Vintage motherboard talking

[Bits und Bolts] He restored an old PC motherboard using the notorious electrolytic capacitors. The video of his exploits was interesting enough, but very mundane. But what we found interesting is a strange feature in ASUS Bios called “Post Reporter” which allows the motherboard Error and status codes occur through the external speaker. (Video, embedded below.) We’re not sure who wanted it, and since we haven’t seen it lately, we’re guessing the answer is that no one wants it.

We enjoyed watching the PCB rework. These large internal ground layers make it difficult to remove and then weld the covers. This makes the task look deceptively easy. However, if you want to jump to the exotic BIOS, Jump to the 8:20 mark.

There seems to be a lot of work on the system. The board supported routing the system speaker through the built-in sound card, and there was software, apparently, that even allowed you to change the messages. It would be fun to set up your computer to do a Mr. T impression: “I pity the fool who didn’t arrange the memory correctly!”

The stock sound wasn’t nearly as interesting. Of course, these days, you can create a POST ticket and let the microcontroller do the talking for you. If you prefer speaking and spelling to Mr. T, we have the library for you.