nghiem@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Alex Nghiem) (07/23/89)
Received: by vondrake.cc.utexas.edu (5.61/1.34) id AA04479; Sat, 22 Jul 89 23:35:15 -0500 Date: Sat, 22 Jul 89 23:35:15 -0500 From: nghiem (Alex Nghiem) Message-Id: <8907230435.AA04479@vondrake.cc.utexas.edu> To: axaris@cs.Buffalo.EDU Subject: Re: 80386 80286 XT components: preliminary summary of responses Cc: nghiem Status: R [inquiry for clarification of responses] The WD controller is the WD1006VMM2--Two floppys (all form factors) and two hd's with cache. This controller is designed for fast 286/386 machines. I had no responses regarding Microscience. I do know that the MTBF performance of Seagats drives in now advertised to be 100,000 hours. I had no comments regarding Intel manufactured mother boards. They do make an Inboard 386 and an Inboard/PC 386. I have no use for the Inboard 386, although many people are happy with them, and the Inboard/PC 386 will not do for my application because of the non-standard eight bit data path (bottleneck). The standard 386 Motherboard seems to be the Micronics 386. They have several models. They are rather pricy--from 1995 to 2095 depending on the vendor. There are several vendors in Computer Shopper who sell Micronics. As for the other manufacturers, Mylex have nice features, but do not run Xenix. There are tons of other manufacturers of other boards. Generally, the ones that sell ultra cheap have some kind of problems. I have since found that many boards with AMI bios and shadow bios do not work properly with many 16 bit video and hard disk controller cards with the shadow enabled. If you disable the shadow feature, the 384k taken up by the shadow feature is not free to be used for VDISK.SYS--you simply lose access to it. Obviously, these boards do not fit the Lotus/Intel/Microsoft standard for extended memory. So far, I have not found a cheap board that implements the disabled shadow feature properly. Right now I am trying to verify from the manufacturer of a particular board whether or not the shadow works correctly with the 16 bit bus hardware I use in the first place. That way, I won't have to worry about whether or not I will lose 384K. Problems with BIOS: I have received comments that the Phoenix 386 bios version 1.10 seems to work properly for most people with almost all software. However, there are known networking and bios shadowing problems with the Phoenix Bios that have been resolved with replacement with an Award BIOS. Award BIOS version R2 does not run Windows/386. Apparently Award R3 runs Windows nicely. Award and Quadtel bios (derived from the Award) seems to run nicely with netware. However, the Compuadd machine with the Award bios had mediocre test results. Hauppage Computer Works, on the other hand, uses the Award BIOS and are considered expensive, but very reliable. Most of the 386's reviewed by PC Magazine and given Editor's Choice had the AMI bios. PC Magazine just gave Editor's Choice to an Everex 386SX machine whose bios is derived from the AMI bios. Micronics uses the AMI bios. It seems to me that for a 386 machine, the AMI is the way to go. The problem of determining which low-cost board will work properly still remains. When looking for the board, it appears the Chips and Technology NEAT (New Extended AT) chip set is the standard. If the board uses propriety discrete logic, be wary of incompatibilites. I have not determined if the problem of losing 384k when the shadow ram is disabled is a function of the chip set or not. If it proves to be a result of the chip set, then the bug will be "standard" on lot's of clones. Regarding the Seagate SCSI drives and controllers: There were some manufacturing problems with some Seagate SCSI HD40's used by Apple, but I think they were resolved. Apple had a huge headache with the Quantum SCSI HD40's though. Any problem with Seagates are small in comparison. Many people like the ST01/ST02 controller. They are cheap and fast. There were some problems mentioned with slow transfer rates with the Seagate controllers, but I believe that they were resolved with the combination of a BIOS upgrade and documentation on how to set jumpers on the controller card for an AT (XT is the default). But, it has been reported that if the HD fails or is not recognized for any reason, the computer will not boot from a floppy--it will hang until some one corrects the hard disk problem or removes the hard disk controller card. I decided not to go with SCSI because of the lack of diagnostic software for SCSI drives on the PC--most everything currently written is for MFM ST-506 formats. I think the same deficiency holds true for EDSI and RLL formats. Of course, this lack of diagnostic software probably will change in the future. Thanks for the feedback. I really appreciate it. Send more! nghiem@walt.cc.utexas.edu !cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!walt!nghiem
slin@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Steven Philip Lin) (07/25/89)
In article <15617@ut-emx.UUCP> nghiem@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Alex Nghiem) writes: >. . . . >Micronics uses the AMI bios. . . . Micronics does not and has never used the AMI bios. Micronics sells sells Award version C3.04 and Pheonix Bios Plus 1.10 Revision 10 for their boards. Hope this clarification helps.
William.Cummins@bigtime.fidonet.org (William Cummins) (07/25/89)
the AMI designed mother boards with a 64k chache are great and the
20mhz runs as fast as most that are sold to the genral public ie. not
the boards like compaqu everex ect. uses I'm a dealer for the sunlogic
boards useing the AMI design thay are a 8 layer mb and can hold up to
16 mb the only problem with them is no support for any math co-
processers but the 20mhz 387 my selling price on the boards is alot
less than the asking price for the other boards you have looked at if
your interested call me at Gene-O- Tech at (503)753-9544 william
cummins
--
William Cummins
Domain: William.Cummins@bigtime.fidonet.org
UUCP: ...!{tektronix, hplabs!hp-pcd}!orstcs!bigtime!William.Cummins
via Big Time Television (bigtime.fidonet.org, 1:152/201)jimb@athertn.Atherton.COM (Jim Burke) (07/26/89)
In article <15771@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> slin@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Steven Philip Lin) writes: >Micronics does not and has never used the AMI bios. Micronics sells >sells Award version C3.04 and Pheonix Bios Plus 1.10 Revision 10 for their >boards. Hope this clarification helps. For that matter, does any major brand name board maker use the AMI bios? I don't think you will find it an any major brand name clones that I know of, at least not Compaq or Everex. Who uses AMI besides the inexpensive import clone builders? -- Jim Burke (408) 734-9822 (temp) | I'll stop posting when they pry my jimb@Atherton.COM | cold, dead fingers from the smoking {decwrl,sun,hpda,pyramid}!athertn!jimb | keyboard.
nghiem@walt.cc.utexas.edu (Alex Nghiem) (07/26/89)
In article <7449@athertn.Atherton.COM> you write: 1>In article <15771@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> slin@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Steven Philip Lin) writes: 1> 1>>Micronics does not and has never used the AMI bios. Micronics sells 1>>sells Award version C3.04 and Pheonix Bios Plus 1.10 Revision 10 for their 1>>boards. Hope this clarification helps. 1> 1>For that matter, does any major brand name board maker use the AMI bios? 1>I don't think you will find it an any major brand name clones that I 1>know of, at least not Compaq or Everex. Who uses AMI besides the ^^^^^^^^ 1>inexpensive import clone builders? In the August 1989 issue of PC Magazine, there is a review of 80386SX machines. The only 80386SX in this review to get Editor's Choice was the Everex. The features tabulation states that the Everex BIOS is derived from the AMI BIOS. Technically, it is not an AMI BIOS as the BIOS in the Dell systems is not the same as the generic Phoenix 386 BIOS 1.10 due to propriety extensions or revisions. All of the Everex 80386 machines tested in the May 30, 1989 issue of PC Magazine had the AMI BIOS. (See p. 269) It was posted that the Phoenix BIOS had ROM Shadow problems: however, apparently this problem does not exist with the Dell systems. On a Dell system, it was posted that if the ROM Shadow is disabled, the 384k is accessable by VDISK. Dell also uses the Chips and Technologies chip set. Any problems other boards have with the loss of 384K to VDISK when the shadow is disabled may be due to the board itself and not the chip set. For those who reported that the Phoenix 386 BIOS had netware problems: The current version is advertised to be NOVELL and NETWARE compatible by Wholesale Direct. See p. 421, August '89 Computer Shopper. It should be noted that the goal of PC Magazine Editor's Choice and the Computer Shopper's Best Buy Awards is to report the best values for your money. Since AMI BIOS systems are generally cheaper that their Award or Phoenix counterparts, it should not be surprising that if the machine does what it is supposed to do it will end up with an Editor's Choice or Best Buy Award. In the PC Magazine May 30, 1989 Review of 80386 machines, the only three systems that got Editors Choice that did not have an AMI bios were Dell(customized Phoenix), Tandy(customized Phoenix), and IBM (IBM BIOS, of course!) See the features tabulation on p.272. No Editor's choice machine had the Award BIOS. nghiem@walt.cc.utexas.edu !cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!walt!nghiem
chan@chansw.UUCP (Jerry H. Chan) (07/27/89)
In article <7449@athertn.Atherton.COM>, jimb@athertn.Atherton.COM (Jim Burke) writes: > In article <15771@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> slin@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Steven Philip Lin) writes: > > >Micronics does not and has never used the AMI bios. Micronics sells > >sells Award version C3.04 and Pheonix Bios Plus 1.10 Revision 10 for their > >boards. Hope this clarification helps. > > For that matter, does any major brand name board maker use the AMI bios? > I don't think you will find it an any major brand name clones that I > know of, at least not Compaq or Everex. Who uses AMI besides the > inexpensive import clone builders? I use Monolithic Systems Corp. 386 motherboards w/the AMI bios in my products (UNIX-based office clusters, workstations, desktop-publishing). Monolithic Systems is an AMERICAN company who got into the PC 386 motherboard business a couple of years ago; they're better known for their DEC memory cards / IBM-compatible J-RAM memory expansion cards. They got PC Magazine's Editor's Choice last year for their 386 motherboard. I've been satisfied w/the AMI bios. Their motherboards are a bit more pricey than the available Tawainese clones, but they provide great product support, i.e., their to-be-released cache- based boards use the C&T cache controller which does *not* have the cache coherency problems associated w/the Intel cache controller when running intelligent cards on the bus (i.e., smart I/O cards). BTW, if you're in the market for 386 motherboards w/cache, if you intend to use any smart cards on the bus, be sure that the hardware supports it (special PAL to disable the cache for I/O regions, or some modifications to the original Intel cache controller). I believe someone else alluded to this in his posting a few days ago. -- Jerry Chan (Voice) 508-853-0747 |"My views necessarily reflect the Chan Smart!Ware Computer Services & Products | views of the Company because Worcester, MA 01606 | I *am* the Company." :-) {bu-cs,husc8,cloud9}!encore!chansw!chan \---------------------------------
gors@well.UUCP (Gordon Stewart) (07/27/89)
My Mylex MI 386 / 20 uses the AMI bios.
--
{apple, pacbell, hplabs, ucbvax}!well!gors
gors@well.sf.ca.us
(Doolan) | (Meyer) | (Sierchio) | (Stewart)chasm@attctc.Dallas.TX.US (Charles Marslett) (08/01/89)
In article <1192@chansw.UUCP>, chan@chansw.UUCP (Jerry H. Chan) writes: > In article <7449@athertn.Atherton.COM>, jimb@athertn.Atherton.COM (Jim Burke) writes: > > For that matter, does any major brand name board maker use the AMI bios? > > I don't think you will find it an any major brand name clones that I > > know of, at least not Compaq or Everex. Who uses AMI besides the > > inexpensive import clone builders? Everex uses AMI -- at least on their Step 20 386 box. Except of the problems with ROM resident setup code (which AMI shares with the other BIOS vendors who provide that nice option), the AMI BIOS does seem to be at least as good as the Phoenix 286 BIOS and Compaq's 386 BIOS. > Jerry Chan (Voice) 508-853-0747 |"My views necessarily reflect the > Chan Smart!Ware Computer Services & Products | views of the Company because > Worcester, MA 01606 | I *am* the Company." :-) > {bu-cs,husc8,cloud9}!encore!chansw!chan \--------------------------------- Charles Marslett chasm@attctc.dallas.tx.us Chief BIOS guru for STB Systems, Inc <-- apply all standard disclaimers
mitsu@well.UUCP (Mitsuharu Hadeishi) (08/01/89)
I have recently purchased an AMAX 386/20 with AMI BIOS, Neat chip set, and up to 8mb on the motherboard (with 1 mbit DRAMs) and up to 16mb total RAM (using their one 32-bit slot). It is a very inexpensive, high quality clone (oh yes, zero wait state, no cache, though a cache card as an option will be available "in a month" to plug into the 32-bit slot). I've so far had no problems with the AMI BIOS, though it does in fact require the entire 64K of ROM to operate properly (some BIOSes, in particular Award BIOS, can function even if you convert up to about the bottom 32K of the ROM to RAM using a 386 memory manager, believe it or not!). Performance is not too hot, but hey, I'm not going to quibble over 10% speed difference (it is about the same as other 386 clones, that is to say about 20% slower than an Everex Step 386/20, SI 21.0 as opposed to SI 24.3). Overall I'm VERY happy with the price/performance; I could have spent more on an Everex, but then I could have spent about the same amount more and got a 25Mhz machine with superior performance to the Step 20. I've had innumerable problems with an Advent 386/16 I used to use at work with Award BIOS and many of my coworkers also had such problems (many of which went away when some of them switched to Phoenix.) These problems included crashing when accessing the floppy drive under Desqview, intermittent unpredictable crashes, etc. No such problems on my current machine (I've tried to reproduce a few).
rick@NRC.COM (Rick Wagner) (08/04/89)
>> For that matter, does any major brand name board maker use the AMI bios? >> I don't think you will find it an any major brand name clones that I >> know of, at least not Compaq or Everex. Who uses AMI besides the >> inexpensive import clone builders? > I missed the earlier parts of this discussion (flakey news feed!), is AMI the same as American Megatrends Inc.? I have an Everex "OEM" system, which uses this BIOS. I have found no compatability problems in DOS or SCO Xenix; I haven't tried OS/2 (hopefully I never will). The "OEM" system is a lower cost system Everex builds and OEMs to companies to put their own name on. Works well for me. -- =============================================================================== Rick Wagner Network Research Corp. rick@nrc.com rick@nrcvax.UUCP 2380 North Rose Ave. (805) 485-2700 FAX: (805) 485-8204 Oxnard, CA 93030 Don't hate yourself in the morning, sleep 'till noon.