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AST Premium 286 - Memory size in CMOS invalid

C

Compgeke

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2011
Messages
780
Location
Fairfield, CA, USA
I picked up this AST Premium 286 and after some work it's working - almost. Here's some pics of that: http://imgur.com/a/W5dxp

For some reason upon startup it's seeing the proper 1 MB ram it has, however, it then complains about invalid CMOS settings.

Once in with the BIOS setup it's seeing 1024KB Base memory and 15360KB extended. The jumpers on the Fastram card are set for 1 MB ram properly and there's no way to change what the BIOS is seeing from the setup.

Does anyone have any idea what might be causing it to see this result? I've double checked all the jumpers and reseated the ram card. This problem existed with only the HDD and ram card in, with the HDD controller being the stock card.

Here's some pictures of the issue:




 
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So, the memory size component of the CMOS SETUP information is incorrect, and you cannot modify it to reflect reality.

Have you tried temporarily disconnecting the CMOS battery, for say, 5 minutes. That should clear the CMOS SETUP. On next start, you will probably see some message about the SETUP needing to be performed, and then hopefully, the SETUP will show the correct memory sizes.

Before clearing CMOS SETUP, it would pay to note the particular hard drive geometry that has been entered against the 'Type 47' hard drive (47 is usually a user defined type). You will need to re-enter that geometry when reconfiguring the SETUP.
 
I have - it actually gave me this error upon first boot when I had pulled the battery (it sat overnight) and ran the setup program as well as after a battery. Didn't change a thing other than forgetting the date\time and hard drive.
 
why do you want to disconnect the battery, there must be a Jumper to reset all entries back to factory Settings. You can do that also within the Cemos Setup. But if you havn't These Options I can help with some powerful Software wich can.
BRG Joachim
 
Is the CMOS battery actually working? It should store the size of detected memory in the CMOS when you enter it and save setting.
 
Battery itself is reading fine (3.23V - it's a CR2032). I'll try pulling the 3x AAA from the Performa 6400 to test although I've never seen a system that keeps time and all settings but one.
 
Alright, not the BASIC line nor different battery nor clearing CMOS again solved it.

I'll have to pull the board and replace the caps although that won't be today. I don't have an Advanced Fastram, just a plain, so that one doesn't apply.

If I dig around I might be able to dig up a fastram clone. I had one at some point although I haven't seen it in forever.
 
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