How do I add bios to a motherboard that has no bios?

[Toestomper]

Hello, I'm kind of in the same boat as Swampfoot. I hit the power switch on the power supply and I get the initial beep but nothing else. Can't even get the bios screen to come up. What can I do?

 

[o1die]

Check your video cable and your connections to the board and monitor; mine had a kink in it; changed it out and it worked fine. It was old and rigid; not much flex left in it. For old versions of windows 2k, I set my resolution too high once and the screen was blank; newer windows versions will adjust the resolution automatically.

 

[Toestomper]

Tried that but nothing happened. Is it possible to erase the bios? If so, can it be replaced?

 

[o1die]

The bios won't disappear unless you had a bad flash. If you haven't flashed the bios, then the problem is somewhere else. But if you flashed the bios and the system won't reboot, then you can do a hot flash by borrowing a good bios chip from an identical motherboard. After you post and download the proper bios file, you change out the bios chip to your bad one just before you click on the final flash command. Then your dead bios chip will be like new again.

 

[MC_K7]

I don't think this is a BIOS problem either.

Open the case and disconnect everything that is not mandatory (Hard drive, CD-ROM, even remove the video card and try with integrated graphics, disconnect every other peripherals, etc...). Try to boot with minimal components and see what happens.

You can also remove power from every components for a while to reset them properly, especially the monitor. I had a monitor once that had a defective DVI port and when it failed to display something (no video signal) the only solution was to disconnect power from the monitor wait for 10 seconds (or more) for the capacitors to empty and reconnect it.

As I said I don't think this is a BIOS issue, but if you changed a BIOS settings prior to the problem, you can also remove the CMOS battery from the motherboard, wait 10 seconds and put it back and reboot. Doing so will reset BIOS settings to default.

 

[Toestomper]

I'll try removing the battery and replacing it again. How can I check the battery to see if it has power? I don't have a meter.

 

[Toestomper]

I tried removing everything that was plugged in but that didn't help either.

 

[Toestomper]

This sounds crazy but I can't get the battery out. I don't want to break anything on the motherboard.

 

[o1die]

There's a small tang overhang holding the battery in place. Use a small flathead screwdriver and pry it gently against it. When the battery rises some, lift it out. Then after leaving it out one minute with the power supply unplugged, install the battery and try posting.

 

[smorizio]

with a new build the onboard video is going to be the first video not the gpu. turn the pc off and move the video cable to the onboard video ports.

 

[o1die]

Good suggestion. Even I forget that you can't use onboard with a video card in place on most boards. If not, then maybe you have a ram stick not seated all the way into the slot. Continue troubleshooting. Good luck.