[Madskp]

Starting to look at a non working BS5/BM5 I have.

When applying power the LED on the Back of the BM5 is green and the LED on the BS5 screen is red.

The 4 red status LED’s with voltages on the Masterlink Board are all light up.

The fan is spinning.

However nothing is happening if I press the power switch on the Back of the BM5 or the standby button on the BS5 screen.

So far I have tested the following:

• The harddrive in another computer. I am able to acces the partitions on the harddrive, so that should be ok.
• Connecting and external screen to the BM5 unit. Not working
• Reset the C-mos on the motherboard. Not working
• Took out the motherboard and tested it separatly with another ATX power supply. Not working.

So I guees for one thing the motherboard is dead.

So to get on I have a couple of questions:

• Can I somehow test the BS5 Screen separatly to see if that is working? I have tried to hook the DVI connector up to another computer while getting power from the BM5 unit, but that didnt seem to work.
• I have found some posts in the older forum mentioning bad caps on the motherboard being one reason for not working. Can anyone tell me which caps it could be? There is one next to the ATX connector with a very slight bulge, but all the others has no visible problems.

Thanks i advance.

[kirin]

Hello,

you said, reset the CMOS, did you check whether the battery has the correct 3V voltage?

I had one where I thought as well the mainboard might be dead but it was just an old battery

In case of mainboard, it might be interesting whether similar VIA EPIA mainboards could be used as well. meanwhile they got more and more expensive

Best regards

[Madskp]

Hello and thanks for the input.
I have measured the battery voltage to 3V, but I could try to put in a new one tomorrow just to rule that out.

Could be interesting with another motherboard. The only one of the same type I can find cost more than another BM5/BS5

[XavierItzmann]

Woah,

Just a second there.

There is a battery inside the BM5? My BM5 is over a decade old.  If there is a battery inside, that’s an acid leak waiting to happen (may have started, for all I know) and BM5 destruction should be imminent.

So, is this a maintenance item, what is the battery model?

Any other maintenance items?

Thanks!

 

[Madskp]

Dont worry, its just a CR2032 coincell battery on the PCmotherboard to hold the clock. I have never seen leaks on these even on very old computers.

• This reply was modified 2 months ago by Madskp.

[Madskp]

kirin wrote:

Hello, you said, reset the CMOS, did you check whether the battery has the correct 3V voltage? I had one where I thought as well the mainboard might be dead but it was just an old battery

I replaced the battery today, but still no luck.

I also meassured that all voltages on the ATX connecter is within specification, and they are.

Next I replaced 2 1000uf caps next to the ATX connector as one of the looked bulgy. Still no sign of life.

 

[Madskp]

Continuing I noticed that the CPU cooler gets very hot. I have measure the CPU Vcore voltage which is around 1.0V. This doesn’t sound critical to me, but I don’t know what the correct voltage should be.

Also measure random voltages around the motherboard, and nothing looks suspicious.

Also did some checking for short circiuted caps, but that is not the case either.

 

I am a little interested to see if I can make the BS5 screen show some life. Does anyone know if it should be possible to make i show the picture from an other computer, provided power is supplied to the BS5 screen?

Or should it have some signal via the USB cable?

• This reply was modified 1 month, 4 weeks ago by Madskp.

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