M4A78 BIOS CHECKSUM Error! BOARD IS DEAD! HELP!

[Antec-User]

Not sure if this should be in the software room or what.

I had one of my old boards laying around. It's an M4a78 Pro AMD board. I have used it before and as it seems, my stuff only works well with ME and no one else.

Anyway.. We installed the board and an older Phenom 9950 I had. He had the board running for a couple hours, but now it won't even post. Can't get into the BIOS, nothing. We have to KEEP resetting the CMOS to get it to run for only a couple minutes before it blue screens. Misc errors on the BSOD.

Now he's getting a checksum error. He's a programmer, but he's been out of this game for a LONG time so this board is new to him. He's thinking bad BIOS. How do we do a FW update if it won't post? I knnow this has AMD Live where it has been VERY easy to update the BIOS. But if it won't post.......... What the heck??

He was mixing RAM before thinking it was bad ram. I told him to just stick ONE new 1066 2G Kingston stick in DIMM 1A and try to run it just for diag purposes.

There's just been nothing but drama with this board..

Ideas?? bad CPU?

 

[MindoverMaster]

Could be a busted CMOS. RIP...

Getting a used board of that age shouldnt be hard to get on eBay.

 

[Archaeanimus]

my stuff only works well with ME and no one else.

Mein Gott, for a moment I thought you were talking about "ME" as in "Windows ME."

Anyway, I've had the exact same problem a couple of times before (at least according to how I'm reading your post) and in one case I had a faulty CMOS battery; in the other, believe it or not, I had forgotten to remove the CMOS clear jumper. Doh! It's surprising how easy it is to overlook little details like that, n'est-ce pas?

 

[Antec-User]

He said it's not taking a BIOS upgrade..

CMOS/CLR_RTC jumper is fine. No update on the battery idea yet.

 

[Antec-User]

I've been reading on a thread I found that it's bad BIOS. But there's a SLIM chance that the BIOS chip may be in an actual socket. There's a change the BIOS chip can be easily replaced. This is a budget build for my buddy, so he wasn't really even wanting to spend more than $40 for RAM. So a new or reconditioned board for ~$70 may be out of the question.

 

[Antec-User]

He's got a new BIOS chip on the way. $6. Cheap gamble. It's in an actual socket, so we can take it out to replace it.

The board finally took a BIOS flash, but it is still randomly not posting and freezing. The 9950 is on the supported CPU list for this board. Should we leave it with the newer BIOS, or roll it back to an older one? I'm not sure it will matter, but I'm wondering.

 

[Antec-User]

New Bios chip and still no post...

What gives??

 

[Slaymate]

make sure you didn't damage the pins or contacts when you removed the old chip.

 

[Antec-User]

^ Does the new chip need to be flashed? he says it's just dead black.

 

[Slaymate]

It probably needs to be updated but it should have a bios system on it already. I don't know how you can flash it without it being preprogrammed as it has to be able to identify a drive with data on it in order to be flashed.

A bios chip is really sensitive, it needs to be installed static and dust free, with absolutely no power connected to the system. It has to be oriented correctly and fully seated. I've always had problems getting the old chip out without damaging the socket. I've tried to replace the bios chip a few times with more failures than successes, I've found it easier and less time consuming to just buy a new mobo.