First post, by Dracolich
Hello all, I'm new here and this is my first post. I hope someone can help. I've searched these forums and Google numerous times, trying every idea I've found, with no luck.
Back during early summer I rebuilt my MS-DOS rig using the following:
QDI Titanium IB i430TX with BIOS 1.3s
AMD K6-233 with socketA heatsink+fan
128MB SDRAM
2x USB connected to mobo header
2.6GB primary master, CD/DVD primary slave
18GB secondary master, Zip250 secondary slave
4MB S3 Virge/GX
4MB Voodoo1
D-Link DFE 530TX+ RevD2
CT2260 (non PnP) with YMF262
Dual boot MS-DOS 7.1+Win3.11 and FreeDOS 1.0
My problem is this:
I also have a CT4500 AWE64 value. CTCU and CTCM cannot find it on this mobo in any of the three ISA slots. The card is clean and works on an FIC PA-2007, so I know the card is good. My CT2260 works on this mobo in all three slots, so I know the board and slots are good. Before discarding a box of extra parts, I also had a CT2950 and CT4170 PnP cards. I had tried them as well in all three ISA slots and they did not work either.
CTCU never shows a card, and CTCM shows version information (1.08) but no card information. This morning I tried manually editing the ctpnp.cfg and setting it read-only, but CTCM still doesn't show the card. DIAGNOSE displays a failure setting the base I/O address. I tried all I/O address options available; 220, 240, 260, and 280, but none works. I also tried booting a DOS 6.22 floppy then running CTCU but still doesn't show the card. When I boot the original installation CD, and attempt the Win31 installation it gives the same base I/O address errors as DIAGNOSE. I remember when I last tried the CT4170, I ran the installation CD and got the same base I/O address errors.
In BIOS I've disabled LPT, IR and COM ports, I've tried with PnP OS both on and off, and I've tried with resources both auto and manual. When on manual, I made sure the desired IRQ and DMA were PCI/ISA PnP. I cannot disable the USB because it is needed for a connection to a KVM. I believe I am using the correct ctcmbbs and sbbasic, "MS-DOS mode of Windows 9x" downloaded from philscomputerlab. I also used setver for CTCM and CTCU, set to 6.00. I had also tried with the Voodoo and nic removed, but no luck.
Any ideas, or does anyone see a hardware combination that could be interfering with ISA PnP? Before the S3 Virge, I used an 8MB Permedia2. It made no difference with the sound cards. I remember years ago, then running Win98, having the same problem with this card on this mobo and switched to the FIC mobo. I cannot do that now as I used that mobo in another rig for my mom 😀
The 2.6GB is partition as 1.6GB MS-DOS FAT16 and 1.0GB OS/2 Warp. The 18GB is FAT32 and is where all of the games and other application software is installed, so I need DOS 7 or FreeDOS to use this drive. I do have a spare Intel 200MMX cpu I could swap with and a 64MB SDRAM to downgrade if cpu and/or ram might be factors. I might have already tried the Intel cpu, don't remember now, and I might have also already tried 64MB or less RAM. It was so long ago... Am I better off staying with the CT2260? Would the AWE64 be enough difference in games such as Doom and Duke3D to make it worth more effort?
I just can't believe that out of a printer paper box full of loose parts, all three PnP Sound Blaster cards would have died but not the 2260, a 4810, Philips Rhythmic Edge, and various video cards. 😉