My Computer has died.

[sparkeyjames]

My poor poor baby has died. My faithful gameing, data I/O and storage unit for the past 6 years passed away at 9:30pm EDT on March 27. Weird thing is I started getting BIOS Checksum errors. Yes the battery is good. I'm wondering if a bios replacement chip off ebay might bring it back to life or if I'd just be wasting $15. In all my years of computer use, building and servicing I had NEVER seen this error before. I saved the case, cards, hard drives and everything else but I do believe that the motherboard is now unusable. Too bad I cannot find another new motherboard like it or it would live on for another 6 years. It was one of the best motherboards I ever owned and I have owned a few. I love MSI products. My temporary replacement is now in use. An older dual CPU setup with a quirky motherboard. Sounds like I'm sitting next to a hurricane. I took out the hard drives, DVD burner and all the cards put them in the hurricane (it's new name) and up it came up under linux without a hitch. No reinstall not one thing to configure. Try that with Windows.

Jim

[Mr__Bill]

Try just resetting the chip. It may just be a mechanical thing. As a last resort you can get a new motherboard and swap everything to it for a new/newer computer.


Bill

[cgallery]

Are you getting CMOS checksum errors, or BIOS checksum errors. In the first case, the system settings are corrupted and you can replace the battery, reload and save the BIOS defaults.

If you are getting BIOS checksum errors then the BIOS image is corrupted, but maybe enough is working to re-flash to the latest BIOS?

[sparkeyjames]

BIOS checksum error. This is out of the blue after 6 years so something is wrong. I have not made a bios setting change on that system in over a year and a half. System was running when it happened. System locked up. I did the reset the bios with the jumper thing a few times but still got that checksum error 9 out of 10 times after power on. Of the few times it did make it through post when it got into booting Linux it would lock up about part way through. After trying for about 1/2 hour it finally started coming up with that message every reset and or power cycle. I got a new bios chip on the way hope it helps if not bye bye $14. I'd pull the chip and reseat it but I broke my puller for that type of chip years ago and never replaced it.

[cgallery]

I'd pull the chip and reseat it but I broke my puller for that type of chip years ago and never replaced it.

Then how are you going to replace it when the new one arrives? Does the replacement come w/ a puller?

Gotta be careful w/ those sockets, the corners are likely to crack if you apply any leverage of a prying sort.

[sparkeyjames]

I ordered a new puller from a different ebay seller. I got the best one I could find and it still cost under $7 with shipping. The chip supplier did not sell them. I could have gone to Radio Shack but they are overpriced on small items like that. I'll take the chance that <$20 will save my old board because upgrading will be expensive >$200 (MB, CPU, fan, memory and graphics card) recyclables include my nice brushed aluminum case, CD/DVD, hard drives and power supply.