GA-E350N Blinking Curser After POST

[dominic7il]

Hello,

I've just built a new system with revolving around the E350N board - the system powers on, displays the splash screen and boots to a blank screen with a blinking cursor. I'm unable to enter the bios and it looks like to me like the system isn't even initializing the keyboard anyway i.e. no lights.

I've tried resetting the CMOS and unplugging the battery etc... but no game. I'm assuming this is a problem with the motherboard and not the RAM or PSU, or at least I hope it is because I don't have anyway of testing the other parts.

Has anyone got any ideas?

[autotech]

What type of keyboard ? is it a usb keyboard?

[dominic7il]

Yes it is - I've actually now managed to get the system to boot from a usb drive so it's not a fault with the motherboard. As far as I can surmise the issue is the usb keyboard not being recognized at post presumably legacy support is disabled or something. Is there anyway to get into the bios and enable it without having to buy a ps/2 keyboard?

[autotech]

Maybe, Go into bios if you can and find the setting that says halt on keyboard error. Change it so that it wont stop the bios. I dont have the board so cant tell you excatly how if a friend has a ps/2 keyboard you just need to borrow it for a minute to do that. Hope this helps. When you booted from a usb drive did it go thru bios first if so u can cheat it that way. At least long enough to get into bios to change it.

If you didnt live in the uk i would send you one because i always keep a few around because alot of boards have that problem when you have a board with 2 x ps/2 ports.

[dominic7il]

Hi Again,

Several months later and - I've been living with the board and no BIOS access for a while no without issue as I managed to force it to boot from USB by unplugging the harddrive and plugging it in once it had booted. However the day has come where I actually NEED to get into the BIOS to enable virtualization  support.

So I've finally bought a PS/2 keyboard and I still cannot get into the bios no matter what combination of buttons I press I just get a black screen and nothing happens. If I don't press anything then it'll just boot to the harddisk as normal, but as I say I need to get into the BIOS.

So it seems that it wasn't a keyboard issue after all - can someone please shed some light on this? The only thing I can think of is that the BIOS doesn't work over HDMI but that would be ridiculous considering the POST screen and the actual OS will display over HDMI with no problem.

I'm reluctant to think this is a faulty board because this is actually the second board I've received - I returned the first one within days of receiving it because I couldn't install an OS, when the second one came back with what appeared to be the same issue I came across the solution to unplug the harddrive before boot.

Any help would be greatly appreciated....

[autotech]

HDMI is a killer, I have run into this and had to use a vga or dvi to get into the bios. Main reason is that the hdmi drivers dont load until windows loads. Find a friend with a spare cable or monitor that uses vga or dvi and you can get into bios.  Is a pain i know but it happened to me.

[Snorgit]

I know this thread is somewhat "dead" though it is the only post in all of Google that I have seen the same problem.

So, my problem is very similar to what dominic7il stated. I boot up, and no keyboard period...No signs of power/lights/life in the board. On Boot, I cannot enter the BIOS to check the error halt settings. If I have a OS loaded hard drive installed, boot travels all the way to login screen. However, I cannot type in password, because KEYBOARD NO WORKY. I have tested multiple USB and PS/2 keyboards (which work on other systems currently), to no avail. I have tried clearing CMOS (yes I took out the battery AND had the system unplugged from wall), clear-CMOS jumper, different keyboards, power On/Off trick with USB boot yadda yadda, and even another E350N. Same problems persist, and there is no information about what the problem is or how to fix, only posts that there is a problem. In fact, if I could just get into the BIOS, I am sure I can fix...but then again, if I can get into BIOS then keyboard is working, and everything becomes a moot point.

Right now, I am running bare minimum to rule out other hardware conflicts.
GA-E350N
G.Skill RipJaws 16gb (2x 8gb) - I have tried jsut dropping to 1 stick @ 8gb
Seagate SATA 2 320gb HDD

And that is it...no other peripherals