''8042 Gate A20 cannot be toggled.''

[mOeeOm]

When I try to install a Gigaram 512mb stick in a dell dimension 4550, I get 6 beeps, according to the dell site it means ''8042 Gate A20 cannot be toggled.'' . anyone know what this means and how to fix it?

 

[mOeeOm]

Well, googling came up with this

Message


Possible Cause


Corrective Action

8042 Gate-A20 error


The keyboard controller failed its test.


If you receive this message after making changes in the system setup program, enter the program and restore the original value(s).

So a cmos reset will fix it?

 

[mOeeOm]

*Bump*

Resetting cmos didn't work anyone have any ideas?

 

[Markbnj]

Yeah, the 8042 is the keyboard controller chip in the original PC specification. I think the same features are buried in the motherboard chipset now.

I can't think of anything that would make this fail aside from some wierd low-level conflict. For example, if you are having memory problems it can show up as almost anything, because just about everything reads and writes values to memory. If one of those values comes back wrong it can cause the software to fail.

Obvious question: does the problem go away if you revert to the old memory?

Also, beep code documentation isn't always right, and interpreting the beep codes themselves can be confusing.