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| Author |
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| 25 new of 205 responses total. |
keesan
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response 100 of 205:
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Apr 29 14:30 UTC 2002 |
Luckily we had an obsolete virus for which code was already written by 1996.
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mdw
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response 101 of 205:
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Apr 30 21:50 UTC 2002 |
I'm assuming Sindi wants a cost-effective solution for obselete
hardware. Anything that costs more than the value of the hardware would
not make sense. Unfortunately, "free" virus software probably won't
suffice for the long-term either; sooner or later Sindi is bound to run
into some virus newer than 1996, and it may actually be important to
have last week's (or maybe even next week's) version.
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keesan
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response 102 of 205:
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May 1 02:28 UTC 2002 |
I also have a recent (week old) version of F-Prot for DOS, free for
noncommercial use. There is a link to download the latest viruses for it.
I presume there are also other free virus softwares. Is Dr. Solomon free?
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keesan
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response 103 of 205:
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May 1 14:31 UTC 2002 |
We have one ATT motherboard that boots but will not recognize either of two
hard drives, and one that recognizes only c:. We moved the CMOS from the
first to the second and the problem followed, so it is the CMOS which went
bad, not the onboard controller. FLASH BIOS 1994.
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keesan
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response 104 of 205:
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May 6 19:07 UTC 2002 |
We have a second ATT which will recognize only one hard drive. Perhaps they
sold Borders these single-HD models cheap (along with the video also being
bad) for some specific use. The ATT will not recognize Conner hard drives
as master, only as slave, says Jim, and he got it to recognize the slave on
the computer which recognizes only one HD, somehow, so we could transfer
Netscape for Win95 from our 60M HD that we transferred it to for safekeeping.
Poor choice of hard drives for this purpose, I guess. We were going to put
it on our friend's new Pentium by sticking the 60M drive in his ATT (which
he is still using as apparently his neighbor never got the Pentium working
which his son gave him in December). Then do a file transfer.
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tpryan
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response 105 of 205:
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May 7 01:48 UTC 2002 |
I discovered I still have 3 more ATTs in the basement this past
weekend. Do you want them?
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keesan
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response 106 of 205:
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May 7 15:40 UTC 2002 |
Not quite yet - we still have about 10 of them too.
We transferred the 10M Netscape 4.08 for WIn95 exe file to a spare 60M Conner
hard drive so we could put it on our newest Pentium, then realized we cannot
add a second drive (easily, anyway) because the first has four partitions,
so we put the drive into an ATT that recognizes only one HD. The Conner was
set up as Slave and no permutation of jumper settings would make it into
Single. Jim somehow managed to use a Caviar as the Master and then got the
ATT to recognize the Slave (second drive) - he says it seems to depend on the
combination of hard drives. So we loaded Netscape then he spent the rest of
the day getting our 33K modem to work (was set to Com3 instead of Com2 and
of course there are no instructions for the jumper settings).
I downloaded Realaudio 7 and was forced to 'register' it so I gave them y
email address nobody@nowhere.com and told them not to send any free offers
of valuable merchandise there.
Found two lists of classical webcast stations more up to date than
Realaudio's. A few still broadcast in Realaudio 3, many in G2, none in 7,
and half or more in 8 (it says I need to download a 'plugin' which does not
exist). Some require Windows Media Player. MS says you need Internet
Explorer to download the update (not Netscape?) and then it crashed. Does
MS boobytrap its own sites to crash Netscape?
I got a list of 21 classical stations that broadcast at 16-24K with Realaudio
3 or G2 (nobody uses 4 or 5 either), including Croatian, Czech, Bulgarian,
Russian (a collection, not live, with French Gorn), Swiss French, Montreal
French, French French (Notre Dame), Swiss Italian, Estonian, and a bunch of
interesting college stations from Eugene OR etc. The bigger ones mostly
broadcast with R8 or too fast. Hungary and Ireland were always busy.
Tim, Jim asks if the three ATTs have onboard video.
Where does one acquire Windows Media Player (is it included in Win95, or
downloaded - we have nothing to update) and is there a version that does sound
without moving pictures? I decided to skip websites requiring it. Realaudio
can also handle streaming MP3, and my 33K modem can receive stations at 96K
but there are a lot of gaps. 32K is not so good either. 16 and 20 are fine.
Jim wants to run the phone lines a block away between houses so I can get
phone calls, too.
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gull
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response 107 of 205:
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May 7 15:44 UTC 2002 |
I'm pretty sure the four primary partition limit is per drive, not per
computer.
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tpryan
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response 108 of 205:
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May 7 17:41 UTC 2002 |
I'm sure I was able to test them all with a floppy and a monitor.
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drew
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response 109 of 205:
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May 7 18:25 UTC 2002 |
Re #107:
I'm certain of that. I have four primaries on the main (20GB) drive, plus
another two on a second drive.
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keesan
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response 110 of 205:
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May 8 16:09 UTC 2002 |
Detroit Radio (former WQRS) is still alive as a webcasting station but I could
never get through, they are so popular (or have so little bandwidth). I am
surprised the WUOM is not into webcasting, when Lansing and Kalamazoo are.
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i
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response 111 of 205:
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May 11 12:50 UTC 2002 |
WEMU (Ypsilanti) should still be webcasting.
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keesan
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response 112 of 205:
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May 11 12:57 UTC 2002 |
Yes, I think they were on the list. Toledo was not.
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keesan
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response 113 of 205:
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May 31 23:28 UTC 2002 |
We have a pentium that no longer puts anything on the monitor, after first
refusing to recognize a hard drive and before that Win95 would not work
properly. It has been suggested that, since all components seem okay,
vacuuming it may have put some static electricity into the CMOS and we should
unplug the battery overnight to see if that fixes it and then give up.
Jep has kindly offered us a different partly-working pentium board which Jim
thinks might need the chips resocketed. The hard drive that it refused to
recognize turned out to have the file structure scrambled - but we put it into
a computer that did not have a hard drive, after doing a format on it, so
probably not a virus (but we should check anyway).
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keesan
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response 114 of 205:
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Jun 1 20:56 UTC 2002 |
Today we checked the hard drive that was in there before and the file
structure was completely scrambled (did not find any files or the d:
partition). Scandisk. No virus (F-Prot). This hard drive was not in the
computer after it got cleaned, implying that the cleaning did not do the
damage. Jim removed the battery (to get rid of CMOS configuration) and also
the CMOS, then reinstalled both. We put in an AMD PR133 (had to run it at
100MHz, won't boot at 133MHz) and it works. First we removed all the RAM and
put in a different SIMM so either there was one bad SIMM (one was loose) or
reseating the CMOS or erasing the configuration cured the problem. This also
explains why we could not get the new printer to work with this computer.
The lesson is not to give up on a motherboard until you reseat the CMOS
(remove and replace) and before that try different RAM, video, HD.
In the meantime Jep gave us a PR166 (133MHz clock speed) Pentium board with
an intermittent boot problem - or the problem may have been elsewhere in his
computer, we will find out soon.
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keesan
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response 115 of 205:
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Jun 2 12:04 UTC 2002 |
The PR133 works but we don't know how to set the jumpers - do we set it as
2 x 66 MHz? I can be set to 1.5 x 83 MHz, which gives a much faster diagnostic
rating (797 instead of 637). Our ATT when set to 2x66 gives a rating of 736.
When set to 1.5 x 83 it also says it is running at 185. 166 is 2x83. 1.5
x 83 is not 133 but 125 - so why does it run faster at 125 than at 2x33 = 66?
He can set it to 66, 75, or 83, multiplied by 1.5 or 2.0. Jep says it came
without an instruction book, used, a few years ago.
We had another ATT (486) which did not display anything on the monitor. Known
good RAM, video card and power supply (though strangely quiet). Jim pried
up the CMOS in case it was a problem of corrosion on the contacts, then put
it back in - no improvement. He removed the CMOS and put it into another
known good board and it all worked. He put back the CMOS into the original
board and now it worked. So corrosion was not the problem, it was again a
scrambled configuration, same as the Pentium. This may explain why reseating
chips often helps, but in the case of the CMOS you have to actually take it
out and put it back (or pull the battery overnight, which is slower).
Jim says the multipliers for the PR166 are 1.5 2.0 2.5 and 3.0, and the base
clock speeds are 50 55 60 66 75 83. In theory you can do 3 x 83 = 250 MHz
(a 266 MHz cpu). What speeds do cpus come in?
The main question is why 2x83 diagnoses not as 125 but as 185, and will this
hurt the cpu (marked 133MHz P166) to run it at this speed?
Jep was having intermittent boot and lockup problems with this board. Jim
cleaned off some dense dust around the chips, which might have been affecting
electrical charges in humid weather. Dust was on the pins of the ROM BIOS
and some of the cache chips. Many problems in electronic equipment are due
to corrosion and dirt and can be fixed by cleaning and/or by removing and
replacing things that are plugged together. You had to look closely to see
the dust between the pins. The board itself was not dirty, just near the
pins.
There is also a setting for PCI clock which Jim has not changed - it is set
at cpu/2, but can be changed to fixed 33MHz.
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keesan
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response 116 of 205:
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Jun 2 12:10 UTC 2002 |
The CPU is marked IBM but Syschk diagnoses it as a 'CyrixInstead' running at
2X clock speed = 133, throughput 637 (not related to memory size or speed,
this just measures the cpu speed). A 6x86 - what does this mean? We have
a 5x86 AMD cpu in a 486-type board running about teh same speed as a DX4 486.
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keesan
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response 117 of 205:
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Jun 2 12:26 UTC 2002 |
Jim is dyslexic, so he repeated his experiment. 1.5x83 = no video.
1.5x66 = no video. 2x83 = 185 with the same thruput speed, so he probably
set the switch wrong. Why does 1.5 not work? And how fast can we safely
set this 133MHz PR166. 185 clock speed seems to work, but will it damage the
cpu?
2.5 x 66 = 133MHz, same thruput as 2x66MHz. Perhaps this cpu is not
responding to the 1.5 or 2.5 settings - 1.5 does nothing, and 2.5 does 2.
Jim wonders if he is reading the switches backwards or upside down.
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keesan
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response 118 of 205:
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Jun 2 12:42 UTC 2002 |
3x66 - no video. 3x50 = 166 clock mode 3x. ??? He checked and 55 is a
different setting. So 2x83 = 166 measures as 185, and 3x50=150 measures as
166. Screwy cpu!
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keesan
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response 119 of 205:
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Jun 2 13:15 UTC 2002 |
You cannot run this cpu at 1.5 x clock speed. When run at 2.5x it gives the
same results as 2.0x.
clock setting xmultiplier=theor. speed actual speed PR mode
50 x 2 = 100 100 120
50 x 3 = 150 166 200
55 x 2 = 110 120 133
55 x 3 = 166 185 200
60 x 2 = 120 120 150
60 x 3 = 180 won't run 180
66 x 2 = 133 133 166
66 x 3 = 200 won't boot
75 x 2 = 150 150 200
83 x 2 = 166 185 200
So theoretical 150 runs 166 and 166 runs 185 and 110 runs 120
but the others are running at expected speeds despite a high
PR mode rating. What is PR? It looks like if we can dig up
a Cyrix 166 MHz cpu it might run at 185 MHz, but we are going
to have to run our PR166 at 133 MHz or is it safe to overclock it at 166MHz
clock setting and have it run at measured speed of 185 MHz? It
works at this speed but might it be damaged by doing so? It will not run at
faster speeds at all (at 180 it would boot but then not run programs, and at
200 it would not boot).
Why is 133MHz giving a lower Syschk thruput rating on this computer than on
our ATT with an Intel 133MHz cpu? A difference in the motherboard, cache?
The ATT at 133MHz rates 736, while this computer at 133 MHz rates 637 thruput,
and even at 150 (3x50) MHz it rates only 719 or 715.
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keesan
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response 120 of 205:
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Jun 2 16:19 UTC 2002 |
Jim's ATT Pentium (from Tim Ryan) is having problems again. It had a Com2
conflict until he removed the modem (set to Com2) AND changed from Com2
disabled to Auto (after the modem was out) and he has to hit F1 every time
to Continue. But eventually we did manage to use to to compare the speeds and
behavior of three cpus with that of the board from jep.
Our cpus: AMD K5 (5K86) 100 MHz PR133
CyrixInstead 133MHz PR166
GenuineIntel 100MHz P100
We discovered first, that the Cyrix chip will not work at all in the ATT.
Second, the Cyrix chip in Jep's board will run at 50x2 but will not run at
66x1.5 (or anything else x 1.5). Third the Cyrix chip when set to 2.5 x clock
speed runs at 2x clock speed and the AMD when set to 2x clock speed runs at
1.5x clock speed (50x2=75). So we tested the AMD set to 66x.15 and the Cyrix
set to 50x2 and the Intel at both settings.
100MHz
AMD Cyrix Intel
ATT
66x1.5 455 -- 512
50x2.0 342 (75 MHx) -- 496
Jep 66x1.5 481 -- 546
50x2.0 362 (75 MHz) 480 543
The Intel will run at 100 MHz either 66x1.5 or 50x2.0,but at 66x1.5, in
addition to a slightly higher thruput (.7%) it boots noticeably faster.
Conclusions: Jep's motherboard is faster by about 7% than the older ATT
(which cannot be set to run faster than 133MHz, Jep's can go to 200MHz).
But the cpu which came with it is slower (at least at 100MHz setting) than
the Intel which did not come with either computer. We also had the ATT
running with an Intel 133MHz at 736 thruput, and Jep's board with the Cyrix
set to 133MHz has thruput 637. So a 133MHz Intel is maybe 15% faster than
a 133MHz Cyrix, and a 100MHz Intel is about 15% faster than either the AMD
K5 or the Cyrix PR166 set to 100MHz. At least if you believe Syschk.
They are supposed to be better (faster) than the Intel of the same speed at
certain tasks - how would we test that?
We will leave the Cyrix chip in the board it came with, and try to revive the
ATT and if it is not revivable, move the Intel cpu to the Cyrix board. Unless
someone thinks it is safe to overclock the Cyrix chip to 2x83 = 166MHz. We
cannot overclock the Intel 100 MHz cpu, we tried.
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jep
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response 121 of 205:
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Jun 2 16:49 UTC 2002 |
You've gotten more use and pleasure out of that motherboard than I ever
would have. I'm glad.
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keesan
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response 122 of 205:
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Jun 2 20:41 UTC 2002 |
Yes, computers are fun to diagnose and switch parts in, even if you don't
really need them to be working. Today we are also doing laptops - Jim is
attempting to run wires from the internal connector for the (dead)
rechargeable 4.8V battery to the outside (snipped a hole in the case) so he
can hook up a non-dead 6V battery from a toy Jeep, and then maybe lug the
whole thing (large XT with 2 floppy drives, a Toshiba 1100, and the battery)
along with the Epson PhotoPC on a bike trip to take pictures that we can
download as we go because the camera holds only 16 photos. Not that we are
likely to take more than 16 photos in one day. A challenge. We were supposed
to be working on the bikes.
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keesan
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response 123 of 205:
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Jun 2 20:50 UTC 2002 |
I forgot I was supposed to ask if it is a sign of a bad onboard controller
(rather than a bad CMOS) if the computer with Win95 will not print to a known
good printer for which we just installed the correct Win95 drivers (HP) and
also it has a Com2 problem - parallel and serial port controllers going bad?
I don't know of any way to disable the onboard port controllers so as to use
a card. I doubt that Jim's ATT pentium has much life left in it but he will
try using it anyway with Modem in Com1 and hitting F1 every time to Continue
as it will not keep going otherwise past the memory test. Broken computers
are so much more fun.
Today we went through our keyboard collection and dumped the ones wiht
bad keys or odd configurations or that did not have a good feel or sound -
anyone need a keyboard? We have a few XT-AT switchables (one had the XT
configuration except with F1-F12 at the top) and four Gateways that have F
keys left side AND top and can be programmed, and a bunch with F keys at the
left but not the top,which I prefer as I can find the F keys without taking
my hands off the letter keys, and some with big ends and some with small ends.
Jim took apart five of the lightweight ones and they operate off a system with
a transparent plastic sheet with printed circuit or something similar, and
a flat rubber sheet with a bump under each key. He also tried to change the
cord on an IBM and discovered a different system in which there is a little
spring under each key and they fly all over the place when you take it apart.
So we recycled that one. The older keyboards had lots of metal in them but
the newer ones only have a bit of copper in the cord. Their advantage is that
it hurts less when they fall off the shelf onto your head. There are some
newer IBM keyboards that are shorter (no duplicate set of arrow keys). Some
are quite, some quite noisy. Most have an L'shaped Enter key but some have
a small one so we scrapped those. The Tandy had an odd setup - recycle.
Yesterday I learned how to fix a keyboard with stuck keys. You take a kitchen
knife that has been used too many times as a prybar and has a square end, pry
off each key, blow out all the dust bunnies and then pull out any pumpkin seed
shells or staples, and put it back. Do the bottom row of letters as that is
the dustiest (dust obeys the law of gravity), then the middle one. Skip
the F keys and the larger keys (held on by some metal clip) as they are never
a problem. Once in a while a bad Control key is something internal so unless
the board has two Control (mine do not) trash it and bring the cords to
Friedman's as copper. Twenty pounds of recyclables gets you enough money to
buy a couple of treats from the Indian food store nearby.
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jep
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response 124 of 205:
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Jun 3 00:09 UTC 2002 |
re #123: The CMOS for most motherboards should have a disable switch
for the serial ports, but I imagine you've already checked for that.
There may be a row of 8 DIP switches or jumpers which would be for
that. If you're lucky there'd be some kind of explanation on the
motherboard itself.
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