Making a L440GX+ work (was "Trying to revive a server... AIC-7896 freezes pre-POST completion")

[Garrett Cooper]

Derek Ragona wrote:
> IF you can find the documentation for the motherboard, see if there is a 
> reset jumper.  That jumper should reset the BIOS to factory defaults to 
> allow it to get through the post and into setup.  Some motherboards 
> actually take you into setup with the jumper moved to reset bad 
> configurations.
> 
> Also, unplug any cards and drives, leave the system board with just ram 
> and cpu and video (unless it is built in) until you get it configured.
> 
>         -Derek
> 
> 
> At 12:11 AM 6/14/2006, Garrett Cooper wrote:
>> Hello again all,
>>         I know this isn't a FreeBSD question really, but I just 
>> started up a motherboard with onboard SCSI (Adaptec AIC-7896), and for 
>> some odd reason it freezes pre-POST before it attempts to boot and 
>> there isn't any way where I can get into the BIOS to change the 
>> settings it seems. Does anyone know how I can maybe disable the 
>> onboard SCSI controller since it appears to hang while detecting disks?
>>         Thanks a million!
>> -Garrett

	Thanks all for the help. It turns out after a bit of researching and 
seeing some numbers on boot, I was able to find the documentation for 
the motherboard. It's an L440GX+ motherboard which does appear to still 
work properly, but here's the clincher. I read that the processors I 
have installed are compatible (2xP3 600E CPUs), _but_ only if the BIOS 
is updated past a particular version and I don't know if that is true or 
not. Plus I don't know what is causing the thing to halt because it 
appears to work on occasion--got the system to boot once but halted it 
since I couldn't get into the BIOS and change the settings. I cleared 
the CMOS--both by setting the jumper and removing the battery, and all 
it appears to have done superficially is make the original splash screen 
come up during boot.
	So, my question is has anyone experienced anything like this and if so 
how did you solve this problem, or does anyone know how to fix this 
situation apart from (maybe) installing Windows and updating the BIOS 
with a different processor?
	Also, I have a horde of PC133 SD RAM and only one stick of PC100 RAM, 
which doesn't appear to work in the motherboard, and the motherboard is 
rated to _only_ support PC100 SD RAM. Is it all right for me to use RAM 
which is rated 33MHz faster than recommended? I think it's possible with 
some motherboards but I'm not sure about this one.
	Thanks again for all your help guys :).
-Garrett