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Re: lx pro corrupt BIOS?

 
Joe Wise
New Member

lx pro corrupt BIOS?

Hello,
I have a dual cpu lx pro which suffered some seemingly catastrophic power outages. Now, when I power the machine on, lights and fans come on, but nothing happens. The LCD just shows blocks, I get no video and I get no beeps. If I switch the jumper to use the backup BIOS I get the same results except that I do get 1 beep.
I've tried clearing the cmos, but that doesn't seem to help.
From what I've read, I'm interpreting this to mean that my BIOS(es) are corrupt. Thus, my questions are:
1. Is my conclusion that the BIOS(es) are corrupt correct?
2. Is it possible to just replace the BIOS prom w/o replacing the board? (and where can I find a BIOS prom?)
3. I have a couple of lxr pro's here. Are the system boards/proms interchangeable with lx pro's?
4. Is the BIOS prom the chip that sits in front of and in line with the dip switches and the jumpers?

Thanks for your help!!!

-Joe
5 REPLIES 5
Terri Harris
Honored Contributor

Re: lx pro corrupt BIOS?

If you remove all memory does the server beep? It should beep 4 times. If not, the motherboard itself is probably kaput.

No part number found for just the CMOS chip.
Robbert Erents
New Member

Re: lx pro corrupt BIOS?

Goodmorning,

I've had that same problem as well several times, with several different causes. At one time, I had a faulty CDrom drive installed. It just didn't boot anymore. After extensive testing with as minimal Hardware as possibel installed, I found out that is was the CDrom drive's fault. At one other time I've had a PCI VGA controller installed instead of using the onboard. But, It was plugged in in PCI slots 4-6 or something like that. I found out that only PCI slots 1-3 (the ones near the proc and mem boards) are Master, and 4-6 are not. So, with resource sensitive HW like VGA controllers, try and put it in the first set of PCI slots.

Did you try and remove all excess hardware, even the scsi controller, floppy drives and other hardware? try to boot as clean as possible, without even mouse and KB installed. Maybe that will give a hint of where to look for the problem.
Goodluck!
Sean T. Craig
Honored Contributor

Re: lx pro corrupt BIOS?

Hi Joe,
To me, it sounds like your BIOS is corrupt. I would try this: Create a BIOS update diskette. You can get the floppy creation utility from this link: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib/software1/ns843/ns843en/lxbios.exe
Move the jumpers (J6A1)for "Boot From" and "Recovery BIOS" to the Recovery and Write positions respectively. You can see a picture of this on your reference label. Power up and boot to the floppy you created and wait. It may take several minutes to complete and there will be no interaction or notification. I'd probably just leave it for a half-hour or something. Then power-down and move the 2 jumpers back to the Normal and Protect positions.
Hope this helps,
Sean T. Craig
I am King...of my apartment.
Edorta S├бez
Advisor

Re: lx pro corrupt BIOS?

Hi Sean, I've the same problem, but I haven't found this jumper in the motherboard. Could you help me to find it?

Thanks.
Edorta S├бez
Advisor

Re: lx pro corrupt BIOS?

I've found it. Thank you.