System boot up problem...

[MusicallyInspired]

I don't know if any of you can help me or not, but I'm having a little trouble with an old motherboard I found and have been fiddling with. But first a little background: At first I thought it was my old 486 motherboard I had forgotten about long ago. It has 4 ISA slots (white) and 4 PCI slots (white) and 6 slots (3 banks) for EDO-sized RAM. The CPU doesn't have a fan on it but instead simply a heatsink. It has no onboard sound, video, or HDD/FDD controllers or serial/parrallel ports. I've hooked it all up with some Cirrus Logic PCI video card and one of the many controller ISA cards I have lying around. I've only been able to get it to actually start up (that is, have something come on the screen so I can get to the BIOS settings, I don't have any HDDs or FDDs hooked up to it yet) at random. I can turn it on but nothing will show on the screen. I've tried taking RAM out, putting more in, plugging controllers cards in, taking them out, keeping a controller card in but unplugging an HD and it seems when I make these changes it'll randomly shoot on the screen and I can get to the CMOS. But then if I turn it off again and back on I lose it and it's just a blank screen (I should mention that I get no PC Speaker beeps, but I do hear HD whirrings and workings, if its plugged in).

Is there something wrong with the motherboard? Is maybe my power supply not completely compatible with the motherboard? I've tried it so far in two cases and this is the only one its even came on for so far. Any help would be fine. If you need more information I'll try to provide it. Thanks.

EDIT: Oh yes, and one of the times when I got it to boot up (partly) it said "Pentium-100MHz" next to the memory test.

[Cloudschatze]

Remove the video card, and try booting. If you get a beep at this point, it is likely the culprit.

Case-in-point, my 486 system will not boot with a TSENG-based PCI card, although it works fine with a Matrox Millenium.

I still haven't sent that card you requested, but will have it shipped off tomorrow for sure.

[MusicallyInspired]

Hmm, I'll try that.

I still haven't sent that card you requested, but will have it shipped off tomorrow for sure.

No problem! I can wait .

[MusicallyInspired]

Well, I've used a different video card and everything works fine. During this time I've removed the 486 dx2/66 motherboard from its case and replaced it with this Pentium 100Mhz motherboard, which I assume has got to be somewhere around the same place as a 486.

I have a new problem. The video card I'm using is a Cirrus Logic 5434 PCI card. I found drivers that work fine for Win 3.1, but I can't seem to get anything to work properly under DOS. I'm always having errors. I've found some "DOS drivers" but none seem to help anything. I'm also attempting to use UNIVBE which detects it and claims that everything is setup for maximum capability, but when I try to run an SVGA it won't run. I had a similar problem with the older 486 I was using with a VLB card but when I found drivers for it everything worked fine! Now, it seems, it doesn't work at all.

One of the drivers I downloaded simply named 5434PCI.EXE when I tried to run it would give a bunch of error messages and then put a load of garbage on the screen forever with the PC Speaker screaming away and I had to reset the computer. Now it simply says: Memory allocation error, Cannot load COMMAND system halted

It's really driving me nuts as I seem to have a slightly faster than DX2/66 computer and it works wonderfully, but the only problem is I can't get SVGA games working! And I know the card is capable of it. Maybe it's just no DOS compatible and only Win95+?

[Dustin]

I've gone through much of the same thing you are doing Brandon. I've tried to use Windows 3.1/3.11, and have never had gratifying results. I ended up chasing down all these different drivers, and solving one problem only to be confronted with another one. With Windows 95, everything just works as it should with no errors. You might consider it, as Windows 3.1 is very fussy as to what hardware/software you use. With Windows 95, there are no such issues.


Just a little food for thought.


Another thing you might try is to just run nothing but pure DOS, and forget windows entirely.

[MusicallyInspired]

No I actually have perfect Win 3.1 drivers, I just don't have any pure DOS drivers. I'm not trying to run DOS games through Win 3.1, just in pure DOS. I don't really want to switch to Win 95 as I want to keep it a pure DOS system untainted by Windows' evil OS . I'll probably have to switch back to the DX2/66, which is no problem. Everything ran smooth enough .

[Dustin]

No I actually have perfect Win 3.1 drivers, I just don't have any pure DOS drivers. I'm not trying to run DOS games through Win 3.1, just in pure DOS. I don't really want to switch to Win 95 as I want to keep it a pure DOS system untainted by Windows' evil OS . I'll probably have to switch back to the DX2/66, which is no problem. Everything ran smooth enough .

You should switch back to the DX2/66 as that is the "sweet spot" as far as playing the games smoothly goes. Every game I try on my DX2/66 runs at it's intended speed. I put 32MB of RAM in my 486, which helps alot, no memory issues with that much of it :wink:


Curious, old RAM seems to be more expensive then the newer stuff. I've got this great computer shop near me where the employees have a great appreciation for all old computers, and they said that older RAM is of slightly greater value then newer RAM in some instances.


A memory upgrade might be feasible for you Brandon.


In any case, switch back to the old DX2, and you should be home free.

[MusicallyInspired]

My 486 was running with 12M of RAM. This new one I was using havd 40 (it should have gone up to 64 but it didn't..strange).

I guess I'll have to go back to the DX2/66 then. I don't really have a problem with it, it's just that if I had a game that worked in DOS that was slightly newer and would work smoother on a slightly faster computer, I wouldn't have a problem. But there's always DOSBox, too .