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Socket 7 system build

Might better name her "Lucky", I am just praying that the old motherboard, which has not been tested in probably longer than I have comes to life.
 
I'm sire I'll find out soon enough. When the replacement cable I bought from stone arrives, I should have everything needed to complete the computer. That's when I'll know for sure if the mother board still works. Honestly though, you did a great job of packing everything, so if you stored the mother board in the static bag, I don't think there will be too much of an issue.

In the event that is works, then I've decided to go with the name Reliant. It seems fitting.
 
As far as I can tell, I'm just waiting for the longer ribbon cable to connect both floppy drives. stone shipped it on Wednesday, or Thursday, so it will get here around the middle of the week. That's all I need for now.

After the cable arrives, I'll connect it to monitor and keyboard and go for boot up. That's when I'll know if it's truly OK or not.
 
You know you can check everything without the longer cable. The floppies don't need to be in their respective housings to run them successfully with a standard cable. In fact the floppies don't even need to be connected to check the motherboard. I actually prefer to check systems by adding one or two modules at a time. That way you can tell exactly where a problem lies. It's usually harder to isolate a problem when you have to look at everything as a possible cause. :)
 
That much I know. It'j really just a matter of moving things around. Remember, I'm the one armed man here.. It's not that easy for me to move things around with only one arm. So waiting for the cable to arrive isn't the only reason for waiting. I have a friend who ic coming over after the ribbon arrives, so he can not only see what I was able to put together, but so he can move the desktop around to where it needs to be. Same goes for the monitor. I have a pretty heave 19" CRT that I'll be using with this build too. And you know how awkward those can be.

I appreciate your input though. And don't worry, I'll let everyone know hot it all goes when we do finally get the system set up.

Thanks again stone.

Stone said:
You know you can check everything without the longer cable. The floppies don't need to be in their respective housings to run them successfully with a standard cable. In fact the floppies don't even need to be connected to check the motherboard. I actually prefer to check systems by adding one or two modules at a time. That way you can tell exactly where a problem lies. It's usually harder to isolate a problem when you have to look at everything as a possible cause. :)
Click to expand...
 
MikeS said:
I can't wait... ;-)
Click to expand...

Hooray! Today was a good day with the new tweener build. I had a sneaky suspicion that when I removed the fan on the power supply that came pre-installed in the new case I bought, that the PSU wouldn't work. Well, I was proven correct. After replacing the power supply for another known good PSU, the computer booted successfully to an error prompt asking for an OS. So as far as I can tell, I did everything else right. I have to let is sit for a while, because now of course, the wife wants me to spend even more time with her.

I'll be installing either Win 95 B/C or Win 98 as an OS over the next few days. I already have valid versions, with the associated serial numbers, so there won't be any problem with that. The only thing I'm worried about is if I have the multi card reader connected to the internal USB hub correctly. I guess I'll find out after Windows is installed.

Question: Is there a reliable source for locating drivers for some of the hardware used in this build; in particular, the multi-card reader that is part of the 3.5" floppy drive? Or is there a driver disk available that contains multiple generic drivers for various hardware?

Also, I have a copy of OSR2. I've never used it, but I hear that it is pretty stable. What are your thoughts about possibly dual booting the system with either Windows on one drive and OSR2 on the other?

Thanks stone for selling me that extended floppy cable. It came in very handy when it came time to connect the floppy drives together. A standard length cable would have fallen about 3 inches short.

I also want to thank all of you for helping me through this build. I've leaned a lot more than I had thought I would, and I have a good looking tweener because of it. Give me a couple of days and I'll have it up and running. And of course, I'll post some photos on my FB page, and on my home page at www.allthingsdos.
 
Well done so far. I'd put Windows 95 OSR2 on it. That version had support for a broader spectrum of hardware devices. Finding drivers for the components will require identification of them (Ofc...). The card reader should have some ID on it. You'll probably find the driver for it over on Driverguide.
 
My tweener has a pair of mobile hard drive racks in it so I can boot whatever OS I want on any drive I like. I just slide the drive caddy into the slot and turn the machine on. DOS 6.22, WIN 98, WIN ME, WIN XP... I have each on them on a different HD and they're all available for immediate boot. Nothing could be simpler. This is true... ‘plug'n play’ convenience. :)
 
Stone said:
My tweener has a pair of mobile hard drive racks in it so I can boot whatever OS I want on any drive I like. I just slide the drive caddy into the slot and turn the machine on. DOS 6.22, WIN 98, WIN ME, WIN XP... I have each on them on a different HD and they're all available for immediate boot. Nothing could be simpler. This is true... ‘plug'n play’ convenience. :)
Click to expand...

I got the new tweener finishes yesterday. Yeah, it took some time, but now because there were any problems with the mobo. It's just trying to do a lot of things with only one good arm from a wheelchair. The system boots up just fine, and Windows 98 SE was installed on one of the 20Gig hard drives. I have to admit, whan Jimmy sent it down to me, I was pretty nervous about assembling the system from that level. I have it currently running with a Model M keyboard from IBM along with a Microsoft Green Mouse. (Sorry, not the green eyed mouse) And so far, all of the peripherals seem to be working OK.

There was one thing I absolutely had to do, and that was change out the power supply. For some reason, the case manufacturer decided to put a fan on the top of the power supply where it interferes with mounting dual hard discs.

Not only does the system have 2 20 Gig hard discs, but dual floppy drives, one is a 3.5" 1.44 Meg and the other a 5.25" 360Kb unit. Plus there is a DVD reader/writer, USB, parallel, dual 9 pin serial, and dual game port adapters and all of them work perfectly.

Now it's time to say Thanks Jimmy, and to the rest of you who provided answeres to questions I had along the way. I have a feeling that I'll have this computer for some time.
 
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