So I was upgrading my Alienware to an Athlon X2 4800 dual core, from an Athlon 64 3500. I have an A-Bit AV8 motherboard, which is Socket 939. This was to be my last upgrade with this system, as all of it is end of the road technology now. I had to replace the power supply, that all went well. Then I had to swap out the Alienware BIOS chip for A-Bit's bios in order for the motherboard to accept the dual core chip. That went fine. Then I replaced the processor, cleared the CMOS, and booted up. Voila! Everything checked out, the processor registered as dual core, my RAM was good everything was running great. The whole thing took several hours because this was my first time changing these parts and I was following instructions closely. Then, as I was closing up the case, a loose screw fell onto the motherboard and everything shut down. Now, it won't boot up at all, I get two beeps and my LED reads "9C" before turning to "9F." From what I can understand, 9F for A-bit is a catch-all meaning something terrible happened of an undetermined nature. So I'm guessing that this screw somehow shorted out part of the board. I ran my dual core processor for roughly 2 minutes before I did this. Not a good time. My question is this - does anyone know anything I can do? And if I do have to change my motherboard, what are the chances I damaged my other components, like the CPU, RAM or graphics card? Also, my system drive was in a RAID array - the configuration where they work in tandem, rather than cloning each other. Will I be able to recover my data by installing a new motherboard and attaching these drives? And will Windows validate, or will I have to buy a new copy? Sorry for all of the questions, but I'm at wits end here. I'm thinking of framing this errant screw as a reminder of what can happen the next time I want to upgrade something on my own... Thanks so much for any help.

"thinking of framing this errant screw as a reminder of what can happen the next time I want to upgrade something on my own..." Needless to say, you shouldn't have the system powered up when you're working on it. It's difficult to say what the problem is or if there was any type of chain reaction. I suggest you remove all cards but video & disconnect all the drives (unplug the power cord 1st, of course). Then use the ClearCMOS jumper to reset the BIOS. Plug it back in, fire it up & see if you get a display. Also, why did you have to "swap out the Alienware BIOS chip for A-Bit's"? Couldn't you have simply updated (flashed) the BIOS?

Alienware uses their own custom BIOS, so I couldn't update my BIOS using A-Bit's - it kept saying "your motherboard does not match these BIOS" - or something to that effect. It's possible I could have force-flashed the BIOS, but A-Bit said that might not work, and then I'd be out of luck. So they offered to send me a BIOS chip with the updated BIOS. I only paid for shipping. Alienware's last BIOS update for this board was in 2005, and it didn't support dual-core. I'll try what you suggest. Thanks for helping! And for the record, I was going piece by piece and powering up to make sure everything worked before putting it all back together. I wasn't actually working on anything with the power on. But I reached for a screw that was attached to the frame. It was boneheaded, it was late and I was tired. I've been wearing a vest of horse hair and hitting myself all day.

To add to jam's suggestion, IF you can POST, try adding ONLY one piece of hardware at a time and rebooting.

I'll try adding hardware in one piece at a time. Does anyone know if there's a danger now to my other hardware - graphics card, hard drives, etc? If my motherboard failed in some way, could it send irregular power to my other components or...something? I'm just wondering if I should just go ahead and replace the mobo in case I'm risking more danger. Thanks!

If the system POSTs after folowing jam's suggestions then your MBoard is probably OK. Replacing the MBoard at this point is premature IMO. You need to try posting as suggested. It is possible that most anything could be damaged. The best way to troubleshoot is as suggested. After re-reading jam's response #1, I would also suggest removing ALL but 1 stick of RAM to start.

Just an update: I followed through every suggestion here. I also got on the phone wiht Abit, who was fantastic even though my board was most likely out of warranty (he didn't even bother to check). The verdict is that the Mobo is dead. Some damage happened that this thing ain't coming back. Abit told me that I should get the same board to ensure that I use the same RAID controller so that I can get my system back up and running without having to reinstall or lose any data. Unfortunately, the AV8 is discontinued, so I'm going the eBay route. If nothing else, this was quite the education. Primary lesson: don't work with motherboard late at night while tired. thanks for all the help! -travis