CMOS Memory Size Wrong and Freeze/Crash

shwaycat

Junior Member
May 6, 2002
3
0
0
Someone please help. I just installed a new motherboard and CPU into my ole ATX box, and now this error keeps happening. Whenever my computer boots, it runs for about 20 seconds max, with CMOS errors. Usually the error is "CMOS Memory Size Wrong", but sometimes it says "CMOS battery Low" or "GPNV Checksum Error". It It will then freeze in a very short amount of time, even while I'm in the BIOS setup utility. I've looked all over the internet for something definite to no avail. According to everyone else, it could be my RAM, my motherboard, or even my CPU or power supply. Here are my system specs:

1.6aG Pentium 4
ECS P4s5a Motherboard
3 sticks pc-100 SDRAM (all 128mb)
300 watt antec power supply
40 g western digital HD
Xtasy Visiontek GeForce 4 Ti4400 Video Card
Sound Blaster Live!

The board supports 3.3v SDRAM and DDR RAM as well (either 2 of each). So I have two sticks of ram in there. I've tried a combination of all or each of my three ram sticks, and the same error occurs. I've tried resetting the CMOS a few times, once for a few seconds, once for a few hours, by setting the JP4 jumper. I've tried seating and reseating the ram sticks. I've tried getting into the bios setup and using optimal/setup defaults. I've tried lowering the CAS latency to 2T. I've turned off the quick boot function from the bios, only to have the computer check the ram and freeze at about 100mb (but if I reboot, it will do it sooner, making me thing its not so much the ram, but the amount of time the computer has been on without hitting the power or reset switches). I've tried everything I can think of, short of returning the motherboard, buying new ram, or upgrading my power supply. My thinking is that if it were the CPU, it wouldn't even boot up to the BIOS at all.

Also, there are only two physical jumpers on this board: the clear cmos jumper and the LAN/LED jumper (it has a built in LAN card).

Has anyone else had this problem or seen this error? Does anyone have this motherboard? Thanks for taking a look.
 

Buz2b

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2001
4,619
0
0
You might want to try changing the CMOS battery. ECS has had a problem with sending out inferior batteries on their new boards in the past. The K7S5A is a prime example of this. Possibley the same is happening here. You might also want to try flashing the BIOS. It might be that. I doubt it is the RAM or video card. The aforementioned K7S5A was a real b*tch when it came to PS's but hopefully that shouldn't be the case with a P4 board. However, you might want to keep that in mind. I'd try the battery first; it is cheap and can be found at a local drug store or Radio shack. If this works, be sure and reset the BIOS to "default" settings on the first boot afterwards. Then you can go back later and optimize the settings. If not, see if you can beg/borrow/whatever a 350+ watt PS to test further. If that doesn't do it, then I would RMA the board. Worst case scenario is that the BIOS chip is bad.
 

Peter

Elite Member
Oct 15, 1999
9,640
1
0
You need an adequate power supply unit, and you need to check your RAM. You'd be surprised how many flaky DIMMs are out there without people ever realizing. Checksum and RAM sizing errors wave a big red "RAM DEFECTIVE" sign. www.memtest86.com

And besides, putting DDR and SDRAM in at the same time is not allowed.

regards, Peter