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Help with faulty(?) Pentium MMX Processor

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First post, by walterg74

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Hi folks,

Wondering if you could help out/recommend regarding this...

I'm putting together a Pentium 1 build, where the base is a Pentium 233 MMX CPU and 32MB RAM.

I was using a Viper V330 PCI card (Riva 128), and I have a floppy emulator and an IDE/CF Adapter.

Initially all went well, I partitioned the card (2GB FAT, 2GB FAT32, 11ish GB FAT32), had only 1st partition active, installed DOS, Win 3.1, etc.

I tried Duke Nukem 3D, just to give it a test, and I was surprised to see it constantly crashed with errors, not even starting. Tested a few more games (Quake and Screamer), and the same, issues and crash back to DOS.

Now, at the time I put this issue aside, blaming it on dubious versions of the games, etc, and focused on installing Windows 98SE.

Made the FAT32 partition active (hiding de FAT16 one), had all the files on the large partition, boot from Windows 98 floppy and launched setup.

After copying initial files and actually starting the install process, it always crashed... giving out different/numerous of the "classical" windows errors one reads about...

Now, although it usually does not happen, I realize I may be being hit by two issues at the same time, because the video card:

- Sometimes on boot I saw it reported correctly as 4MB, but others as 2MB
- I started testing out on other machinesm but now no machine boots with this card inserted, getting beeps/errors of no card found
- Had given tons of errors with VMT, (when it still booted) but I did not know if it was a product of incorrectly running VMT without clena boot or what)

In any case, I am ruling out video now, because since this card doe snot even boot now, I am retesting with a Number 9 S3 968 Vision card I have, which is booting/working fine (at least first glance).

However, testing out the DOS games again, still crashes.

I am initially ruling out RAM, because I had already ran memtest on it and it passed with no errors. However, just to double check, I am running it again as I write this.

Given that for now all signs would point to either a faulty motherboard(?) or CPU(?).....

- Is there any tool/prog to actually test if the CPU has any errors?
- Has anyone run across something like this before?
- Any recommendations on other tests I can do to try to find the culprit and get a fully working system?

While we're at it, since my idela card for this build was the Viper V330 and it's frired... Any recommendations for a card for this Pentium MMX 233 build...? (I will also be putting a Diamond Monster 3D card in it)

Thanks

Reply 1 of 6, by auron

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mentioning what mainboard you are using would probably be a good idea... make sure the CPU is running at the correct voltage which is 2.8V.

issues like this can occur from overheating so make sure the CPU cooler is mounted correctly (for the clip heatsinks there is just one correct mounting position). also you did not mention PSU, if using a vintage one, bad capacitors could be another cause.

Reply 2 of 6, by walterg74

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auron wrote on 2020-07-31, 16:06:

mentioning what mainboard you are using would probably be a good idea... make sure the CPU is running at the correct voltage which is 2.8V.

issues like this can occur from overheating so make sure the CPU cooler is mounted correctly (for the clip heatsinks there is just one correct mounting position). also you did not mention PSU, if using a vintage one, bad capacitors could be another cause.

Using a cheap "PC Chips" type VXPRO, M537. Voltage should be correct, but I'll double check. I know the main jumper which does 5 / 3 is set correctly, will double check the others.

CPU cooler is the original Intel and is mounted on correctly, no temp issues.

PSU is Vintage, and while could happen, all my systems are "out in the open" / being built/tested, sharing the same PSU and none have this problem.

Reply 4 of 6, by walterg74

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auron wrote on 2020-07-31, 16:24:

can you test with L2 cache off in BIOS, to see if that changes anything?

No luck, crashes even worse... faster on the DOS game, and Windows setup now even crashed with beautiful garbled color screen even as soon as running the disk checks in DOS/text mode...

As a side note, while I was having lunch, 3 passes of memtest+ ran, fiding nothing wrong with the 32MB of RAM.

At this point I think it has to be either something with the motherboard or the CPU itself that's damaged?

Reply 5 of 6, by waterbeesje

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What controller cards so you have in your system? Can you remove any non vital ones?

It may be CPU related. Could you reseat the CPU for 30 more times? Any dust or rust should be gone then, to make sure your contacts are ok.
Also try to reseat cache (if possible on your board) and reseat your graphics card again for 20 times. That one can be the troublemaker too. It seems like your ram has been reseated over and over already.

Last thing I can think of is you've got a fake 233, a remarked 166 or 200. Most will happily run at 233 (my 200 runs at 100x2,5) but not all will oc very well. Remarks may need troubleshooting. What does your computer do if you run it at 200 with tight timings? Or 166?

Stuck at 10MHz...

Reply 6 of 6, by walterg74

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waterbeesje wrote on 2020-07-31, 22:48:
What controller cards so you have in your system? Can you remove any non vital ones? […]
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What controller cards so you have in your system? Can you remove any non vital ones?

It may be CPU related. Could you reseat the CPU for 30 more times? Any dust or rust should be gone then, to make sure your contacts are ok.
Also try to reseat cache (if possible on your board) and reseat your graphics card again for 20 times. That one can be the troublemaker too. It seems like your ram has been reseated over and over already.

Last thing I can think of is you've got a fake 233, a remarked 166 or 200. Most will happily run at 233 (my 200 runs at 100x2,5) but not all will oc very well. Remarks may need troubleshooting. What does your computer do if you run it at 200 with tight timings? Or 166?

Nothing, it's all built into the motherboard. no cache to reseat, all soldered. graphics card has been done multiple times, but also tested several cards. Also different slots..

Haven't tried lowering the speed, might give it a try.

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