Is this a memory problem?

I am building a new computer. I am using a ECS K7VZA mother board and a 1.4gig Thunderbird processor. I picked up a 512meg ram stick from Office Max (kbyte brand, I think) and installed it. At first I couldn't get a screen at all. Then I tried swapping memory from my Dell (256 oem from Dell P3 1 gig). Now I could get a screen for a while but after about 20 seconds or so it would freeze. So I went to my computer store and picked up a 512 meg stick, they told me it was Micron but it didn't say so on the memory. Now the system will come on for about 30 seconds before it freezes up. Basically, I have been entering the setup and trying to check out the settings but, as I said it freezes up.
By the way, all these memory sticks work fine in my Dell.

I read from 1st Choice Memory about capatibility issues with tbirds, see this thread: http://www.icentral.com/html/1stchoicememory/page760.html so I thought maybe it is still a memory issue.

The only weird wrench in this is, if I don't enter setup it will often go to a window that says to put a system disk in the disk drive or sometimes it says the cd-rom drive. I put in system disks to boot it and it comes back with a message that it is not a system disk. This with a Win98 boot disk and with a MS Win98 CD. It doesn't seem to freeze at this point. I can keep trying to get it to recognize a system disk and it doesn't freeze, but wont proceed either.

I am about ready to order new memory, should I or is this something else completely? Any thoughts on this problem would be greatly appreciated.

 

Hi, The board you have should take pc100 or pc133 memory. Sounds more like a conflict with something else. You are running Win98 correct? I had a similar problem a while back, a bios update corrected my problem, but, there are people out here with much more experience that will probably post on this.
MO

 

I understand the board will take either 133 or 100. It is chipset KT133A/686B. I am not running any system software yet as I have not been able to install it. And, don't worry, I don't plan on installing Win98. It will be either W2K or XP.

I have plugged in the cd-rom and floppy drive and they show up in the startup window.

Thought this additional info might help.

 

Oops, just remembered and this may be important. When the system goes through the first window where it checks the memory and then goes on and checks other stuff, at some point I remember seeing a "bios rom checksum error" I have no idea what that is.

 

1)BIOS ROM checksum error - System halted
The checksum of the BIOS code in the BIOS chip is incorrect, indicating the BIOS code may have become corrupt. Contact your system dealer to replace the BIOS.

2)Issue:

Error BIOS ROM CHECKSUM - SYSTEM HALTED.

Cause:

Bad Hardware

Solution:

This unfortunately indicates that your computer BIOS ROM chip and or Motherboard is physically bad it is recommended that you contact your computer manufacturer or take computer into local service center.


3)Question:
What is ROM checksum error?
Answer:
ROM checksum error mean the BIOS has been re-programming or corrupt on some area. Please to re-programming or replacement the EPROM by your local dealer.

These are some of the things I am finding out about this particular problem. Most all of the places say replace the ROM or try upgrading the BIOS first but virtually never works.

Hope this helps ya!!