I know this is probably what you've already done, but troubleshooting process has to start somewhere. Have you checked this link and followed it carefully?

https://storage.microsemi.com/en-us/support/s … s_nt_driver.htm

also, have you tried a different diskette, or another floppy drive?

First check the NT 4 hardware compatibility list.

Looks like it may well be a memory issue true 32-bit OSs like NT, OS/2 2.o up and *nixs pick up hardware problems far better/quicker than Win9x.

I think I figured it out, all I had to do was move the SCSI card to different PCI slot. I can't believe I didn't try it before.

Here's how I got to it:
Tried booting NT4 from IDE HDD and then manually add SCSI as secondary controller. Upon login to NT4 it complained that SCSI driver could not load. Hmm...ok, that means if I can't add it to existing NT4 install, there's no way NT4 would install onto it in first place.
Let's try different driver versions. Tried version 2, 3, 4...All the same results.
Let's try installing Service Pack 6 for NT4. Still no go.
Let's remove all ISA and PCI cards except VGA and SCSI. Still no go.
Let's move SCSI to different PCI slot...Voila all is working.

Of course after all of this I was hating myself for not trying this common method of switching PCI slots earlier. I think what confused me was the fact that everything worked just fine under Win95.

Great to see you got it sorted.

After some further troubleshooting, it turns out that something may be wrong with the PCI slot where I had the SCSI card installed. After I moved SCSI to different slot, I put NIC card to the PCI slot and now that NIC card doesn't work in NT4. That particular PCI slot is slot #4, right next to ISA. So now I need to figure out why that slot doesn't like PCI cards under NT4, but under Win95 all is ok. I'll start separate thread on that as it's no longer about SCSI, but getting the slot working.

Its most likely shared with the isa next to it it happened a lot on mobos during the transition from pci to isa. There may well be a bios option to disabling the sharing and go either straight isa or pci only.

looks like a nice board. Would be great to have a good photo of the board only 😀

also, from this link https://ebabble.net/msi-ms-6103/
hard to figure out what date it's from 2001, 2007, 2019? not really important anyway.

It says the fourth pci slot doesn't get an irq assigned when using the award bios, though with the ami bios it does.

weedeewee wrote on 2021-08-02, 20:15:

looks like a nice board. Would be great to have a good photo of the board only :-) […]
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looks like a nice board. Would be great to have a good photo of the board only 😀

also, from this link https://ebabble.net/msi-ms-6103/
hard to figure out what date it's from 2001, 2007, 2019? not really important anyway.

It says the fourth pci slot doesn't get an irq assigned when using the award bios, though with the ami bios it does.

Good catch with the link. I have read that page few times before, but never latched on to the 4th PCI IRQ issue. Probably because the board has been working just fine under Win95, just not NT. That is puzzling though, if the board doesn't assign IRQ to the PCI slot, how is it possible for the device to work in Win95, but not WinNT?

Btw, here are screenshots from BIOS. If you have any advice what to change please let me know.

Here's the board btw.

p6889k wrote on 2021-08-02, 20:34:

Here's the board btw.

it's not a setting you can change in the bios, which is currently an Award bios on your mainboard.
You need to change the bios to an AMI one. for comparison sake, let's say one bios is an iphone and the other is an android. it's a lousy analogy but it's all I got at the moment.
so you'll need the bios file and the update program to change it. and I have no idea where to find it, though google might help, at least that's what I'd use to start looking.

nice board.
btw the bios software is located in the chip with the silver label right next to the one that has a ziptie on it.

I have the Ami BIOS in my possession already, so will give that a try. But was curious if any of the BIOS settings I posted may be the culprit of why the IRQ is not getting assigned.

as far as I know, none of those settings will have any effect. it's just part of something that isn't easily user-accessible .

p6889k wrote on 2021-08-02, 20:34:

Here's the board btw.

But seriously...

If you are going SCSI, then you should disable IDE. This will free up IRQ 14 & 15. In fact I go so far as to disable serial and parallel as well. (with exception to serial mice)

Also, while I'm looking at the settings. If you start to have video related problems, you might want to disable "PCI Burst Write Combine". If that is what I think it is (USWC), NT4 doesn't play well with it. USWC is "Uncached Software Write Combining". I probably spent 2 evenings fingering that little nuance out.

So I made some progress, but also messed up along the way and can't boot anymore, not sure how to recover.

I installed flashed AMI bios over the existing Award bios. That didn't work too well, the bios was giving me all sorts of problems recognizing HDDs larger than 8GB, boot was slow, wouldn't recognize partitions on smaller drives, etc.

I then installed Award bios W284, which is one version older than what I originally had (W285). That solved all the AMI bios problems, but now I was back to having the original problem with NIC and SCSI not working in PCI4 slot.

I then decided to move VGA card (Matrox Millennium II) from PCI1 to PCI4 and that resolved the problems. VGA card worked in PCI4, SCSI in PCI1 and NIC in PCI3. All that was left was to put Voodoo2 in PCI2, but I didn't get to it. I took this step because I noticed that the VGA card was not being assigned IRQ unlike all the other devices so I figured maybe moving it to PCI4 would work and it did.

Next I flashed back to bios W285, which is what I originally started with. I figured lets go back to the newest Bios since the previous version didn't help with the original problem. After reboot the computer would hang on post saying "Building DMI Pool ."

So, now i'm stuck on boot with the "Building DMI Pool ." message. I tried the following with no help:
- Reset CMOS: Didn't help, all settings in BIOS got reset, but still can't post
- Disconnect all devices except VGA, I disconnected all cards, disks, floppies....still can't post
- Went to BIOS and reset all to default settings...still can't post
- Went to BIOS and disabled everything I could - IDE, FDD, Serial, Parallel, etc....still can't post

Don't know what to do next, and now can't even reflash the bios because I can't get to boot either from HDD nor floppy.

HELP PLEASE!

Thank you.

luckybob wrote on 2021-08-03, 01:08:

If you are going SCSI, then you should disable IDE. This will free up IRQ 14 & 15. In fact I go so far as to disable serial and parallel as well. (with exception to serial mice)

Also, while I'm looking at the settings. If you start to have video related problems, you might want to disable "PCI Burst Write Combine". If that is what I think it is (USWC), NT4 doesn't play well with it. USWC is "Uncached Software Write Combining". I probably spent 2 evenings fingering that little nuance out.

Thanks for the tips. Hopefully I'll recover from my latest problem posted above to get a chance to be able to do anything at all with this board.

p6889k wrote on 2021-08-03, 01:34:

So I made some progress, but also messed up along the way and can't boot anymore, not sure how to recover. […]
Show full quote

So I made some progress, but also messed up along the way and can't boot anymore, not sure how to recover.

I installed flashed AMI bios over the existing Award bios. That didn't work too well, the bios was giving me all sorts of problems recognizing HDDs larger than 8GB, boot was slow, wouldn't recognize partitions on smaller drives, etc.

I then installed Award bios W284, which is one version older than what I originally had (W285). That solved all the AMI bios problems, but now I was back to having the original problem with NIC and SCSI not working in PCI4 slot.

I then decided to move VGA card (Matrox Millennium II) from PCI1 to PCI4 and that resolved the problems. VGA card worked in PCI4, SCSI in PCI1 and NIC in PCI3. All that was left was to put Voodoo2 in PCI2, but I didn't get to it. I took this step because I noticed that the VGA card was not being assigned IRQ unlike all the other devices so I figured maybe moving it to PCI4 would work and it did.

Next I flashed back to bios W285, which is what I originally started with. I figured lets go back to the newest Bios since the previous version didn't help with the original problem. After reboot the computer would hang on post saying "Building DMI Pool ."

So, now i'm stuck on boot with the "Building DMI Pool ." message. I tried the following with no help:
- Reset CMOS: Didn't help, all settings in BIOS got reset, but still can't post
- Disconnect all devices except VGA, I disconnected all cards, disks, floppies....still can't post
- Went to BIOS and reset all to default settings...still can't post
- Went to BIOS and disabled everything I could - IDE, FDD, Serial, Parallel, etc....still can't post

Don't know what to do next, and now can't even reflash the bios because I can't get to boot either from HDD nor floppy.

HELP PLEASE!

Thank you.

Did you try putting the VGA card back into PCI1 ? If I am following you, this is where it was installed when you started your tests with W285 .

Additionally, the Voodoo 2 does not need an IRQ either, so PCI4 should be a good fit for it .

p6889k wrote:

Don't know what to do next, and now can't even reflash the bios because I can't get to boot either from HDD nor floppy.

I'm surprised you didn't brick it earlier with all those flashes! The chip may be borked, and/or there was a bad flash.

I personally have one of these: But it's getting a bit old.
https://www.amazon.com/PRG-056-GQ-GQ-4X-unive … /dp/B00OD7O9G2/

This unit seems to be the go-to unit most people use:
https://www.amazon.com/Aceirmc-Universal-Prog … s/dp/B082CKV47V

obviously you can get them elsewhere if you don't care to fund Besos' next rocket trip.

darry wrote on 2021-08-03, 03:48:

Did you try putting the VGA card back into PCI1 ? If I am following you, this is where it was installed when you started your tests with W285 .

Additionally, the Voodoo 2 does not need an IRQ either, so PCI4 should be a good fit for it .

I tried moving VGA to PCI1 as well - didn't help. Thanks for the tip on Voodoo IRQs.

luckybob wrote on 2021-08-03, 06:43:

I'm surprised you didn't brick it earlier with all those flashes! The chip may be borked, and/or there was a bad flash. […]
Show full quote

I'm surprised you didn't brick it earlier with all those flashes! The chip may be borked, and/or there was a bad flash.

I personally have one of these: But it's getting a bit old.
https://www.amazon.com/PRG-056-GQ-GQ-4X-unive … /dp/B00OD7O9G2/

This unit seems to be the go-to unit most people use:
https://www.amazon.com/Aceirmc-Universal-Prog … s/dp/B082CKV47V

obviously you can get them elsewhere if you don't care to fund Besos' next rocket trip.

I'm curious, do these old EEProms have a limit to how many times they can be reflashed? How does a chip go bad, to the point where it cannot be successfully flashed again?

If I buy one of the EEProm programmers:
- Should I buy a specific new chip to program? What type, from where? The current one in the board is 32pin in DIP socket, with the words PCI/PNP 686, which I assume is just some Award manufacturer reference to the loaded Bios type, not the chip itself.

- I have in the meantime purchased a brand new old stock Award chip on eBay with the same model number PCI/PNP 686, it's labeled with year 1998 vs mine year 1996, but has the same PCI/PNP 686 label on it, so am hoping I would be able to directly plug it in, get it to boot and then reflash to the mother board BIOS. And if that doesn't work, buy an external programmer and reprogram it there. Or would I be better off with some newly made Bios chip? Which one?

Thank you.

Here's a picture of the new chip I ordered on eBay. You can see a photo of the original chip on the motherboard photo few posts above.