tvf@cci632.UUCP (Tom Frauenhofer) (06/24/89)
I'm having (what I believe are) hardware problems with my "homebrew" AT system that I use to run Microport V/AT. I wonder if someone might have some ideas as to what is happening. Hardware Configuration: "Baby AT" 8 Mhz 286 Motherboard w/ Phoenix Bios rev 2.10 (Made by Computer Products United, it's 2 years old) 1 Meg memory on board (512K of 41256-150 chips, 512K of 41256-120 chips) 2 Hard drive: Seagate ST-251, Seagate ST-225 1 1.2M floppy, 1 360K floppy Everex Floppy/Hard controller card 2-port serial board with parallel port and game card Hercules mono clone with parallel port MCT-AEMS memory board with 512K on board (512K of 41256-150 chips) 200 W Power Supply Problems: 1) I will (occasionally) get the error "NMI in system mode" on the console. The system doesn't crash, I can act as if nothing happened, but obviously something did. 2) Memory is configured as 512K standard, 1024K extended. Occasionally I get an error during boot where the 1024K extended segment only shows up as 576K (I get an error message where it claims to reset the segment, and it asks me to please run the setup program). 3) Occasionally I will have a problem where the monitor screen screws up (the text lines on the screen are no longer sequential - they will be scattered all over the screen, and some of them start about 40 characters over from the left margin), and the serial ports hang. I replaced the graphics card and disabled the printer on the card, but it still happens. It appears to only happen on days when the room gets hot (when its 80+ degrees outside - the room is on the 2nd floor of our house, and it gets pretty hot up there). Problem (3) I have been experiencing for over a year (didn't get hit by it at all during fall time or the winter). Problems (1) and (2) I've just started to experience in the past week. I should add that in the past week I've re-formatted my ST-225 to use 15M of it for UNIX (I used to have it dedicated entirely for DOS, but I haven't used DOS in the past year, so I decided I could use that space more productively). I also added the MCT-AEMS memory board about 4 weeks ago. I don't know if I'm having a power problem, if I'm having a problem with the memory board, or if the configuration I've got may be triggering a problem in the motherboard. The NMI is a might disturbing to me, let me tell you. Thanks for any help you can give me. If I had the money, I'd chuck the system and get myself a decent 386 box (or at least replace my motherboard), but I'm not that flush at the time, so I've got to make do with what I've got. Thomas V. Frauenhofer ...!rutgers!rochester!cci632!ccird7!tvf *or* ...!rochester!cci632!ccird7!frau!tvf *or* ...!rochester!rit!anna!ma!tvf1477 FRAU BBS: (716) 227-8094 2400/1200/300 baud - log in as "new" to register "The Earth? I'm going to blow it up. It obstructs my view of Venus" - Martin