Windows protection error

[collieman]

I built a system about 4 months ago consisting of an ECS K7S5A mobo, 1300 Duron, 256 megs of Crucial 2100 DDRAM and Win98SE. It worked flawlessly until last week when I started getting a "Windows protection configmg error. You must restart your computer" message during a cold boot. To make a long story short I finally found that when I took out the DDRAM stick from dimm slot 0 and moved it to slot 1 I no longer get the message and the computer works fine again. Does anyone have any idea as to what happened? Motherboard problem or BIOS possibly? Thanks, Collieman

[Charger]

All I can offer is that an ESC (PCChips) motherboard is "bottom of the barrel" as far as MB's go. If you have it up and running that's a good thing. When you can afford it I'd recommend dumping ECS for a better board such as ABIT or ASUS.

[collieman]

O Beachian, I thought I did my homework before I bought this board. All the review sites said the K7S5A was areally decent board for the price and don't pass it up. I've always used ECS boards and they have given me no problem til now. So I bought this board. I suspect that the DIMM slot went bad somehow. Thanks, Collieman

[GaryRouth]

You could doublecheck in the bios just to see if the memory settings are still Ok as far a timings go: maybe it was set to 2-2-2 for otherwise 2.5 memory (since most Crucial 2100 runs at 2.5 ... if you recently flashed your motherboards bios to clear up some other issue, for example, it might have altered those settings)

But it's a likely prospect that you're right about the slot going bad.
_________
If you have a cheap stick to use & don't mind killing a stick for the sake of "research" - you could try a different stick in slot 0 again (with the Crucial removed) - just to see what happens. . .

And just to be thorough, I've finally copied down the link for DocMemory (that I never can remember!) which is a shareware program for testing memory . . . http://www.simmtester.com

. . . Gary

[ZANEY123]

and again with the ecs board. I know nobody likes ecs but everytime someone mentions a ecs board they automaticlly blame the board!!

I have the same board and it works great without any promblems,

I guess i have to keep sticking up for them,,

I know we could start a long thread about this again but i will leave it at that,,

but if the slot went bad you should be able to send the board back..

[collieman]

Guys, Found the answer to my problem with the memory slot !!! After cleaning the pins of the memory module with a pencil eraser and it still not working I turned the tower on it's side and placed a bright light just above it to get a good look at the memory slot. I noticed that the DIMM slot 0 had some fine dust on it just next to the HSF. Couldn't see it with regular room light. That made me suspicious. Being a TV/stereo repairman I have a lot of contact cleaning agents. I used an old spray can for cleaning of gold contacts that were used years ago in better rotary TV tuners. I first cleaned the memory module pins again with a lint free swab that is used for cleaning of VCR heads and tried it in slot 0 but it didn't work as I got the Windows Protection Error on boot up. I then took a piece of chipboard from the back of a scratch pad, as it was about the same thickness as the pins on the module and cut it just a little smaller than the memory module. I saturated the piece of chipboard with the gold contact cleaner and inserted it into slot 0 and moved it up and down and side to side many times and allowed it to dry for about 5 minutes. I installed the memory module into slot 0 and hit the power button and the computer booted up just fine and has been for the last 2 days. No more Windows Protection Error. Must have cold booted 50 times just to make sure over the last two days. So there was a problem with the slot. Dust blowing from the heatsink fan or corrosion of the slot contacts I don't know but it's working fine now. Sorry for the long post. Maybe this can help someone else. Thanks guys for your input to my problem. Collieman

[Cricket]

Wow, nice job collieman!

:) Cricket

[ZANEY123]

nice find, Collieman,,,cheap repair too!!

I will keep that in mind with my board also.

[GaryRouth]

Add another voice to your congratulations chorus.

. . . Gary

[p.s. ...am I right in guessing that a main ingredient of the cleaner was Isopropl Alcohol? (not sure of my spelling tonight)..]

[collieman]

I forgot to mention that the piece of chipboard I used to clean the DIMM slot is now glued to the side of the slot next to the HSF to keep the dust off of the slot and hopefully avoid a repeat of the problem. Collieman

P.S. Gary, I don't know if the can of contact cleaner contained iso alcohol as the label very faded and hard to read.