Old P 1 BIOS recognizing HDD problems.

Danged if this ain't the most curious thing.

We've got an old P 1 that we are trying to fix up for grandkids to play games on.

We put a known good 4GB drive in it. Clean of course. The BIOS recognized the HDD & CD ROM both the first time we tried to boot up for an install. Then it said floppy disk failure 40, so we took the floppy drive out, & put my good floppy drive in it. Lo & behold, the crazy critter refuses to recognize the HDD now, no matter what we try to do, and still says floppy disk failure 40, even with my good floppy drive in it. Tried other boot floppy's. No go.

I went into the BIOS & made sure Auto detect was set & everything. Still no joy. Went back into BIOS & tried to get it to recognize it by using BIOS to do it. No go!

Set everything back to original, and still no good.

Anyone have any ideas why it is now refusing to see the HDD, when it saw it the first time we tried.

Nope, I don't know what kind of Motherboard is in it. I just know it's old.

Thanks for any help.

 

update

We finally got it to work.

It seems that for some dumb reason, it decided it didn't want to see it the way the jumpers were set when it saw it initially. Really strange!

The floppy drive that belonged in it was good. It worked too, after we finally got the BIOS to see the hard drive.

Go figure.

My Grandsons will be happy now that they have a comp to play some games on, & one that I will let them play games on.

 

Two quick comments.

First, you may have a battery that is starting to go and any time you leave this machine unplugged or turned off for an extended period, your bios settings will be lost, including hard drive geometry. Solution - replace the battery or add a supplemental (most older machines have a two pin header to accomodate this when the original battery is a soldered cannister type)

Second, although this doesn't sound applicable to your machine, a boot virus or memory resident virus can cause problems similar to what you described.

Regardless, it sounds like you have things working just fine. Good Luck.

 

Thanks for your reply Rockster2U.

The first thing we did was replace the battery before even trying to fire it up. It uses the round battery. The 3Volt CR2032.

It had been sitting around not being used for a long time, so that could have been part of the problem.

It's up, & working now, but I have something I would like to do and am not sure what to buy. Since I don't know what kind of MoBo it has, & how much, or what kind of RAM it uses, this will be difficult. There is only one RAM slot. At the right end of the RAM slot on the MoBo there are three letters. DIM. What does DIM mean, if anything?

All I can find out about the Motherboard is it was made in China, & the Date of Manufacture is likely on the: 4-2-97. BIOS number is: i43oux-2a59GF0bc-00. BIOS Version: Award Modular Bios v4.51pg. Will this help in figuring out anything?

Belarc Advisor cannot determine the make of the MoBo.

I was talking today to a guy at Staples & he said it probably used something called EGO RAM, or something like that. I can't remember the exact letters he used. I didn't know there was any kinds of RAM besides SDRAM & DDR RAM.

I am trying to get out of buying another MoBo, CPU, huge RAM, & another case. It's case is too small for a big MoBo, but if this starts getting too expensive to try to re-build, I might as well go bigger, and if I go way bigger on a MoBo & CPU, it will go in my computer & that's that. Just go get a bigger case, & put my old MoBo, & CPU in the new case, with the existing PS, CD Drive, & Floppy, & etc.

Can anyone give me an inkling of what kind of RAM this old MoBo might use, & how much I might be able to put into it's one RAM slot. I want to try to get this one going good without a lot of expense. That may not be possible though.

 

Yes it looks to be a Intel Triton VX chipset (Socket 7 based m/b) manufactered by Fic (FICA) there should be a model # somewhere on the MoBo itself. I got this info from this site Maybe this will help you out on your quest.

Now for buying memory I suggest buying from Crucial I once called them about an old pent.166 I was working on, all I knew about the Mobo was the numbers I found marked on it they (crucial) identified my MoBo and told me how much ram it would support and what type. I was then given a price quote so I ordered from them and was and still am pleased. I experimented with buying "cheap" ram and got burnt a couple of times. So I say go ahead and buy a quailty part that will last.

Hope I helped

Bubba169

 

Bubba169,

You are an Angel!

It seems to be an FIC VT501. Just barely old enough it isn't listed in their automated Support Form list anymore. However, at the bottom of the page they said if you have trouble with the form to send directly to support@fica.com, so I am going to write them an e-mail & see if they will give me any additional information concerning RAM, & a few other things. Tell them what I am trying to do & hope they take pity on me.

I sure do hope I will hear from them, although I am not going to get my hopes up. Most tech support isn't very good. Especially on old Models.

Your information led me to the probable Model number.

Thank you so much for looking all of that up. I would never have known where to even start hunting. You just don't know how much I appreciate it.

Bless your little heart.

Will report back.

 

Hey Deloris take a look at this page then scroll down about half way to where it says Motherboard Specs and click on detailed specs it will carry you to this page It looks like 128Mb of either FPM or EDO (you cannot mix these 2 types together) is your max ram & I suggest go with EDO.

Anyways this is no problem at all I'm glad I have helped. I've already been down this same road several times and just sharing what I've learned. I hope them grandkids have a ball with their own computer.

Keep us updated on the progress

Bubba169

 

bubba169,

Thank you so much.

Unfortunately I can't make much sense out of all of that. Neither could George, so I printed it all out, & he's going to take it to this guy in town that he knows that works at Radio Shack. He works on, & builds computers, so maybe he can shed some light on all of it for us. I sure hope so.

I am pretty good at understanding the software stuff, but the hardware stuff confuses the heck out of me. Especially MoBo's & RAM.

3 of the grandboys are here right now, taking turns on the 150MHz, P 1, & the Playstation, playing games. They were tickled pink about the computer.

The video card is very old, & small, & only 32MB of system RAM, but it will suffice for now for quite a few old games, until I can upgrade one or both of them.

I have saved links to all those pages you sent me to.

Again, thank you so much. You have been a tremendous help. A real jewel.

 

bubba169,

Well the guy in town explained it all. He says the maximum the board will be able to see is 64MB of RAM. Since it has only one slot, and there does not seem to be a 64MB EDO RAM chip at all. He says he's never seen an EDO RAM chip as big as 64MB. Guess I'm stuck with the 32 that's in it, OR he said I can buy a DIMM, PC 100\66, 128MB SDRAM, and it will recognize half of it, putting me up to the max of a whopping 64MB. I haven't decided what I will do about the RAM yet. Leave as is, or get a 128 SDRAM that it will only recognize half of. I will probably try the 128. If it don't see the chip at all, George still has an exta slot left in his computer that we know will take it.

Then, after that, if all goes well, I'll have to look around for a PCI video card that is bigger than the one that's in it, but not so big that it will use up too much of the RAM it does have. That could be a problem to find. I wish it would use an AGP one, because I have a leftover 8MB AGP video card from installing a 64MB AGP in mine.

We had the old case, MoBo, Power Supply, Monitor, & CPU, plus 2 extra keyboards, & 2 extra ball Mouse's. We re-worked an old CD ROM, & Floppy drive we'd taken out of these others, & got them to working again. George donated his extra 4GB slave drive. So far, all I've bought for it is a set of speakers for $15.00.

I had figured on having to spend about $100.00 to do this, but that's a whole lot cheaper than a new computer, or even a new MoBo, CPU, case, & RAM. It's just supposed to be a pacifier anyway, and I can't afford an expensive one.

Will let you know how things turn out, and thanks again so much.

 

As I understand the Mobo specs I sent you, you have 2-72 pin SIMM slots(1 bank) and 1-168 pin DIMM slot (also 1 bank). Now for the Dimm slot I had an old PC that I played with and it wouldn't recogonize no more than 32Mb (this is the 168 pin Dimm slot I'm referring to). the same Mobo had 4-72 pin Simm slots on it and they would reach 128Mb (4-32Mb SIMMs) total ram but 72 pin Simms must be installed in pairs so you will have to buy 2-32Mb 72 pin SIMMs to get a total of 64Mb you probably have 2-16Mb 72 pin SIMMs installed now (just assuming). Having to buy 2 chips would cost around $80.00 (US $) so it's a little cost prohibitive on that old of a PC unless you find some on E-Bay or at a used parts shopand take the risk of it working.

I'll also assume (based on some of your other posts) that your running Win98SE on this box. I've run Win98SE on a pent166 nonMMX, 3 gig HD, 1Mb video card & experimented with the ram. Win98SE will run on 16Mb of ram (not recommended at all), 32Mb it did fair but would lock up while checking E-Mail unless I stopped everything except systray & explorer (via Ctrl-Alt-Del keystroke), then 40Mb of ram (2 16Mb & 2 4Mb Simms) E-Mail problem was corrected but still had a little lag to it, then went to 64Mb and the PC "Woke Up" it worked good, then tried 128Mb of ram and I couldn't tell alot of difference in the performance of the PC (at least not enough to justify the cost of the extra ram) later I upgraded the CPU.

My advice is to "tweak" the OS and run only what is needed. As for a different Video card it may help but you'll still be limited by the slow CPU so as I said earlier just tweak it and make it a dedicated game box and it should suffice for a while.

Now if you want to a faster CPU then here's an option I actually have this same part in the old pent 166 I refered to earlier (upgraded the CPU after experimenting with the ram). Anyways have fun with the Grandkids and the old PC maybe it will do the required task for now.

Bubba169

 

Thanks for the aditional information.

Earlier this evening we sat down & studied all that stuff I printed out & realized that not everything the guy said was correct, or maybe I misunderstood the translation when I posted back.

No, I'm running 98FE on the old box. I have both FE, & SE. I figured FE would do better on the old one. I did a custom install on the OS & trimmed down the OS installation to a bare minimum. I'm not running anything that isn't necessary in msconfig either. msconfig is very trim. No unnecessary software. No modem. No printer. No unnecessary hardware at all.

It seems to be doing OK as it is. Of course none of the games I've put on it are very demanding, & all of them are Stand Alone games so far. None that install to the OS. I have a couple of other games that do install that don't require a lot of resources according to the specs, but haven't installed them yet.

Four days a week, three of my grandson's get off the bus here, and spend 2 or 3 hours here until their Dad comes to get them for awhile, then he brings them back about 8pm & their Mom picks them up at 9pm or so. This summer, they will probably be here all day, & part of the evenings, 5 days a week. That's why I needed this old PC up & running.

They're happy with it now! I think it's Grandma that isn't. However, I don't plan on spending very much. If it becomes necessary to spend very much, I will just leave it as it is. At least it will occupy them part of the time.

 

I stand corrected, FE should do what is needed just fine.

If the Grandkids are happy with it then leave it like it is as you can tell you can spend alot of money on an old PC (sometimes come out cheaper just to build a new one) for example it would take $80.00 for 64Mb of ram then another $80.00 for an AMD K6-2@400Mhz CPU upgrade, now you have $160.00 in an old PC and are still limited by the older buses and speeds of the Mobo. The only reason I went so far with my pent.166 was that I bought it for less then $15.00 ( it was at an aution and they were selling Computers in Lots of 3, 4, & a few old 386's were in lots of 5).

Just for kicks look here for a comparision price and get an idea what that old P1 is worth.

Glad to be of some help

Bubba169

 

bubba169,

Since the types of RAM it uses are hard to find, and I'd have to drive to darn far to get them too, and as you said trying to upgrade other parts would turn out to be more than I want to spend, I had decided earlier today to just let it stay as it is, because it seems to be working just fine.

I would have done a little upgrading if it hadn't been for so many roadblocks, but those stopped me.

Man that page really makes me glad I didn't do anything besides buy a set of speakers. They can be used on any PC.

Thanks again for all your help & web sites, & everything. You helped me more than you know.

 

Delores - Bubba has given you great guidance and advice. And, I'd be real careful about using your local guy for anything - he is dangerous. EDO must be installed in pairs and as to buying a stick of PC100 that will only be read as half, he's half right as it only pertains to certain module sizes with backwards compatability - same true for PC133. Follow Bubba's advice and go to www.crucial.com and get either 2 64mb 72 pin EDO simms chips or one 128mb dimm chip - they will both be PC66. (single in-line memory module vs dual in-line memory module) Also, in the future, buy your 2032 batteries at the drug store - they charge about half of what Radio Shack does and you won't be exposed to the kind of bad advice that will lead you to trouble.

 

I learned the hard way so I try to help others from making the mistakes I made in the past. Sometimes just for kicks I'll act like I don't even know how to turn on a computer just to see what the salesperson will say this usally makes my decision on buying from them or not.

Another option is to build a lowend PC and reuse your existing floppy, CD-Rom, HardDrive, Monitor, speakers just buy a new Mobo with Intergrated sound, video, networking, a CPU (a 1Ghz Duron or so), a 128 Mb DIMM Pc 133 ram, a new cheap tower case with a power supply (the old pent 1's used AT style & the newer ones are ATX style). I use pricewatch for my online part searches whenever I need something.

Also you can buy a PC without the OS installed Here's an example.

You probably are thinking "He's throwing all kinds of links at me" but I want you to be aware of all the options available to you. After all if you replace the old Pent 1 box you colud always install Linux on it and learn a different OS

Good luck
bubba169

 

Guys,

I have listened, & learned, and am more than willing to take the advice.

So far, all seems to be going well with the old critter. I think I will let sleeping dogs stay asleep for awhile.

If I do anything more, it won't be to throw away money on it.

I will probably try to coerce my husband into building another better computer for me eventually. He can put one together just fine. Lord knows he's took plenty of parts out of his, & replaced them. LOL It's just a matter of getting the right compatible stuff.

I've learned a few more things during this. The BBS is a great place to learn too.

I sure do appreciate all the advice, help & concern.

 

Glad to be of some help

till next time

Bubba169