my server off that

Check your board for caps with rounded tops or any liquid leaking. Or melted chips with black centres...

[Pyrophos]

Originally posted by Pace
Have you had a look at the capacitors on that board recently? I wouldn't run my server off that

Check your board for caps with rounded tops or any liquid leaking. Or melted chips with black centres...

Actually no, but I might try to take a look later today. The reason why this "boot-reset"-problem bugs me, is that it didn't do that with the previous video card. The capacitors may of course have something to do with this.

BTW, it is not just a server, it is my firewall / NAT-box... I don't know if it makes the situation better or worse The problem is that whenever I try to make physical modifications to the configuration, I need to take my internet connection down, which makes me feel pretty crippled. Luckily (and hopefully!) I don't need to make too many modifications in a year.

IMHO, it is a pretty good job for Abit BH6 and Celeron 300, although this is not my idea of "dreamserver"... For my surprise, it has been running almost 1,5 years with just a few reboots "just in case" (the reboots were, of course, unnecessary as they did not fix the problems, which were caused by my ISP)


Offtopic (about the melted chips): My father used to work for a large PC/computer-manufacturer and he was testing some server configuration with their new PC's. The PC's worked fine, until he put 4 IDE harddrives in. What happened was that on each drive few chips literally exploded, shooting some "hot liquid" (that's how my father described it)... wouldn't want to face that at home...