alee@leland.Stanford.EDU (Andrew Lee) (05/10/91)
I have a generic 25 MHz 386DX clone, using a "COPO Star 386" motherboard (has a 64K static RAM cache), and a Phoenix 386 BIOS dated 1/15/88, version 1.10 00. The BIOS doesn't support user-definable drive types, and I'd like to upgrade to one that does, and supports hard drives with more than 1024 cylinders. (I got a new Microscience HH-1120 120MB hard drive with 1314 cylinders. Works fine under SpeedStore, but I'd like to be able to use straight DOS.) The labels on it say "1986/A3", serial no. 577255, and the keyboard BIOS says "1986/K", serial no. 660568. The motherboard uses nearly all discrete logic, with a Chips & Technologies 82C206 chip providing DMA, interrupt controller, etc. The BIOS does allow switching clock speeds between 25 MHz and 8 MHz using <Ctrl>-<Alt>-<+> and <Ctrl>-<Alt>-<->, and according to the manual, enables the SRAM cache on startup. (The manual claims outputting a 0 to port 23H disables it, which works, and outputting a 2 to port 23H enables the cache, but this hangs the machine.) Now the BIOS doesn't seem to me to have been customized for the motherboard, but I don't know how generic the speed switch and cache mechanisms are. I'd like to know where I can get a more recent BIOS that will support all the features of the motherboard, as well as user-definable drive types. COPO has no idea about this, and Phoenix won't have anything to do with people doing upgrades without going through the manufacturer. I'd like to know if I can go buy the Phoenix 386 BIOS they sell at Fry's near me for $50 and plug it in (they only sell 1 type at Fry's, and nobody there knows anything technical about it), or order from Upgrades Etc. for $70. Also, I'd like to know if I need to or should simultaneously upgrade the keyboard BIOS, which the person at COPO thought might be necessary. Finally, I'd like to know which versions of DOS I could then use for 1314 cylinders without partitioning software. Please mail me replies instead of/in addition to posting them, since I read this group somewhat irregularly. Andrew Lee alee@leland.stanford.edu, alee@slacvm.bitnet