Yeah, and your board probably doesn't have a turbo header. It was common at the time to get some older case with turbo button/display but no such functionnality on the board. Kind of like few years ago where cases had still a AC97 connector but modern boards had HDA instead.

Ydee wrote on 2021-05-16, 14:42:

Black in the middle:

Thanks. Where does the cable labeled as "Turbo Switch" go?

The schematics for my motherboard (https://th99.bl4ckb0x.de/m/C-D/33825.htm) mention only a "Turbo LED" connector, no "Turbo Switch".

EDIT

Deksor wrote on 2021-05-16, 15:15:

Yeah, and your board probably doesn't have a turbo header. It was common at the time to get some older case with turbo button/display but no such functionnality on the board. Kind of like few years ago where cases had still a AC97 connector but modern boards had HDA instead.

There is a "Turbo LED" connector, though. And a cable was connected to it when I picked up the system in 2016.

We have a visual!!! The system is POSTing! For the first time in more than 4 years. And after two days of tinkering.

It still throws an error regarding the CMOS battery. I inserted the Dallas RTC I bought online in 2016. Do you think this chip's battery is dead too?

Odiseo wrote on 2021-05-16, 16:07:

It still throws an error regarding the CMOS battery. I inserted the Dallas RTC I bought online in 2016. Do you think this chip's battery is dead too?

yes. modding it with an external battery is easy enough.

weedeewee wrote on 2021-05-16, 16:26:

yes. modding it with an external battery is easy enough.

I am completely incapable of anything that requires soldering skills.

How can the RTC be dead? The system sat unused in a cabinet for more than 4 years.

I remember buying it from a Chinese seller. I read today that Chinese sellers of this type of electronics are notorious for reselling used chips, often with empty batteries. Is there truth to this?

Odiseo wrote on 2021-05-16, 16:35:

How can the RTC be dead? The system sat unused in a cabinet for more than 4 years.

I remember buying it from a Chinese seller. I read today that Chinese sellers of this type of electronics are notorious for reselling used chips, often with empty batteries. Is there truth to this?

RTC stand for Real Time Clock... it is the chip & battery (in this case) that make sure you do not have to set the date & time ( and hdd, fdd, etc... settings) each time you turn on your computer.
they were generally rated for about 10 years. depending upon use of the computer, ie, when the computer is in use, the battery does not need to be used.

Maybe one of your friends can do it, or someone in your neighborhood that deals with electronics.

and
yes

Deksor wrote on 2021-05-15, 20:59:

Would you like to take a good photo for our database here please ? http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/show/1223 (the one on the other thread has a pretty bad looking glare).

Who can upload the photos I took to the archives? Has it already been done?

weedeewee wrote on 2021-05-16, 16:45:

RTC stand for Real Time Clock... it is the chip & battery (in this case) that make sure you do not have to set the date & time ( and hdd, fdd, etc... settings) each time you turn on your computer.

Thanks for the explanation. I did have a rudimentary understanding of this type of component. I was just wondering how it could have lost its charge, seeing as the system had spent the past +4 years in a cabinet. So that's because, basically, Chinese resellers of these chips cannot be trusted.

I want to install two IDE devices (6GB hard drive, optical drive) in this system. The system wouldn't boot with the hard drive (jumper: Master) connected to the board through a 40-wire ribbon cable. It turned out I had bent some of the pins in the drive's IDE interface, so I bent them back in place. After that, the system did boot and the BIOS recognized the hard drive.

Before the 40-wire ribbon cable, I used an 80-wire one, but the system wouldn't boot. The IDE interface of the hard drive might have already had some of its pins bent at that moment (I don't know).

• The optical drive (jumper: CS) is on the same cable (40-wire, at the end) and is not recognized. What could cause this? Should I set the jumper on the optical drive to Slave? Should I connect the optical drive with a separate cable?

• The optical drive is a DVD one. Does this matter? I prefer DVD's because of their larger storage capacity. Is it possible this motherboard only works with CD drives?

• I'd like to use an 80-wire cable, as they're faster than 40-wire cables. Can Socket 7 motherboards work with 80-wire ribbon cables?

• When I boot the system, apart from the CMOS battery error it also throws the following one: "FLOPPY DISK Fail (40)".

Odiseo wrote on 2021-05-16, 21:29:

Before the 40-wire ribbon cable, I used an 80-wire one, but the system wouldn't boot. The IDE interface of the hard drive might […]
Show full quote

• The optical drive (jumper: CS) is on the same cable (40-wire, at the end) and is not recognized. What could cause this? Should I set the jumper to Slave? Should I connect the optical drive with a separate cable?

Before the 40-wire ribbon cable, I used an 80-wire one, but the system wouldn't boot. The IDE interface of the hard drive might have already had some of its pins bent at that moment (I don't know), which would explain this.

• I'd like to use an 80-wire cable, as they're faster than 40-wire cables. Can Socket 7 motherboards work with 80-wire ribbon cables?

• When I boot the system, apart from the CMOS battery error it also throws the following one: "FLOPPY DISK Fail (40) - CCM".

Always best to use the cdrom on the secondary interface.
If you have to use it together with the master hard disk, make sure to set the cdrom as slave, and verify the hard disk doesn't need a seperate jumper for 'slave present' (older hard drives tended to have this)
Sounds like the 80 pin cable should work now too. though... does your motherboard support faster IDE speeds like UDMA/66 or higher? if it doesn't, using an 80 pin cable won't make any difference (i think)

floppy drive error, yeah, more annoyances I guess.

weedeewee wrote on 2021-05-16, 21:36:

Always best to use the cdrom on the secondary interface.

After trying numerous combinations, I ended up connecting both drives to the secondary interface. I will connect the hard drive and the optical drive through separate cables: the hard drive to the primary IDE interface; the optical drive to the secondary IDE interface. (maybe tomorrow)

weedeewee wrote on 2021-05-16, 21:36:

Sounds like the 80 pin cable should work now too. though... does your motherboard support faster IDE speeds like UDMA/66 or higher? if it doesn't, using an 80 pin cable won't make any difference (i think)

I will try another 80-wire cable. The end connector of the one I used earlier this night got stuck inside the hard drive's IDE interface. The cable itself got loose and the connector remained inside the drive --I had to pry it out of there. Come to think of it, that might have been when I bent some of the pins in the drive's IDE interface.

EDIT. I don't know how much time I can spend on this project this week, but I am determined to get this system to full working order this time. Unlike in 2016, when I had too much to do and ended up putting the system in a cabinet. It might take me several weeks to get this done and I'll probably return asking for help.

In summary, I have the following steps left.

• Connect the hard drive to the primary IDE interface through an 80-wire ribbon cable.

• Connect the optical drive to the secondary IDE interface

• Solve the floppy failure

• Find an RTC with a charged battery and insert it into the socket

• Install Windows 95 or 98 on the hard drive

Odiseo wrote on 2021-05-16, 21:29:

Who can upload the photos I took to the archives? Has it already been done?

I'm sorry, now it is done 😀

Odiseo wrote on 2021-05-16, 21:51:

I will try another 80-wire cable. The end connector of the one I used earlier this night got stuck inside the hard drive's IDE interface. The cable itself got loose and the connector remained inside the drive --I had to pry it out of there. Come to think of it, that might have been when I bent some of the pins in the drive's IDE interface.

I was about to throw my 80-wire ribbon cable with a broken end connector in the bin when I thought of something I could do with it: cut off the last part (right after the first drive connector) so that it's a cable for just 1 drive. I know nothing of electricity nor how to mod components; hence, I want to ask whether that's a good idea.

Deksor wrote on 2021-05-16, 22:50:

I'm sorry, now it is done 😀

I just opened the page. Nice to know I contributed content to a hardware website.

You're welcome 😀

While connecting my 80-wire cable to the hard drive I again bent one or more pins in the drive's IDE interface. I got one of them straight again, but another pin broke off.

According to the schematics on this page, the pin that broke off is '40 Ground'.

I connected the hard drive to my normal PC using a USB HDD enclosure under Windows 10, but it did not get detected. I then applied the second method under "For Broken Pin" on this link. I had to shorten the needle I used for it to fit. When I had the hard drive hooked up to my enclosure with the needle inside the IDE cable's connector at the same location where a pin in the drive's interface is missing, Device Manager suddenly 'saw' the disk. The application flagged the space on the disk as "unallocated". When I right-clicked on the disk, a menu with the following options was displayed: 'Initialize disk', 'Offline' and 'Properties'. The following error was shown when I clicked 'Initialize disk': "The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error".

I tried again with another needle. Same result.

Is there a way to get this drive operational again?

When I powered on my Pentium 1 system without the hard drive, it again wouldn't boot. There was a short buzz from the internal speaker and no image. Guess I'll have to disconnect and reconnect everything again?