cwathen
Experienced Member
Having waited the better part of 25 years to get another AST Advantage system after my original suddenly died with a motherboard fault, the 613e which I've owned for just under a month has done the same.
When I first got it I tried to upgrade the 8MB of RAM (2x4MB 72 pin EDO SIMMs) to 16MB. I chucked in 2x 8MB that I had spare but the system wouldn't POST with the new RAM fitted. Not even any beeps. Nothing. Swapped back to the original and left things as they were until today...
...when I got out my entire collection of 72 pin SIMMs to try and find any that would work in it. Having verified that it would run with only a single bank fitted (it's a Cyrix 5x86 so 486 architecture) I went through the lot. Only 4MB modules seemed to work in it. I thought this was odd since the published specs state it will support up to 32MB RAM and there are only two slots (and no jumpers to configure the amount of RAM fitted). Decided to put it down to experience and re-fit the original RAM.
Only now the board is dead. Well, almost dead. It is beeping POST codes at me so the BIOS clearly is still running but nothing more. It is sensitive to what is fitted:
No RAM - as soon as power is applied 3 short, 5 long, a pause and 4 short
Original RAM/Other 4MB modules - a pause at power up followed by 2 long and 3 short
Modules bigger than 4MB - nothing (as before)
I have verified that the original RAM is good in another system, the problem is on the board.
I've googled various AST Bios revisions for beep codes but none seem to match this pattern. I would imagine since the BIOS still seems to be up then it is only just falling over and likely not much is wrong. But no idea where to start especially without a definite match for the beep codes are.
Anyone have any experience with these boards?
When I first got it I tried to upgrade the 8MB of RAM (2x4MB 72 pin EDO SIMMs) to 16MB. I chucked in 2x 8MB that I had spare but the system wouldn't POST with the new RAM fitted. Not even any beeps. Nothing. Swapped back to the original and left things as they were until today...
...when I got out my entire collection of 72 pin SIMMs to try and find any that would work in it. Having verified that it would run with only a single bank fitted (it's a Cyrix 5x86 so 486 architecture) I went through the lot. Only 4MB modules seemed to work in it. I thought this was odd since the published specs state it will support up to 32MB RAM and there are only two slots (and no jumpers to configure the amount of RAM fitted). Decided to put it down to experience and re-fit the original RAM.
Only now the board is dead. Well, almost dead. It is beeping POST codes at me so the BIOS clearly is still running but nothing more. It is sensitive to what is fitted:
No RAM - as soon as power is applied 3 short, 5 long, a pause and 4 short
Original RAM/Other 4MB modules - a pause at power up followed by 2 long and 3 short
Modules bigger than 4MB - nothing (as before)
I have verified that the original RAM is good in another system, the problem is on the board.
I've googled various AST Bios revisions for beep codes but none seem to match this pattern. I would imagine since the BIOS still seems to be up then it is only just falling over and likely not much is wrong. But no idea where to start especially without a definite match for the beep codes are.
Anyone have any experience with these boards?