ECS K7SEM memory controller (?) problems

[bidzina]

Is anybody familiar with K7SEM board circuitry? This board gives me problems I bought it on ebay as "new", but of course the guy cheated me and now I'm stuck with it. Can't return as I bought it from his e-mail offer and not through ebay 🙁

Anyway, I'm trying to revive it if possible. There should be a chip responsible for memory errors at bootup. The board boots only with M.tec 128 PC133 module. It didn't like 2 other modules, including Micron 7ns CL2!!! I can only boot at 100MHz to DOS. As soon as I start to boot to Windows, it gives me memory error messages and won't install windows at all. I tested it with Checkit 7.0 for DOS and get the same memory error problems. I guess something responsible for memory (memory controller?) is defective on the board. Anybody knows how to help that? Which chip is that? Or where can I get it? I could resolder the chip, but which one would that be or where could I get it?

ESC tech support is no help they just recommend to return it. 🙁

Well, if anybody knows little more about circuitry of this motherboard, please help.

Thanks 🙂
Bidzina

 

[Peter]

First of all, pick up a real memory test at www.memtest86.com.

Then, what's much more probable is that this highly bandwidth demanding mainboard (shared-memory VGA _and_ Athlon CPU bus) reveals a flakiness in your DIMMs that didn't show on your old system. You wouldn't be the first to migrate SDRAM to an Athlon only to find out that it hasn't been quite OK all the time ...

regards, Peter

 

[HappyPuppy]

I've built a couple of systems using the K7SEM. It is extremely picky about memory modules. I tried half a dozen sticks in each one before I got them to work, even though those same modules worked fine in other machines. Once I got past the memory problem, the boards worked very well.

 

[Zap]

Try clearing the BIOS using the jumper. Reason: I've noticed on earlier K7SEM boards that trying to fiddle with memory timings would cause massive instability. In fact, I fiddled with one board that would lock if I went into BIOS and entered the memory timing submenu. If this is such an afflicted board and the previous owner happened to change the timings, clearing the BIOS would set things back to defaults.

 

[Prfstrkr]

Originally posted by: HappyPuppy
I've built a couple of systems using the K7SEM. It is extremely picky about memory modules. I tried half a dozen sticks in each one before I got them to work, even though those same modules worked fine in other machines. That I strongly agree Once I got past the memory problem, the boards worked very well.

It seems that I didn't have the same good luck as you, mine froze from time to time, and finally crashed.