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Station X · 10th Oct 2018, 4:22 pm

Not exactly successful I'm afraid. I managed to enter the BIOS and set up the monitor and floppy disc drive. That got rid of the remaining error messages. I'm using a DOS start up floppy disc created on an another PC for testing.

However the PC has now started to freeze at various points during the boot sequence and only once have I got to the stage where I was able to type "dir" at the DOS prompt and see a listing of the files on the floppy.

The PC typically freezes after testing the memory, just before accessing the floppy disc drive, whilst loading files from the floppy disc drive or after reading the files from the floppy disc drive.

The problem may be temperature related. The 486 CPU has no fan, but there is a forced air draught through the control cabinet which houses the PC and all other electronics associated with the CNC lathe.

I'm beginning to think I'm expecting too much from a PC which is at least 22 years old. Next step will be to reseat all socketed ICs and ribbon cable connectors.

No sign of bulging caps on the motherboard. They're mostly tants.

10th Oct 2018, 4:22 pm	#19
Station X Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Ipswich, Suffolk, IP4, UK. Posts: 21,289	Re: 486 PC. Keyboard problem. Not exactly successful I'm afraid. I managed to enter the BIOS and set up the monitor and floppy disc drive. That got rid of the remaining error messages. I'm using a DOS start up floppy disc created on an another PC for testing. However the PC has now started to freeze at various points during the boot sequence and only once have I got to the stage where I was able to type "dir" at the DOS prompt and see a listing of the files on the floppy. The PC typically freezes after testing the memory, just before accessing the floppy disc drive, whilst loading files from the floppy disc drive or after reading the files from the floppy disc drive. The problem may be temperature related. The 486 CPU has no fan, but there is a forced air draught through the control cabinet which houses the PC and all other electronics associated with the CNC lathe. I'm beginning to think I'm expecting too much from a PC which is at least 22 years old. Next step will be to reseat all socketed ICs and ribbon cable connectors. No sign of bulging caps on the motherboard. They're mostly tants. __________________ Graham. Forum Moderator Reach for your meter before you reach for your soldering iron.