IBM 5150 with 3c503: parity check 1 message

[bendix]

I was lucky enough to buy an 8bit 3com Etherlink II TP at Ebay. I put it in my 5150, where it works side by side with the following isa cards:

- disk on card
- memory extension board (all in all 640 KByte)
- MDA with parallel interface
- floppy controller.


When I run 3c503.exe "Diagnostic Tests" - "Internal Testing of Adapter" I get a new screen with only 1 line:

PARITY CHECK 1

I have to switch the machine off and on again after that.

The 3c503 works fine in a 486. I set it to irq 3 and i/o 300 and when I load the crynwr packet driver on the 5150 the drivers finds the card and tells the correct settings. But I cannot get it to work with NCSA telnet (nor with packet neither with the internal driver). The machine usually just hangs but Crtl- Alt - Del is still possible. I listened on the network with tcpdump on a linux machine hanging on the same switch and I saw some arp messages coming from the 5150 but that is all. I transfered the ncsa directory via laplink to the 486 and tested the 3c503 board there and everything works just fine, so I guess the problem is with the IBM 5150.

I also noted lately that pkzip makes CRC failures. On the net I found this:

"On-screen parity error messages appear as "PARITY CHECK 1" or "PARITY CHECK 2". A Parity Check 1 error means the problem is located on the motherboard or may be caused by a failing power supply."

I tested RAM and Motherboard with checkit but checkit cannot find any errors. Apart from the pkzip errors usual programs like DOS 5.0 edit or checkit or tetris run without problems.

Any idea for further tests to locate the problem?

 

[modem7]

Confirming:
"PARITY CHECK 1" and "PARITY CHECK 2" are error messages that can be generated by the 5150 motherboard.
"PARITY CHECK 1" indicates that the parity error happened on motherboard RAM.
"PARITY CHECK 2" indicates that the parity error happened on expansion board RAM.
After displaying the error, the 5150 BIOS will halt the CPU.

Apart from the pkzip errors usual programs like DOS 5.0 edit or checkit or tetris run without problems.

Not all programs will be loading into the area of RAM that is failing.

I tested RAM and Motherboard with checkit but checkit cannot find any errors.

Sounds like you need alternatives to CheckIt. Do you have the Advanced Diagnostic Disk?

 

[Yzzerdd]

My 5150 motherboard used to display "PARITY CHECK 1" upon boot, and all I had to do was set the dip-switches. The person before me had the switches set wrong. Go to VintageIBM.net/5150_diagnostics, and check your switch settings.

Another thing that strikes me is the fact that your networking card may have onboard RAM that the PC is trying to use. I had that problem in my 486 Tandy. It's been a LONG time, but I think that a jumper on the card was changed, so try looking for jumpers online if setting the RAM and running diagnostics doesn't work. I believe the advanced diagnostics disk is available at Vintage-IBM.net/5150_software. You'll just need a disk imaging program, and a storage medium(SS/DD or DS/DD disks) to get it on the 5150. As for the disk imaging program, I fully recommend our own MMbrutman's Dskimage. It works great so long as you've got the settings right. The disks on the site I mentioned are SS/DD, so bear that in mind, but both types of disks will work.

Oh, and I just noticed you've got a memory expansion board. Just look around on the diagnostics page, make sure you get the memory type right--256K on board, 384K on expansion. Although I notice that Eric's page(vintageIBM.net/5150_diagnostics) doesn't have the appropriate page of settings on his page, which means his book is unrevised. Below, find that I included the correct settings.
Where 1=ON and 0=OFF:

Block 1:
SWITCHES 3&4--0,0

Block 2:
ALL SWITCHES--1,0,11,0000


--Ryan

 

[bendix]

Yzzerdd, thanks for the detailed reply. I checked the dip switches, they are set like you adviced in the bottom of your posting. I downloaded the advanced diagnostics disk and tested motherboard and RAM several times, with or without the memory expansion board but got no errors. Should the mem test be run in an endless loop over a longer time, maybe an hour or more?

What puzzles me is the behaviour of pkzip. When I start the initial self extracting routine of a freshly downloaded pk205dos.exe (http://www.zdnet.de/downloads/prg/o/j/0000OJ-wc.html, "Jetzt herunterladen", cannot find a US site at once now), it throws CRC check failures right from the start. When I repeat this several times the error pattern will change, e.g. error in test run 1 in 1st, 2nd and 4th file, in test run 2 in 2nd, 5th, and 6th file. This does happen with 256 KByte RAM as well as with 640 Kbyte. Is this actually a proof for a severe hardware defect? Could someone please try it on his 5150?

As for the network card I am not sure about the onboard RAM and cannot find jumper settings for that exact type of card I have. So I included a picture:

I don't think there is any RAM that the PC tries to use, is there?

 

[modem7]

PKZIP PROBLEM

I can replicate it on my 5150. Interesting. The EXE extracts without error under Windows XP and on my 486 clone, but on the 5150, some of the files get extracted with CRC errors. And reruns result in different extracted files showing CRC errors (although sometimes a rerun did show the same files in error).

No I can't explain the behavior.

I think that if I were to power off/on the 5150 and go through EXACTLY the same keystrokes, that I'd see the same files showing with CRC errors.

I booted the 5150 using DOS 3.1, 3.3 and 6.21 - no difference.

Guess we'll have to put the problem down to one of those things that happens when one runs new software (the self extractor is dated 1999) on old hardware.


NETWORK CARD AND 'PARITY 1'

Your particular variation of the 'Etherlink II TP' is shown at http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/network-cards/3/3COM-CORPORATION-Ethernet-ETHERLINK-II-TP-3C503-AS.html
It's one of the old cards that uses jumpers, and there are no jumpers shown for RAM. Even if it had RAM, the RAM is for use of the network card only. Sometimes memory manager software such as EMM386.EXE would try to use the RAM and one would need to configure such memory managers to ignore the RAM.

So we've ruled out a hardware fault for the PKZIP extractor problem, and you've run RAM checking software. So I think at this point we can say with high confidence that the RAM is okay.
And so what's causing the PARITY 1 error. Perhaps your 3C503.EXE is corrupt. Try getting another copy. If you send me your 3C503.EXE, I'll see what it does in my 5150, although it could just terminate with a 'cannot find network card' error.

 

[bendix]

I almost expected the result of your repeating of my "pkzip test", since the old PC generally shows no signs of any unstabilities. Maybe someone with a deeper knowledge of cpus and programming than me can explain the CRC check errors on 8088 CPUs? So this is not a kind of addition for the advanced diagnostic test and has nothing to do with the network card and PARITY CHECK 1.

Of course this raises the question of a suitable zip/unzip software for vintage PCs (I know, its a bit off topic in this threat). What do you use for that purpose?

modem7, thank you for the link to the jumper settings site! As for the corrupt 3c503.exe, I savely think we can rule that out. I copied the exact same file via interlnk/intersrv to a 486 and tested the network card in that machine and it did not show any errors in the 3c503.exe test routines.

So maybe we have to close the case assuming that this particular 3com board is to new (1989) / not compatible with the IBM 5150?

Is there anybody out there with a 3c503 TP in a 5150 who can successfully run the 3c503.exe and actually has network connectivity with this adapater?

 

[modem7]

Of course this raises the question of a suitable zip/unzip software for vintage PCs (I know, its a bit off topic in this threat). What do you use for that purpose?

Below is a link to version 2.04g of the PKZIP package. I've used that for years on 5150/5160/5170s.
http://members.dodo.com.au/~slappanel555/misc/PK204G.EXE


CRC.EXE

Another useful utility for old DOS computers is CRC.EXE, which has proved valuable to me when I've suspected that files were not being read properly off the hard drive (or floppy).

Basically, when your hard drive is known good, you go into each directory and run CRC.EXE with the /F option ( e.g. C:\DOS>crc *.* /F ).
CRC.EXE then calculates a CRC of each file in that directory and writes that information to a file in the directory named CRCKLIST.CRC

Later. If you want to confirm that the files in that folder are good (not changed/corrupted), you go into the directory then run CRC ( eg. C:\DOS>crc ).
CRC.EXE discovers that the directory contains CRCKLIST.CRC and then for each file in the directory, compares the file's present CRC to the CRC stored in CRCKLIST.CRC

http://members.dodo.com.au/~slappanel555/misc/CRC.EXE

(Information: CRC.EXE is a DOS port of a utility that I used to run in CP/M)

 

[bendix]

Thank you for both links. I tested pkzip204g and it works just fine. The CRC Tool ist also very handy since the old MFM disk already has a few bad blocks.

I got a little further on the 3c503 problem. Syntax for the diagnostic program is

3C503 [/B:I/O BASE ADDRESS] [/S]

The documentation says:

If the /S switch is specified, the diagnostic program will test DMA transfers using the single-byte mode. If the switch is omitted, DMA demand mode is used.

So I tried the /S switch and - abra cadabra - the PARITY CHECK 1 message is gone and the diagnose program finds, that my 3com adpater is in great shape.

Alas, it still does not work as expected. I load the crynwr packet driver like this:

3c503 0x60 0x3 0x300

When I omit the last optional parameter (0/1 = tick/thin wire = AUI/TP) and the ethernet cable is in the TP jack the driver complains that is has no network connection. This does not happen when

1) I specifically set 1 (thin wire = TP) as last option

or

2) I omit the option and put an AUI transceiver on the AUI port

Anyway, I had a look at all the other programs in NCSA telnet and found that one is actually working: whois

I can do whois queries with both TP and AUI connection. During the time, the whois query takes (5 secs.) I can ping the PC.

When I try ftp or telnet the PC hangs and I have to do CRTL-ALT-DEL. In case of telnet I have a new screen with an endlessly flushing cursor. At first I can ping the PC with 8-13 ms response time. Then, after 20-30 pings the response time goes up as far as 3100 ms before it finally becomes unpingable.

What else can I try? Any other programs I should try with the crynwr packet driver?

 

[bendix]

A little follow up: In "Networking Help with my XT" I heard of the minuet program , tried that on top of my packet driver and bingo - works like a charm!

I can do telnet and ftp and ping the PC during the whole session, it's quick and stable and I have nothing to wish for, well except maybe one little thing, is there a way to setup ftp passive mode?

So in my configuration NCSA telnet and trumpet (I tried that as well) are completely unusable and minuet is really perfect. Strange thing, I was almost sure, that I had hardware problem but now it looks more like a software thing.

 

[Trixter]

I can do whois queries with both TP and AUI connection. During the time, the whois query takes (5 secs.) I can ping the PC.

Then your card and packet driver are working, and you need to look at CONFIG.TEL to make sure you're not doing something that would cause ftpbin to hang.