VOGONS


First post, by brotalnia

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Rank Newbie
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Newbie

My retro PC has developed a problem. When i start it, it shows the 3dfx boot screen and makes the normal beep sound, but then it either just shows a black screen with nothing on it, or freezes at the Memory Check on the Bios boot screen. Sometimes it goes a bit further than that, but still hangs on the first screen. If i keep trying, it eventually boots normally on like the 30th attempt, and then the computer seems to work fine. Does this indicate the RAM is malfunctioning, or is it more likely to be something else causing the problem? I also noticed that if im spamming the ALT key, that reduces the likelihood of it going to a completely black screen after the 3dfx screen, but still will hang after the memory check. What's weird is that it shows the correct RAM amount, so it's counting it correctly, but then just freezes.

Reply 1 of 1, by rasz_pl

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Rank l33t
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l33t

classic tired dried capacitors symptom, the more you try the warmer they get and thus get slightly healthier temporarily
might be psu, but most likely mobo, or both

https://github.com/raszpl/sigrok-disk FM/MFM/RLL decoder
https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module (AT&T Globalyst)
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 ram board
https://github.com/raszpl/440BX Reference Design adapted to Kicad