jerry@polygen.uucp (Jerry Shekhel) (05/14/91)
Hello. I'm having a hardware problem I can't quite pin down. I've been using a Perstor hard drive controller to format my Maxtor 2190 to 277MB (the normal MFM capacity is 152MB). It worked fine in my 16MHz 386SX for several months. I have just replaced the SX motherboard with a 33MHz DX, and I'm having the following problem. After the machine has been on for about 15-20 minutes, I begin to have problems with rebooting. Ctrl-Alt-Del causes the machine to lose video output, and after it spins the drives, the motherboard emits two beeps and halts. If I then press the hardware reset switch, it doesn't get anywhere; there is one long high-pitched beep followed by eight lower, shorter beeps. Now, the weird part: No matter how long the machine has been on, I can always reboot fine if I temporarily switch down to non-turbo mode (25MHz). Even weirder: the whole problem goes away if I replace the Perstor with an old MFM controller (WD1003-WA2). On the other hand, if I put the Perstor into a different machine (8MHz 286), there are no problems there, either. So I can't pin down whether the problem is with the motherboard or the controller. Can anyone help? -- +-------------------+----------------------+---------------------------------+ | JERRY J. SHEKHEL | POLYGEN CORPORATION | When I was young, I had to walk | | Drummers do it... | Waltham, MA USA | to school and back every day -- | | ... In rhythm! | (617) 890-2175 | 20 miles, uphill both ways. | +-------------------+----------------------+---------------------------------+ | ...! [ princeton mit-eddie bu sunne ] !polygen!jerry | | jerry@polygen.com | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
kai@kaiki.toppoint.de (Kai Voelcker) (05/19/91)
jerry@polygen.uucp (Jerry Shekhel) writes: > Now, the weird part: No matter how long the machine has been on, I can > always reboot fine if I temporarily switch down to non-turbo mode (25MHz). Maybe there are timing problems with the AT-Bus. Increment the waites for the 16-bit access in the extended cmos setup. I had this problem with my video card but this also applies to the controller card. ________________________________________________________________________ | Kai Voelcker, Kappelner Str 18, D-2300 Kiel 1, voice: +49 431 335605 | | kai@kaiki.toppoint.de interests: 386asm, c, pascal; OR algorithms | | >>> polite notice: I have to pay for incoming mail. Thanks <<< | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~