CNC milling machine replacement MB

[Merek]

I've been trying to fix one of our machines at work, it's a CNC milling machine but utilizes an older Msi motherboard that's socket 754 which was out at the same time as 478 the precursor to 775. The old board is done for and I've already replaced it once but with the same board but previously to that we actually had to send it back off to Centroid because they make the control for it. I was able to find another used board off Ebay but it doesn't work and I've literally tried everything from 2x different CPUs a Semperon & Athlon64, 3x different sets of ram, 2x PSUs, and even installed it into another case but this board is doing the exact same thing and cannot get it to post, I've also tried resetting the bios, moving the jumper and then installed a new battery after waiting 5 min. The CPU fan does turn on and run so it does power on but no video or any beep codes, I've even tried a working PCI Video card, I'm starting to think that these boards are just faulty.

I messaged the seller about exchanging it as he has other ones but he suggested that I had merely "swapped cables" I don't really want to get into what all I told him but basically said that I didn't know what cables that he suggested that I swapped as I've tried it with the bare minimum and it still doesn't post, I listed everything I had tried that literally tried all different parts that attach to that board and it still doesn't work. I think today I'm actually going to go through Ebay about returning it and getting my money back. I should've paid more attention as he does have a lot of sales but he also has 120 negative feedback over the last year plus a lot of neutral ones too. I've kinda been through this before and Ebay will typically stand behind the buyers.

He is practically the only one selling this board for a reasonable amount but still a bit high especially with as old that it is, I've found other sellers that offer a different manufacturer mostly Asus & Biostar they have the same northbridge and southbridge chipsets. I did try another combo I bought off Ebay, board, CPU, ram but it has a different chipset and it does power on and post inside the machine, I did have to replace the battery and reset the cmos to do so but the problem is that it runs off Linux and the bootloader will not load with this other board. I was thinking that since I cannot get this other board to work I think my best option at this point is to look at these other options that use the same chipsets.

This picture is the one that totally failed due to the capacitors being fried.

 

[Spectre694]

If that other board doesn't post it sounds like you've tried everything contact ebay and get your money back.

You've got a couple options yet though. You can try to recap your old board if your handy with a soldering iron otherwise Keep looking for the right replacement.


Can you post the bootloader error? That might be something that can be fixed to get it to boot on the new board.

 

[Merek]

If that other board doesn't post it sounds like you've tried everything contact ebay and get your money back.

You've got a couple options yet though. You can try to recap your old board if your handy with a soldering iron otherwise Keep looking for the right replacement.


Can you post the bootloader error? That might be something that can be fixed to get it to boot on the new board.

I had taken a picture of it with my phone but Google wasn't very helpful and most of what I found was to goto the motherboard manufacturer to get an update. I forgot to mention that my friend came down the other day and he couldn't figure it out either when trying to troubleshoot the defective Ebay board but that was before this other combo came in, using this setup I get this error message.

 

[Merek]

I did find a newer Biostar board that uses the same chipsets but is socket AM2, I don't want to put all my eggs into that basket but is newer and could potentially work. I know originally it had a sata ssd drive installed but after we had them repair it they shipped it back to us using an IDE to CF card reader and a 1gb card, the last time I worked on it when I replaced the board I used Clonezilla to copy it over to a 32gb card, the programs themselves are basically just txt files and was able to copy them off which was less than 30mb.

We do have 2 slightly newer machines, another milling machine and a lathe but those are using socket 939. We had just got a brand new mill with an ATC but evidently Centroid went away from Linux and is now using an Intel NUC that runs Windows.

 

[OVERKILL]

I'd either try recapping your board, if you are suitably proficient with a soldering iron (I've had to do this before, definitely the lowest cost solution) or, as you'd speculated, find another brand of board with the same chipset and hopefully better components (like ASUS).

That socket AM2 system, if the chipset is the same as you indicate, should work, the kernel won't care what CPU is in the rig.

 

[Merek]

I'd either try recapping your board, if you are suitably proficient with a soldering iron (I've had to do this before, definitely the lowest cost solution) or, as you'd speculated, find another brand of board with the same chipset and hopefully better components (like ASUS).

That socket AM2 system, if the chipset is the same as you indicate, should work, the kernel won't care what CPU is in the rig.

That's what my friend tried telling me that it really shouldn't matter when trying this other board but it definitely did not like this one and the only thing I can think of is that it's a different chipset so it cannot load the proper drivers to boot. This other board is clearly different as it has an Ati chipset whereas the one I need is Via.

As for the defective board I'll see if the seller responds back today but if I don't hear anything by this evening I'll put in for return and refund the money.

 

[OVERKILL]

That's what my friend tried telling me that it really shouldn't matter when trying this other board but it definitely did not like this one and the only thing I can think of is that it's a different chipset so it cannot load the proper drivers to boot. This other board is clearly different as it has an Ati chipset whereas the one I need is Via.

As for the defective board I'll see if the seller responds back today but if I don't hear anything by this evening I'll put in for return and refund the money.

Yes, if the chipset is different, that can definitely cause issues for sure.

 

[Merek]

Yes, if the chipset is different, that can definitely cause issues for sure.

Thanks, I'm definitely tech savvy as I've been building PC's for over 20 yrs and do have some knowledge of Linux and anything I don't know or understand is usually found online but I'll try these other boards with the same chipset as that will give me the best chances of getting this thing to run again. I do have plans of getting another image of it so I can mess around with that so I can leave this main one alone. We do have plans on stocking up on different parts to keep this one going but right now I just need to get it repaired and working again so we can at least use it.

I already do have some extra parts but would like to keep an extra MB or two and another PSU on hand wouldn't hurt either, that one is a bit of an oddball as it's SFX mostly due to the smaller form factor that they pretty much had to go with that because of limited real estate inside the unit. I had Crucial memory installed when the one went bad and I know that memory works as it currently working in this board with the Ati chipset.

 

[Merek]

This morning I ordered the Asus board so that will hopefully come in about a week and luckily via UPS, I also found a new Cooler Master for it and thought I would go ahead and replace the cpu cooler as well but keep the stock one for testing purposes. They are both coming from WA but the cooler is via USPS so who knows how long that will take getting over here all the way on the opposite side.

I haven't heard anything back from that seller but typically Ebay will help you out if they don't.

 

[kc8adu]

pm me if you want it repaired.
keep in mind that many industrial boards have custom bios.
dont lose your original!
anca stuff is good for that.
wrong bios id will break the software licensing.

 

[Merek]

pm me if you want it repaired.
keep in mind that many industrial boards have custom bios.
dont lose your original!
anca stuff is good for that.
wrong bios id will break the software licensing.

I'll keep you in mind but I don't think they've tied it directly to the board because I've replaced it once already but was able to find another Msi ms-7142 board, the other I tried that does work but won't boot up in the machine is the 7145 but has an Ati chipset. I know by default they don't want you messing around in the bios as they add a password to keep you from accessing it, we do know of a password they use but the bios must be something else, on these older ones the password is easily cleared out by removing the battery or moving the jumper to clear the cmos. I think they just don't want you going in there and making changes and now it won't boot, especially changing the sata mode from IDE/ATA mode to AHCI... that one would definitely cause it not to boot if it's set incorrectly on how they originally installed it. I remember when I swapped it last time I had to make a few changes but nothing too serious it just takes a few min. to go through the process of trial and error finding out what it wants to boot up.

I put in for the return last night and Ebay says I should hear something back by the 8th from the seller so we'll see, most of the feedback I've read says they are not very communicative, I was able to get a response the first time but after responding to his message he hasn't gotten back yet.

We finally did get the new machine setup and has an ATC, we were testing it out but then had issues changing tools but the other guy left and had turned off the air because the whole shop shuts down for lunch so it really wasn't my fault, the machine needs air to move the carousel changer in and out and also to operate it in the spindle where it grabs the tool holder.

 

[kc8adu]

great!.
this means you have a good chance of your newer board with the same chipset working.
your boot errors are the result of chipset mismatch.

 

[Merek]

Yes that is what I gathered and rather try to resolve that issue it's just a whole lot easier finding another board that will possibly work. I have found more of those boards but most are overseas so the time and shipping expenses are way too cost prohibitive. I know one time I had to remove the console from the machine and ship it to Centroid who repaired it and sent it back so that is another option but they are far from cheap. The older ones use a pci controller card that all of the fiber connections run into but evidently the newer ones have a special board in the electrical cabinet where they all connect and an ethernet cables runs up to the console.

We're having an issue already with the ATC on the new one, it gives a time out error for the carousel, I'm sure it's because we slowed the feed rates down. We charge by the job time anyways so if it takes a lil bit longer then we just charge more for it and need the machines to last instead of wearing them out since we are mainly a small job shop. I think what's happening is that there is a set amount of time that the ATC comes in to change a tool and we slowed the feed rate on the Z axis so it's taking a few more seconds to accomplish that task.

Our oldest one is from 96-97 and I believe is a 486 that's Dos based but it's still running good. When I copy programs off that one I have to use a floppy disk as it's the easiest method and then a usb floppy drive to get them copied off.

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

It's a shame your expensive milling machine is hamstrung by having to rely on a crappy old 'brain' like a Socket 754 Via-chipped motherboard. Are you offered any kind of support from the manufacturer? If the thing just runs off PC hardware running customized Linux, are they able to provide the OS or any other driver/software so you can run it on your own hardware? Seems like this would be the perfect time to upgrade to a NUC or a cheap laptop and install their software on it (or even virtually) so you can avoid having to search the Internet junkyards for old PC parts. I'm no Linux user but I'm sure there's some way to make their software work on newer hardware with all the help there is out there even if they aren't willing to provide any help themselves.

 

[Merek]

This machine I'd have to ask but I believe we got it in 2006 so there is no longer any warranty, but yes 754 was on it's way out by then, 939 came out in 2004. We do have support from Centroid who makes the control but the problem is when you call them they ask up front for your credit card info before they will even talk to you and they are not cheap.

 

[Merek]

I thought I would update since I received more parts today... I cannot get the Asus board to work either and is doing the exact same thing where it powers on but doesn't output to the monitor, I tried both power supplies, different memory, cpu's, etc... I also ordered the other combo that is socket AM2 where he included the motherboard, cpu, and 512mb ram but I cannot get this one to post either. I've tried clearing the cmos, replacing the battery, video card, etc.... Evidently this guy has had issues because he included some helpful tips in the box so I took pictures and emailed him, I showed him my setup and that it's not working and then I took another picture of a different board that does work.

He said that certain boards can be finnicky with the 4pin cpu power or certain monitors won't work with certain boards, he did say that he tested it before he shipped it to me but I have no way of knowing if he really did or not. I have been building PC's for over 20 yrs and never in my life have had this many issues and it's hard for me to believe that I've received so many bad motherboards. The last one is the ATI board that won't boot the OS but does work. The PSU used is a 450w Seasonic, I also have another PSU that we bought new from Amazon.

 

[OVERKILL]

Do you have some different sticks of RAM you could try? Any beep codes?

 

[Merek]

No beep codes and yes I do have some ddr2 from a socket 775 system that I can also try. I do have another PSU but it's not going to work as it only has an 8 pin CPU connector, most of them you can split them into 2x 4 pins but this one you cannot and it won't even plug into a 4 pin connector.

 

[OVERKILL]

No beep codes and yes I do have some ddr2 from a socket 775 system that I can also try. I do have another PSU but it's not going to work as it only has an 8 pin CPU connector, most of them you can split them into 2x 4 pins but this one you cannot and it won't even plug into a 4 pin connector.

I've found some chipsets are finicky with RAM, that's why I asked Let me know the result. I think I tossed one of these boards last year when I purged my workbench area in my basement. Ugh.

 

[Merek]

I've found some chipsets are finicky with RAM, that's why I asked Let me know the result. I think I tossed one of these boards last year when I purged my workbench area in my basement. Ugh.

I really think this K8M800 chipset must be a crapshoot.