I'm kinda confused, as I have an old IBM motherboard with an onboard graphics card (S3 Vision868) and windows95 detects it but the computer refuses to work without another pci card.
WINS3ID detects both cards but i can't enable the onboard card. Windows 95 says it's disabled in hardware but there's no switch on the motherboard to do this...
Any suggestions are appreciated!!!
Usually it's turned on and off in the CMOS setup, in theory clearing the CMOS should return it to default enabled state.
Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.
Yeah should be a BIOS setting or jumper to disable on board except on some Packard Bells, they defaulted to onboard as primary but did work with a secondary card.
Maybe the onboard video is bad ???
Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun
BitWrangler wrote on 2021-07-03, 00:59:Usually it's turned on and off in the CMOS setup, in theory clearing the CMOS should return it to default enabled state.
I'm gonna try clearing the CMOS and report back! Thanks! 😀
Horun wrote on 2021-07-03, 01:07:Yeah should be a BIOS setting or jumper to disable on board except on some Packard Bells, they defaulted to onboard as primary but did work with a secondary card.
Maybe the onboard video is bad ???
Apparently there's no switch on this motherboard...
Found some info here:
https://www.ardent-tool.com/sandy55/PC750/PC750.html#Video
What is puzzling me is that when i remove the PCI graphics card and restart the computer using the onboard one, the IBM logo shows up and when i press F1 to enter bios or wait for the OS to start, there's a loud beep and then nothing more happens, no image, nothing... Maybe the onboard S3 is indeed damaged... Is there a way i can be sure? Thanks again!
DoutorHouse wrote on 2021-07-03, 01:09:BitWrangler wrote on 2021-07-03, 00:59:Usually it's turned on and off in the CMOS setup, in theory clearing the CMOS should return it to default enabled state.
I'm gonna try clearing the CMOS and report back! Thanks! 😀
Yeah, exact same thing happened... IBM Surepath bios logo appears, memory tests ok and then just a loud beep... 🙁 If i go back to using the other pci card, everything goes ok and Windows95 starts...
Do you have a different monitor to try? Some stuff tries to be clever and detect presence of a monitor, possible the monitor is not detecting for some reason. If not, or it's an original monitor that it darn well should work just fine with, try this old trick which can reset confused digital status signalling between PCs and monitors, theorised to be static in the cable, but whatever it is, it works in some situations... unplug signal cable from PC, monitor on, lick your thumb and wipe it, so it's not shiny wet, just damp, press thumb over end of vga plug until you feel you're pushing on all the pins, hold a couple of seconds.. now power off monitor, plug it back to PC, then try it again.
edit: Also have a good close look at the onboard VGA socket to make sure no contacts are too far spread, mangled or pushed in.
Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.
BitWrangler wrote on 2021-07-03, 01:26:Do you have a different monitor to try? Some stuff tries to be clever and detect presence of a monitor, possible the monitor is not detecting for some reason. If not, or it's an original monitor that it darn well should work just fine with, try this old trick which can reset confused digital status signalling between PCs and monitors, theorised to be static in the cable, but whatever it is, it works in some situations... unplug signal cable from PC, monitor on, lick your thumb and wipe it, so it's not shiny wet, just damp, press thumb over end of vga plug until you feel you're pushing on all the pins, hold a couple of seconds.. now power off monitor, plug it back to PC, then try it again.
edit: Also have a good close look at the onboard VGA socket to make sure no contacts are too far spread, mangled or pushed in.
Damn, tried 3 different monitors using your trick and nothing... Everytime, the computer boots up, shows the S3 info and the IBM surepath bios logo, checks ram memory ok and then, when seems it's going to boot, just a loud beep...
I'm really starting to think maybe the onboard graphics card is damaged somehow... The whole computer and motherboard seems absolutely pristine but one never knows...
This IBM PC 730-100 came with OS/2 Warp 3... someone installed Windows 95... Maybe i should reinstall OS/2 and enable the graphics card from there? Would this work? Probably not the question here, right?
DoutorHouse wrote on 2021-07-03, 01:49:I'm really starting to think maybe the onboard graphics card is damaged somehow... The whole computer and motherboard seems absolutely pristine but one never knows...
Sounding pretty much like it. One other thing though, any other PCI cards in that could be stealing it's resources? If it works with them out, try putting them back in different slots.
Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.
BitWrangler wrote on 2021-07-03, 01:58:DoutorHouse wrote on 2021-07-03, 01:49:I'm really starting to think maybe the onboard graphics card is damaged somehow... The whole computer and motherboard seems absolutely pristine but one never knows...
Sounding pretty much like it. One other thing though, any other PCI cards in that could be stealing it's resources? If it works with them out, try putting them back in different slots.
Nope, this system has a riser card with shared isa and pci slots but i took out all the cards before testing... I also updated the BIOS with the latest one from IBM but, unfortunately, forgot to try it with the original one. The onboard audio card is also working fine in Windows 95 and there's a bios option to disable it, but not one for disabling/enabling the graphics card. When i add a pci one, the bios detects it just fine.
I'm using a S3 ViRGE/GX PCI 4MB (way faster than the onboard one) but i really wanted to figure out if the onboard one is damaged or not... Maybe some program can test it?
I had another last desperate idea, if you swap the first and last socketed video ram chips over, that might move a bad piece of RAM out of the first 256K of video memory (Which I think is where it would have to be for setup not to show and not move on to booting off HDD) and up to near the max RAM, which it might only use at high res. So it may then work until you try something at higher res than about 800x600. If that works, you can look for a replacement chip for the bad one to get it 100% again.
Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.
BitWrangler wrote on 2021-07-03, 02:23:I had another last desperate idea, if you swap the first and last socketed video ram chips over, that might move a bad piece of RAM out of the first 256K of video memory (Which I think is where it would have to be for setup not to show and not move on to booting off HDD) and up to near the max RAM, which it might only use at high res. So it may then work until you try something at higher res than about 800x600. If that works, you can look for a replacement chip for the bad one to get it 100% again.
Hmm... i think there's two just video ram chips on this board, both soldered (for 1meg) and two empty sockets for adding an extra meg... All the other chips are for L2 cache... This IBM board is kinda uncommon, i guess...
Whoops, I though the chips at top of first pic were the video RAM.
Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.
Try a small Linux live CD. It will tell /indicate to you if the onboard video is damaged at all.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
BitWrangler wrote on 2021-07-03, 03:45:Whoops, I though the chips at top of first pic were the video RAM.
Yeah... seemed like it, until i took another pic of the motherboard... Oh well...
Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-07-03, 04:21:Try a small Linux live CD. It will tell /indicate to you if the onboard video is damaged at all.
This bios doesn't allow booting from a cd drive. Do you think it will work from DOS 6.22/Windows 95? This PC is a Pentium 133Mhz...
DoutorHouse wrote on 2021-07-03, 04:53:Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-07-03, 04:21:Try a small Linux live CD. It will tell /indicate to you if the onboard video is damaged at all.
This bios doesn't allow booting from a cd drive. Do you think it will work from DOS 6.22/Windows 95? This PC is a Pentium 133Mhz...
DoutorHouse wrote on 2021-07-03, 04:53:Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-07-03, 04:21:Try a small Linux live CD. It will tell /indicate to you if the onboard video is damaged at all.
This bios doesn't allow booting from a cd drive. Do you think it will work from DOS 6.22/Windows 95? This PC is a Pentium 133Mhz...
Grab a older copy of the PLOP boot disk. It allows you to boot from CD on systems that don't have that function in the bios.
https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/full.html
hmm this looks interesting https://www.plop.at/en/ploplinux/index.html
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-07-03, 05:14:Grab a older copy of the PLOP boot disk. It allows you to boot from CD on systems that don't have that function in the bios. […]
DoutorHouse wrote on 2021-07-03, 04:53:Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-07-03, 04:21:Try a small Linux live CD. It will tell /indicate to you if the onboard video is damaged at all.
This bios doesn't allow booting from a cd drive. Do you think it will work from DOS 6.22/Windows 95? This PC is a Pentium 133Mhz...
Grab a older copy of the PLOP boot disk. It allows you to boot from CD on systems that don't have that function in the bios.
https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/full.htmlhmm this looks interesting https://www.plop.at/en/ploplinux/index.html
Thanks! Just made a PLOP diskette and now i can boot from a CD. I also made a live cd from PLOP but i don't anything about LINUX... it runs a bunch of tests and then stops stating "Plop Linux not found, starting busybox." "Use exit to continue or "reboot -f " to reboot.
Am i using the correct live cd? I have no idea how to test the video card... Help! 😀
Give Damn Small Linux 4.4.9 a go. It's old but might help ease you in and show how useful Linux can be even if your Hard drive is dead.
The iso is at http://distro.ibiblio.org/damnsmall/archive/
See how you get on.
There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉
