🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <A6+rZJAhEik4Ewaw@ghastly.demon.co.uk>, 'Dungeon' Dave
<Dungeon@SpamNot.Here> writes

>Er... I didn't explain myself clearly previously -

Don't worry, neither did I.

> I'm led to believe that
>the 2-digit code will tell you what component currently plugged into
>the mobo is preventing it from firing up properly, such as a duff
>memory chip, processor not seated, VGA card problems etc.

A POST card is not going to tell you 'processor not plugged in
properly'.  It might indicate, for instance, that data line D0 is not
responding, but it's a leap of faith to suppose this means the CPU
hasn't been fitted properly.

Really, the best way to troubleshoot a dead PC is to methodically
substitute components with known working hardware.

Going off at a tangent (who me?) I have doubts about the value of ISA
POST cards.  Since in modern PCs the ISA bus is now a sub-bus of PCI and
hanging off the north bridge, is it really possible for a POST card on
the ISA bus to access all the relevant hardware to perform checks
properly?  In the days of all-ISA machines, the POST card had direct
access to the address and data buses via ISA; today's machines have
quite some level of indirection between busses and system memory.


-- 
Mike Tomlinson