Slight BIOS incompatibility and RAM
Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 3:24 am
Hi guys,
About four months ago my PC had a BIOS failure. The computer halted at boot time with a "BIOS checksum error" message. I could not even boot from diskette. I searched A LOT but could not find a replacement for that exact EEPROM model. Finally I contacted a technician who gave me an Award BIOS for a SY-7vba-133U My motherboard is a SY-7vba-133 (without the U) but it was the only choice I had.
Now the computer boots OK, but it has two problems:
1) Pressing the reset button or doing a software reboot (e.g. with the start menu in Windows) does not work: the system goes to some kind of "suspend mode" where the display and HDD is turned off but the power supply cooler keeps working. But pressing alt-ctrl-supr does fine, and rebooting after changing the BIOS setup ("Save changes and exit (Y/N)" also works OK.
2) Only a half of the RAM is detected. I have 256 MB installed, but only 128 are found and counted by the BIOS. (Windows's system info shows 512MB ) Because of the lack of RAM, Windows XP keeps paging to disk *all* the time.
So, my questions for the knowledgeable are: Why is this happening?
What are my alternatives to fix this?
Many thanks for your help.
About four months ago my PC had a BIOS failure. The computer halted at boot time with a "BIOS checksum error" message. I could not even boot from diskette. I searched A LOT but could not find a replacement for that exact EEPROM model. Finally I contacted a technician who gave me an Award BIOS for a SY-7vba-133U My motherboard is a SY-7vba-133 (without the U) but it was the only choice I had.
Now the computer boots OK, but it has two problems:
1) Pressing the reset button or doing a software reboot (e.g. with the start menu in Windows) does not work: the system goes to some kind of "suspend mode" where the display and HDD is turned off but the power supply cooler keeps working. But pressing alt-ctrl-supr does fine, and rebooting after changing the BIOS setup ("Save changes and exit (Y/N)" also works OK.
2) Only a half of the RAM is detected. I have 256 MB installed, but only 128 are found and counted by the BIOS. (Windows's system info shows 512MB ) Because of the lack of RAM, Windows XP keeps paging to disk *all* the time.
So, my questions for the knowledgeable are: Why is this happening?
What are my alternatives to fix this?
Many thanks for your help.