Need help connecting power, reset and LED wires on motherboard please.

[Black Panther]

It's an ECS P4VXMS.

Here's the diagram as shown in the manual.

Now this is where I got confused. For example the Green LED has got a green wire and a white wire. Should the white one go into pin 2 and the green one into pin 4 or vice versa?

Same goes for the:
- Power which has got a blue wire and a white wire
- Reset which has also got a blue wire and a white wire
- HDD led which has got a red wire and a white wire

I've been trying endless combinations and all I've been getting is very long, slow beeps.

 

[Sasqui]

Have you seen any "+" or "-" markings on the manual or the motherboard? It only matters for the LED connectors - PWR and RESET just short the pins.

Almost always, the colored wires go to the "+" and the white to the "-"

You could gess for the LED pins and if they don't work simply reverse. Nothing bad will happen if they're backwards.

 

[Sasqui]

I've been trying endless combinations and all I've been getting is very long, slow beeps.

I missed that - sounds like something else... to check, you can leave all the headers off and short the two PWR pins quickly with a screwdriver (carefully). That will signal the PWR supply to trun on. If it still beeps, then it's no doubt somethign else wrong.

 

[Black Panther]

Well I switched pins 2 & 4 putting the green wire at the bottom, and all is ok now.
What's weird is that that was the way it had been before. My daughter turned it on and it just froze in the middle of posting.

So I thought it must have been the led and switches wiring since I had disconnected them and reconnected them, whereas they had been correct.

So, after it froze in the middle of posting, I tried all the combinations, taking special care to avoid putting green on 2 and white on 4 (!!!) because that was how it had been!

I'd swear that old pentium's got a character - it doesn't like to be touched inside. Every time I do something like cleaning it or whatever (before this incident I had rearranged the wiring neatly with plastic tie-clips) it just refuses to work! Normally I solve the problem by removing graphic card and ram and reinserting them, or something else basic and stupid.

Kidding apart, I guess the mobo's feeling its age. The PS2 connection of the mouse already doesn't work and I had to switch to a USB one. Oh well.

Thanks for listening to my ranting, and for the help.

 

[Black Panther]

Have you seen any "+" or "-" markings on the manual or the motherboard? It only matters for the LED connectors - PWR and RESET just short the pins.

Almost always, the colored wires go to the "+" and the white to the "-"

You could gess for the LED pins and if they don't work simply reverse. Nothing bad will happen if they're backwards.

Wait a sec....

you mean if the LED pins are not correctly put, then supposedly ONLY the led lights would not work and the computer was supposed to function normally? IE post and load windows etc?

I wonder what had been the source of all that extra-long beeping now... since the PWR and RESET had always been connected correctly all along.

 

[Sasqui]

I'd swear that old pentium's got a character - it doesn't like to be touched inside. Every time I do something like cleaning it or whatever (before this incident I had rearranged the wiring neatly with plastic tie-clips) it just refuses to work! Normally I solve the problem by removing graphic card and ram and reinserting them, or something else basic and stupid.

Glad you got it running. Posessed? No doubt a bad connection - my experience with that was a four pin molex connector that had one of it's pins pushed back partway so it was making intermittent contact - it was powering the video card!!! After a while of doing that, the motherboard fried (Abit AG8 - got a warrantee replacement from Abit).

On a side note, my DQ6 gave me a message at post once when I forgot to plug power to my X1950XTX - beeping and all... a good thing.

I admit it - I'm not the brightest bulb sometimes.

 

[Sasqui]

you mean if the LED pins are not correctly put, then supposedly ONLY the led lights would not work and the computer was supposed to function normally? IE post and load windows etc?

Typically it should not matter, the lights just won't work - but depending on the HDD controller, it certainly is possible that it wouldn't. Running with it backwards is pretty much the same as not having the pins connected - I've run many tabletop test builds with no header pins connected and everything was fine.

My guess is the problem lies with some other cable or component.

 

[Black Panther]

No doubt a bad connection

Highly likely. Probably I was leaving some pin out or something.
Lol I've got the fingers of a cow sometimes!

 

[Black Panther]

Shiiiiooooiiitttt!

I powered up this pc just yesterday and it posted, booted, loaded my daughter's games... practically was 100% normal!

I wouldn't have believed it myself now hadn't I checked my yesterday's post.

Now, somewhat 24 hours later without having anyone touch the blasted pc, I switched on the power, and got the dreaded beeps again.

The LED wires must be correct now. Heck yesterday it worked normally?!? If the wiring wasn't correct it would have shown yesterday wouldn't it? Yesterday it posted and booted, it loaded a couple of games (I did, not the daughter so that excludes her mucking something up). And the pc isn't connected to the net so that excludes viruses and spyware.

For heavens' sake all I had done prior was cable management! And I hadn't disconnected anything from the mobo except the LED/PWR/RESET/HDD wires and these were correct otherwise it wouldn't have functioned perfectly yesterday wouldn't it?

OMG how I hate that P4 with all my heart! It started beeping just when I brought it home brand new in 2001. Took it to local supplier, said it was defective ram. A month later I got the beeping.... defective ram again, they said.

But well the beeps now are different from the short beeps of ram failure. Though now I know a more about pc's than I did 6 years ago.

Now I'm getting 1 long beep for 3 seconds, silence for 1 second, 1 long beep for 3 seconds etc and so on and so forth etc etc....

Monitor remains on standby. Power and Hdd led aren't lighting up. (They did yesterday).

No one touched this effin' pc. Yesterday it worked normally ffs!

Geez computers shouldn't behave like humans, they are machines. They shouldn't behave as if suffering from pms or moods!?! If it worked yesterday it should be work today with the same settings and since no-one touched it unless I've got a ghost in the house who is changing settings behind my back!

My patience is being tested....

 

[Black Panther]

I've got only one feasible answer. Maybe corrosion invisible to the naked eye is playing its part?

I'd be ready to bet money on it being corrosion between the contacts of components.
I removed both RAMs and the video card and blew cold air on them (I got a product that if you hold the spray can upside down it blows really cold it nearly hurts your fingers if they're in the way), put them back again... and the computer is working normally again.

D'uh.

 

[hat]

I think you should use the PC for target practice

 

[Black Panther]

I think you should use the PC for target practice

Lol I know but I'm choosing to give it as a toy to my 5 year old which imo doesn't make much difference in result from using it as target practice!

Btw, I just finished blowing air on the RAM modules and the video card. Then the pc booted up again.

I went in the bios. It's got a multiplier of 16x 100 FSB. The FSB is greyed out. I increased the multiplier to 17x yet still on cpu-z I got 1600mhz, even though I checked the bios and it was still showing a 17x multiplier.

Then I did something, blocking AGP and 2 other things at 34/103 and something else and my clock speed got up to 1650Mhz.

I'll be checking what I did buy OMG I've been trying to OC this jerk for more than a year, and never have succeeded till now. Even though I succeeded only by a measly 50Mhz...

 

[hat]

Lol I know but I'm choosing to give it as a toy to my 5 year old which imo doesn't make much difference in result from using it as target practice!

Btw, I just finished blowing air on the RAM modules and the video card. Then the pc booted up again.

I went in the bios. It's got a multiplier of 16x 100 FSB. The FSB is greyed out. I increased the multiplier to 17x yet still on cpu-z I got 1600mhz, even though I checked the bios and it was still showing a 17x multiplier.

Then I did something, blocking AGP and 2 other things at 34/103 and something else and my clock speed got up to 1650Mhz.

I'll be checking what I did buy OMG I've been trying to OC this jerk for more than a year, and never have succeeded till now. Even though I succeeded only by a measly 50Mhz...

50MHz? Your daughter can break the 3DMark world record!!

 

[Sasqui]

Shiiiiooooiiitttt!

Geez computers shouldn't behave like WOMEN, they are machines.

My patience is being tested....

Had to correct your comment

Anyway, yea that's a machine in need of some devious demise... treat it as it's treated you, LOL. Target practice is a good idea, but you got to do it while it's on/beeping.

 

[Black Panther]

Had to correct your comment

LOL @ Sasqui and Hat...!

C'mon, let me post a challenge? Tell me how to get this 1.6 Ghz P4 Willamette over 2.0GHz on the P4VXMS ECS mobo and I'd just pay you $30. Deal? A hint is that I've been trying over 2 years now.

Well it's working good now. Power on self test and booting into windows xp. And getting into programs. Under my supervision. I'm doubly sure that it's got some corrosion not visible to the naked eye. The reason I suspect this is that if I power it up every day it ALWAYS works perfectly. Whereas if I don't power it up for 3 or 5 days in a row it starts beeping or mucking up somewhat.

Since nothing is being touched in the meantime it can only mean that there is contact failure somewhere. Especially since it resumes working when I rub... blow... spit.... ok I've never spat but I am thinking about it.

Now as regards the OC. I really would like to get this thing up to 2.0Ghz ( and power it up every day so that it won't fail ).

In the bios the FSB is greyed out. Locked. The multiplier appears not to be locked. It is stock at 16x. But increase that to 20x and cpuz still gives the reading of 1.6GHz ie stock 100FSB x16 multiplier.

TGhen there is the option to change this:
CPU host/ AGP / PCI clock.

The disturbing thing is that you have to change all 3 at once.

CPU host = FSB. It's default at 100.
Then there's the APG clock which is default at 66.
And finally the PCI clock which is default at 33MHz.

Now on that option the default is 100/66/33 ie 100FSB, 66AGP and 33PCI
As soon as I get the FSB to 107 I also get the AGP set automatically to 71 and the PCI automatically set to 36.
That works at least and managed to get my clock speed from 1.6GHz to 1.7GHz.... which imo is very minimal.

Does anyone know a method on how to increase the FSB on this mobo while at the same time keeping AGP at 66 and PCI at 33?

I did try the next step of increasing FSB to 110 and consequently automatically increasing AGP to 73 and PCI to 37 but then the pc didn't boot.

 

[hat]

Clockgen?

 

[Sasqui]

CPU host = FSB. It's default at 100.
Then there's the APG clock which is default at 66.
And finally the PCI clock which is default at 33MHz.

Now on that option the default is 100/66/33 ie 100FSB, 66AGP and 33PCI
As soon as I get the FSB to 107 I also get the AGP set automatically to 71 and the PCI automatically set to 36.
That works at least and managed to get my clock speed from 1.6GHz to 1.7GHz.... which imo is very minimal.

Does anyone know a method on how to increase the FSB on this mobo while at the same time keeping AGP at 66 and PCI at 33?

I did try the next step of increasing FSB to 110 and consequently automatically increasing AGP to 73 and PCI to 37 but then the pc didn't boot.

VIA chipset... same problem plagued the old intel BX440 chipset - the PCI was locked to a multiplier of the FSB, and the options were limited.

My last motherboard was an Abit AG8 that had a similar problem that limited the FSB to no more than 247 - the dividers for the PCI were limited and above that FSB caused all the peripherals to go haywire - it was a complete wall.

So to answer your question, it's likely the same case with the ECS, but if you poke around, you may find some other option... the FSB/PCI mutiplier options are usually hard wired into the chipset.

 

[Namslas90]

When is the last time you checked for Bios or Mobo driver updates. The last BIOS update includes a Romsip update recommended by VIA;

http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Do...4VXMS (V1.0A)&CategoryID=1&MenuID=82&LanID=0