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Possible 'Base 64K memory failure' on a 286 build

RWallmow said:
Were there any corroded or damaged traces or IC pins where the battery leaked on the board?
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None that I could see. I decided to give up on that board. I got another one, also with a Suntac chipset. The board is a Magitronic B236. The battery doesn't look like it's leaking, but there is a jumper on the board for an external battery. The board didn't come with any CPU or BIOS, so I had to use the chips from the other board. The good news is, the board passes the POST, but for some reason, it doesn't want to boot from any floppy disk. It doesn't really look like the computer is even trying to read the floppy disks I put in the drive, though the activity light does turn on. This is probably a controller problem. I need to figure out how to get a Seagate ST3290A 260 MB hard drive to work with this computer as well. A picture of the label on the hard drive listing the parameters is attached. The BIOS is AMI, and wants 'sectors' as well, but doesn't seem to want the number provided, as that's in megabytes. Any ideas on how to get the floppy drive and hard disk working?

Thanks!

IMG_20130501_165814.jpgIMG_20130501_182334.jpg
 
andrew_241 said:
None that I could see. I decided to give up on that board. I got another one, also with a Suntac chipset. The board is a Magitronic B236. The battery doesn't look like it's leaking, but there is a jumper on the board for an external battery. The board didn't come with any CPU or BIOS, so I had to use the chips from the other board. The good news is, the board passes the POST, but for some reason, it doesn't want to boot from any floppy disk. It doesn't really look like the computer is even trying to read the floppy disks I put in the drive, though the activity light does turn on. This is probably a controller problem. I need to figure out how to get a Seagate ST3290A 260 MB hard drive to work with this computer as well. A picture of the label on the hard drive listing the parameters is attached. The BIOS is AMI, and wants 'sectors' as well, but doesn't seem to want the number provided, as that's in megabytes. Any ideas on how to get the floppy drive and hard disk working?

Thanks!

View attachment 13101View attachment 13102
Click to expand...
You are reading the HD Label wrong.
1001 Cyl
15 Heads
34 Sectors
EDIT: I see you figured this out as I was posting it ;-)

Floppy, I am not totally sure, if its set right, and still wont boot, and the drive is KNOWN to work, check the controller.
 
Stone said:
That BIOS does not detect floppies.
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I figured he had set that, didn't think to bring that up.

Yeah, he will need to set the floppy to the type that is installed, then it SHOULD work, barring any controller/drive issues.
 
Have you tried to change the drive settings from the BIOS?If the computer does not "remember" the changes then check the battery with a multimeter (these motherboards used a ni-cd barrel type battery that is dead now).You can also use the external battery connector to connect a new battery.Also check the floppy controller-usually the disk drive is selected with jumpers-if you can post a photo from your floppy controller.Do you have another computer to try the controller there?
 
angel_grig said:
Have you tried to change the drive settings from the BIOS?If the computer does not "remember" the changes then check the battery with a multimeter (these motherboards used a ni-cd barrel type battery that is dead now).You can also use the external battery connector to connect a new battery.Also check the floppy controller-usually the disk drive is selected with jumpers-if you can post a photo from your floppy controller.Do you have another computer to try the controller there?
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I tried to change the drive settings from the BIOS, but nothing seems to work. Whenever I enter the BIOS, it wants to believe there's a 360K floppy as drive B. I don't know if it's the battery, since the time and date are preserved between shutdowns. I think it's the controller card (which shares a 16-bit ISA riser card with a Trident 8900D video card), but the hard drive is attached to the same card, and it seems to work fine. I've attached a picture of the card and its jumpers.

I hooked the hard drive up to a 486 I have and installed MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 on it. I then put that hard drive back into the 286 machine and it boots into Windows 3.11 in standard mode just fine. All I need is the floppy drive working, and I'll be all set!

IMG_20130502_131011.jpg
 
FWIW, it's surely *not* the battery. :) It's not likely the controller either. It's probably either the BIOS or something else on the motherboard. Pull the controller card and the erronious drive will probably still be there in the setup.
 
Stone said:
FWIW, it's surely *not* the battery. :) It's not likely the controller either. It's probably either the BIOS or something else on the motherboard. Pull the controller card and the erronious drive will probably still be there in the setup.
Click to expand...

My 386 has an AMI BIOS, and if it is set to not have a Drive B it still does a quick seek *just in case* and if it finds something it boots with a secondary drive temporarily set to 360KB. It took me by surprise.

It's unlikely, but I thought it was worth mentioning because he's also said the drive light comes on but nothing else - as if the drive is on the wrong cable or badly configured and half of it is responding as Drive 0 and the other have as Drive 1 - which I've had happen to me before when using straight through cables and jumpering as DS0 with some models of drive.

Just food for thought - lots of other possibilities.

The easy test will be to set no floppy to none, unplug, and see if it remembers - if it does - then connect the drive and see if it suddenly changes. It was quite common to have a 1.2 / 360 combo so could easily be a default setting getting triggered or something more normal like that. I have a floppy card with an EPROM that always uses this setting (I can't find the damn switch configurations!).
 
Ok, I got a different controller card, but I still have the same problem with the floppy drive. I even took the motherboard out of the case (because the case uses a riser card), and tried booting the board with the video card and the I/O controller without the riser. I tried connecting a 5.25" drive to the floppy cable, but its activity light just stays on. The BIOS has onboard diagnostics, and when I try to run a floppy test, I get 'Bad address mark'. I have a picture of the screen attached.

IMG_20130506_173602.jpg
 
It's probably either the BIOS or something else on the motherboard. Is there an echo in here or did sombody already say that. :)
 
I would start checking drive cabling, or drive jumper settings at this point, the LED should NOT stay on, that's usually a sign of an upside down cable, or other cable problem.

Do you have another floppy drive and cable to test this with?
 
Good news! I tried installing a 5.25" floppy drive as drive A using a different cable, and it worked! I then disconnected that, and hooked up the 3.5" drive, making sure to connect the cables the correct way, and that worked as well!

So as it turns out, it wasn't the board or the BIOS, or even the controller card, it was the cable. I'm in the process of installing Windows 3.11 on the machine right now. I also acquired an Intel AboveBoard Plus 8 for it, so I can potentially use all the spare DRAM chips I now have. I'll try installing Word 6.0 and Excel 5.0 on it and see how it runs (I don't know if I can install them from Office install disks, as Office itself required a 386 SX, probably because of PowerPoint and Access).

Thanks to all those who replied!
 
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