hi all, im in a sticky situation here as i kinda need to fix this motherboard cause my folks arent able to easily afford a new rig anytime soon.

the motherboard is an SL-75FRN2. I have 2 of these motherboards due to gamedude f***ing us over, we had to pay twice. Its an nForce2 chipset and requires socket 462.

The problem to begin with was the computer would not start one morning. I then proceeded to test everything from powersupplies, ram, pci slots, hdrives, jumpers. I found out the cpu was fried so the only thing left to do was buy a new socket 462, but my dad was in a hurry so he took it upon himself to purchase a socket 462 sempron. This mobo doesnt support sempron, and it doesnt even boot with it.

Ive tried all combinations of powersupplies, ram, cpu (xp1700, same as my old cpu and i can confirm it works), swapped vid cards (agp). Ive tried all this on BOTH motherboards.

There are two problems:
1) first motherboard (the original motherboard) doesnt show any video signal
2) the second motherboard (supposedly new one) loops when i press power on. This is the problem i just CAN NOT figure out, why does it loop? how can i fix this loop? it powers on and powers off, u can see this by listening to the fans buzz faster and slower /faster slower etc....

What i need to know is whether i can swap chips around from mobo to mobo...or whether there is something i have not tried? a friend of mine and myself cant figure this one out, and ive spent over 10 hours trying to fix it (possibly more, didnt really keep track of time over past 3 days)

Thankyou for any help, you might possibly save my parents a dickload of trouble :)

apart from trying alternate ram/cpu/psu combos, you could also try the bios chip from mobo #2 in mobo #1 and vice-versa.

your stuff sounds pretty fragged though eh

lol nice analogy :P

wheres the chip that i can swap? i see a chip but i dunno if its the thing im supposed to swap :S ive never swapped chips before

I have 2 of these motherboards due to gamedude f***ing us over, we had to pay twice.

Let this be a lesson to you, Gamedudes RMA policy is well THERE IS NONE...lol

Sounds like you got ripped off and both boards are rooted, hard way to learn not to buy from gamedude.

as for a fix i whould say return it but whats the point huh?

u r b& -whitey-

With the new mb that keeps restarting, try disconecting all the case wires leaving only the power switch connected. Let us know if that stops it from rebooting.

rolo tomasi, wtf are you talking about......

zectbumo, yah, only have the power up wire connected. only the raw things are connected such as the vid card, ram, cpu ,power and the power on wire.

sorry for triple post, but we bought these mobos a year and a bit ago, possibly longer... We know gamedudes s***, its always been s*** and recently ive noticed their prices are overpriced as well. Im not here to dis gamedude though, im here to figure out the problem.

Also, the mobo chips are different when i compare the two. Wierd huh? same mobo, same model etc... and diff bios chips :s

Swapping the chips did not fix the problem however :(

The average life expectancy of a Soltek board unfortunately isn't much more then a year so it likely that you just have two broken boards. I replace Soltek boards all the time. Leaking capacitors is normal with them.

The average life expectancy of a Soltek board unfortunately isn't much more then a year so it likely that you just have two broken boards. I replace Soltek boards all the time. Leaking capacitors is normal with them.

i smell a game dude tech...ahah trying to blame soltek boards for games dudes lack of willing to replace faulty hardware...

last edited by 0z at 19:17:50 23/Dec/05

i smell a game dude tech...ahah trying to blame soltek boards for games dudes lack of willing to replace faulty hardware...

cmon dude - give it abreak eh - especially this time of year.


some of the best techs I've met @ conferences work for companies that I dispise. back to the problem...

Koopz not blaming the tech, my agrument is with gamedudes rma/ra policies. 8-)

last edited by 0z at 20:20:38 23/Dec/05

what zectbumo has said about the soltek boards is true. what bios is on the board? D2.0 supports semprons. also when people save and exit bios and dont let nforce2 boards save settings correctly they corrupt the bios rom and cause the board not to post, and a hot swap has to be done.

if you are having any more problems email konradd@gamedude.com.au and i can help ya out with ya prob, and see what i can do for ya.

last edited by b00n at 20:40:34 23/Dec/05

No I don't work for GD and in fact have never even been to their shop before but I wouldn't be surprised if retailers resell suspect faulty stock. I know wholesalers do and obviously these end up with the end user. It all boils down to how well the retail outlet looks after their customers.

last edited by zectbumo at 20:40:06 23/Dec/05

No I don't work for GD and in fact have never even been to their shop before but I wouldn't be surprised if retailers resell suspect faulty stock. I know wholesalers do.

Much respect for you m8, no pun intended only trying to weed out game dude scum ;)

what zectbumo has said about the soltek boards is true. what bios is on the board? D2.0 supports semprons. also when people save and exit bios and dont let nforce2 boards save settings correctly they corrupt the bios rom and cause the board not to post, and a hot swap has to be done.

if you are having any more problems email konradd@gamedude.com.au and i can help ya out with ya prob, and see what i can do for ya.

How about offer him a replacement board instead of making excuses clearly the the hardware is faulty, but no game dudes ra/rma policies are all about screwing the customer and more profit margain.

last edited by 0z at 02:40:17 24/Dec/05

Oz you don't know how competent he is.
I honestly reckon you have done something wrong.
i.e. the board is shorting out, CPU is shorting out, reset switch is stuck.

I doubt it has anything to do with the bios chip as it would power up and stay powered on but just not post.

My question is why did you buy a second crap board when you experienced first hand how s*** a brand soltek is?

I like to freak customers out by telling them what is wrong with their machine even before they have said a word purely based on a solteks board logo screen.
Mind you with a soldiering iron and some decent capacitors they actually make solid boards.

1) Have you tried the CPU in a different known working board to be fully sure its "fried"

2) Tried the motherboard/s outside the case, ie sitting ontop of the carboard mobo box to eliminate shorting out on the case.

3) Someone suggested a stuck reset switch etc, take off the jumpers to the switches and use a screwdriver to short the pins to turn the board on.

4) When you say the 2nd board keeps resetting is that with a known working CPU or the Sempron. If it is the Semp its quite possibly resetting cause the BIOS doesn't support the Sempron chip.

I just had a quick google "SL-75FRN2 +Sempron" and it appears there are BIOS versions that bring it up to date to run with Sempron CPUs.
http://www.station-drivers.com/page/soltek.htm

And yes you can swap the BIOS chips from board to board. Infact I do beleive that particular board was from the Nforce2 era that suffered from BIOS corruption when dealing with high FSB overclock fails. However if you have tried them both then its not looking good unforuntely.

Have you tried the CPU in a different known working board to be fully sure its "fried"
---> Yes, the cpu xp1700 is definately screwed. tested it on a working motherboard

2) Tried the motherboard/s outside the case, ie sitting ontop of the carboard mobo box to eliminate shorting out on the case.
----> yes, that was one of my first thoughts that it was shorting out but it does not fix the problem

3) Someone suggested a stuck reset switch etc, take off the jumpers to the switches and use a screwdriver to short the pins to turn the board on.
--> Havent tried this, interesting idea ill let u know whether it works or not :)

4) When you say the 2nd board keeps resetting is that with a known working CPU or the Sempron. If it is the Semp its quite possibly resetting cause the BIOS doesn't support the Sempron chip.
--> yah, the problem is neither board will post with a supported cpu, so i cant update the bios :S

I just had a quick google "SL-75FRN2 +Sempron" and it appears there are BIOS versions that bring it up to date to run with Sempron CPUs.
http://www.station-drivers.com/page/soltek.htm


One thing i will add though is that with the "new" motherboard that wasnt used (2nd board), it posted ONCE and showed me an "unknown amd processor at 1100mhz". However, after this appeared and after the ram check completed the computer rebooted and from then on did the loop thing.

There is a chance that i might have f***ed something up, but i doubt it. Im not gonna blame gamedude cause these boards are quite aged and these things happen. The gamedude fella who offered to help me out, thanks heaps :) but i figure these boards are old enough now to be replaced so my parents have decided to foot the bill once all the comp stores open back up in the new year. I wont give up on the boards though, but they will be gunie (sp?) pigs for my experiments to figure out wtf is wrong with them :P

Cheers all and merry xmas

>Someone suggested a stuck reset switch etc, take off the jumpers to the switches and use a screwdriver to short the pins to turn the board on.

That is why I said to disconnect all the case wires leaving only the power button connected.

Also one more very slim chance is to remove the reset cmos jumper just in case it's mistakenly set to reset and if you have a multimeter it may pay to check the battery as well.

zectbumo, yah i had only the power switch connected to it, so i pulled that off as well and bridged it to start the thing up so no wires are connected at all. The bios reset jumper is set correctly as well and ive tried booting both ways.

I have a soltek board in my PC at home, had so for well over a year. It works fine. None of my machines have died, bar a dodgy old power supply. What do you guys do to your puters!?