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486 issues

J

JDT

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2007
Messages
564
Location
Cicero, NY
After the whole turbo switch fiasco... all was going well. OS installed pluggin away... played some doom... loaded office 4.3 last night before bed, shut it down. Turned it on today and... program.exe has some error or another... i figured I bombed the win3.1, not an unlikely or infrequent thing from my experience. So fine, I get to DOS and try to deltree the windows directory, solid lock. I reboot, no post. Resat everything, post, getting no keyboard found, hit F1 to continue (what a lame joke) but hitting F1 does result in continuing... and we boot, bad command.com. reboot, no keyboard error, boots to dos. I am manually able to go in to the windows directories and del *.* and get rid of it. I clean up autoexec & config.sys. run setup from win 3x dir and it gets to the first screen and the setup application just drops me to a dos prompt.

So far, the machine's 64mb of ram has passed about 8 hours of memtest86 v2.01.
I'm thinking I will blow away the partition and try again, hdd passes diags. maybe bad cache? bad... something else? It did the no post with just video card and IO controller.

Ideas? I'm thinking bad motherboard or I could try disabeling the cache... see where it goes from there.
 
JDT

Do you have another HD that you could put in there? Also, try booting with a floppy and see how that goes. Kinds looks like your HD may be corrupted.
 
possibly, i had a 1.2gb drive in there a week ago, it died, taking with it a perfect OS load. I put a 2gb drive in and everything great till this morning. I'm running out of extra drives. I think I have a few sub 10gb drives laying around in my basement, will have to use Ontrack for them though.
 
Booting from a floppy would circumvent the HDD and its controller. Memtest says the RAM is ok, and generally that is very reliable. The keyboard issues and system freezes on a drive that checks out and with RAM that also checks out really leaves me thinking that it is either the motherboard or the CPU.
 
You do not by any chance use a VLB IDE controller with > 33 Mhz bus, or multiple VLB cards?
 
Jorg said:
You do not by any chance use a VLB IDE controller with > 33 Mhz bus, or multiple VLB cards?
Click to expand...
VLB IDE/Multi IO Controller & VLB ATI Mach64 video card, @ 33 Mhz bus.

Discovered something else too, I had used Ontrack to create a single FAT partition on a 2.1gb drive, which was 2111MB, over the 2048mb / 2gb limit for FAT, perhaps?
 
Might, yes- but also two VLB cards, even at 33 Mhz, it might be a problem with some combinations. Maybe add a VLB wait state? There should be a jumper for that.
 
If you need a drive between 1 and 3 GB let me know. I'll mail you one for postage plus the paypal vig. That goes for anyone on the forums here.
 
JDT:

Another HD thing just popped up in my early morning clouded mind. If you have been dealing with an wide array of HD's, IDE, EIDE, etc., take into consideration your BIOS settings regarding LARGE BLOCK ADDRESSING (LBA) and IDE HDD Block. Make sure that you finalize your BIOS setting, with respect to the HD, prior to FDISKing and installing the OS that you intend to use. MIddle to late 90's mobo's are very finicky about how you handle your HD.
 
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The thing that sticks out to me is the keyboard issues. I really don't think those are HDD related. The VLB thing that Jorg mentioned makes sense to me, it would explain the KB and HDD issues with the passing test results. Try putting a non-VLB VGA controller in it for a few days and see if the issue go away.
 
lutiana said:
The thing that sticks out to me is the keyboard issues. I really don't think those are HDD related. The VLB thing that Jorg mentioned makes sense to me, it would explain the KB and HDD issues with the passing test results. Try putting a non-VLB VGA controller in it for a few days and see if the issue go away.
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I don't think the KEYBOARD is an issue. I think he should pull all cards and start with a bare-bones setup. I would boot from my system floppy, FDISK, FORMAT, and proceed from that point. The VLB <33> issue is usually addressed by a jumper setting on the mobo or toggling the BIOS settings. The fact that it was working when he put it up then failed to run on the next startup makes me think something corruputed on the HD or some BIOS settings are awry. Then again I may be all wet - but on the other hand, I've seen just about everything that could go wrong on a 486 and its just a process of elimination until one gets it right.
 
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So I did a complete dissassembly and build up, one card at a time. Everything now seems stable. DOS622 & WFW311 installed.
The keyboard error was resolved by replacing the IBM Model M & AT - PS/2 adaptor and using some generic AT keyboard I had.
IDE Block mode is enabled, the system bios is able to see the drive correctly through the controller, but still needed to use Ontrack, otherwise it would fdisk to 504mb.
The machine did lock on me twice last night while not seemingly doing anything at all, I noticed that the CPU was damn hot, hotter than I think a 486 should be. I will consider a custom air duct to the chip, or maybe switching to the podp5v83 I have sitting next to the machine.
Network transfer is still horribly slow (100K/s max), I checked all IRQs and addresses for some sort of conflict... latest nic driver from Intel, I don't expect any new drivers for wfw311 written anytime soon =)
 
Check PSU voltages (and ripple, if you have a scope). Ensure motherboard is mounted with the brass standoffs properly screwed down, not the crappy nylon standoffs. Try different CPU if you have one, and/or underclock it. Check there is thermal paste (thin smear) between CPU and heatsink.

Re network transfer, check for a duplex mis-match. The client must be running autonegotiate unless the switch it's connected to is managed, i.e. it is possible to specify the port configuration at that end too. If it is managed, set both ends to 10Mbps/half duplex.
 
Hrm, weird question, but this is a 486 im guessing so...

Is the cpu a 5v or 3.3v ? And is the motherboard set correctly?
I remember something about 3.3v cpu's running on 5v systems , but would overheat due to overvoltage. Just an idea... *shrugs*

If I recall correctly, intel's would refuse to boot, and amd/cyrix would work, usually. See problem with this above ^
A good cpu heatsink w/ fan easily cool it off though. Do not use the sticky tape heatsinks, i suggest heatsink compound that hardens, like used for flashlight led's... Its what I use, works great! Just squeeze the smallest amount, apply like regular thermal paste, then clamp the heatsink to the cpu for a day or so, and it should be good to go. If you need any, I can provide a link. Its available at Dealextreme for like 3-4 dollars shipped! :)
 
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JDT:

How's the project going? I was looking back on your issue and you mentioned something about possibly going going with a POP83. The POP83 is a hit or miss proposition with respect to reliability, the way I see it. I have a certain mobo that it runs okay, and another, a 1995 NIB, if you will, that barely sets up up when its installed. I maintain that you can get just as good, and in some instances superior performance from the Am5x86 (AMD-X5-133ADZ) without the compatiblity issues. You may already be aware that the 486 (just though I'd mention it) with the ADZ, may be preferable over the ADW, as its designed to handle high temperatures more efficiently. Also, with a little snooping around, fans are available (just about mandatory) for the 486 (the Am5x86 comes with if NIB). Good luck and hope to hear back soon.
 
Project is alive & well. Staying with the iDX4-100 for now. I have a AM5x85, ADZ version I plan to use, however I need a 5v -> ~3.45v adaptor of some variety, my board doesnt support anything but 5v (its hard jumpered, aka soldered). I have dos 6.22 & WFW 3.11 installed, everything works great... sans network file transfer... ungodly slow... I will debug as time allows.
 
JDT said:
Project is alive & well. Staying with the iDX4-100 for now. I have a AM5x85, ADZ version I plan to use, however I need a 5v -> ~3.45v adaptor of some variety, my board doesnt support anything but 5v (its hard jumpered, aka soldered). I have dos 6.22 & WFW 3.11 installed, everything works great... sans network file transfer... ungodly slow... I will debug as time allows.
Click to expand...
If and when RAVEN gets back on line, he may have the voltage adapter that you're looking for.
 
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