First post, by 65C02
Hey guys,
I'm trying to get my 486 DX2 set up for DOS games, but I'm running into several different road blocks. It has a PC Chips motherboard, which I know aren't good at all, but it's not as if I'm trying to run Windows on this thing! The system stats are very typical for a 486: MS-DOS 6.22, Intel DX2-66, 8MB 30-pin memory, AWE64 Value, Cirrus Logic VLB video, Quadtel VLB disk controller card, and 128K of REAL cache. 😲
Memtest86 seems happy with the memory, and I have tried running the system with external cache disabled. All of the caps on the board look great. Even the barrel battery looked brand new before I removed it.
-For starters, I can't run MemmMaker. I've tried both the express setup and custom setup. Each time, memmaker does its thing, reboots the computer, and then comes up with this error message:
MemMaker cannot continue. No upper memory was created.
It also does this with a fresh DOS 6.22 installation. I don't think I've ever had MemMaker outright refuse to run on brand new installation of DOS with nothing else on the hard drive or in config.sys/autoexec!
-Then there are the random freezes. For example, the second level in Duke Nukem 2 freezes around 75% of the time, and always in different spots. Some games (Xargon, for example) will randomly slow to a crawl and then lock up shortly after. When this happens, not even alt+ctrl+del saves it, I have to use the hardware reset switch.
-Here's a weird one. Jazz Jackrabbit used to work on this machine, but now when I try to start it, it gives the following error:
Missing file setup.exe. Run HELPME for help.
Memory allocation error
Cannot load COMMAND, system halted.
Of course, setup.exe IS there, and when I move the hard drive to a P3 computer Jazz starts up fine.
-I can't get the serial mouse to work, no matter which driver I use. When I load a program with mouse support and move the mouse, the pointer just flies off the screen at hyper-speed and...that's the end of my mouse support. Depending on the program being run, the computer may also lock up at that point. Again, when I move the hard drive to the P3 computer and use the same mouse and driver (ctmouse), it works fine!
So what do you guys think about this? Is this just typical PC Chips funkiness, or might I have some faulty hardware lurking in the wings that none of the diagnostics programs are picking up?
Thanks!