Motherboard, CPU, BIOS
The Midnight Question Archive
see the new: Motherboard, CPU and RAM Troubleshooting Flowchart
and Start Your Own PC Business
Copyright 2008 by Morris Rosenthal
Motherboard, CPU, BIOSThe Midnight Question Archive see the new: Motherboard, CPU and RAM Troubleshooting Flowchart and Start Your Own PC Business Copyright 2008 by Morris Rosenthal |
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Troubleshooting your Laptop or PC
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See the new Troubleshooting your laptop or PC (May 2008)3/8/99(Q) Re last posting: I looked up the cache information on the AMD site, and now I'm more confused. I didn't even see a spec for the L3 cache size or the speed at which it would run. I'm not sure I even understand the L1 and L2 anymore. I eagerly await your response. Michael (A) AMD is inventing some new terms. What it amounts to is they call internal cache L1 cache, which on their K6-3 is a combined 64KB Instruction and Data cache. L2 cache used to be the new name for external cache, or the bound module cache in the case of Pentium II and III processors. AMD is now calling L2 cache the 256KB of cache located on the CPU die on a dedicated backside bus, running at the full CPU MHz. L3 cache is their new name for the old external, on motherboard cache, which they now access via the 100MHz frontside bus on the Super 7 motherboards, in amounts from 512KB to 2MB. You have to keep in mind that the bus MHz aren't the only factor in memory transfer rates, the PC-100 rated SDRAM is still DRAM, with all the overhead of refreshing and access times dependant on what and when the last read was. Cache is always Static RAM, more expensive, a full flip-flop approach using four transistors per bit, but faster and always ready to go. Morris 3/5/99(A) An answer without a question - call it a pre-emptive strike. A quick summary of the new Pentium III, K6-3, Super 7 and Socket 370 (Yes, papa Intel's got a brand new bag). Morris 2/25/99(Q) I had a great system - K6 233 running perfectly... or as perfect as you can get with windows, but anyway, there were no problems with the system, at least nothing apparent and no signs of any potential issues. So, I wanted to get the most out of my system, I decided I would over lock this system, as I have done with others with no previous problems. My BIOS only supported 233 (which was the MHz of my chip - the AMD K6-233)... So I turned up the BIOS to 75 and set the multiplier to 3.5 and voltage to 3.3 IO and 3.2 or 3.3 Core, I think it was 3.2.... this was all basically correct according to factory, just the fact that I changed the bus from 66 to 75... I also MAY have had the multiplier on 2.5 o 3.0 at one point... I am not positive at this point...Ok, so I made the changes and hit save BIOS settings and then had it reboot... well it didn't. In fact it wouldn't even post... couldn't get to BIOS. I reset the settings back to my original, no overclock or anything.. and this is when the problems started....I would sometimes not be able to boot up... when the OS did boot up (to Win98) I got MANY errors, mostly VXD and protection fault errors.. blue screens. The first though I had was like file corruption... I tried a few things to work around it, but I could not even use windows without crashes and forcing my to reboot. Also, when I rebooted, the rest button no longer worked... and the system would not post unless I turned power off for 2 or 3 seconds and back on.. and then it sometimes didn't post... I then used the default settings supplied.. 166 MHz... and auto everything (as I had auto voltage set before)... To my surprise, it posted right away with no problems, it booted up, and NO errors. Just slower than 233, obviously.... The system will not function at all in 233, but FINE in 200 MHz.. at 200 I can do everything with no errors...I just am baffled why the system will not work when I try to put it back to the original settings it worked with before... I am almost positive there is permanent hardware damage and I have to replace something... Shawn (A) I would also bet on CPU, it's the main reason I don't overclock these days. Damage is usually more or less instantaneous and irreversable. I've heard your exact story from several people lately, where the shaving about 10% off the original clock allows the thing to run again. I'm becoming suspicious that manufacturers are putting in a fusable link to punish overclockers. If you can get a trade-in, go ahead, but I wouldn't try overclocking it again. Morris 2/15/99(Q) My system started locking up during boot at "Verifying DMI Pool Data," so I had to boot from floppy. I tried reformatting my C drive but at the end it says "Unable to write to BOOT, format terminated." I can get a C> and D> (2 physical drives, D still has data on it) but when I try a DIR on either, I get an "Invalid Media Type reading drive C:" Tony (A) First, go into CMOS and redetect your hard-drive types. If they are OK, and you still can't access the drives, your BIOS may have slipped a bit, or you may have bagged a virus. For the latter, FDISK and FORMAT from a clean floppy should do it. For the former, about the only suggestions are restoring BIOS defaults, and if that doesn't work, re-Flashing the BIOS. Morris 11/10/98(Q) Our church operates two computers networked together. One is a 486 SX-33, the other is a Pentium 60. About 2 weeks ago, the 486 crashed. We tried replacing the BIOS chip as well as the 486 processor. Neither solution worked. I can also tell you that it does not go through the boot-up process.The screen does not light up. The light shows that power is going to it (green light) then goes to red or orange. The red light for the hard drive comes on the CPU unit and you can hear the hard drive spin. However, there are no beeps, no other sounds. I have switched monitors and it is not a monitor problem. Dennis (A) Allright, you're in a "no boot" mode, meaning it's go nothing to do with drives, controllers or adapters. Hard drives and floppies rect to being powered up from the power supply, even when the brains of the system don't come online. Either the motherboard, the RAM, or the CPU are faulty. You mentioned you replaced the CPU, which narrows it to motherboard or RAM. With RAM failures, you usually get a beep code, so it's sounding like motherboard. Morris 11/9/98(Q) I have two Pentium systems with Win98 Upgrade. Even before the upgrade I have been experiencing lock-ups and fatal exception errors. I have replaced RAM with DIMMS (recognized only 32 MB) Also, Stealth II S220 video and SoundBlaster. My drivers are the latest available. I have now discovered that if I disable internal Cache these problems go away. Of course the system is exceedingly slow and certainly unworkable. Both of these systems are clones and contain the identical MB. The problems exist on each system. With the internal cache enabled and the bios memory and other memory settings disabled, I can get the system to bootup OK 50 % of the time; however, when dialing into the Net, both systems will "lock" the colors change on screen to be like a negative and my McAfee gives me a Crash Alert. If I disable McAfee before dialing I connect just fine. Is it RAM, motherboard, video ram, etc? Rodney Internal cache is actually integrated on the CPU. If dissabling internal cache clears up the problem, either the CPU is overheating, faulty, or the motherboard can't support support the clock speed properly. If you are overclocking, turn it down. Morris 11/4/98(Q) Did all of the 386 computers contain a 16 bit processor. I want to install a CD-Rom on a 386 computer and I believe it can only be done on a computer with a 32 bit processor. Is it impossible to install a CD-ROM in a 386 since they have a 16 bit memory bus? It is my understanding that a CD-ROM requires a 32 bit memory bus. Bill (A) All 386's are 32 bit processors. the 286 was 16 bit. However, the 386SX was 32 bits internally only, it had a 16 bit memory bus, which is why the 386SX has a SIMM bank size of 2 eight bit SIMMs, while the older 386DX has a SIMM Bank size of 4 eight bit SIMMs. I can't think of any reason a CD-ROM would require a 32 bit memory bus, the transfer rates have always been lower than IDE drives, and the drive to IDE controller interface is isolated from the bus. Morris 10/21/98(Q) I have an IBM aptiva 2168 A40 with a 133 processor and would like to up upgrade to an Intel 233MMX chip, but the people at IBM said I can't, it only supports a 200 MMX Overdrive chip, and my BIOS is soldered on the board. Is their a way that I can upgrade my PC that you know of? I bought an voltage converter and put it on, it started, ran and everything, but it reads the processor as 0 when you go into the system setup an look it up, and it gives an 127 error every time it starts. Where can I get a proprietary board that will fit in the case and work, or how can I upgrade. My BIOS is soldered to the board and I got the latest BIOS upgrade from IBM but it still won't work can you help me please Mel (A) No, I really doubt you can do anything with it. However, there's always the new case, motherboard and CPU route, which only costs a couple bucks more than a new CPU anyway, and gives you a lot more options. The case is about the cheapest component of any PC, you have to let it go. When the manufacturer tells you that "you can't get there from here", there isn't a whole lot of point in trying. You might get there eventually, but you'll spend a lot more money than if you take the replacement route, and I'm an advocate of cost effectiveness, not Pyrrhic victories. Morris 10/14/98(Q) I hope you can provide me with the name and location of someone who can provide me with a direct replacement motherboard for this thin case Packard Bell Executive. Excuse my ignorance but I don't know what they call this type of motherboard. All of the cards insert in a vertical card with isa slots so that all of the cards are arranged horizontally. Is such an "animal" made lets say that will support a pentium 233 mmx? If so you will with no large effort I'm sure know more that Packard Bell. Also if case modification is in order I can be quite content with this old 486 with its AMD overdrive processor which in itself has given this networked computer a new lease on life. Mike (A) I don't know if you can get them anymore but I do know that they aren't cost effective. A standard case & power supply only cost about $40 (or less) for ATX or AT, so you can buy a nice new motherboard and CPU and move the rest of you parts over for much less then a straight replacement would cost. Morris 10/13/98(Q) I have my Celeron 266 overclocked to 400mhz...would this do damage or cause my video card on the AGP not to work? I did try switching it back to 266 and still had the same problem. I also tried a new 21 inch monitor to no avail... Henry (A) Yes. Overclocking is evil! Well, it's not evil, but it often results in heat damage to the CPU which cannot be undone. It could also cause your AGP not to work, depending on whether the clock for the AGP port is independant or not. Just for the general information of you potential overclockers, I get lots e-mails from folks who've been burned by it. Morris 10/5/98(Q) I have just put together my first computer. The problem that I am having is that the computer won't go to POST. I get no beeps from speaker and no picture or anything on monitor. I have checked and rechecked all cables, jumpers and power supplies. I have used brass standoffs. The only indication that I have power is that the LED power light ( on case, red in color ) blinks on and off. I have a A-Trend Pentium 11 BX motherboard ATX form factor and my case has a 250 watt power supply ATX form factor. The CPU is an original Pentium 11 400 MHz with heat sink and cooling fan attached. The cooling fan is connected to the right power supply on motherboard. I also bought and tried new RAM. Rod (A) It could still be the video card, or an improperly connected power switch, or, what has become an increasingly common problem, an incompatible power supply. This last was never an issue in AT days, but some ATX motherboards will automatically shut off if they don't like the voltage regulation from the power supply, and some motherboard chipsets have known problems with some generations of power supplies. My best advice at this stage is to disconnect everything that you don't absolutely need to get to post. Remove and reseat the CPU and RAM, since partial insertion of either will cause the problem you mention. A bad power switch can also cause this problem, you can try hooking your reset switch to the power on leads as a temporary check. Try an old ISA video card, you should be able to borrow one somewhere. If you motherboard requires that you set a configuration mode jumper the first time you boot, make sure you've done so. If you still can't get anywhere, I'd buy a new power supply for $50, and if that doesn't do it, send the motherboard and CPU back where you got them for exchange. Morris 9/9/98(Q)My friend wants to upgrade his 486 to a BX (AT form factor) motherboard with Celeron 266 CPU. He wants to utilise his existing case/power supply and rather small 300 MB hard drive. He currently has Windows 3.1 and does not want to upgrade to Windows 98 because he does not have enough hard disk space available. Aside from the problems in installing hardware on a non plug and play OS, are there likely to be other issues in trying to use Windows 3.1 with a new motherboard and BIOS and new CPU? Julian (A) Shouldn't be any trouble at all, though he could get by without the BX chipset. I just ordered a Tomato EX98 440EX chipset Baby AT motherboard from Aberdeen on the web to use up a Celeron leftover from my build book. The motherboard was only $74, and even has AGP video (a 4MB Trident AGP is around $33). Windows 3.1 should be blissfully ignorant of what goes on under it, and most motherboards have a setting in CMOS for non-plug-n-play BIOS. I may as well through in a link to Aberdeen, since my answer reads like an advertisement. Morris 9/8/98(Q) I recently was forced to upgrade my motherboard, due to it's untimely death, to a i430TX board with a Cyrix 6X86 MX chip. It is running at 233 Mhz and has 32 Mb of RAM. I have tried every setting I know of in the BIOS and in Windows 98. But the computer still can not communicate with the printer, no two way or one way. I have called HP tech support but they could not figure out what the problem is. Terry (A) Either the printer or the printer port /connector is bad. The printer is easy to check, hang it on another PC. The printer port is a little tougher, you have to borrow a printer to stick on there. The most common problem with printer ports on non-ATX motherboards is the short ribbon cable running from the port to the motherboard being on backwards or improperly. Morris 8/25/98(Q) I am building an ATX computer. I bought an INWIN Full Tower ATX case and an Abit BH6 motherboard. I'm not sure if I have the proper screws/standoffs to connect the board to the tray. What exactly are standoffs, what do they look like, and how do I use them to connect the motherboard? Also, where can I get them if I don't hav them! Nathan (A) The standoffs are the little hexagonal brass bits, that have a screw thread on one end and a screw hole on the other. They come with the case, usually in a little plastic bag. If you don't have any, go to a PC store and ask, they aren't worth a penny. As for lining up the motherboard, see my guide at http://www.daileyint.com/build Morris 8/21/98(Q) I recently purchased a TYAN S1592S ATX motherboard which I installed in a A-ONE case with a SPI power supply. The cpu fan and motherboard light come on as soon as the power cord is plugged into the power supply. When the power switch is depressed, the power DOES NOT GO OFF. The system does not post or boot. The HDD , FDD and CDROM lights do not go on. Working with the vendor, I did the usual of clearing CMOS, disconnecting devices and cards and finally taking the MB out of the case, all to no avail. The vendor sent me a replacement board....which operates exactly the same. I am sure it is a power supply problem...but am not sure if it is in the way the MB is set up or maybe the SPI power supply just does not work well with this particular brand of MB. Roland It's probably the way you have the switch hooked up and CMOS configured. The ATX power supply uses a logic switch, which is controlled by the CMOS settings. On many motherboards, the default setting for power down is "4 second delay". In other words, you have to hold the switch in for 4 long seconds before the power shuts off. It's also possible that the leads from the front of your case to the motherboard are labeled wrong, follow them back to the switch. If you want to double check the power supply, don't plug in any of the switch leads, and see if it still pops full on when you plug it in. The other devices and cards really shouldn't have anything to do with it, unless you have a faulty "WAKE ON LAN" signal coming off the motherboard, which can also be dissabled in CMOS. Morris 8/6/98(Q) I have an older Toshiba Laptop T1000 and want to revamp the whole thing. Where can I locate a motherboard and what type of motherboard can I use? I would like to at least put a 486 or better in it. Can you help? Mellow (A) I've gotten a lot of questions on this topic lately, the answer is pretty straigtfoward. You can't upgrade notebooks or laptops, beyond adding memory or increasing a hard drive size. If you're willing to spend a few hundred bucks, your best bet is buying obsolete or re-manufactured notebooks, like IBM ThinkPads, either direct or through web auctions. You can get a pretty loaded, pre-Pentium MMX notebook for cheap. Morris 8/5/98(Q) One fateful day, my P200 MMX with 32 MB RAM decided not to boot at all, and displayed the following symtpoms: No POST beeps at all, Blank screen (I havn't got a dual colour LED, so it's always green). There are two hard drives. If I plug in a hard drive (primary or secondary), it will do nothing at all. If I remove the IDE cable, but leave the power connected, the drive spins. This happens with both drives. I have 4 8Mb SIMMS, I have tried one pair, then the other, but no difference. I bought a brand new motherboard, upgrading from a VX to a TX chipset, but this did not solve the problem. The new motherboard has on board graphics and on board sound, which eliminates my cards, so I know it can't be these. I would suspect the power supply but the processor fan spins and the hard drive spins with no IDE connected as above. David (A) Would almost have been easier to troubleshoot with old motherboard, you still may want to. In a "no video" case, the first step is always to simplify the system to the bare essentials, and get video back. This means removing all adapters (except the video card), disconnecting all drives, and leaving one bank of memory (Bank 0). If you get no video, at this point, the prime suspect is usually the RAM or the video card. Since we don't know if your new motherboar is good, it doesn't eliminate anything. Bad RAM will often produce beep codes, so the first option is another video card, or try yours in another PC. Next, try RAM from another PC (your new motherboard could have smoked your RAM). Try your monitor on another PC. At this point you're down to powers supply (the drives working doesn't mean the motherboard power is OK), CPU (rare, as you guessed), or the motherboard (also pretty rare). There aren't any shortcuts. Morris 8/4/98(Q) I have seen reference to 2X AGP 3D Acceleration cards, I am still unsure as to the number of cards the port will support. Does the 2X refer simply to a single, dual-chipset board (eg. 2 Voodoo2 chipsets running in tandem), or to 2 video cards running in tandem? I ask because the computer I am building needs to have speedy 2D functions as well as 3D acceleration. With current cards, I feel the optimum solution for my needs would appear to be a nice, fast 2D card running alongside a dedicated 3D Accelerator - Is it possible for me to utilize the AGPort for 2 dedicated cards in this fashion, or will I still need a PCI based card if I want the best of both worlds? (To date, I have not been real impressed by the combo 2D/3D acceleration cards, but I'm keeping my eyes on the newer AGP 2D/3D combo cards to see how their specs compare to the separate-card-for-each-function configuration...) Carl (A) AGP is a single port that supports a single card. The 2X and 4X refer to basic level of acceleration (133MHz or 266MHz), though I'm damned if I can remember where these numbers come from. The AGP bus is twice as fast, 66MHz (some motherboards may have 100MHz AGP) v.s. 33MHz for PCI, and the pipelining supports two transfers per clock cycle, either of those could be the 2X. I do know that the 4X doesn't exist yet. The peak theoretical throughput of the current version is 533MB/s, v.s. 132MB/s for PCI. Morris 7/31/98(Q) I just ordered a new Pentium grade motherboard. It is supposed to have two 2 DIMM slots and two SIMMs. I am using two16MB EDO SIMMs which the board will support. My question is what will happen if I also install two16 MB DIMMS along side with the much faster 10ns speed? Does one slow down the other, or as a 'rumor' I heard the faster ram will somehow damage the SIMMs (don't put much stock in rumors). Are their any performance characteristics to consider or is this all a case of "it depends what the motherboard book says"... Kevin (A) Everything depends on the motherboard. You certainly can never mix types, speeds, even brands, within a bank, but since two SIMMs or 1 DIMM makes a bank on Pentium class systems, that's not a worry for you. Motherboard support comes down to such specifics as "If Bank 3 (SIMM sockets 1 and 2) uses 2-sided SIMMs, Bank 2 (DIMM Socket 2) must be empty." That's an example from a specific motherboard, not a general case, but you get the picture. The best thing to do, if you want 64MB of fast SDRAM, is to by one 64MB DIMM (or two 32MB DIMMs) for around $60 and remove the EDO memory. By the way, the 10nS quoted for theSDRAM vs. the 70nS for EDO is comparing apples and oranges. The 10nS pertains to sequential access pipelining setup time, the random access is about the same as the EDO. Morris 7/29/98(Q) I am currently using my old 486 66mhz w/ 20 megs of ram, and a pair of 1 gig Hard drives, whenever I boot it up it says, "checksum error hit f1 for setup" fine, I go to setup and lo and behold Ihave no hard drives so I auto detect them and its all happy until the next time I boot it back up. Also in win95 the clock loses time, (right now it says 5:51 pm july 15; its actually 11:20 pm july 27th) what is going on here? Are they related and how does a moron like me fix it? Richard (A) Just the onboard battery running down. Open the case up, locate it (usually a little blue barrel or a silver disk, or a "Dallas Semiconductor" rectangular black thing) and see if you can find an exact replacement at the local shop. Otherwise, all motherboards support an external battery, usually around $5, but you'll have to find the pins on the motherboard it hooks up to, and maybe move a jumper near that hook-up to "ext". By the way, sounds to me like all those "Dummies" and "Idiots" books have some of you guys down on yourselves. Morris 7/28/98(Q) I just finished putting together the following system: AMD K6 300 w/MMX, 4 mb agp video card, 3d sound pro sound card, 5.1 gb WD hard drive EIDE, 96 mb edo ram. I installed Win98 with no problems, and everything was working fine for a few days. Then (of course) after a few days, the system decided not to boot.....I would only get beeps from the internal speaker. I looked up the meanings according to the # of beeps, and it seemed like a memory problem (loose chips/bad chips?). I removed and replaced the same chips....and that problem went away. Now, I get erratic mouse errors such as "can't detect mouse" (all connections seem ok), and I've tried 2 different mice on both the ps/2 and serial ports. Also, when the mouse is working, the cursor will start jumping all over the screen....and then locks up. Brian (A) Did you unplug the power supply from the wall, or from the motherboard, before you reseated the memory SIMMS/DIMMS? If not, it's possible that you did a little damage to the motherboard, since ATX power supplies are never really "off". I mention this, because I'm on a crusade. It could also be bad memory where the mouse driver sits getting by the memory check, so you could try rearranging the SIMMs again (unplug the cord from the power supply first). You should also make sure that the RAM is recognized as EDO in CMOS Setup, and maybe try slower timing for it. Morris 7/17/98(Q) Every once in a while I try an experiment with The Midnight Question, this is one of them. I'm currently writing a new book on building ATX PCs, and I'm curious what experience people have had with the "always on" motherboards. A good ATX power supply provides over 700mA at +5V even in it's "off" state, necessary for LAN adapters to provide a "wake on LAN" interrupt, not to mention keeping the motherboard alive enough to cope with the "Wake on LAN", "Wake on Modem" and the software power switch on the front of the case. Now, in olden days, I commonly told people to always leave their power cord plugged in when working on the PC, and to ground themselves on the casing before handling parts or touching anything in the case. Now I find myself telling people the opposite, unplug the power supply before installing more memory or adapters, because the motherboard is never really off otherwise. Does anybody have any good "I blew up my PC-100 SDRAM DIMM installing it in an ATX system I thought was off" stories, or other experiences? Let me know. Morris (A) The following link on the Asus motherboard site has a warning on exactly this subject, along with some graphic pictures of damage: http://www.asus.com.tw/Products/Techref/Misc/atxnotice.html Dick 7/14/98(Q) Here's the situation: I have a FIC 503+ motherboard with 1 MB of cache and which support a 100 Mhz front side bus speeds. I have PC-100 SDRAMs. I have a AMD K6 233 Mhz processor. AMD and FIC list (as an acceptable bus speed) 66 Mhz for that particular speed CPU, which works out to be a multiplier of 3.5. I, wanting to use 100 Mhz bus speed need a multiplier of 2.33 - not an option. I only have 2.0 and 2.5. So I either take a performance hit at 2.0 or I overclock at 2.5, run my chip at 250 Mhz and gain a 100 Mhz front side bus. Will it work? Kevin (A) I try to avoid entirely half-baked answers, but this will certainly be one. First of all, the standard disclaimer "Only the AMD K6-2 processors are certified by AMD to run at the fast 100MHz bus clock. The standard AMD K6 was designed and rated to run at a 66MHz bus and overclocking to run at 100MHz bus is not recommended." Now, from what I've gathered via some web research, the 100MHz bus isn't all that stable unless you buy memory modules that use 125MHz memory chips. Whether or not there are modules rated PC-100 that don't use these chips (8 nS), I can't say. Also, there appear to be motherboards out there, especially in Socket 7 world, that were designed with independant settings for the bus and CPU, the need being driven by the 75MHz bus for one of the Cyrix chips that doesn't give you a nice way to divide down to the 33MHz needed for the PCI bus. At any rate, the consensus seems to be that the more flexible the motherboard (i.e. the more ways they give you of clocking things differently) the better off you are. In Intel motherboard world, for Slot 1 and Slot 2 CPUs, your main worry is just getting decent quality PC-100 SIMMs. Only P-II CPUs of 350MHz or higher are designed to work with the 100MHz bus in Slot 1, no Celerons need apply. The new Slot 2 Pentium II Xeon CPUs are all designed for the 100MHz bus (not to mention L2 cache running at the core CPU speed). Morris 6/19/98(Q) You talk about BSRAM when talking about the Celeron (Catching up on the new technology) but don't talk about it in the RAM section. What is it? Dave (A) The 512K L2 cache that comes as part of the Pentium II cartridge is Burst Synchronous RAM (BSRAM). According to the last time I visited the Intel site, it operates at exactly half of the Pentium II speed, i.e. with a 300MHz Pentium II, you'll get 150MHz bus speed for accessing the L2 cache, with a 400MHz PII, 200MHz cache access, double any Socket 7 CPU L2 scheme. In the pictures in the "CPU's and Heatsinks" section of "Building the new PCs", you can see that the Pentium II is a package, with the L2 cache integrated within, while the Celeron is basically a CPU mounted on a ciruit board. Morris 6/16/98(Q) I recently acquired an old Everex 486 Server. Can you refer me to a source of information on server machine architecture (i.e. how to put one together) as well as any place you know of that might sell the parts I need to do an upgrade? The machine was free and I hope to throw some money into it, make it usable, and put it online. Brad (A) There is no particular architechture associated with servers, people just call the designated PC server a server, or sell it as a package with a big hard drive to get the price up. The Everex is just another 486, if you actually start throwing money around, start with a new case and a 200MHz or faster Pentium MMX and motherboard, for about $200. I doubt there's anything in the Everex worth keeping. Morris 6/8/98(Q) I would appreciated it very much if you'd give me your input/opinion about my plan my Gateway P5/60 PC: I can't afford to buy a new machine, therefore, I want to replace the motherboard/CPU and maybe the case (if I have to).I contacted Gateway and was told that any Baby AT mb would do. Do you have any suggestions as to how feasible this is and what mb/cpu would you recommend? Yaroa (A) First, I'd open up the case and double check that the power supply connector is a P8, P9 type, and not a Gateway special. Or, as you point out, you are willing to get a new case/power supply, only about $30, after all, and transfering all of your old components. However, given the ridiculously low price of memory and hard drives, you may find that the only components worth keeping are the floppy, sound card, CD (who cares if it's slow), and modem (hopefully it isn't). Either way, you'll see a tremendous boost in performance if you buy a 233MHz MMX (Intel or other) and a cheap motherboard, combined cost of $200. If you can spare a little more, I'd get a minimum of 32MB RAM ($40), consider a big, fast hard drve ($150 for a few GB). If you decide to replace your modem, talk to your Internet Provider first to see which 56K standard they support. Morris 6/3/98(Q) I have a P-II 233 Mhz system which was purchased with a 16-bit generic (ESS 1868 Plug n Play) sound card. Then I bought an internal modem 33.6Kbps and installed it. Since then my sound card has stopped working. If I remove the modem the sound card works fine. The device manager shows 'No Conflicts' for both of them when both are installed. The sound card works (along with the modem) if installed after booting but otherwise cannot work. On restarting I have to again install it. How do I save my installation (or configuration)? The only error messages I am able to get are: when I try to play a game with audio the error message is "The sound card is in use." When I go to DMI wizard it displays "Incorrect PnP version returned by bios" - when I 'View Devices by Connection' in the device manager the sound card is not seen even after I have installed it correctly. Rajashree (A) It sounds like the "Curse of the Plug-n-Pray Devices" I've come across many problems with multiple plug-n-play cards combined with a plug-n-play BIOS and plug-n-play operating system that make me want to plug my screwdriver into a wall outlet with my fingers on the blade. I don't know any universal cures, though if the modem can be jumpered to specifix settings (sometime a possibility) it often helps. It usually turns out that one adapter is preventing the other adapter from being assigned any resources at boot, and Device Manager lies through it's teeth. If BIOS upgrade is available, it may fix the DMI issue. At any rate, the best generic approach I've come up with is to get rid of any hardware you aren't using (i.e. Com 2, sometimes even Com 1 on a mouseport system with no extra serial devices), install the Sound Card on IRQ 5 (good place to be for DOS compatability anyway), then try to get the modem to play in one of the com port spaces. Morris 6/2/98(Q) I just bought a mail-order 6x86 PR-233 but I can't get my Kodak digital camera to communicate with the Com port. I have a mouse on Com 1 and an internal modem on Com 2. I tried adding a Com 4 in Device Manager, but immediately got a conflict with my sound card, which I had moved from IRQ=12 to IRQ=5 for compatability with DOS games. I don't have a whole lot of open IRQs to play with, and I'm not sure that what Device Manager reports for Com ports necessarily agrees with what exisits in hardware. Jim (A) I actually got over to visit Jim, so the answer is a little more specific than normally possible. A quick check in CMOS Setup showed that the second onboard serial port had been disabled when the modem was installed. We re-enabled the port, selecting 2E8 (Com 4), but it failed to show up on the boot screen. The modem com port used by the modem never appeared on the boot screen, a common problem with Plug-n-Play modems. After much futzing around, it became apparent that the second onboard serial port would only become functional when assigned a Com port lower than that of the modem - so the modem was reset to Com 4 in Device Manager Resources, and the second serial port was set to Com 2 and immediately appeared on the boot screen. The AMD BIOS gave no choices for Com port IRQs, and rather than diddling around with Device Manager to see if they were truly software settable, it was left on the default IRQ=3, and the camera software immediately began to work on Com 2. Finally, the modem failed to work on the open IRQ=12, so it was set up on IRQ=3 also, a conflict appeared in Device Manager, but everything was hunky dory as long as the camera and modem aren't used at the same time. Morris 5/21/98(Q) I have a 233 MHz Pentium MMX NT 4.0 workstation in the shop which freezes on boot immediately after the message "Verifying DMI pool" appears. When I try booting with a DOS floppy, it says "Starting MS-DOS" after the DMI pool message, but still locks up. I've tried 3 different motherboards (same manufacturer), removing or swapping all of the adapters, disconnecting the CD, no luck. What is a DMI pool, and how do I get passed it? Ken (A) The Desktop Management Interface (DMI), is a BIOS implemented mechanism for tracking installed hardware, which will either become more standard or fall by the wayside. There is also an Advanced Desktop Management (ADM) scheme I'm entirely unfamiliar with. It's not to be confused with Desktop Management Information (DMI) which is part of the specification for remote admistration of networked PCs. The specific problem on your PC (I was able to drop by Ken's shop) is that the hard drive was set to "Auto" in the CMOS, but after a couple months, boot time detection was taking too long and the system was freezing. By using the "Autodetect" BIOS feature once, the hard drive parameters were permanently saved as a "User Type", and the problem went away. The oddest part of the problem was the half-boot of the floppy, which worked when the boot sequence was switched to A:C. A little web research showed some other common reasons and fixes for this problem. Some systems upgraded to Win95 OSR2 or NT 4.0 from DOS 6.2 seem to leave too many shreds of DOS on the drive and fail to boot after installation is complete. This may be cured by SYSing the drive with a boot floppy formatted by the correct operating system. Another reason for lockup after "Verifying DMI pool" can be new hardware that the current BIOS version has trouble with. Flash upgrades fixing such problems are commonly available from the motherboard or BIOS manufacturer. Morris 5/19/98(Q) I have an older Elpina(Ability) motherboard and I would like to upgrade to 512k cache. The board was given to me with out the manual. I am trying to find the correct jumper setting for 512k, but so far no such luck. The model number of the board is 486 VIP WB MB Chris (A) Most 486 boards couldn't support more than 256K cache. However, if you want tto try to find the doc, this is from my backlog, I don't know if the site is still active, but it used to be good. I was looking through your Potluck FAQ (The succesor to Ask Moe and the predecessor to the Midnight Question) and saw someone had asked a question on identifying their motherboard. The other day I happened on a site that can assist you in this problem if you are using AMI or AWARD BIOS. It is: http://www.ping.be/bios/numbers.shtml You should get an actual manufacturers name back, which is the only chance you'll have for loacting board-specific doc. Morris 5/18/98(Q - Repost) I have a large tower that I would like to upgrade to an BX or maybe an LX Pentium II MB. Trouble is the case is for AT form factor MBs. I know I could replace the case but I would like to keep it and make it the central fixture as a future server or for large storage. It can hold up to 6 full height 5-1/4" size HDs. Do you know anyone who is making the new BX boards, including AGP, USP, PCI for the AT design. And yes, I've looked at at trying to replace the rear panel, but its a spot welded thing - not feasible. Mark (A) This may or may not help the person that is looking for a P2 motherboard with an AT format. Supermicro makes a P6DLF which is a dual P2 processor LX chipset AT board. The only problem is that it is a full size AT board and cannot be used with most of the cases. Here is the link. http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboards/440lx/p6dlf.htm Mark (different Mark) 5/14/98(Q) So how about some basic info about the ATX Specification? Follow Up to Yesterday (A) The ATX specification encompasses motherboards, cases and power supplies. The venerable old AT and baby-AT form factor for motherboards has been changed to move the CPU out of the way of the adapter slots and directly adjacent to the intake of the power supply fan to increase cooling. Also, all of the I/O and any other onboard peripherals now have their ports mounted directly on the back edge of the motherboard, eliminating all the extra cables and associated screw-ups. This requires a case with a double height aperature to allow access to all these ports, not to mention the PS/2 style mouse and keyboard connectors. The ATX power supply replaces the P8 and P9 connectors of the AT design with a single 20 lead connector, which has added a signal line for turning the power supply on and off, and three new 3.3V lines. For a more complete run down, skip over to my new page on Building the New PCs. Morris 4/24/98(Q) I am looking to purchase a new PC from either Gateway or Dell. My main need is to run a Monte Carlo simulation which is currently taking 8 hours (overnight) to run on my 200MHz Pentium. I am looking at 333MHz Pentium II's, in the $2700 neighborhood. Any thoughts? Sam (A) Well, nothing in particular wrong with Gateway or Dell, though they aren't the cheapest kids on the block. At a 333MHz Pentium II, you're buying very close to the top of the food chain, where the retained value in a year will be less than half of what you pay today. However, you are in the rare category of individuals who actually exercise the hell out of their CPU, and I don't want to suggest saving $1000 bucks if it costs you a thousand hours. I would consider backing down to a 300MHz model, should save you $400 or so without a noticeable impact on performance. Remember that the real bottleneck here is the main memory access speed, which is the same on a 300MHz or a 333MHz, the extra 10% on CPU clock won't buy you anything if the CPU is waiting for data from main memory all the time. For more info, see my building new PCs page. Morris 4/7/98(Q) My son in law recently bought a computer with a Cryix 233 chip. he said it is a better chip than the Intel which I have. This is how he proved it. I have Intel 233 chip with 64 megs of ram his has 32 MB. We put chess game in both; same game. He moved on his computer then I used that move on my computer. His computer won it made no difference wheather I was playing white or black. His computer won ten out of ten. Is this chip really better? Why is it so cheap. My motherboard wil support this chip. Should I sell the Intel and buy the Cryix. Just as a side note. His 233 is really an over clocked 200MMX, mine is also MMX. Lee (A) It's an interesting test. Generally speaking, "equivalent" clones will be better than the chip they clone, beacuse hind-sight is 20/20. However, it certainly isn't worth changing chips at this point, and when you buy your next system, maybe a Pentium IV, Cyrix won't have it's clone out yet. It seems to me that the first version od the Cyrix Pentium clone kept burning up, glad to hear they worked the bugs out. I've had good luck with all the AMD systems I've owned, but for the latest technology at any given time, you pretty much have to go with Intel. Morris 4/2/98(Q) I am currently doing some work on a Pentium 100 with 16 Mb. It has an Award BIOS version 4.50g. It has started to do the following: When I switch on, the computer appears to be booting ie, the "right" noises come from floppy/hard drives etc, but NOTHING appears on thescreen, and no "beeps" are sounded. If I then press "reset", the screen comes on as normal, POST checks are done, the info screen comes up but NO activity from the hard disk. The sysytem then just hangs, I guess at the point where it would normally say "Starting Windows 95". I have changed the chip and moved the memory around, to no avail. Steve (A) It actually has the ring of a CPU problem to it. The right noises don't really mean anything until you get into beeps, the drives will go through their start-up routines even with a totally fried motherboard. The fact that the systems "syncs up" when you hit reset points to a fairly fundemental hardware problem, most often CPU, but you have changed yours? If you had the opposite problem system starts but hard drive fails until reset and boots second time around, that would be the hard drive not spinning up fast enough. Have you tried dissabling external cache in the CMOS, or booting from floppy, just to see if the system will give you a live prompt for a couple minutes? (Steve reports that external cache was the culprit) Morris 3/23/98(Q) I replaced the MB im my computer with a Matsonic 5120 VXPron MB with the Cyrix 686MX 200 CPU. Everytning runs fine with the exception of the serial mouse. Printer works on LPT1 and Windows 95 reports system configured for optimal performanc, but won't detect mouse. When I manually load the drivers it shows a yellow ! on Microsoft Serial Mouse in system devices. The DOS driver will not load into memory either, it shows "mouse not found". I have different combinations of Com Ports, memory addresses and IRQ's. Any suggestions? Sam (A) I'd check CMOS to make sure you have what you'd expect for ports (Com1, Irq4, Com2, Irq3), and make sure that you used the new connectors for the com ports supplied with the motherboard, because there's actually more than one type of ribbon cable and connector used. Also, many new motherboards have mouseport support which saves you a serial port, but if it is enabled in CMOS and your old mouse was one Com 1, things can get confusing. Morris 3/9/98(Q) Hi, I am told that a pentium chips design allows for better performance than say a 486 cpu, but when comparing a pentium 60 cpu to a 486-100mhz cpu, will the pentium's better desing give better performance or will the 486 sheer speed rule (100mhz). The reason I ask is that I have a choice between either one and am wondering wich one to take Pat (A) Depends in part on which operating system you'll be running. If DOS/Windows 3.X, I'd take the fast 486, if WIndows 95, I'd take the slow Pentium. Old Pentiums are no more or less upgradeable than new 486's, so you're buying for the present, not the future. Of course, it also depends on if you are paying, and how much. I have a brief summary of second hand computer pricing posted at www.daileyint.com/hmdpc/second.htm Morris 3/2/98(Q) I recently installed a Intel Pentium 100 into my Compaq Presario. I had to clear CMOS with the jumper for a different reason. CMOS installed all the usual stuff but it put my processor at a 133mhz instead of 100. I booted with a benchmark utility and the processor is working a 133mhz but I know the processor is a 100mhz because it says 100 on the processor. My question - will a processor work at faster rate then what it is rated at (to a certain extent), if the board is set up to handle a faster processor and if so is it hard on it. Boese (A) It will work, "to some extent". as you put it. In the old days, CPU speeds within families of the same manufacturing die, were determined by testing, i.e., the CPU was rated at the highest speed step at which it worked reliably. I'm suspicious that manufacturing quality control is quite a bit tighter these days, and I wouldn't be shocked if the labeling was more arbitrary. It could be that your CPU is running hotter than it should, and will therefore have a reduced lifetime (who cares) or suffer freezes. There are quite a few sites dedicated to overclocking CPUs on the web, I don't link any so as not to encourage it, but any search engine will spit out more than you want to look at. Morris 2/19/98(Q) I am in charge of upgrading a server for my place of work where we use novell 3&4. I went to the computer store that I personally frequent for a quote for a PII 300, 128M Ram, Asus motherboard, 8.4 gig drive and then the rest is normal. My problem now is that the Ex-System Analyst is saying that the 8.4 gig will crash one day and we will loose all of or data, we should use multiple 2 gig drives instead. Also, a PII 300 is a waste because nothing is really better than a PII 200. So my question is, what do you think? Does anything that he stated hold any truth? Chad (A) You've got me why he would state that there is nothing better than a PII 200. I'm not a big believer in benchmarks, but I know the PII's have a good amount of on-board and secondary cache, and I'd assume that the PII 300 is about 50% faster at grinding through the instructions and data that are in cache than the 200MHz. As to the 8.4GB crashing one day, it will be MORE reliable than any combination of 2GB drives, unless you were planning on a RAID configuration. Furthermore, that's what tape backups are for, and if you don't already have one, the Ex-System Analyst should be handed his head on a stick. Morris 2/5/98(Q) I just built a pc for the office (pentium processor motherboard, amd k6/200, 64mb, 512 cache, blah, blah, blah). On boot I get a constant beep from the speaker and the pc freezes. Micro-post diagnostic card say's "bad cache", so I replaced the motherboard with a new one. same problem again, so I methodically remove each installed card in the pc one at a time, and re-boot each time, but no luck. I have also unplugged the hdd, floppy,and cd-rom to no avail. As a last resort i replaced both the ram, and the processor, but still the same problem. I'd pull my hair out, but i can't get a good hand full. any suggestions? Mike (A) I can get a good handfull of hair in the back now, since I haven't cut it in 4 months. Forget about the top. The only thing I know that should cause continual beeping is a stuck key, though I doubt that's what it is in this case. All the same, you can try booting without a keyboard attached, just to see if it doesn't beep. Outside of that, it sounds like a more fundemental problem, like the K6/200 on that particular motherboard type, something of the sort. Is the CPU documented as working on this motherboard? (Problem turned out to be a standoff missmatch causing a short on the bottom of the motherboard). Morris 1/20/98(Q) I have a 60MHz Pentium running DOS 6.2, Windows 3.1, Netscape 3.0, and QuickLink2 Fax software. My son complains that the PC freezes for long periods of time downloading web pages, and that the colors come out lousy. My fax software keeps on trying to send faxes to people I haven't chosen to receive them, and a technician told me my hard drive was "bad". The same technician, in an effort to speed up my system, upgraded it from 16MB RAM to 32MB RAM, but I can't tell the difference, it's still slower than many 486's. To top it all off, MSD (MicroSoft Diagnostics) reports the system as a 486. Can you come downstairs and help? (My downstairs neighbor in Israel, M.R.) Chaim (A) In reverse order (the following is based on going downstairs, I'm not this good a diagnostician via e-mail), you are running the older version of MSD in your Windows directory due to your PATH statement. The MSD version in your DOS 6.2 directory correctly reports the CPU as a Pentium. Next, unless you are running AutoCAD, or some other software with independant memory management, going over 16MB on a Windows 3.1 system doesn't help performance unless you use it all as disk cache. A 60MHz Pentium IS slower than a 100MHz or 120MHz 486, particularly running older DOS/Windows programs. Your hard drive was badly fragmented, the DEFRAG program in DOS 6.2 cured the thrashing and sped things up. At some point in the past, somebody tried sending the same fax to your entire address book in QL2 Fax, than aborted the process. Every time the fax manager starts (like when you try sending a single fax), it first tries to continue with the old job. Deleting all of the pending faxes fixes the problem. Your video card, although it is a 1MB Trident 8900 capable of 16 million colors at VGA resolution, was running on the default Windows VGA driver, which uses only 16 colors. Installing the Trident 256 color (or higher) driver will make the pictures load faster and look right. Morris 1/15/98(Q) I have messed up my brother's laptop - Grid 1755 - He wanted the hard drive de-partitioned. I used Fdisk. Problem is I forgot to tell CMOS to boot from A drive. It only has C or A option. It will not look for A unless instructed to in the CMOS - which I have no access. So now all I can do is read the "no operating system" message when booted. I have opened the unit up and looked for a set of pins to reset the CMOS. No luck. The CMOS apparently is only available through the SET1755.EXE software. I have been told of about 10 different keystrokes to access the setup in CMOS - again no luck. If I disconnect the hard drive, I do not believe that it will go look for drive A. I have the setup programs, but they are on floppies and I have no way to execute them. Ed (A) (First, my original stab, followed by the correct answer Ed received from the GRiD guru below. This is turning into "replace Morris" week). If keystrokes don't do it, they don't do it. If you intentionally discharge the battery backup for the CMOS, it will revert to the default ROM settings, which have to be boot to floppy. The only other work around would be to set up the hard drive on another PC, and stick it in when it's finished. Morris (A) Try holding down the "F" key while booting, and it'll boot to the floppy. If you need anymore info, it might be found at this site I'm working on: http://limbo.netpath.net/hw/GRiD John 1/5/98(Q) I'm building a PC using a GMB-P54IPS motherboard with a Pentium 100 CPU and AWARD BIOS. Basic problem is that the system can't seem to find the mouse on COM1. I've tried different mouses & different serial ports all to no avail. I've restored all the BIOS settings to the default values - no help. I've even tried hooking the serial port to COM2. Neither Windows 3.11 or Windows 95 could find the mouse. The motherboard and chip worked fine in their previous life - I did a motherboard upgrade on my main machine and ended up with the P-100 and motherboard on my hands so I decided to try building a computer from scratch. Its working fine except for the missing mouse. Ken (A) Sounds like you've done a reasonable troubleshooting job. One possibility is that the Com port ribbon cables you are using don't match the motherboard (did you change them with the case?) Believe it or not, there are a couple annoying variations. It's also possible that the onboard controller got zapped on the swap, dissable all the ports in CMOS Setup and stick in an old serial or SIDE card to see if that fixes the problem. (Ken writes that he located a serial card, modified the BIOS as suggested and the mouse worked like a charm.) Morris 12/30/97(Q) I'm building a PC using a GMB-P54IPS motherboard with a Pentium 100 CPU and AWARD BIOS. Basic problem is that the system can't seem to find the mouse on COM1. I've tried different mouses & different serial ports all to no avail. I've restored all the BIOS settings to the default values - no help. I've even tried hooking the serial port to COM2. Neither Windows 3.11 or Windows 95 could find the mouse. The motherboard and chip worked fine in their previous life - I did a motherboard upgrade on my main machine and ended up with the P-100 and motherboard on my hands so I decided to try building a computer from scratch. Its working fine except for the missing mouse. Ken (A) Sounds like you've done a reasonable troubleshooting job. One possibility is that the Com port ribbon cables you are using don't match the motherboard (did you change them with the case?) Believe it or not, there are a couple annoying variations, somewhere in the Midnight Question backlog is a pin-out description. It's also possible that the onboard controller got zapped on the swap, so try to dissable all the ports in CMOS Setup and stick in an old serial or SIDE card to see if that fixes the problem. Morris 12/24/97(Q) I have a upgrading problem with my EVEREX Intel 386sx 16MHz laptop. I opened the laptop in Sep97 to upgrade my 20MB hard disk to 420MB and also added another 4 RAM (maximum allowed 5MB). I noticed the CPU was placed in a socket and not soldered onto the motherboard. There was a plastic cap that snapped onto the socket keeping the CPU inside. I then obtained an AMD SX-40 mhz CPU which is identical to the Intel SX-16 MHz, but only faster. I removed the intel CPU and placed the AMD CPU and the laptop worked without any problems. When I ran the tests to check the processor speed, it was running at 16MHz and was not recognised as an AMD CPU. I asked AMD if their SX 40 CPU would run at a slower speed and they said no, it will only run at 40MHz. Manish (A) I'm a little puzzled by the AMD response. Nobody ever made a clock multiplied 386CPU (at least that I'm aware of), so it's not going to run any faster than the motherboard, which was generally a single speed deal in those old laptops.There were some combination CPU/adapter socket type deals sold for running faster 486CPU's in 386 sockets, which take advantage of the 486 internal cache, but even if somebody made such a beast as a 386sx2.5-40, I doubt you'd even see a difference in performence, since it would spend all it's time waiting for memory. If you can't find a physical jumper to step up the clock speed, 16MHz is all you're going to get. Morris 12/23/97You've done a pretty good job troubleshooting it down to the motherboard/CPU level. It now sounds very much like a 5 year old 486/33 board that I had around. After much fooling around, I found that I could get it to boot every time if I built it without a case. When I put it back in the case, the same problem re-occured, but I found that I could again get it to boot consistently if I pulled up on a corner of the motherboard while powering up. In the end, jamming a small stone (electrical insulator, fireproof) under the motherboard near the CPU fixed the problem. Not for the faint of heart. Morris I have an opti motherboard that I put an old 486Dx33 into and tried booting up, it seemed to work ok. so I installed controllers and drives, still ok. Quit fooling with it and came back next day, tried to boot up and just got a bright raster, no memtest click sound ,beep or anything else. I shut the power off and retried and unit booted ok. I shut it off and let it sit for several hours then tried to start- same thing, bright raster but no boot, push reset switch several times and it boots ok. sometimes if I try to run windows3.1 from this machine it work fine, other times it will load the Win3.1 screen then drop out to a blank screen and reboot itself, other times it goes thru Win 3.1 screen than clears and puts up the hourglass that tells you to wait for windows to load but just freezes up at that point. I have tried all different memory, cpu, video card , powersupply, vlb I/O controller,and reseated all soceted chips to no avail. Tom 12/15/97(Q) I have a good 486DX/33 CPU from a failed motherboard. I saw an ad for a cheap 386DX/20 system, and want to know if I can buy it and use my CPU. Ari (A) The answer to your question is no, made definite by the age of the 386 system. The motherboard for this system was built before the 486 was on the drawing board. Had it been a 386DX/33, there would have been a slim chance that the motherboard supported both CPUs, as it seems to me that some were built in the transition period. We're talking about 6 seven years ago, so my memory hasn't been refreshed in quite a while. Morris 11/26/97(Q) I have a 386SX/25 with 8MB RAM, an 80MB and a 200MB hard drive, a 1.44MB and a 1.2MB floppy, a HP Inkjet Printer, along with a 14" SVGA monitor that displays a greenish white in the place of white and sometimes looses the picture altogether. I want to give my grand-daughter a PC to do her typing for school, so she doesn't need to wait for time on the faster Pentium PC in the house. Should I upgrade this computer, buy a better complete system on the second-hand market, or give her the PC as is. Moshe (A) The answer is strictly a financial decision, based on how much you want to spend. You have a working PC, which is certainly capable of acting as a typewriter, and barring the monitor failing, she can use it as is. A brand new SVGA monitor now goes for about $160 on the mail-order market, and comes with a warranty. Starting around $300, you can find complete 486 systems, which aren't a bad deal, if accompanied by a working monitor. If you found one with a CD drive, a modem, or a sound card, in this price range, it would represent a significant upgrade over your current PC while fixing the monitor problem at the same time. I wouldn't get involved in upgrading this PC, unless you intend to work with second hand parts it just doesn't make financial sense. Morris 11/2/97(Q) My research lab recently acquired an old 486/66 MHz computer sold by AT&T. When I turned on the computer, hoping to format the hardrive and install DOS, it beeped once and asked me to press ENTER for continue or F1 for setup. I pressed ENTER, but instead of booting from the A and C drives, it beeped twice and went directly into BIOS setup. After checking to make sure all the hardware parameters are correct, I saved the settings and exited BIOS. The computer then restarted and, once again, beeped and went into BIOS after I pressed ENTER. When I exited BIOS without changing any settings, it showed something like this: I9########### (the # represent numbers that I don't remember.) All throughout this process it did not boot from A nor the C drives. I changed the hardrive, but it still does the same thing. I called up the manufacturer for tech support, but they were no help at all. I also double checked all the cables and power supplies to make sure they're plugged in and functioning properly. Tiffany (A) The fact that it's an AT&T makes life harder, rather than easier, since they tended to do things in a non-standard way. Did you find a "boot sequence" setting in CMOS and make sure that it reads "A: C:" rather than "C: A:" ? I can't even guess at the I9##### (the numbers wouldn't have helped), but about the only replaceable component that would continually drag a normal computer into setup on boot is a failed drive controller, since the computer knows it's not going anywhere without a boot device. See if you can dig up an old SIDE card and stick it in there to replace your current controller, or dissable the controllers on the motherboard if thats what this system has. Morris 10/30/97(Q) I was looking through your Potluck FAQ (The succesor to Ask Moe and the predecessor to the Midnight Question) and saw someone had asked a question on identifying their motherboard. The other day I happened on a site that can assist you in this problem if you are using AMI or AWARD BIOS. It is: http://www.ping.be/bios/numbers.shtml Interesting site you have.. Fun reading even if you don't have a problem. Steve (A) Well, Steve provided the answer, but I did go check it out, and it delivers as advertised. Morris 10/27/97(Q) I have a 486/80 MHz PC with 20 megs RAM and 1.3 gig HD. I recently loaded Windows 95 and have experienced frequent freeze-ups, where the mouse or nothing else works. In frustration Saturday night, I finally went to DOS and entered "format C:", thereby starting with a clean slate. I've recovered from that by reloading the HD manager, CD Rom software and Windows 95 from scratch. Guess what? It's still freezing on me. What could the problem be? Derek (A) Win 95 frequently freezes on clock multiplied CPU's that ran fine in DOS. If you don't have a fan on the CPU, get one. Otherwise, you can fool around with dissabling cache and swapping RAM, but it's normally the CPU in these cases. If you try running out of turbo or with internal cache dissabled and it works, it's time for a new CPU (or an old Operating System). If your RAM layout is four 4MB SIMMs and four 1MB SIMMs, get rid of the 1MBs and try it. Morris 10/8/97(Q) I am trying to find out whether I can upgrade the AMD DX2-66 CPU I am currently running in an OEM (SJ-DG486 / 3VLS) motherboard with the UMCUM8498F chipset. I would like to drop in an AMD 5x86-133. The motherboard supports 25, 33, 40, and 50 MHz and 3.3v. The documentation for the motherboard does say that it will support AMD 486 chips, but stops short of saying which ones. It has a ZIF socket as well. I would direct this query to the manufacturer of the computer, but they went out of business shortly after I purchased the thing. Brett (A) It's probably impossible to find a real answer anywhere for your question. However, a friend recently bought an AMD 586/133 (specs out like a Pentium 133) along with an Intel motherboard, nice PCI, integrated controllers, etc, for about $100. Almost the whole cost here is the motherboard, so I would add a couple bucks and get a much more capable CPU. With the exception of same kind upgrade, like a 486/33 to a 486/66 or a Pentium 90 to a Pentium 166, I always suggest getting a new motherboard with the CPU. Morris 9/24/97(Q) I upgraded a 486-66 to 6x86 Cyrix recently. We had the Deep Space 9 theme running OK on 486-66 but on the 6x86 the Windows Start .wav runs OK for 2 or 3 seconds then sounds like static for the next 20 seconds or so (while Win95 is in its loading sequence). When Win95 is loaded, the static stops, and all sounds are OK. I've checked for conflicts in DMA, IRQs etc. and I can see nothing wrong. It's not the file, because when I test it, it works OK. Win95 says the sound driver is installed and working OK. I'm stuck! The card is a Soundblaster16. Robert (A) Thats a tough one. I guess it could be something like the improved performance of the 6x86 requiring more of the hard drive's transfer bandwidth, and actually competing with the sound card for data. Although even a CD stereo WAV file only requires about 150KB/s to play smoothly, buffering issues come into play on longer files when the drive is servicing multiple tasks. Since everything works in Windows, try switching to the default Windows Chimes, and see if they make it through OK. Maybe this 2 seconds of clear running is why the Chimes are programed to sound the way they do, with the repeated trailer. It could turn out to be a funky cache or DMA issue, but if it only fails with long files and only on startup, I wouldn't worry about it. Morris 9/23/97(Q) I own a Packard Bell Legend 233+, upgraded to a 486DX266 and the latest available Phoenix bios (dated 1996, to suppport Disk LBA). The PB430 motherboard originally had 4 meg of memory. I am currently running Win 95a and using 72 pin non-parity SIMMS and a motherboard integrated Cirrus Logic CL-GD5422 video w/512k memory. When I run with 16 meg OR LESS (with any combination of memory, ie: with or without the motherboard memory) of memory the system appears to run as expected with the amount of memory it is using. When I increase to 20 or 24 meg, the system (especially the video) slows to a crawl. WinTune 97 shows about a 50% performance drop from when the system has 16 meg to when the system has 20 meg. Richard (A) I'm skipping my reply, which wasn't, uh, exactly right, because Richard chased down the following answer for himself: I researched the BIOS as you recommended. It turned out that with the motherboard and only 128k of L2 cache the performance drops due to the way Win95 address memory. This is a quote from: http://www.firmware.com/pb4ts/p410cach.htm "If more memory is installed than can be cached, performance can decrease. This performance decrease can be significant with WIN95, since it allocates memory from the top.
and from: http://www.firmware.com/pb4ts/p4hs10.htm "WIN95 runs very slow - DOS programs seem to run at normal speed - This can be caused by an improper match between RAM size and external cache size. Disable the external cache in CMOS setup to see if it speeds up. 32KB cache can handle 4MB of RAM, 128KB of cache can handle 16MB of RAM, and 512KB of cache can handle 32MB of RAM (note that this applies only to these (PB410 and 430) motherboards). This can affect WIN95 much more than DOS programs possibly due to WIN95 allocating memory from the top." Richard (via Morris) 8/4/97(Q) I have just finished building my first PC. I used a previously owned 486DX33 motherboard and processor, used controller card, floppy drive, internal modem and video card and bought a new case and power supply, 4 x 4 MB SIMM and a new 1.2 GB hard disk. Everything was working well but now the system is running at 16MHZ instead of 33 and the new case I bought does not have a turbo button. So, I have no idea how to set the CPU clock back to 33 MHZ. (It was running at 33 MHZ to beging with). Also, one minor glitch, the power supply has a three pin connector for the power LED, but the motherboard does not seem to have anywhere to connect it with three pins. Do you have any solutions? Margaret (A) You have a couple of ways out of this one. First, most 486's have an option in CMOS setup under an advanced menu asking if you want to boot at high speed or low. Make sure this is high if you have it. Second, you don't need a switch, you can just jumper closed the two pins on the motherboard where the switch would go. Last, if your BIOS supports it, hitting <ctrl><alt><+> and <crtl><alt><-> will toggle turbo on and off. Next subject: almost all systems come with a 5 pin connector that includes the power led and key lock, with the two power led pins seperated by a blank. The three pin connector, believe it or not, is usually the turbo switch, which by orienting it one way or the other on the two pins determines whether the system is in or out of turbo at boot with the button out. At any rate, if you're sure you have the right connector and the right place to put it, the only option is to splice a different connector on ,or cut of the connector and tack solder the leads to the pins, but like I always say for LEDs and switches, who cares? Morris 8/3/97(Q) I just bought a new motherboard. During the installation I found the motherboard to be bad. We replaced the motherboard with a different brand. I kept the COM and parallel cable from the first, since they were already installed. Now the mouse will not work in Win 95. I have heard that there is more than one cable standard, can you get these for me and explain if there is any way around this. Barry (A) You have come across one of the most annoying problems in computerdom. There are two different cable types, though one is a lot more popular than the other. Even though it's a ten cent part, it's a pain if you don't have one around, but hopefully you kept the ones that came with the new motherboard and have them around. Basically the first is configured
both with the red wire to the left. Since the connector on the other end is fixed, flipping the cable doesn't work. You have to remake the cable, or find one of the right type. Morris 7/27/97(Q) Can you tell me where on the net I might be able to find an old Cmos Setup program for older XT's and AT's that require software to get into the Bios?? Mark (A) XT's rarely used setup software, all of the the settings were handled by two banks of 8 switches on the motherboard. AT's, except for certain brand names like NEC or COMPAQ, worked with the standard "ATSETUP.EXE", "SETUPAT.EXE" or just "SETUP.EXE" (I've seen all three names for the same thing). which you should be able to find in the shareware libraries. Don't know where to start? Drop by Frank Fraga's page, who is the first link after my junk on my PCLINKS page. It may be www.fmfraga.com, but you can double check. Morris 7/20/97(Q) Would you please read my dilemma and see if you could help me? I have a 486/5x86 Green Mainboard with no L2 cache, an AMD DX4-100 CPU is installed. I have an 850MB Seagate harddrive and a 2x CD-Rom. The problem I'm having is when I try to install Windows 95 through the CD-Rom it freezes. It begins the installation process but during the beginning stages it freezes and I have to re-boot and try again. What coud it be? The fact there's no L2 cache on the mainboard? A CPU problem? An incorrect jumper setting? A CD-Rom problem? MizzShell (A) Well, it could be almost anything, but my first guess would be CPU, since I've see 486DX4-100s from AMD and Intel run fine with DOS/Windows but lock up when installing Windows 95. You can try running the installation out of turbo, and with internal cache dissabled, which should give the CPU a chance to cool down. The other suggestion is if the CPU doesn't have a working heatsink and fan, add them. If a fan is mounted, make sure it has good thermal contact with the CPU. Morris (8/14, an added suggestion from a reader: 2x cd rom ?! unless there is an l2 cache, the cpu will wait 3 clock cylces worst case for data from the cd rom...timeout errors, and the virus protect detect of win95 will hang it up) 7/16/97(Q) I have aVTech 486/66 that will reset to 1980 in the year 2000. I've been looking for an upgrade for the BIOS or something to fix the problem, but VTech tech support no longer exists, and the BIOS manufacturer won't supportan OEM. Are there any sites that have generic patches for a given brand/version of BIOS? Joel (A) Have you checked to make sure it will really happen, or are you working on an assumption. On receiving your mail, I popped out to DOS and used the DATE command to reset my year to 2020. My system is a clone DX2/66 with a 1994 AMI BIOS. Thinking back, I remember running the dates on an old 386SX system into the 2000s (stuck key), so I'd be surprised if somebody really blew it with a 486. It's people with mainframes sitting on millions of lines of code from the Sixties and Seventies who are scrambling for a fix. Having said that, you would almost certainly need to replace the BIOS chip since few 486 clones sported true EEPROMs, and your manufacturer has dissapeared. Unfortunately, an upgrade BIOS isn't gaurenteed to work on a clone board, and costs more than a brand new motherboard anyway. Now that I think about it, do you really think you'll still be using your 486 in the year 2000? Save the cost of an upgrade BIOS now, and use it to buy an obsolete Pentium Pro MMX in the year 1999. Morris 7/10/97(Q) I bought a 486 board without docs. It works with a 33 mhz cpu however it insists that it is connected to a network. Actually it tells me it isn't and it should be. Before the memory test, (note this is before DOS even thinks about starting up,) it tells me: Invalid configuration information for slot 02, 05. then it continues it's boot routine. Win95 insists that slot 5 has an ethernet100 card and installs the drivers, then informs me that the card does not work, and I need to fix it. So, I went back to win3.1, but now I have a scanner that wants the IRQ that the nonexistent card is using. Help! Mike (A) Interesting problem. I'm guessing the motherboard, despite being only a 486/33, has either EISA or PCI slots. With older CPUs, the guess would be EISA, but this is certainly something you can find out by entering the CMOS SETUP during boot. Unfortunately, if it is an EISA motherboard, you'll need to find and download the EISA setup program from the manufacturers web site, in order to tell it the card no longer exists. PCI, you would be able to do directly in the SETUP, and in fact, it would probably have corrected itself when the card was removed. Onece beyond the hardware ussue, you'll need to run SYSEDIT from within Windows (choose RUN under File, then just type SYSEDIT). Then remove any reference to the Ethernet card from all of the startup files. However, Windows 95 should also stop autodetecting the card once the EISA configuration is corrected, and the resources will be freed up. Morris |