rab@hal.cwru.edu (Roger Bielefeld) (12/19/90)
The system: 8580-071 (16 MHz Model 80 w/70 Meg ESDI and 2 Meg memory) The problem: Manifestation #1: After a seemingly random amount of time of flawless operation, the machine locks up (i.e. display freezes and there is no response from keyboard). Must cycle power to reboot. This has happened when nothing but DOS was running and has also happened while in a variety of applications. In other words, the problem is software-independent. Most of the time, the lock-up accompanied by a continuous tone from the speaker. Manifestation #2: On power-up, POST errors occur. I get various error codes at various times. Some of the more frequently occurring ones are 201, 163, 164, and 10482. Unless I get a 10482, I can generally hit F1, continue the boot, and run the machine (until manifestation #1 occurs). Manifestation #3: Sometimes manifestations #1 and #2 are accompanied by interesting things on the monitor (IBM 8513). Often I get a nice colored border, sometimes with a colored background (usually red). Once or twice I've gotten a real light show with various blinking patterns, usually in living color. Attempts at diagnosing the problem: Today, I took everything out of the case except for the power supply. I dusted everything off. I made sure that all connections were good. I put things back one-by-one, testing with the reference diskette as I went. Of course, the reference diskette showed no problems. I got everything back together and closed the case. Started working. Fifteen minutes later... you guessed it: manifestation #1! One time in the past, I disconnected everything but the monitor, keyboard, and some memory. I booted from a floppy. After DOS was running, I disconnected the monitor and keyboard. After a few minutes: manifestation #1. I repeated this experiment with the other megabyte of memory with the same result. The bottom line: There's only one more thing I can think of to do with this machine and it involves a large, heavy hammer. Has anyone seen this problem? Does anyone have any ideas about the cause? I'm ready to replace the planar board but want to make sure the problem isn't something simpler. Could this problem be somehow related to the power supply? Or to the lithium battery? I'd appreciate any thoughts anyone might have. BTW, the machine is almost three years old and I really can't afford to replace it. When it runs, it runs PC DOS 3.30. No TSR's. I have added the following hardware: Sysgen external 5.25" floppy, Everex internal modem, Alloy internal tape unit (uses floppy controller), 80387 chip, and 2nd ESDI drive (Imprimis/CDC/Seagate full-height, 140 Meg after format). Thanks for any help anyone can give. Roger -- Roger Bielefeld Case Western Reserve University rab@hal.cwru.edu Cleveland, Ohio USA
cur022%cluster@ukc.ac.uk (Bob Eager) (12/20/90)
It might be the power supply, but that's easy enough to check, at least
voltage wise.
201 indicates a memory error, and 16? is a related configuration error probably
caused by not all of the memory being detected. Now, this could be effect
rather than cause, but it might be worth pulling memory (as much as you are
able) and seeing if the error goes away.
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Bob Eager | University of Kent at Canterbury
| +44 227 764000 ext 7589
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