Hi,<br>I have a 486 motherboard, (used, but new to me, I've never seen it fired up before). The board didn't come with a CPU, so I put an Intel Overdrive P24T (PDOVP5) on it and maxed out the ram to 64meg (all matching sticks & leads). I set what jumpers that I could figure out, put in a video card, my oldest harddrive (85MB, with Dos on it) that I know still works good, and hooked up a 3.5 floppy drive. When I turned it on, it does everything fine until it needs to boot something, then it just hangs. The Bios autodetected the drives fine. I think due to my inexperience, I probably don't have things set right, the jumpers that I didn't understand I just left alone and they might need to be changed because of the Overdrive processor. I made up a list of my motherboard specs, settings and bios settings and what I have them set to that you can find here <A HREF=" TARGET="_new"> I would be so grateful if someone that knows about settings and maybe this processor could take a look at this and give me some sugesstions about what I need to change.<br><br>Thanks,<br>Judy
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Need help with 486 and mobo/bios settings
- Thread starter JudyS
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Make-sure-there-is-no-floppy-disk-in-the-A-drive<br>(just kidding)<br>The fact that the old beast passes POST is a good indication that the problem is not CPU or memory related. I think your problem lies in the settings for the hard drive in relationship to its age and installed OS (what version of DOS?).<br>Is the drive even bootable? Will it boot from a boot disk? If it does can you then browse the hard drive? I noticed you said it detected the drives fine; is there more than one hard drive? <br> I had a lot of similar situations with AMI BIOS based boards which had a 32 bit disk access setting (?) as well as block mode which I see you already turned off. Also check the PIO mode of the drive. If not set to auto try it at MODE 3 or even CHS.<br><br>Let me know how you make out.<br><br>Good Luck <br><br>Al
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- #3
Hi,<br>I put this little hard drive in, because it was the faithful boot drive for an old 386 I have (with Dos6.22 on it) that I know works, and also just incase this setup couldn't handle a Large hard drive, I wouldn't have that going on too. I have tried to boot from a boot<br>disk in the floppy, I tried using Disk #1 of Dos6.22 install and also tried a backup boot disk, and it just halts after the drive sequence check. Also tried turning the floppy cable around and got a floppy error (40), so I changed it back. I'm thinking that it may have something to do with some of the configurations that I didn't quite understand. Settings for IDE SPEED, Local HDD-BALE and Local HDD-IOCHRDY, and also some of the cache settings in the Chipset part of the Bios setup, I think that this P24T Overdrive processor has to deal with cache a certian way, but that's as far as my knowledge goes. I just tried disconnecting the hard drive to see if the floppy would boot (with 1.4 settings & boot disk and also 720 settings & boot disk) and still no boot. <br>Thanks for your help,<br>Judy
Judy when the POST is coming up press pause and note the numbers at the bottom of the screen.<br>These are your BIOS Chip numbers. There are several site on the web that will be able to track the manufacturer of the motherboard. From there you download the manual for the board and then you can set up the board correctly. The P24 Overdrive is a monster at the best of times. My 14 year old son can testify to that, he has one in an old Abit P25JR2 motherboard and it would not get pass POST without it being set correctly. But as a good Master Tech that he is he downloaded the right manual and now it is humming at 166MHz. Not bad for a 486 eh? Let us know how you get on here, I check the list every two to three days.
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- #5
Hi,<br>The motherboard settings that I have listed in the link up in my first post (<A HREF=" TARGET="_new"> are from the 486- GIO-VT2 manual that I downloaded from the FIC (First International Computer) web site, I just put an "X" in front of the way I have each item set with the hope that someone would spot what I may have set wrong. My motherboard model number 486-GIO-VT2 is silkscreened on the board and the board diagram and jumper settings in the 486-GIO-VT2 manual do match what I have. When I checked BIOS Chip numbers at Wim's Bios Page (<A HREF=" TARGET="_new"> they had VT82C486A-214L2000-00 listed as a FIC 486-GVT-2, which is a different board layout and jumper settings then the 486-GIO-VT2 that I have. The bios updates for each of two are different, also. I sent an email to FIC about a week ago, but have not got a response.<br>Any help would be appreciated.<br>Thanks,<br>Judy
Judy I have taken a look at the data you have on line and cannot see anything that stands out.<br>I have located a board here in NZ and will attempt to set it up the same way you have.<br>From the look of this board it is actually a dual technology board. <br>Don't expect a reply from FIC for quiet some time. They can take an eternity to answer anything.<br>Before I fit the RAM in what is the configuration of the RAM sticks. Is it 9*4, 8*1, 8*4, 9*1 if you are not sure take a stick to a computer shop and ask them please. It would make it easier to get the setup the same.<br><br>Will be in touch Hunter.<br>
I have worked with PC since the begining and found that in older units moving a common IDE drive to another machine can cause problems because the old format from the previous controller doesn't quite match the new ones geometry, even though both were IDE. If you can boot from floppy and access the hard drive I would recommend SYS the drive from a DOS boot floppy. Rebooting and see what happens. I also suggest looking to make sure the partition is Active in fdisk. If all this fails try booting from floppy, backing the hard drive up, if needed, remove the partition, remove the settings from CMOS (no drive), restart let the CPU detect the drive again create a new partition, make it active. Format the drive with system files (/s) and see what happens.<br><br>
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- #8
Hi,<br><br>All that I know about the memory sticks is that they are from a Compact Presario and 60ns (Part#137143-001). They are 72pin 16meg with gold leads and 9 chips on each stick. I borrowed from a friend, an old DFI 486 board that also uses the P24T (PODP5V) Overdrive Processor and same size & amount of memory and moved all of the parts over to this board to see what's really working and not working. The only difference between the two boards is that the GIO-VT2 has on board IDE & floppy connectors and with the borrowed DFI, I need to use a IDE/IO card. On this borrowed board, the processor works, although only at 66mhz and not at 83mhz like on the GIO-VT2 board. The memory count was fine, and the hard drive booted right up to the operating system. The 3.5 floppy drive seems to have a problem with booting while using either of the boards, on the GIO-VT2 I can hear it being checked at drive seek time and then nothing. On the borrowed DFI, it just acts dead, no light & no sounds. I'm using the same cable with the drive on each board and if I turn the cable around on both, the light is always on. This 3.5 floppy drive (Epson SMD-300) came out of an old 386 AST that was somewhat a proprietary type system. From what I gather, it is common for one of the data pins to be missing on a 3.5 floppy, so that the ribbon cable will plug in correctly, but this drive has 2 of the 34 pins missing:<br><br>1<br>X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X<br>X MX X X X X XM X X X X X X X X<br> 33<br><br>The end of the cable that went to the motherboard also had the #5 pin missing. So, this might contribute to the floppy drive problem and why it isn't booting. But the hard drive booted fine in the old 386 it came out of and also fired right up in the borrowed DFI 486 board, so I'm pretty sure it's not the problem. <br><br>Thank-you for taking the time to help,<br>Judy<br>
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