PC BIOS POST Testing/Diagnostics Card (ISA-PCI)

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Have an issue with your PC giving you beep errors or other problems upon powering up and need a way to understand what's going on? You might consider one of these BIOS testing cards that read back the POST error codes.

This one in particular uses an 8/16-bit ISA bus or the successor 32-bit PCI bus. If you have a modern PC you'll likely have a PCI-Express (or PCI-E) based bus and therefore this card will not work for you (however there are diagnostic cards compatible with PCI-Express).

It uses a 4-digit segmented LED display to show POST codes in hexadecimal (0 to F) format. The first two digits are the most recent stored code while the last two digits is the prior code. Pressing/holding the onboard button cycles through different functions including scrolling up/down the stored codes, a special mode I'm not familiar with what it does and a self-test of the segmented display.

There are also 4 LED lamps to indicate power conditions (-12v, +12v, +5v, +3.3v) and another 4 LEDs for monitoring the system clock, READY signal, MESSAGE signal and the RESET signal. If for example the RESET signal stays lit when first powered on that usually means you have a short on the reset circuit (bad reset switch, wires or mainboard connections) or a faulty BIOS.

There is also a 5v buzzer and jumper connection on the tester if your mainbaord doesn't have an internal speaker and requires an external speaker like those found on PC cases. By connecting the card's speaker to the mainboard in testing you can then listen to any beep codes present (useful when bench testing outside a case). It also features a remote segmented display that can be plugged in to see the codes if the tester card is not visible (as if used in a PCI slot where the display is facing down) and can also control tester functions.

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