L4VXA2 BIOS Problem

When I first boot the system, I get a BIOS setup message. If I make any
BIOS changes, when the system tries to restart, it never completes the
Power-on Self Test. The screen just stays blank. If I clear the BIOS, I
can reboot the system to the same point.

When I clear the BIOS and reboot, I can press F1 to ignor the BIOS setup
error. The system will then go ahead and boot from a floppy, but will
not restart when it is rebooted until I clear the BIOS again. Using this
technique, I was able to upgrade the BIOS sucessfully to the 1.0-H level
BIOS. However, it did not fix the problem.

This is a NEW MB and processor. 2.4G P4 with 256MB 3300 memory.

Has anyone else had a similar problem. As usual, ECS will not answer any
support questions until you get a problem tracking number. They have had
this incident all day and have not responded with a number. Tomorrow,
the board goes back to be exchanged for a Soyo board if I can't find a
fix.

Jim Seippel <nospam-aseippel RemoveThis @austin.rr.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.1966aa96816222a7989682 RemoveThis @news-server.austin.rr.com>...
 > When I first boot the system, I get a BIOS setup message. If I make any
 > BIOS changes, when the system tries to restart, it never completes the
 > Power-on Self Test. The screen just stays blank. If I clear the BIOS, I
 > can reboot the system to the same point.
 >
 > When I clear the BIOS and reboot, I can press F1 to ignor the BIOS setup
 > error. The system will then go ahead and boot from a floppy, but will
 > not restart when it is rebooted until I clear the BIOS again. Using this
 > technique, I was able to upgrade the BIOS sucessfully to the 1.0-H level
 > BIOS. However, it did not fix the problem.
 >
 > This is a NEW MB and processor. 2.4G P4 with 256MB 3300 memory.
 >
 > Has anyone else had a similar problem. As usual, ECS will not answer any
 > support questions until you get a problem tracking number. They have had
 > this incident all day and have not responded with a number. Tomorrow,
 > the board goes back to be exchanged for a Soyo board if I can't find a
 > fix.


The problem is your memory. The motherboard is compatible with memory
up to 2700 (333Mhz.) The documentation says that they don't guarantee
it will work with all 400Mhz memory, but what they really mean is that
they've gotten it to work with some brands, but don't hold your
breath.

If, on the reboot, you got a long beep, then that's Award's way of
saying that it's most likely a memory issue.

I assume that you got the Soyo board by now, which is just fine.
Hopefully, this post will help the next person with the same problem.
That person should keep in mind that ECS has terrible support. I
asked the same question to them and they gave me the wrong answer. It
wasn't even in English. When I told them that their "solution" did
not work, they washed their hands of it and referred me to the vendor.
(Did you get yours from Fry's too? They advertise it as working with
400Mhz memory and their sales folks are not too clear on this either.)
Fortunately, I had it figured out before I even checked with them, but
I wanted to confirm it before making a trip. Getting new memory did
fix it, but it would have been nice to know up front. Then I could
have returned the wrong memory and gotten the correct one somewhere
else for a better price.

Incidentally, the computer did better on benchmarks with the slower
memory than the 400MHz. Go figure.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->