crappity crap...mobo help please!

[Demrok]

K I have posted on this before...
I have a ECS K7VZA mobo, we were haveing trouble (a bud and myself) getting it to post. At first it worked 100% then he took it home and called me a while later saying it wouldn't even turn on...

I looked it over and all the jumpers were F@$cked up...So i reset everything back to what the PDF manual says... here's the thing...
from the time when it was working 100% till now, there has ben a processor swap.. after it stopped working I found out somebody had messed with the CPU and all the jumpers... the old CPU (Duron 750) was missing chunks of core and even a resistor or whater ever is on the chip buy the L2 cahce...
So we went out and got him a new CPU (Duron 1.3)

later check the manual again and it tells me the mobo only supports up to a Duron 850 and Athalon 1.3ghz.... so i at first thought, crap... this will never work...BUT
the first couple of times I booted it up it would just turn on for 4 seconds then power off.. so I cleared the CMOS and away it went!!
I have gotten the board to boot up numerous times with the CPU registering as an ATHALON 1.3 instead of a Duron 1.3...BUT yes there is another but...
when I go into the Bios to change the boot order to CDROM first and HDD second, I save settings and exit causing the thing to shut down, in which it needs to have the CMOS jumper cleared...
so instead I ripped out my floppy nd hooked that up to bypass the whole "Bios boot order" thing only to get an error saying CMOS Checksum error defaults loaded...
hit F1 to continue del to setup
I hit F1 and came to another screen where I got another error (can't remember wat it said...)
what the heck is goin on with my CMOS??
I put in a brand new battery so that can't be it...
is it the CPU messing with the auto detection from the motherboard??
it's running at 100x2... s it shouldn't be big deal...also hooked to a 300 and something watt PS....
please smebody have an idea for me!! I need major help here

thanks for takin the time to read this novel and for the help!!

[DoPeY5007]

it could be the CPU doing all this.


is there a BIOS pdate that will give it the abillity to use a Duron 1.3?

[Demrok]

there should be, I haven't looked into it yet
partly because there is NO way I can get it to update because I can't get it to boot from a disk...
I can try a little harder and MAYBE make it work...
Maybe...

I'll let you all know how it goes

any other ideas though???

[blackhawk]

Sounds like it doesn't know what the cpu is and guesses each time, causing a "checksum error-cpu changed" and asking for new settings.

Also could be mb related.

[blade]

Did you try the old cpu again?

If it doesn't support that newer cpu then that might be the problem.

I don't think those ecs mobo's are made to last long. I tried 2, both doa.

[Demrok]

Blade...

after it stopped working I found out somebody had messed with the CPU and all the jumpers... the old CPU (Duron 750) was missing chunks of core and even a resistor or whater ever is on the chip buy the L2 cahce

Old CPU is toast! I wish I could use it...

and I JUST got back from updating the bios on the mobo...
got it to the newest award 3.7 which gives the board all the new CPU's ID's or whatever...
it took FOREVER to get the god damn board to boot up to put the update on... that ran through without any problems (it did give me the "CMOS checksum error defaults loaded hit F1 to continue del to enter setup" thing at the begining) so I hit F1 and ran the new bios stuff...

then it took another eon to get it to boot again in which I saw it actually HAD loaded the new bios, and AGAIN got the "CMOS checksum" error...

what can cause this error? or better yet... what is the most COMMON way this error is caused? is there anyway to fix it? the mobo looks good throughout... no cracks visible (not to say there might not be a hiarline invisable fracture) and there doesn't seem to be any missing resistors, capacitors or anything of the likes...

really would like to get this thing up and going
help? thanks guys!

[blade]

Doh, sorry about that.

You try another hard drive? Last time I got that 'checksum error' my hard drive was toast. With all the cpu and bios troubles it may have damaged the hd.

Did you press and hold the delete key after powering on? Could also be a bad battery or ram. Even a new battery could bad.

[Demrok]

I have tried first without a hard drive connected....and then with one
same thing every time...when it finally DOES boot...CMOS checksum error....
I haven't tried holding the del key when powering on.... does that do something more then taking you into the bios??

because when I can finally get into the bios if I change anything in there at all and then exit and save, it shuts the board off and then it's back to clicking the power button and moving the clear CMOS jumper...
over and over and over again.....
until it feels like it wants to start up....


and yeah it's a new battery from radio shack.... and I know in rare cases you can buy a dead battery...

which is weird because RIGHT after I bought the battery and slapped it in, the board booted up NO problem....
I switched from a PCI vid card to an AGP and even unplugged the ATX from the board itself, waited a few min then plugged it back in.... and it STILL worked when I powered it up....

but I left the board sitting for a few days then tried it again, coming back to the original problems....

I think I might need to borrow my buddies multimeter and check the battery its a CR2032, same one that was in there... not necessarily the RIGHT one though... is the CR2032 good to use? I know there are OTHER types of 2032 lithium batteries... maybe others last longer or are better for mobos??

I dunno... ideas?
thanks a ton for the help!

[eGoCeNTRoNiX]

And I'm no electrician, but if it was fine when you first put the battery in and it only later after a few days with no power stopped working, than the battery is being drained by something. Possibly a short someplace or something strange like that. Not much of a way to monitor that I don't guess, but you could test the theory by getting another battery and popping it in there and seeing what happens. Are the contacts for some strange reason coroded? I hope you get it figured out because I know how annoying it can be to have a "mystery" problem like that.. GL eGo

[blade]

ego may be onto something.

Otherwise it must be something with that mobo. Did you try different ram, then with the just basics?

I know this is beyond frustrating.

[Demrok]

yeah that's what I figured too...
if the battery really IS being drained something has to be shorting out someplace...

and nope no corodsion anywhere... the board looks clean throughout
even looked for missing resistors and stuff...
only thing I can think is MAYBE there's a capacitor that is draining the battery...
maybe... I am not 100% what's all hooked up to that bat...

SO I will have to check into this a bit deeper...

there are 2 sticks of RAM in the board, I have switched between them but nothing else (I have DDR in my comp and I'm at my apt in the city...my PC100 is back home)
I'll have to wait till the weekend to get that...
so this annoyance will continue for a few days....

maybe I'll go buy another battery....
there goes another 6 bux at least I'm not paying

*EDIT* Update

Ok I just tried the Battery from the K7VZa in MY comp, and it worked fine
so I used the Bat from MY machine in the K7VZa and it didn't work (my board is like 2 months old therfore has a NEW battery in it)

SO, conclusion... I don't know WTF is up with it... I'm gonna try that RAM yet to see if that gives...
recheck ALL the jumper settings AGAIN and then try to make this sucker go...
if not, then I'll have to tell my bud to get a new mobo

thanks for the help guys!

[Demrok]

ugh....
rechecked jumpers....A.OK...
don't have any RAM to use yet... don't think that's the problem though...
but I will still try it when I can...
emailing ECS support... maybe they can help....


I pulled the bios chip out just to see if that would do anything and when I powered it up it didn't post, but it stayed on until I myself shut it down with the power button....

maybe I need a new bios chip? would that do it?
I'm hoping that would be an easy fix....