🚀 go-pugleaf

I've had my ZEOS 486DX2-66 for about 15 months now.  It would be fair
to say that I have my fair share of problems with this system.  It would
also be fair to say the during the warranty period (first year), ZEOS was
most cooperative in dealing with my problems.  Note I did *not* say that
they were speedy, just fair. (note: fair in this case means honest, not
a level of good-to-bad.)

Most recently, I had a problem that took me 2.5 months to solve and if this
post can help at least one other person, I will be happy that I took the
time to create it.  First the setup.  My system had a mainboard (motherboard)
problem and I was sent a replacement board, during the warranty period.
The replacement mainboard was a new generation from ZEOS, better known
within the ZEOS circles as the "martin" motherboard.  The new mainboard
had a completely redesigned section for the expansion cache memory, of which
I had 256K.  The replacement board *did* solve the original problem but
it also created another weird, problem.

The problem was that I could not reliably startup Quicken 3 for Windows.
Sometimes, just after a cold-powerup, it would work fine.  Other times,
it would fail to startup, rather give an "Out of memory" error.  I spent
about four weeks re-installing Windows and Quicken.  It really took
a long time, because the problem, at least at first, did not fail 
everytime and just when you thought it was solved, it would come back.
All this time, I had checked with ZEOS twice and no luck.

Finally, about 3 weeks ago, I was able to speak with a Techie at ZEOS
who admitted that they were aware of possible problems with their
Martin motherboards and users of "Quicken 3 for Windows" and/or
the product XTREE.  ( I have no clue was XTREE is...BTW)  Well, he
agreed to send me replacement Cache chips.  It seems that while the
original design specs for the cache calls for 15nS chips, some boards
were populated with 20nS chips.  Apparently, ZEOS originally tested and
found no difference.  At least not until the calls started coming in.

So I waited ten (more) days and the chips arrived.  I opened the case,
pulled the old chips and opened the static bag, ONLY to find that they
had sent me 9 more 20nS chips!!! =-()  Needless to say, I called them
up and yet another Techie agreed to *personally* send me more chips.
8 more days past and last Thursday, I received 8 (not 9) of the correct
chips!!!  Turns out I had enough of the original 9, first replacement 9
and second replacement 8 chips to make nine 15nS chips.  I put them in,
and PROBLEM SOLVED.  I've run the system hard since last Friday and not
a burp!

So, if you run Quicken 3 for Windows or XTREE, and are having "out of
memory problems, give ZEOS tech support a call and insist that they
replace your cache chips.  Of course you might want to make sure that
you have the bad 20nS cache chips.  They are on the martin boards, just
below the CPU chip, and just to the right of the VESA slots.  There are
eight 28 pin chips and the chips will either have a number that ends
with "-15" or "-20".  The ones you want are the 15nS versions.

There also is a ninth chip, position at a right-angle to the other 8
chips.  This is what ZEOS calls the "tag" RAM.  it's in a socket
just beside an empty socket.  Best I can tell, the tagram and the main
cache ram chips are identical, once you have the correct chips ;-)
Note that there are two tag ram chip sockets.  One is used unless
you have MORE than 32MB of main RAM memory.  Otherwise you would need
10 chips....  I didn't so I only have nine...

Hope this helps.

-- 
merlin - mystical wizard - merlin@vnet.net