thoger@solan.unit.no (Terje Th|gersen) (04/18/91)
Hi!
My brother has a Redstone 4.77/8MHz V20 equipped XT-clone with an ERSO
BIOS with a serious problem.
On bootup, the computer is supposed to 1) beep 2) run POST 3) beep
again. This baby does 1) beep, and then goes BEEP BIP BEEP BIP BEEP
BIP (when, oh when will usenet support sound.. :-)).
Could someone with a ERSO-BIOS manual look up this error-message?
(No, there's NO visual indication)
The rest of the POST runs ok. After bootup the screen will have five
exclamation marks scattered around the screen, which looks rather
strange. If you type something on top of these !'s, the letter typed
will change to the next letter of the alphabet! (i.e. you type A, it
looks like B, < changes to a = etc.). This occurs *only* on the
monitor, a printout looks good. (really. I'm *not* kidding!)
No, this is not a virus, the !'s appear before the computers touches
any disks. No, it's not the video card, (an original Hercules), since
the beeps sound exactly the same no matter what's plugged in. (I
removed the FDC, HDC, IO card, keyboard, Clock card and finally the
Hercules.) I've triple checked all switches and jumpers, vacuumed the
interior and reseated all the MB chips.
Checkit says the video RAM has parity errors, and that the some keys
on the keyboard don't work. I think these messages are symptoms of
something being amiss on the MB, and not actual error messages, since
the beep-pattern does not change when I remove the all cards. (Yes, I
know the computer will beep when it cannot find the hardware indicated
by the switches, but the beeps occur *immediately* after power-on,
while it's still doing the MB checkout.)
Oh, well.. Why am I going to all this trouble when a new MB costs
USD ~100 ? All the chips on the MB are socketed. If I can pin-point
the faulty chip, I might get by with USD 5-10 for the chip..
Thank you in advance,
-Terje
--
____________________________________________________________________________
thoger@solan.unit.no | Institute of Physical Chemistry
THOGER AT NORUNIT.BITNET | Div. of Computer Assisted Instrumental Analysis
| Norwegian Institute of Technology