mxh5795%ritcv@cs.rit.edu (02/10/89)
I purchased a Tandy 1000SX last year, and upgraded to 640K with two floppies.
Recently (coincidentally, about the same time as a sale :-) I bought a 20
meg (Tandy) hard card for my computer. It had to be placed into slot 3 because
I also have a SmartWatch piggybacked onto the ROM chip. All went well for a
while, then I began to get a strange intermittent error. Occasionally,
the computer would not boot from the hard drive. This is what happened..
1) Would cycle thru both disks (normal)
2) Prints memory message (Memory = 640K) (normal)
3) Prints '1701' partially over memory message (not normal)
4) Looks for boot disk in drive A (not normal)
Also, upon putting in a perfectly good boot disk (if the hard drive failed),
it would sometimes respond with 'bad or missing command interpreter.'
Again, note that this does not occur consistently. I tried reformatting the
disk to no avail...
Any ideas/questions/help?? Thanks in advance,
Mike
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Houwers "See the man with the lonely eyes,
bitnet: MWH5795@RITVAXA Take his hand, you'll be surprised"
uucp: ...ucbvax!ucbcad!ames!rochester!ritcv!mxh5795reyn@trsvax.UUCP (02/14/89)
Here are a few things to try, I have no idea if they'll help, but you might get lucky. I have heard rumors of Hard Cards preferring slot 1 due to subtle timing problems with the DMA. Try removing your smart clock and putting the card in slot 1. You may be able to install the smart clock on the hard card itself. Some of these cards have a pin compatible rom suitable for this purpose. Good luck and keep your fingers crossed. John Reynolds DeskMate Type Programmer Tandy R&D in beautiful Ft. Wuth As usual, this information is subject to my low moral fibre and is not the fault of my employer.
steve@cpe.UUCP (02/22/89)
The first thing you need to do is make sure that the interrupt being used on the hard disk card matches what the SX is set for. Find W7 on the hard disk card. It is located between U13 and the edge connector. For IRQ 2, W7 should have a shorting plug between pins 2-3. Also, there should be a shorting plug on the two posts at S1-7. In the SX is a 4-position switch block. In order for the SX and the hard disk card to match interrupts, switch 2 should be in the ON position for IRQ 2 and the OFF position for IRQ 5. To use IRQ 5, W7 should have a shorting plug between pins 1-2 and there should also be a shorting plug on the two posts at S1-8. As for the SmartWatch, it can be installed on the hard disk card thereby allowing the use of slot number one for the hard card. Simply pull the SmartWatch out of SX and install it under the BIOS of the hard disk card. Make sure that both SmartWatch and BIOS are oriented correctly. If you do all of this and still get problems, chances are the hard disk card is malfunctioning. A "1701" is a hard disk controller failure error. You can also make sure that the hard disk card is seated properly in the backplane. Hope some of this helps. Stephen L. Osborn Computer Products Engineering Tandy Corporation/Radio Shack Naturally, all of the previous is my own opinions/ideas/knowledge and is not necessarily that of my employer. (I think)
jmj@mhuxu.UUCP (J. M. Johnson) (02/25/89)
In article <136500010@cpe>, steve@cpe.UUCP writes: > > As for the SmartWatch, it can be installed on the hard disk card thereby > allowing the use of slot number one for the hard card. Simply pull the > SmartWatch out of SX and install it under the BIOS of the hard disk > card. Make sure that both SmartWatch and BIOS are oriented correctly. > > Stephen L. Osborn > Computer Products Engineering > Tandy Corporation/Radio Shack I'm very happy to see a Tandy employee on the net. About putting the SmartWatch on the hardcard controller board, I tried this and SMWCLOCK.COM couldn't find the clock. I would like to be able to move the hardcard over to slot five (the slot next to the p. s. is numbered five here) for better cooling, but I also would like to have my clock. Do I need to patch the program to enable it to find the clock on the controller? Other than this problem, I have been very happy with the 1000SX since I purchased it in 12/86. PS. Are there any job openings there? Big layoff here. :-( -- Life's just a game, you fly a paper plane, there is no end. - TBA J. M. Johnson, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Reading, PA ...!att!mhuxu!jmj
NU116215@NDSUVM1.BITNET (CLARK COFFMAN) (03/03/89)
I don't own a Tandy, but I've been having the same problem occasionally with my Seagate ST225, the 1701 error is a POST, Power On Self Test error, it could be that the drive is going bad, I had to send mine back, I've only owned it for 9 months. Hope this helps some.