A7N8X-X bios bugs: plse help

[Geronimo]

THe BIOS has been buggy since day one. It is keeping proper time/date,
so I think there is nothing wrong with the battery. First, it
mis-reports the amount of RAM, I have 512 mb of XMS PC 22000 RAM
installed, but it reports 64 meg. 2. On the first couple of attempts
to boot it up, it gives a message CMOS checksum bad" message, also I
get a "CPU fan speed" fatal error message....sometimes one but not the
other message. 3. It often loses my settings in BIOS, and goes back
to default....but doesn't lose the time. I have to set CPU fan
monitoring to OFF/disabled to get it to boot up on the first try, and
I have to disable the on-board audio, as I have a PCI sound card
installed. So I am frequently having to goback into BIOS and disable
built-in sound and fan monitoring. I did a google search for anything
on BIOS bugs for this board but didn't find anything on it.
What to do? Is my CMOS bad, or is this fixable with a BIOS
update?

 

[Robert Hancock]

THe BIOS has been buggy since day one. It is keeping proper time/date,
so I think there is nothing wrong with the battery. First, it
mis-reports the amount of RAM, I have 512 mb of XMS PC 22000 RAM
installed, but it reports 64 meg. 2. On the first couple of attempts
to boot it up, it gives a message CMOS checksum bad" message, also I
get a "CPU fan speed" fatal error message....sometimes one but not the
other message. 3. It often loses my settings in BIOS, and goes back
to default....but doesn't lose the time. I have to set CPU fan
monitoring to OFF/disabled to get it to boot up on the first try, and
I have to disable the on-board audio, as I have a PCI sound card
installed. So I am frequently having to goback into BIOS and disable
built-in sound and fan monitoring. I did a google search for anything
on BIOS bugs for this board but didn't find anything on it.
What to do? Is my CMOS bad, or is this fixable with a BIOS
update?

Does Windows see the correct amount of RAM?

 

[Paul]

THe BIOS has been buggy since day one. It is keeping proper time/date,
so I think there is nothing wrong with the battery. First, it
mis-reports the amount of RAM, I have 512 mb of XMS PC 22000 RAM
installed, but it reports 64 meg. 2. On the first couple of attempts
to boot it up, it gives a message CMOS checksum bad" message, also I
get a "CPU fan speed" fatal error message....sometimes one but not the
other message. 3. It often loses my settings in BIOS, and goes back
to default....but doesn't lose the time. I have to set CPU fan
monitoring to OFF/disabled to get it to boot up on the first try, and
I have to disable the on-board audio, as I have a PCI sound card
installed. So I am frequently having to goback into BIOS and disable
built-in sound and fan monitoring. I did a google search for anything
on BIOS bugs for this board but didn't find anything on it.
What to do? Is my CMOS bad, or is this fixable with a BIOS
update?

"CMOS checksum bad" can be traced to the processor using the
wrong clock rate. If you run a processor too fast, it sometimes
causes the BIOS flash chip to be read with too little access
time, and the data read from the BIOS chip is corrupted. If the
BIOS invites you to reflash the BIOS via the motherboard CD, the
answer is, to find out why the processor is running too fast,
before attempting to do any more BIOS flashing.

Actually, any condition that makes the CPU uncomfortable, could
give the same symptoms.

Using the CPU_FSB jumper, and setting it to the factory default
FSB400/333/266 setting might help. I believe that influences which
ROMSIP code is clocked into the processor (and I don't have any
documentation that explains what is in that code, unless it it
the equivalent of an Intel microcode update or something - SIP
is beliefly mentioned in AMD documentation, but I've never seen
the protocol documented).

If the motherboard is second-hand, check the CPU socket carefully
for "wire tricks". Users can trigger various options on the processors,
by inserting shorting wires in the socket. Make sure nothing like
that was left in the socket, before installing in your system.

I suppose, before doing that, I'd get a copy of CPUZ from
www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php , and verify the CPU speed and other hardware
details. Do they line up with what you know about the system ?
For example, you can dump the SPD contents from your DIMM memory,
and see whether the DIMM is what you think it is.

You can get some data on the processor types here. The P.R. rating
and the core clock speed are not the same thing, so make sure your
CPU is set up correctly.

http://web.archive.org/web/20031018050306/http://www.qdi.nl/support/CPUQDISocketA.htm

HTH,
Paul

 

[Geronimo]

Thanks much! Will see if I have attempted to "rev up" the CPU in the
BIOS. Don't remember now if it is at default for FSB, etc. or not.
Thanks again for all the good info. I built this PC with a new mobo,
so nobody has "tricked out" anything on it. Windows reports that it
is a Barton 2600 (correct!) running at 1.91 Ghz, and has 480 mb of
RAM, so yes--- at least Windows knows the correct amount of RAM
installed. Jim