Disable "USWC Write Posting" pretty please.

Side note: I actually tested that board I sent you with Windows 2000 SP4. Worked fine. Also, the FX5200 does have troubles with numerous Socket 8 boards I've tested with. I would certainly try a more period correct video card. One of the ALR 6x6 recipients tried a 256MB video card in that system and also ran into a roadblock. As soon as they installed a video card with less memory everything went smoothly.

liqmat wrote on 2021-03-26, 23:47:

Disable "USWC Write Posting" pretty please.

Side note: I actually tested that board I sent you with Windows 2000 SP4. Worked fine. Also, the FX5200 does have troubles with numerous Pentium Pro boards I've tested with. I would certainly try a more period correct video card. One of the ALR 6x6 recipients tried a 256MB video card in that system and also ran into a roadblock. As soon as they installed a video card with less memory everything went smoothly.

Thanks for the reply. I will try changing that setting.

Also, very interesting in regards to the video card. Surprised that a GPU could cause such issues.

I'll report back shortly.

the_ultra_code wrote on 2021-03-26, 23:57:

Thanks for the reply. I will try changing that setting. […]
Show full quote

liqmat wrote on 2021-03-26, 23:47:

Disable "USWC Write Posting" pretty please.

Side note: I actually tested that board I sent you with Windows 2000 SP4. Worked fine. Also, the FX5200 does have troubles with numerous Pentium Pro boards I've tested with. I would certainly try a more period correct video card. One of the ALR 6x6 recipients tried a 256MB video card in that system and also ran into a roadblock. As soon as they installed a video card with less memory everything went smoothly.

Thanks for the reply. I will try changing that setting.

Also, very interesting in regards to the video card. Surprised that a GPU could cause such issues.

I'll report back shortly.

Does that SATA card have a Windows 2000 driver? It will need one for sure. During the setup process you will need to inject it manually if it does have a driver for Win2K.

Edit: Apparently it does >> https://adaptec.com/en-us/speed/sata/ash1205_ … _v10041_exe.php

Extract the exe onto a floppy and install the driver during the Win2K setup when it asks if you want to install third party drivers (F6).

Double pretty please: Those particular VRMs you are using are the original FIC VRM models and get quite toasty. Highly recommend you blow a fan across them while using the board. Actuallly, nevermind. Just noticed the Godzilla black fan at the top of the pic. You so smart!

liqmat wrote on 2021-03-26, 23:59:

Does that SATA card have a Windows 2000 driver? It will need one for sure. During the setup process you will need to inject it m […]
Show full quote

Does that SATA card have a Windows 2000 driver? It will need one for sure. During the setup process you will need to inject it manually if it does have a driver for Win2K.

Edit: Apparently it does >> https://adaptec.com/en-us/speed/sata/ash1205_ … _v10041_exe.php

Extract the exe onto a floppy and install the driver during the Win2K setup when it asks if you want to install third party drivers (F6).

Double pretty please: Those particular VRMs you are using are the original FIC VRM models and get quite toasty. Highly recommend you blow a fan across them while using the board.

I've tried loading said driver during the driver loading sequence, and the Win2k installer correctly reads the driver, but it doesn't change anything. Besides, I can install the driver afterwards like I did with Win9x I'm pretty sure. And yeah, I can put a fan over the VRMs.

As for the changes I made (disabling that USWC option, and swapping my FX5200 with a Matrox Millennium 2 with WRAM expansion card), still nothing. Also, on the reset after a failed attempt from selecting "MPS Multiprocessor System," I got this error code that froze the system on POST. I had also got this error whenever I changed the "Power Management/APM" setting in the BIOS.
https://i.imgur.com/81gkzyZ.mp4

Perhaps there's a memory error of some sort, although it's strange that Memtest86 didn't pick it up.

it's either bad ram, bad hard drive. even if it seems good. there's something wrong with one of them. id be willing to wager setup just doesn't like your sata card or the way you have that hard drive hooked up. can you try hooking up a normal ide hard drive known to be good.

If that works after you install windows, install the sata card driver and hook a hdd up to it. Then use ghost to image the drive over.

Warlord wrote on 2021-03-27, 00:33:

it's either bad ram, bad hard drive. even if it seems good. there's something wrong with one of them. id be willing to wager setup just doesn't like your sata card or the way you have that hard drive hooked up. can you try hooking up a normal ide hard drive known to be good.

If that works after you install windows, install the sata card driver and hook a hdd up to it. Then use ghost to image the drive over.

Most likely RAM. After removing all drive-related stuff, leaving only the optical drive, I still get the same issue. I'll buy some more RAM and report back.

That error message indicated the lack of writable storage media. Of course it would come up with nothing connected but the CDROM

FYI I use a FX5200 on my dual PPRo and it works perfect

liqmat wrote on 2021-03-26, 23:47:

Disable "USWC Write Posting" pretty please.

I never had a problem with that setting being on, but I did have to disable "read around write" to get mine stable

maxtherabbit wrote on 2021-03-27, 03:56:

That error message indicated the lack of writable storage media. Of course it would come up with nothing connected but the CDROM

exactly.
The way to go about it is, to test the ram with memtest86 floppy boot. Not just assume its bad ram, that message has everything to do with writable storage aka your hdd.

There are different scenarios here.
Scenario 1 Motherboard doesn't like Sata controller card
Scenario 2 motherboard just doesn't like the slot that you slotted it in becasue its on a pci/isa bridge
scenario 3 Sata controller doesn't like the ssd attached to it
scenario 4 windows 2000 doesn't like the ssd
scenario 5 the way the ssd is formated windows 2000 doesn't like aligned partition
scenario 6 all of the above and any combination

maxtherabbit wrote on 2021-03-27, 03:56:

That error message indicated the lack of writable storage media. Of course it would come up with nothing connected but the CDROM

FYI I use a FX5200 on my dual PPRo and it works perfect

I had issues with an ALR dual Socket 8 board and another member with his ALR 6x6 when a 256MB video card was installed. Just my experience so I thought I would put it out there. Most likely a compatibility issue with those boards. Nonetheless, I completely didn’t read the OP’s error screen when I first replied. What I get when trying to multitask. I tested that board using the onboard controller and it worked fine with Win2k SP4.

Warlord wrote on 2021-03-27, 04:14:

exactly. The way to go about it is, to test the ram with memtest86 floppy boot. Not just assume its bad ram, that message has e […]
Show full quote

maxtherabbit wrote on 2021-03-27, 03:56:

That error message indicated the lack of writable storage media. Of course it would come up with nothing connected but the CDROM

exactly.
The way to go about it is, to test the ram with memtest86 floppy boot. Not just assume its bad ram, that message has everything to do with writable storage aka your hdd.

There are different scenarios here.
Scenario 1 Motherboard doesn't like Sata controller card
Scenario 2 motherboard just doesn't like the slot that you slotted it in becasue its on a pci/isa bridge
scenario 3 Sata controller doesn't like the ssd attached to it
scenario 4 windows 2000 doesn't like the ssd
scenario 5 the way the ssd is formated windows 2000 doesn't like aligned partition
scenario 6 all of the above and any combination

the most likely scenario is that win2k simply doesn't have a driver for the SATA card and needs an F6 install from a floppy disk

maxtherabbit wrote on 2021-03-27, 15:51:

the most likely scenario is that win2k simply doesn't have a driver for the SATA card and needs an F6 install from a floppy disk

I already mentioned that above with links. Talked to him on Discord. He tried that without success.

liqmat wrote on 2021-03-27, 16:02:

maxtherabbit wrote on 2021-03-27, 15:51:

the most likely scenario is that win2k simply doesn't have a driver for the SATA card and needs an F6 install from a floppy disk

I already mentioned that above with links. Talked to him on Discord. He tried that without success.

Hmm well if it were me I would just hook up a known good mechanical IDE drive to the onboard controller and establish a working baseline before doing anything else

maxtherabbit wrote on 2021-03-27, 16:08:

Hmm well if it were me I would just hook up a known good mechanical IDE drive to the onboard controller and establish a working baseline before doing anything else

100% works with an IDE drive using the integrated IDE controller in Win2k SP4. I tested his board with that config right before it left my hands. The board does have a HDD size BIOS limitation (I was able to format a 10GB IDE drive with no issues) even with the latest beta BIOS revision. I believe he hit an 18GB ceiling with the latest BIOS IIRC? That was considered huge in 1996 which these boards are dated.

I took a few photos during testing the Win2k Pro SP4 installation right before it went out the door.

Sorry for the late reply. Just getting around to this today.

Just in case it's the RAM, I going to run MemTest for at least 3 passes, as that's usually enough to find any issues with RAM (when I got the RAM, I did 1 pass making sure it all "worked"). If nothing still, then I suppose there is no doubt storage is the problem. I just bought an 8GB DE hard drive to test with, as I don't currently own any.

I still find it strange, though, that DOS 7.1 had no issues with the SATA controller, and detected everything just fine, though I suppose that's DOS for you.

that could be just that the int13 works just fine, and its the f6 driver that windows 2000 doesn't like or doesn't have.

@Warlord @liqmat @maxtherabbit I come bearing good tidings.

So, what, two days ago?, I went ahead and started testing the RAM as I said I was going to do, getting it my 3 passes of MemTest in after 5+ hours. After all of that, nothing. The RAM was not the culprit like I thought it might have been. However, things didn't sit with me right. You guys kept saying that storage might have been the issue, and yet, I couldn't 100% believe that. I decided to do some further troubleshooting. I swapped the optical drive, I tested with an 8GB CF card in a CF-to-IDE adapter, and even swapped the PSU with a modern one, just to rule out all of the possibilities I could, and still, nothing...

While waiting for the IDE hard drive, I decided, for the heck of it, to do the last thing I possibly could, not related to hardware - reset BIOS defaults. I thought that perhaps if the hardware wasn't to blame, then software must have been at fault. I had already tried two different Win2K ISOs, and even tried an XP SP3 ISO, which instead of resetting the system, only hung the system. So, I reset the BIOS settings to default, hooked up the 8GB CF card as my test drive just to give the Win2k installer a drive to look at, booted off the Win2K disc again, and...

I then went about slowly reconfiguring the BIOS the way I had it before with the intent of finding the offending BIOS option. I lastly came to the sub-option underneath "USB Function" - "USB Keyboard/Mouse Support." When I enabled that sub-option, it would cause the issue I was experiencing - crashing of the Win2K installer after loading in drivers off of the CD. Further inspection upon loading the Win2k installer with the option disabled shows that, right after loading up the drivers off the disk, the installer will proceed to configure something in regards to keyboard support.

Reading the manual after making the discovery, it states that if you aren't using a USB keyboard, you shouldn't enable that option. I had been using a PS/2 keyboard exclusively up to this point, and had thought that for whatever reason, enabling that option was required for USB keyboard/mouse support under Windows, but in hindsight I presume this BIOS option provides USB keyboard/mouse support to OSes without such support built-in, or something of that nature.

12+ hours of troubleshooting thanks to the complexities of keyboards...

With this out of the way, I set up the testbench similarly the way I had it (FX5200 + PCI SATA controller and 256GB SSD), inserted a stock SP4 Win2k installer disc in the optical drive, and loaded the driver for the controller card off of the Gotek. I formatted the SSD just fine, installed Win2K without issue, and have finally reached the Win2K desktop. All I have to do now is install drivers, and get to doing what I wanted to do from the get-go - testing this old platform for myself.

Sorry for the slow responses. Also, can't believe this is what wasted our time. 😒

Hah don't you just love computers sometimes? It is half the fun, sort of. Glad you got it working!

Haha awesome and good to know. The biggest complaint of that motherboard model is they reversed the order of the keyboard and mouse PS/2 ports from the usual manufacturer standard. So I got a few people asking me why the ports didn't work. They do, just switch them around. Out of the 25 or so NOS FIC PN-6210 boards I had, only two had issues. Not bad after 22+ years of sitting in a box. You will find they are good performing boards and from my experience, stable as a rock.

I also see you put Godzilla right over the VRMs. Nice!