G23 Will not Post

[Red_Devils]

Well guys I have a G23 that was working fine one night, turned it off then turned it on the next evening and it fails to boot. The machine powers on but there's no "beep" from the mainboard in the brainbox so it's not going through the post. I have taken out the brainbox and tested the voltages and it looks like all the voltages check good. The CPU fan is spinning like it should but it's not going through the POST. The only thing I can see is there is one red light that comes on the right side of the brainbox by the reset switch.
Does anyone have any ideas of what to try? I know I have looked for a different mainboard once before for this machine but they are nowhere to be found. If it needs a new brainbox it's going to hurt.
Thanks guys.

[Yoeddy1]

Insert the diagnostics key and your ekey.  Wipe all.  Reinstall the OS and your games.

Thanks,
Jason

[Red_Devils]

Thanks for the reply but there is no post on the machine so it will not get to the BIOS to read the list of devices

[Yoeddy1]

Reseat components…cards, RAM, remove the CMOS jumper and reseat after a few minutes, and if batteries are fresh, there’s not too much else.  SSD?  Power supply?

Thanks,
Jason

[Slotman]

If you have an old ATX power supply laying around use that to power the board.
That in addition to a CMOS clear may get you somewhere.

[Red_Devils]

Guys, thanks for the replies. I tried hooking up an external ATX power supply and no dice also clearing the CMOS didn't help. It looks like I may have to get a new brain box because I'm sure the BIOS chip in the board has fried.

[RB]

No mention of the RAM as Yoeddy1 mentioned. Try the Ram sticks one at a time. A bad one will keep it from posting and you won't get a beep when you power it on.

[Slotman]

Guys, thanks for the replies. I tried hooking up an external ATX power supply and no dice also clearing the CMOS didn't help. It looks like I may have to get a new brain box because I'm sure the BIOS chip in the board has fried.

You can easily replace the BIOS chip.  Although unlikely your problem it would be easy to re-seat it and like RB said, check RAM sticks.

[Red_Devils]

I will try starting it with one RAM chip at a time and see if that makes a difference when I get home after work, I have tried once before to replace a BIOS chip and it didn't go so well for me lol. I am in IT so I'm pretty familiar with computers. I have reseated the RAM, cleared the CMOS, hooked up an external ATX and nothing has gotten it to POST, but I will try one RAM chip at a time tonight but in my experience if a RAM chip is bad normally the board will give a series of beeps letting you know that a component has failed. But this is a slot machine and things are different and I will always defer to the experts.
Thanks for your help guys I really appreciate it.

[Red_Devils]

Guys,
Last night I tried moving the sticks of RAM to different slots and trying one stick at a time in different slots, also clearing the CMOS again. All failed to make a difference, the machine still fails to make the beep (post) I cannot see any bulging capacitors on the motherboard so all I'm left with is the the BIOS chip on the board has gone bad somehow.

Now I think I have read that these chips are in pairs? There's the one in the motherboard and there's another in the PCI card, how do you get another pair that match? I really appreciate the help you guys give it's a real learning experience. I have ordered one of those replacement brainboxes from a recommendation that I received from a member. He advertises them on here and they're a great deal $165 shipped. Anyway I have read that it is hit and miss whether they come with both bios chips. Am I right in thinking I can't take the PCI card from my brainbox and put it in the refurb one and expect it to work? If it has a BIOS chip in the motherboard that is. Because I'm afraid if I take the bios chip from my motherboard the new one will not work. But I guess we will find out when it gets here. But I do welcome all the information you can give me. Thanks.

[RB]

If you are talking about the Boot 1 chip (U7), they are easy to swap and I doubt yours is bad. It is also cheap to replace. Do you currently have show boots? When you get the other brainbox, confirm if it has one & what the number is. AVPSB014B3004 boot 1 is normally used in conjunction with Show 14-13 boot boot 2. They can be reflashed.

[Red_Devils]

If you are talking about the Boot 1 chip (U7), they are easy to swap and I doubt yours is bad. It is also cheap to replace. Do you currently have show boots? When you get the other brainbox, confirm if it has one & what the number is. AVPSB014B3004 boot 1 is normally used in conjunction with Show 14-13 boot boot 2. They can be reflashed.

Thanks for the reply. if I really knew what "show boots" were I could answer your question sorry. I had just read on the site that you need 2 chips for the machine to run and that's all I knew sorry for my total lack of knowledge of these machines but I'm trying

[rogue]

Show boots are boot chips that allow you to install/play games without a license dongle.

[Slotman]

Just a little tidbit of info.  You can in reality take that motherboard out and set it on a table with no peripherials (video card, PCI card). Plug in a ATX power supply and get to POST and get to NO IGT SIGNATURE FOUND. That means the board POST;ed and is now looking for the PCI card with the other half of the BIOS (the extended bios).

If you are IT inclined, it wouldn't hurt to reseat the CPU.  It at least gives an opportunity to replace the heat sink grease.

You stated the fan turns on, you didnt state which one.  The CPU fan is BIOS controlled so if that is jogging or spinning normally its being controlled by the BIOS.

[Slotman]

Also, for the $50.00 (hell of a deal) you may want to jump on one of these just for the backup parts as the price cant be beat. https://newlifegames.com/nlg/index.php?topic=43593.0

[LifeTilt]

Did you replace the 2032 battery on the motherboard? I always replace this when the game does not POST.

[sccarlso]

It will POST even if there's no motherboard battery in there.   The date just gets reset whenever it's shut off.   But pulling and replacing all batteries is always a good idea unless you're certain they are fairly new.  Just a good cheap thing to do and eliminates a few potential issues...

Another generally good, but not "required" thing you should do whenever the motherboard battery is dead or removed as with no power, the CMOS on the motherboard is wiped.  While it would still boot and of course likely function just fine after the motherboard CMOS battery is dead or removed.   It's an IGT recommendation to connect a USB keyboard and as soon as you hear the beep from the board or the AVP splash screen, press DEL like every 2 sec until it displays the BIOS menu.

It's password protected, so you enter the password "sevens" and it will let you in.

While you "can" tweak settings as you want.  IGT recommends just going to Load Optimized Defaults, select Y, then save and exit.  Then the settings are restored to IGT recommended BIOS settings.


For a brainbox that won't POST.  I found a decent list of behavior on the Delphi forums listed below when various components are not connected or not functioning that can be helpful to figure out what to check depending if you get no boot, or partial boot and/or error messages.

Such as if you get the AVP banner, at least that should indicate the CPU and memory is seated ok and the boot1 chip is likely ok.


1.  When you power on with nothing except the power and CPU connected;  CPU lite OFF - Fans ON.

2.  Add Memory DIMM - CPU lite OFF - Fans ON.

3.  Add CPU boot chip-1 - AVP Banner OK - No signature found error on screen.

4.  Remove memory - CPU reports beeping error.

5.  Add Interface board without boot chip-2 - CPU reports beeping error. 7 Lites lit on top of interface board.

6.  Add Memory DIMM - AVP Banner OK, No signature found error on screen.

7.  Add boot chip-2 to memory board - No motherboard connection reported on screen and constant reboots.

8.  Add ribbon interface cable from interface board to motherboard - Normal startup

Failure to POST can be a real pain!  Luckily it isn't that common.  But still does happen. 

AVP brainboxes are between 10-15 yrs old depending on when it was actually assembled.   They hold up pretty well considering their age!

[LifeTilt]

After COVID, our casino had a lot of SAVPs that would not start. Unlike a home computer. Our SAVPs would not start with a low BIOS battery. Since it is critical that a slot machine can retrieve the last gaming states, holding the BIOS date on a power-outage is important to that process.

[Red_Devils]

After COVID, our casino had a lot of SAVPs that would not start. Unlike a home computer. Our SAVPs would not start with a low BIOS battery. Since it is critical that a slot machine can retrieve the last gaming states, holding the BIOS date on a power-outage is important to that process.

I just wanted to update that this was indeed the problem. I wanted to put it here for some poor unsuspecting newbie like myself who didn't think it was even possible. I took out the battery and put my multimeter on it and it only measured 1.5v I put a new one in and while I was at it I also replaced the PCI card batteries too. put the brainbox back in the machine and guess what I got a beep! I couldn't believe it. Wel I have had more issues after that but for the sake of this topic this issue is solved, so major thanks to all who helped and man oh man you learn something new every day with this hobby. You guys are amazing!!!