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BIOS Error Code 38 "Shadow System BIOS ROM" - what does it mean?

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by daumier 1 view

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Hi,
my motherboard won't boot so I plugged in a diagnostic card. It stops at code "38".

I was told the it's a Phoenix BIOS. According to Phoenix's Error-code list code 38 stands for "Shadow System BIOS ROM". I know what ROM shadowing is but what does this error message really mean? And what can I do about it?

Best regards,
Bill

ps
I'm talking about a Thinkpad T30, an IBM made laptop with a 2 GHz Pentium 4 Mobile with 512 KB onboard L2 cache memory and 400MHz front side bus.
512MB DDR1 RAM
Intel chipset:
South Bridge FW82801CAM HUB3 ICH3-M
North Bridge RG82845MP 845MP MCH

2 replies

by oh smeg

The only reference to Shadow RAM

[i]Shadow RAM failed at offset: nnnn[/i]

means

[i]Shadow RAM failed at offset nnnn of the 64KB block at which the error was detected[/i]

or [i]Shadow RAM Areas

Look in CMOS for settings on which adapter or system ROM's are to be shadowed[/i]

So I would be looking at RAM as a possible issue here. The full Phoenix Errors are listed here

http://www.bioscentral.com/postcodes/phoenixbios.htm#

So as a point of interest what happens if you remove all of the RAM and attempt to boot the unit?

Col

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