Richard Hallett wrote:
>
> New Soyo SY-K7VIA board with 128mb  of PC100 and Athlon 600.  Guide says
> this should run.  Hard disk floppy and cd are connected to the board and of
> course the video card.
>
> When it is asked to boot it does not but gives this message then goes to the
> floppy and asks for a system disk.
>
> What dos "bios check sum error" mean.

Some of the responses to the question have been pretty much on track. I
asked myself the same question and then went looking for the answer. I
knew I saw it before, experienced it and corrected it but I couldn't
find my resource file with the information.

Tonight I had some slack time before retiring and I went looking again.
This time on the net. The following is what I found relating to the
infamous "BIOS Check sum error" message that pops up once in a while. I
hope this will help explain things for you.

This came from the good folks at PCGuide.
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/sys/booterr.htm

Sincerely,

Frank Suszka
netTek Computers
[log in to unmask]


BIOS ROM Checksum Errors

Explanation: The read-only memory (ROM) containing the BIOS
program is protected by a checksum value as a double-check that the
ROM code is correct. This checksum is compared against the values
in the ROM each time the PC is booted and if there is a mismatch, this
code is generated.

     Note: This error is not the same as a CMOS Checksum Error,
     which refers to corrupted values of the CMOS settings, the ones
you set through the BIOS setup program. This error means the contents
of the BIOS code itself are damaged.

Diagnosis: The BIOS ROM chip on the motherboard is probably
faulty. It could also be another component on the motherboard.

Recommendation: Troubleshoot the motherboard.

                         PCBUILD's List Owner's:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                       Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>