VOGONS


First post, by Markk

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Hello. I'm having a small problem regarding the 386 machine I'm using right now. First the specs of the pc : opti chipset 386dx/40 m/b, 8MB RAM, Cirrus Logic 1MB SVGA, Soundblaster 32pnp, Ethernet card(for which I don't have drivers yet, for the moment I have it just to fill a slot), my old maxtor 240MB disk and a 2GB compact flash card as drive D(The only reason for having that, is that I have lots of games in a few cd-roms, but are zipped and have long filenames, so when I tried to unzip them on DOS it was just impossible to tell which file was what.) I also have removed the (originally dead) on-board battery, and I'm using a battery holder with 3 AA batteries. The pc worked fine, until yesterday when I decided to move al the parts, from a mini tower to a desktop case I found, which I liked more. When I dismantled the mini tower, I saw that I had 4 siemens simms, and 4 samsung ones. But recently I bought a 286 board which had 4 siemens simms, which are identical to those I had, so for my new setup I used all of them. Now, first I got the m/b in the desktop case, and tried it with only the svga and the multi i/o controller inserted. It worked fine, and I had it on for a little so as to fix the cpu speed display. When I finished it worked perfect. So then I install the rest of the cards, HD, CD-ROM, etc. Now, the problem I'm having is that I can't get the turbo button to work. On the AMI BIOS setup there are 2 options, system boot up speed high or low, and turbo button enable or disable. If I have the turbo button option diasbled, it boots at 40MHz, or I can alter the speed manually by the high/low option in the bios. However, if I enable the turbo button option, after the post, the turbo is disabled, no matter the physical state of the switch. By pressing it it does nothing. The switch is fine, as I tried using also a jumber, to have it closed permanently, and it behaves the same way. Then I removed all the cards, just in case one of them was causing that, but it's still the same. I can't really think of anything that sould do that. I would like to have it fixed, even if it isn't that big problem, as I can still controll it from within the bios. Any ideas?

P.S. By running some benchmarks, I measured 4 different speeds, affected by the turbo and the cache. With both on, it's like a regular 40MHz 386. With cache disabled, it's like a 386sx/25. With cache enabled, but turbo off it's like my 286/16, and with turbo and cache off, it's slightly faster than my nec v20/12MHz board.

Reply 1 of 4, by MatthewBrian

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If you can dismantle the front-panel of the old case, you might be able to put the old turbo switch into the new case, in case of the switch type differences.

It is quite weird as you have already put a jumper there to close the turbo switch and it still doesn't work.

Try to consult your motherboard reference, in case of the different setup configuration needed..

Reply 2 of 4, by Markk

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Yes I thought first that maybe it has sth to do with the turbo switch. It's also a completely different type. The old case had a 3 cables connected to the panel. The "new" one has only two, and the turbo light connects to the panel, and also a single cable connects the panel to the "+" of the turbo light, and that way it can tell the state of the system. But it is so strange that in the beginning it was working ok... I know it sounds too weird, but it is. I'll try sth else. Since there is not any clear cmos jumber, I'll disconnect my external battery for a few minutes to see what happens.

edit : Solved!!!! I'm an idiot. There is a which had been cut off from the turbo switch.... I couldn't see this because it was kind of dark in there. And I suppose when i tested using a jumber, I might had forgotten the setting of the turbo button function to disabled. What really happened, is that I placed the SB 32 which is a very large card, and it pressed some cables down, so it broke. I'm really happy with that conclusion, because I was beginnig to think that my m/b was going to die soon...

Reply 3 of 4, by ux-3

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Please, use paragraphs!

Retro PC warning: The things you own end up owning you.

Reply 4 of 4, by Markk

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Ok! I'm sorrry for not doing that 🙁
Now, I fixed that turbo switch. What I noticed next is that sometimes the switch isn't functioning. If I hit F5 while loading ms-dos, then it works ok. If I load my config.sys and autoexec.bat, then it sticks to 40MHz.
By loading each line of the startup files seperately, I found out that the m/b stops responding to the switch after I load emm386.exe... If I bypass that, it can still reduce it's speed. The switch also stops responding, if I run windows, or some games I tried.
Seems kind of strange, but I suppose it's normal. After all I can always select the speed I want.