Megatouch Ion/Force machines - replacing ECS board with Asus A7N8X - Questions

[justtaint]

With the pandemic leaving me with some time on my hands, I'm finally getting around to diagnosing a batch of LCD Megatouch machines that I bought last summer.  I've been able to get 3 working with just a new CMOS battery, but 2 other units are giving me trouble.

#1. Ion (2010 key)-  After I replaced the CMOS battery, discovered that the hard drive was toast.  Took it out and tried to put it into my main PC, couldn't be seen in BIOS.  Replaced the hard drive with a spare (2010.5), and it will post sometimes, mostly the screen will flash "No Input Signal, Check Connection" every few seconds.  Capacitors seem iffy.

#2 Aurora - Haven't popped it open yet.

After reading all I could regarding the purple ECS boards, and how crappy they were, i started scouring Craigslist for options.  I found someone selling a few A7N8X-VM boards with RAM, CPU, HSF, etc.  That leaves me with a few questions to get me started

• 1.  A7N8X-VM has only 2 ram slots, the ECS board had 3, but only the middle one has a stick.  Is it okay to have both slots populated, or should I just have 1 stick per board.
• 2.  If just 1 stick, is 512MB ok or should I use 256MB?
• 3.  I'm not sure what CPU came with the boards.  The HSF is too tall to be of any use, so I'll have to switch them out and I can check their specs.  Does it matter, or will just about any Socket A cpu work?
• 4.  I know I'll need to jumper the audio to get it working, any other issues to worry about

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[mahkeymike]

#3. Sell them to me. I will take them off your hands.

[justtaint]

I bought a total of 7 machines, so far 4 of them are working, 2 aren't and 1 is a parts machine.  I'd like to get the 2 complete non-working machines working again, and keep a spare motherboard.  Anything else would probably just take up space.  The working machines are going to be presents for family, nieces/nephews are pretty bored with no school.

Did some more research and it seems like I can populate both slots with RAM, but 512MB might be overkill on these machines.  Two questions answered.
Still need to figure out what CPU came with these motherboards, but can any socket A be used, assuming they're faster than what came with the Megatouch machines?

[justtaint]

Swapped out the ECS mobo, and put in the Asus A7N8X-VM.
Don't know why, but I also eliminated all the DBA hardware (may have been a mistake).

There's one last connector that I'm not sure where to place.
See attachments

The first pic shows where the jumper goes from the I/O board to the ECS mobo.
Second pic shows the lettering on the Asus board.

I tried powering it up without the jumper, I see a green/yellow LED on the mobo, nothing on the I/O board, and no fans spin.
I do have a jumper in place on the 20 pin ATX connector between 5V and ground (Green and Black).

[justtaint]

Removed the homemade jumper on the ATX plug, and just soft-booted by using a screwdriver over the PWR pins.  It's ALIVE.  Forgot to plug in a keyboard to check the BIOS re:auto pwr on, but I'll see if it boots into the megatouch software first.

[justtaint]

Got it to boot into the games.  Still can't get it to power on without softbooting.  Won't keep the changes I make to the bios, even after replacing the CMOS battery.  I'm hoping I can just put a jumper over those two pins.  Will do some more work later.

[justtaint]

Okay, so that jumper that comes from the I/O board goes to the exact same place on the A7N8X as it was on the ECS.
I need to swap the HSF's, and the HDD/key combo that I was going to swap into this machine doesn't load an OS, but at least I know everything else works in this machine.

[justtaint]

It's got a Sempron 3000+.  Is that OK or will it generate too much heat with the shallow hsf?

[mahkeymike]

Official ECS mobo use mobile sempron.

[justtaint]

Working on the last Ion unit.  It was originally described as "for parts", so I'm not holding out too much hope.
Put in a "new" Asus A7N8X-VM motherboard, put in a spare I/O board, new PSU, new SSD.  Had to soft boot the motherboard with a flathead screwdriver, mobo sprang to life.  However the screen never comes on, no display at all.

I'm planning on hooking up a spare monitor to see if it's the mobo or the LCD. 
Anything else to check?

Not looking to spend too much money on this unit, I don't know the history behind it.  Ebay prices for replacement LCD screens are $220-$320, too high to make it worthwhile to fix this unless I can fit any 15" LCD panel in there.  Are there other options?

[justtaint]

Bypassed the internal LCD screen and used a separate monitor.  Good news is the touchscreen appears to be working, I'm installing 2010.5 on the unit now and I was able to guesstimate locations on the touchscreen to advance the installation.  Seems like the LCD is bad.  So, same question, what replacement options are there?

[justtaint]

Shining a bright light close to the screen, and I can't see a thing.

[orizzle]

Shining a bright light close to the screen, and I can't see a thing.

It's usually the inverters that go bad in these. Try the flashlight test again to be sure you don't see anything.

I've hacked apart plenty of desktop monitors. It's hit or miss which ones fit. Sometimes you'll get lucky and the megatouch inverter and controller boards work with the new panels and everything fits nicely. Other times not so much

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[mahkeymike]

If you verified the motherboard is putting out video, and the flashlight test fails, the its either the controller for the lcd panel, or the lcd panel itself. Flashlight test working would normally mean its either the inverter, or the CCFL tubes.

[justtaint]

Pitch black room and a flashlight pressed to the screen, no display from what I can tell.
Disassembled the display.  Going to order a new panel.