I am trying to upgrade the processor and RAM on an old Micron Millenia
S1854. I put in a PIII 933mhz Slot 1 and 2 256MB PC133 DIMMS in slot 1 and
2. I set the Bus speed multiplier to 133mhz as directed by the manual.
When I attempt to boot, I received this error:

Award BootBlock BIOS v1.0
Copyright (c) 1998, Award Software, Inc.

BIOS ROM checksum error

Detecting floppy drive A media
INSERT SYSTEM DISK & PRESS ENTER

From what I have read, this likely indicated a corrupted BIOS. I attempted
resetting using jumpers, and removing battery, then tried to flash with the
BIOS update application from Micron (er...MPC). Nothing seems to restore
the BIOS.

Has anyone had any experience like this?

On May 18, 10:37 pm, "PJ" <pjen... (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote:
Do you have a good clock battery???? That's a way more common failure
than a bad bios, and produces the same symptoms. Quick and dirty test
for a live battery (if you don't happen to have a volt meter): put it
on your tongue, negative side down, if it hurts, it's live! If it's
dead, it's a cheap part.

Micron in this era used stock intel desktop boards, you can get the
bioses from intel.

Also: try putting your old processor back.

On Sat, 19 May 2007 05:37:24 GMT, "PJ" <pjenrow (AT) hotmail (DOT) com>
wrote:

Maybe the bios is corrupt but since you have just changed
these two key parts, it might be instability from this
change. Put the bus speed jumper on 100MHz temporarily,
thus underclocking the system and retry it. It might be
good to clear CMOS at this point with AC disconnected.

Next return the old processor and memory to the system to
see if this problem persists - you might also clear CMOS
while AC is disconnected, again after putting the old parts
back in.

What was the prior configuration of CPU & memory? If/when
you find a bios you might (first confirm the system is
stable, I suggest something like memtest86+ for a few hours
and running the OS so as to reduce risks of system error
during bios flashing then...) flash the last bios before
putting the new parts back in.

As Paul mentioned, check battery voltage. The "S1854"
suggests to me the board might be a Tyan Trinity 400, and
while a Tyan bios would then "probably" work fine with it
and might be flashable in recovery mode, it might not work
in regular mode and would then require getting the BIOS from
Micron (or some 3rd party that has archived it, a web search
might be helpful).

"PJ" <pjenrow (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

I just replaced the BIOS chip, and there was no change, so I guess I can put
the corrupt BIOS theory away. I am going to replace the clock battery
anyway, since it is so cheap. I also removed the new RAM and replaced the
old, but no difference there either. So, next stop, new battery and then
restore the old CPU. I thought a defective CPU would result in a basically
dead system (maybe with fans) not this sort of odd BIOS message.

Anyway, thanks very much for the advice.

On Sun, 20 May 2007 03:38:21 GMT, "PJ" <pjenrow (AT) hotmail (DOT) com>
wrote:



It wouldn't have to be a dead CPU and it is not at all
likely to be a "defective" CPU. The board may not be
compatible, it might have too low a stability margin to run
this faster CPU, a jumper setting, or it could even be that
the heatsink isn't on good and within the few seconds it
would take to decompress and execute the bios it is already
at an instable overheating temp.

Too many variables to know for sure, did you try
underclocking by moving the jumper to 100MHz as I'd
suggested previously?

We still have very little info, for example what the old CPU
was, and if it's the board I think it is (having both a slot
and socket?) which format of CPU the old, and new, are.
Is this it (Tyan Trinity 400 S1854) ?
http://www.ixbt.com/mainboard/tyan-s1854/s1854.jpg


If it's a Tyan S1854, with one of the last Tyan bios I was
running a Tualatin Celeron in the last board I had but IIRC
it required some modification to run the Tualatin.

Anyway I have more docs relating to an S1854, but no idea if
anything applies because you didn't supply all info of what
you're doing. Here's a few such doc excerpts:


========

"!! IMPORTANT !!

In some versions of the S1854, there is an extra jumper
setting (JP21) for CPU selection. If you are using a Slot1
Type CPU, please close the jumper. If your are using a
Socket CPU, please leave the jumper open. This addendum
applies ONLY to those who have Jumper JP21 on their S1854
board. If your S1854 does not have Jumper JP21, please
disregard this addendum.

========

Older S1854 board revisions with marking "9900Y" or "9900YA"
(next to the power supply connector, do NOT support P-III
flip chips due to CPU change after initial board production.
Older revisions will only support Pentium® III slot1
processors up to 733 MHz

========

PIII 933MHz to 1GHz support applies to S1854 board revisions
with marking "99PON" (please refer to the issue above for
mark identification location) and have motherboard revision
marking of J or above. (Look on the edge of the board
located by the IDE ports for a small white box where
revision letter is indicated inside)

========

6. I turned on my computer and now the BIOS says "BIOS ROM
error. Insert boot disk in A:" What do I do?
Insert the boot disk, and trying flashing your BIOS to
version 1.00, then you can upgrade to version 1.07 again.
Please see the following page on directions for how to flash
your BIOS: http://www.tyan.com/support/html/b_tr_400.html

========

(following is not only a Celeron issue, I don't recall you
even telling us if your P3 is a Coppermine or Tualatin.)

===

12. Why can't I get my 1 GHz (or higher) Celeron to work
with my P3 based motherboard?

Starting in January of 2001 Intel added a 256k Cache Celeron
to the market place. These celeron cpu's start at 1ghz and
go up to 1.3 ghz. These cpu's can be identified as 1 A
GHz/100 cpus or by the term FC-PGA2. These cpu's are not
compatible for the P3 line of motherboards from Tyan. The
serial numbers can be read directly on the cpu's themselves
to determine if they are able to run on our P3 line of
motherboards.

The serial numbers included in this incompatible list are:
SL5ZF,SL5VP,SL5XU,SL5XR,SL5VQ,SL5ZE,SL5XS,Sh5Y5,SL 656,SL5VR,SL5ZJ

========

Kony,

Thanks again for your help. Let me try to fill in the blanks I seem to have
left. The original CPU was a PIII 600Mhz in a Slot 1 configuration. The
replacement CPU is a 933 Mhz PIII in the Slot 1 configuration. This
motherboard version does not include the jumper 21 switch even though the
socket is there. The board is indeed a Tyan Trinity 400 S1854. The board's
revision markings are 99MOAC, if I am reading them right. The number is
printed directly next to the power supply connector, so I assume this is
right. The small white box next to the IDE connector (revision letter) has
C. This certainly leads me to think the board can't handle this CPU speed,
since the .

I jsut did try to set the multiplier down to a lower level. I tried 6 (the
multiplier for the previous CPU) and then 4.5, but got the same error each
time. I don't see any way to use jumpers to set the CPU speed the way I
read your suggestion, so perhaps I'm doing that wrong. Certainly the lower
multiplier settings didn't seem to help.

As for the heat sink, well I can't be sure, but I was really careful putting
it together. I followed all the directions provided for applying the arctic
silver paste, and I'm pretty sure this is OK. I don't see anything visibly
wrong with this, and the cartridge seemed to go together without a problem.

I have a feeling that my problem is that the revision of this board will not
handle this CPU. I didn't realize this limitation before I started. It
does seem that changing the clock setting downward didn't help this though.

Thanks again, and I'm not sure if all this would lead somewhere, but any
suggestions or ideas are appreciated.

Paul


"kony" <spam (AT) spam (DOT) com> wrote

On Sun, 20 May 2007 05:10:23 GMT, "PJ" <pjenrow (AT) hotmail (DOT) com>
wrote:

Multiplier is locked on any retail P3 or Celeron. They
introduced multiplier feature before they knew for sure if
Intel would implement it.

The FSB jumpers on two boards I had- I had to solder on
jumper pins, there were spots on the PCB for them, but I had
assumed you have the jumper since you had mentioned changing
it to 133 versus (100?) MHz. My memory of the jumper
location is poor, it is one of the few boards I didn't take
a full high quality picture of. IIRC, the jumper location
was somewhere towards the right side, a little below the AGP
slot. I'll include a note I made at the time about manually
setting it, I made the note when overclocking a Tualatin
Celeron 1.1 to 1.47GHz because it seemed when it was set to
do it in the bios (change FSB to 133 from 100 after posting)
settings, that left the AGP rate locked and thus overclocked
too, to 89MHz which wasn't workable with the target video
cards I wanted to use.

=======

Locate the "FS0/FS1" jumpers on the motherboard, on the
right-side end of the AGP slot. There are 4 pins arragned
in a square... the first horizontal row is "FS1" and the
second horizontal row is "FS0". Place a jumper across the
top horizonal row "FS1" of pins then turn the system on. It
should now be running at 100MHz FSB. To return to 133MHz
FSB operation, FIRST change the BIOS setting back to
"133MHz/off", then power off the system and remove the "FS1"
jumper.

======

It's been a few years but based on the above, if you took a
piece of wire as a jumper and shorted these two positions it
would force it into 100MHz FSB mode. Perhaps better to use
a small DIP switch if you have one. Unfortunately my memory
of anything more relating to these jumpers is vague, I have
played around with too many boards to remember particulars
of most after a period of time has passed and I have no idea
of the board revisions I had were the same as yours or not.

It might still help to put the old CPU back in, see if it
works and if so, try flashing the newest bios. If Micron
didn't offer one as new as Tyan did then perhaps trying to
force it to accept the Tyan bios, EXCEPT, on a Tyan page I
saw it seemed to suggest Micron might have spec'd some
enhancements, perhaps onboard video or a seperate sound
chip? I don't know, I only had the retail Tyan boards not
those from Micron.






If you had the socket 370 CPU there might be some pin
manipulations that Google searching would find, or it
might've been possible to use it in a slotket adapter in the
slot, but as is, the only two best suggestions I have is to
try bridging the FSB 100MHz positions if possible, or put
the old CPU in and flash the last bios then retry the newer
CPU.

Besides the limited bios settings available I actually liked
those boards a lot, as they offered AGP4X and use of over
512MB of high density PC133 memory. I think I had to add
an insulator over the Tualatin CPUs to get them to work
overclocked but that was the other benefit, that they
allowed a cheap CPU upgrade that outperformed the lower end
Pentium 4s costing hundreds more at the time.

Unfortunately Tyan didn't supply much info on what they
changed on their board to accomdate the later
P3/coppermines. If they had I might've been able to assist
further but as it is, this is all I have... except if you
want the archive file I made for the board (8.38MB),
http://69.36.189.159/usr_1034/Tyan_T..._400_S1854.zip

Thanks for all the terrific info. I was not able to locate the FS0 FS1
jumpers, but I'm going to replace the old CPU first to see if that brings it
back up.