Sporadic problems with AMI 386 motherboard

[John Boteler]

>From article <1990Sep6.221657.8744 at cbnewse.att.com>, by archmage at cbnewse.att.com (Raistlin Majere):
> 	Well, after much playing, I came up with the following settings in the
>  CMOS;
> 
> 	Processor Oscillator 	ATCLK	SCLK

Huh? Which one? ATCLK or SCLK. Or SCLK/2, for that matter.

The lockup you described under UNIX while accessing the floppy drive
smells very familiar to me...I am using a WD1006VSR2. When I run my
25MC system at full speed, accesses to the floppy drive accompanied
by hard disk accesses lock the system up cold. At low speed (all three
clock settings at their slowest possible) everything works, just
slower.

Try running it with every clock setting throttled back to the lowest
possible setting.

> 	(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.)

It rarely is the memory anymore. These error messages were designed back
in 1980 before any of the modern software tricks were implemented. Many
times, software or system board configuration troubles will generate
the parity error message. I have seen any number of supposedly hardware
generated messages being generated in reality by software, for whatever
reason.

Re: MS Windows 3.0 troubles, ascertain that the motherboard math coprocessor
selection jumper is properly set. Mine came shipped from the idiots at
WIN Labs who had jumpered it for a 387 and checked the 'OK' box on
their paper checklist provided with the system unit! It would not
even boot Xenix and gave strange errors under DOS similar to yours.

> 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.

Must have been one of those Computer Shopper specials :)

I don't know AMI's policy on dealing with end users. I doubt the problem
is necessarily something requiring shipment to AMI; save time and
diagnose the problem using some of the tips here.

-- 
John Boteler   bote at csense.uucp           {uunet | ka3ovk}!media!csense!bote
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