Sporadic problems with AMI 386 motherboard

[Raistlin Majere]

	I have been having some problems, recently, and have decided to pose
 my questions to the "collective" mind of the "NET".

	I am experiencing problems with an AMI 25mhz (no cache) motherboard, yet
 I am unsure whether the problem is the motherboard itself, or something I may
 have configured wrong in the CMOS, etc.

	To start, the board is a baby AT with the Chips and Technologies chip-
 set. When I received the board, and attempted to configure the CMOS, I found
 that the manual accompanying the board said to leave the settings for the
 "clock" stuff alone. It claimed that it was set at the time the system was
 assembled. Trouble is, I bought the board by itself, and the lithium battery
 wasn't connected, thus I have *no way* of knowing what the proper settings
 for the clock on this system are supposed to be!

	I played with various settings and found that most of them caused the
 disk drives to lock up at various points (like loading UNIX System V packages).
 At the third or fourth disk, the system would lock up, the drive light would
 stay on, and it would just keep spinning. I know that if the clock settings
 are wrong, it can cause the system to experience sporadic memory problems.

	Well, after much playing, I came up with the following settings in the
 CMOS;

	Processor Oscillator 	ATCLK	SCLK

	This seemed to cure the "drive lock-up" problem. Here is where I ran
 in to more problems. I am running AT&T UNIX on the system, and have yet to
 experience any problems. However, while attempting to run Microsoft Windows
 3.0 on my MS-DOS partition, I kept getting a "Parity Error ????" message,
 followed underneath by "System Halted". I had booted up DOS from my A: drive,
 I was *not* trying to run it from Simultask (VP/IX) under UNIX. While in 
 "Windows", I would get an error message from Windows when trying to start 
 certain programs, saying "Unrecoverable Application Error", at which point it 
 would randomly kick me back to Windows or, occassionally(sp), straight out of
 Windows to the "Parity Error ???? System Halted" message. It all appeared to
 be random, and it didn't happen while trying to run any particular Windows
 application. The "Parity Error ????" message required me to reboot the system.

	I have noticed that if I decrease the amount of buffers in my "config.
 sys" file to a number under 20, this seems to stop the parity message during
 Windows, and the Windows program seems to run fine. However, if I then exit
 Windows and attempt to run another program, a game, whatever, I randomly get
 the parity message and the system lock-up. I also have discovered if I take
 out the Windows stuff from "config.sys" file ( the HIMEM and SMARTDRIVE lines)
 and then reboot....all my regular applications seem to work fine, and I get
 no lockups.

	This is all very wierd, and I am appealing to anyone else out here who
 might know anything about this, or who might have encountered any similar
 problems. The first thing I would like to know is, what should the clock 
 settings for the board be? Do I have mine set right? Is this why I am getting
 the parity errors? The next thing I would like to know is if anyone knows of
 problems similar to the ones I encountered with MS-Windows 3.0? I would like
 to determine whether or not this is a problem with the software of the m-board
 before I pack the damn thing up and ship it back. The fact that I have had not
 *one* problem running UNIX, and that my problems have come up under MS-DOS,
 lead me to believe that it is probably something in the CMOS setup or in the
 setup of MS-DOS. 
	(Also note that it is *isn't* the SIMMS. I have replaced the SIMMS
 three times, and the system did it under each new set of SIMMS. I have also
 made sure that the memory jumpers were set right, and they were.)

	Also, does anyone have an address or phone number for AMI??? The board
 is still under warranty and I'd much rather deal directly with AMI. I get this
 feeling that I'll never see the board again if I send it back to the place I
 bought it from.

	Much thanx in advance.....................

------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
  And these children that you spit on, as the try to change their world,
  are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what they're
  going through. Ch-Ch-Changes, Turn and face the strange, Ch-Ch-Changes,
  Don't tell them to grow up and out of it.........	-David Bowie
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  Raistlin Majere - Tower of High Sorcery - Palanthas
  Disclaimer:The views above are my own and not AT&T's or my employers.
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