Verifying DMI pool - hang \ VOGONS

Verifying DMI pool - hang

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First post, by ratfink

Posted on 2013-02-13, 17:41

ratfink Offline

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Location: Reality but it's touch and go

Is this credible and what do you suggest:

The PC has:

GA5AX + WINCHIP C6 + 128MB ram
voodoo rush
ensoniq soundscape
sb pro 1
3c905b-tx
fujitsu 4.3gb hdd - primary master
transcend cf - primary slave
nameless cf - secondary master

The fujitsu will boot to 95 [all devices working] or dos. The transcend will boot to dos.

So of course, can't have it working smoothly, have to alter something...

I decide that I will enable the sb functionality of the soundscape. ssinit won't work in windows so I exit to dos. I enable sb on it, set different dma/irq to the sbpro1, and reboot...

NOTHING will make it boot now, it hangs at verifying dmi pool [well, you can turn it off but it just sits there otherwise for several minutes]. I removed the sound cards, removed the cf cards [transcend no longer boots anyway, which is also weird], reset the bios, done the escd thing repeatedly, ...

The fujitsu is detected, it isn't making funny noises. The default detection isn't quite right so I chose the CHS matching what's printed on the drive.

Typical crabby old hardware, but .... any ideas?

A coincidental hard drive failure?

Reply 1 of 3, by leileilol

Posted on 2013-02-13, 18:03

leileilol Offline

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I'd blame the motherboard. Did you clean the motherboard?

long live PCem

Reply 2 of 3, by ratfink

Posted on 2013-02-13, 19:04

ratfink Offline

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Posts: 1795
Joined: 2006-05-09, 15:06
Location: Reality but it's touch and go

No, but it looks clean - I've been using it on and off for a few months, before that it was stored for many years. I could airdust it to make sure.

Actually I should have another such board one I could switch to, might be a different revision but that won't matter for this purpose.

Edit: the motherboard was spotless apart from tiny bit of dust near the cpu.

Last edited by ratfink on 2013-02-14, 13:06. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 3 of 3, by ratfink

Posted on 2013-02-14, 13:05

ratfink Offline

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Rank: Oldbie
Posts: 1795
Joined: 2006-05-09, 15:06
Location: Reality but it's touch and go

So...

My other board seems to be an unused GA5AX rev 5.2. Put it into the exact same system and once it booted I found the same issue. However:

- using a universal AGP card [S3 savage 2000] led to memory checking stopping at random points and the system freezing - maybe it's just socket 7 flakey AGP, but I wondered if it indicated a PSU problem

- I did at one point get past the verifying DMI pool [it reported success] but no further

- with all HD/CF's detached, it says no system disk of course

- with just the one CF attached it says non-system disk

- with the fujistsu attached as well, it hangs at verifying DMI pool as before

I guess my next steps will be:

- try a different PSU - the one I'm using is a generic ATX psu from maplin's that I bought new probably five years ago but hasn't seen much use. So old that it looks like it has one half of an AT connector on it as well - not sure what that's about.

- try the fujitsu in another machine

Edit: Well, it's not the PSU - a known-working 500w FSP PSU gave me the same hang.

Another edit: Put the fujitsu in my slot A box, gets detected and then Primary Hard Disk Failure. Put it back in my socket 7 and now managing to install 98...

... bingo, win98 boots ok. Scandisk with surface scan shows nothing wrong.

Something must have trashed... errr something. But it's ok now!

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