Problems with ECS V7ZA UDMA100

[habanr]

Hi!
I have experienced following problems with V7ZA UATA100 mainboard:
1) After plugging a computer with your MB to the power net and after switching
it on (using the button "Power Switch") the system hangs up when
I try to enter BIOS. On the screen could be seen only one blue row at the
bottom and nothing else. The system doesn't react on CTRL+ALT+DEL restart only the HW Restart
works. It takes several turns (RESET and tries to enter the BIOS cycles)to actualy enter
the BIOS. After the first successeful BIOS entrance all subsequent
BIOS entrances are OK (even when I switch the computer off and on using "Power Switch")
When I disconnect the computer from the power net the described problems appears again.
2) The BIOS loses the disc geometry which I set in the BIOS even when options "manual"
and "CHS" has been set. The MB changes my CHS setting to the one made by auto detection.
The loss of information occurs mainly when I enter submenus "PC Health Status" or
when I change boot devise order. The geometry changes occur only when I'm in BIOS
And doesn't occur in normal work with the computer (as far as I now)

3) The system sometimes hangs up when I enter submenu "PC Health Status" after
the computer start when the CPU FAN speed and other values hasn't been meassured yet.

When I work with the system for a long time aprox. 4hours issues 1) and 2) doesn't occur.
* mainboard ECS V7ZA ver. 1.1g; BIOS v 6.00PG
* CPU Duron 800MHz
* 128MB SDRAM (133MHz)
* video card ATI Xpert&Work AGP 2x
* old harddisk Corner 120MB
* 1.44MB floppy disk

I would like to know whether somebody has already experienced with this issue. Whether those problems are caused by a hardware problem (failure on printed circuit ...)
and I should return MB to my dealer or those that could be solved by BIOS update.
I'd appreciate any help. Thanks.

[Peter M]

The BIOS Setup entering problem (also entering health status page) is a fan compatibility problem. BIOS is unable to detect the rotational speed on certain fan models, and then intentionally hangs the system so it doesn't overheat. AFAIR later BIOS releases tolerate slower spinning fans to prevent that from happening.

Regards, Peter

[habanr]

The FAN explanation seems reasonable, but I wonder why the system hangs up (entering BIOS) "only"
when I unplugged and plugged it to plug before. What exactly causes FAN problem, low rotation, very high rotation, a FAN sensor has bad impedance, long delay to start the fan ... eg.

Regards, Radovan Haban

[Peter M]

Well, the fan may be slow to spin up, or have poor signal quality on its rpm heartbeat output, or (rare today) the wrong signal polarity there.

[habanr]

Still I'm not sure that my problems are caused only by a fan. Here are my arguments:

1) The problem appears just after the system plugging in a plug. After switch on the system I can normaly boot and work eg. I could several times press "Warm Reset" CTRL+ALT+DELETE reboot the system and during let us say 3rd reboot I decide to enter the BIOS. In that moment system hangs up. The fan explanation isn't sufficient as at this moment fan's RMM are enough (Warm reset doesn't switch off fan). The only solution is power off or hardware Reset. From that time BIOS entrance is OK. It seems to me the mainboard doesn't correctly reset BIOS subsystem. Is BIOS subsystem suplied when the system is the "power off" state but still plugged in?

2) Why BIOS tests fan's RPM only in the BIOS entrance? I thought it does those tests continually.

Regards,
Radek

[eags1]

i have the same board, and had the same problem, I bought a generic case fan, plugged it in, and everything went haywire! So I bought a different fan and plugged it in and the problem is gone. I really didn't think a case fan made that big a deal, guess it does.