Ancient Dual CPU Machine ?

[philo]

I just built a machine from spare parts. The mobo is a dual cpu P1-133 !
(wow)

It's got plenty of slots for RAM (I put in 150 megs for starters) so I
decided to load Win2k on it.

The installtion went fine but when I tried to upgrade the browser to IE6
either from my cd
of Win2k updates or from a download...I kept getting the error message
"Microsoft digital signature missing"
and I had to retry. After about 4 or 5 times I fianlly got IE6 installed....

Then when I tried to install SP4 either from the cd or from the HD...
I got the error message "file corrupted"

I've installed sp4 from that CD several times and never had a problem...

So I assumed I have a hardware problem...

and initially just ran CHKDSK (with no switches) just to observe...

and did notice a few minor file system errors...

but running chkdsk /r with a reboot found no errrors...

also ran a memory test and HD diagnostic...No problems found.


Now here are a few odd things:

I edited boot.ini with the /sos switch to observe
what happened at bootup and the drive was identified as scsi rather than
the "multi" that I usually see in boot.ini

the drive is IDE !


Also in boot.ini the drive is given a *signature* which I have only seen it
RAID arrays...


so I"m wondering what is going on with this relic...

If I don't get it solved...I'll probably just pull one of the cpu's and
install win98 on the thing

 

[paulmd]

I just built a machine from spare parts. The mobo is a dual cpu P1-133 !
(wow)

It's got plenty of slots for RAM (I put in 150 megs for starters) so I
decided to load Win2k on it.

The installtion went fine but when I tried to upgrade the browser to IE6
either from my cd
of Win2k updates or from a download...I kept getting the error message
"Microsoft digital signature missing"
and I had to retry. After about 4 or 5 times I fianlly got IE6 installed....

Then when I tried to install SP4 either from the cd or from the HD...
I got the error message "file corrupted"

I've installed sp4 from that CD several times and never had a problem...

So I assumed I have a hardware problem...

and initially just ran CHKDSK (with no switches) just to observe...

and did notice a few minor file system errors...

but running chkdsk /r with a reboot found no errrors...

also ran a memory test and HD diagnostic...No problems found.


Now here are a few odd things:

I edited boot.ini with the /sos switch to observe
what happened at bootup and the drive was identified as scsi rather than
the "multi" that I usually see in boot.ini

the drive is IDE !


Also in boot.ini the drive is given a *signature* which I have only seen it
RAID arrays...


so I"m wondering what is going on with this relic...

If I don't get it solved...I'll probably just pull one of the cpu's and
install win98 on the thing

Change the Bios battery. It's time.

If you can find a bios upgrade for it, it'll probably play nicer with
win2k. And that machine is a good candidate for nt4, if you have it.


I don't suppose you can find out if the pentium 1 chips were affected
by that evil floating point bug.

Also, just because Memtest passes doesn't mean you don't have some
memory compatibility problem.

Also, old CD drives aren't all that friendly to CDR and RW media, If
you have a more modern CD drive, try that.

Check the hard drive with the manufacturer's tool.

 

[Joel]

I just built a machine from spare parts. The mobo is a dual cpu P1-133 !
(wow)

It's got plenty of slots for RAM (I put in 150 megs for starters) so I
decided to load Win2k on it.

I don't know about the P1-133 (haven't owned any Intel since 486 to know
much about the model), but you can just stop right here cuz I don't think
it's worth to wear out the switch with 150MB of RAM <bg>

That's about 1M less than my old 8088-10Mhz (the mboard can only hold
512K, but I have 2MB on Expanded card). Yup! it cost me little over 2K for
those 2MB memory (256x9 120ns type <g>), and I had to order from Hong Kong
to save few hundred bucks.

 

[philo]

I just built a machine from spare parts. The mobo is a dual cpu P1-133 !
(wow)

It's got plenty of slots for RAM (I put in 150 megs for starters) so I
decided to load Win2k on it.

I don't know about the P1-133 (haven't owned any Intel since 486 to know
much about the model), but you can just stop right here cuz I don't think
it's worth to wear out the switch with 150MB of RAM <bg>

That's about 1M less than my old 8088-10Mhz (the mboard can only hold
512K, but I have 2MB on Expanded card). Yup! it cost me little over 2K for
those 2MB memory (256x9 120ns type <g>), and I had to order from Hong Kong
to save few hundred bucks.


Actually it was 160 mges of ram ...and win2k runs fine on the thing.

I think it may be simply that the ide controller is a bit buggy
or does not meet any "modern" standards.

BTW: speaking of RAM...
the best upgrade I did to an obsolete machine was add an ISA memory
expansion board to a 286.

It has 16 megs of RAM! That's the maximum a 286 can address.

 

[philo]

Change the Bios battery. It's time.

The battery was dead when I took the board out of storage...
a new battery was the first thing I did.

If you can find a bios upgrade for it, it'll probably play nicer with
win2k. And that machine is a good candidate for nt4, if you have it.

I doubt if there would be a bios upgrade for such an ancient machine...
I'm sure it originally had NT4 server on it or such

I don't suppose you can find out if the pentium 1 chips were affected
by that evil floating point bug.

Also, just because Memtest passes doesn't mean you don't have some
memory compatibility problem.

Also, old CD drives aren't all that friendly to CDR and RW media, If
you have a more modern CD drive, try that.

Yes I tried several cd drives

Check the hard drive with the manufacturer's tool.

Already did that...


I'm going to pop in a PCI controller and put a cdrom on it and give it
another go

 

[philo]

I just built a machine from spare parts. The mobo is a dual cpu P1-133 !
(wow)

<snip>

It's an idiosyncratic IDE controller.

Plugged-in an external (usb) cdrom...and sp4 extracted normally...

BTW: Tried installing software from other CD's and it worked OK...
so I guess I can now move on to some other useless project...

Maybe upgrade an 8086 to a 286

 

[DaveW]

READ the MINIMUM hardware requirements for the OS's you are trying to
install on that machine. Win2K does NOT meet the minimum requirements, nor
does Win 98.

 

[philo]

READ the MINIMUM hardware requirements for the OS's you are trying to
install on that machine. Win2K does NOT meet the minimum requirements, nor
does Win 98.

!!What totall bull!

Now that I've got the bugs sorted out
win2k is up and running fine.

per Microsoft win2k needs just a 133 mhz cpu and 64 megs of ram

my machine has *two* 133mhz processors and 160 megs of ram.

as to win98...it can even be installed on a 486!!!!


Not only that,,,you generally can install an OS on a machine
with less than Microsoft's minimum...but it'll run slow of course

 

[paulmd]

The battery was dead when I took the board out of storage...
a new battery was the first thing I did.

I doubt if there would be a bios upgrade for such an ancient machine...

You'd be surprised. P1 class bioses still often archived. Of course, if
you don't check....

I did one recently, a Pentium 166, that was horrifically slow, On the
order of 7 minutes to load aida 32, it's real issues was that it had a
firmware bug that caused data corruption. After the bios fix, it was
more on the order of 15 seconds to load said program.

If it was a 486, forget it. But you can still find p1s.

 

[paulmd]

READ the MINIMUM hardware requirements for the OS's you are trying to
install on that machine. Win2K does NOT meet the minimum requirements, nor
does Win 98.

Yes it does.

Published minimum for win2k is pentium 1, 133mhz. They assume a single
chip.

For win 98, it' a 468DX 66mhz.

 

[philo]

You'd be surprised. P1 class bioses still often archived. Of course, if
you don't check....

I did one recently, a Pentium 166, that was horrifically slow, On the
order of 7 minutes to load aida 32, it's real issues was that it had a
firmware bug that caused data corruption. After the bios fix, it was
more on the order of 15 seconds to load said program.

<snip>

Well the machine is now up and running
and I've got a few more on the bench..

If it acts up in the future I'll look for a bios upgrade...

 

[meow2222]

!!What totall bull!

Now that I've got the bugs sorted out
win2k is up and running fine.

per Microsoft win2k needs just a 133 mhz cpu and 64 megs of ram

my machine has *two* 133mhz processors and 160 megs of ram.

as to win98...it can even be installed on a 486!!!!


Not only that,,,you generally can install an OS on a machine
with less than Microsoft's minimum...but it'll run slow of course

98 runs fine on 486. Still have a 486/133 with 98 that sees minimal
use, dull but quite capable of doing its tasks without annoyance.

Advertisers and those that support them want people to think their old
kit is junk so they buy new. Even something as ancient as a 486 is
still good for a few jobs.

Most of the time it comes down to software. Set it up wrong and load
piles of junk and a even a P3 will struggle. Set it up cleanly and you
start to realise how excessively specced new machines are.


NT

 

[philo]

98 runs fine on 486. Still have a 486/133 with 98 that sees minimal
use, dull but quite capable of doing its tasks without annoyance.

Advertisers and those that support them want people to think their old
kit is junk so they buy new. Even something as ancient as a 486 is
still good for a few jobs.

Most of the time it comes down to software. Set it up wrong and load
piles of junk and a even a P3 will struggle. Set it up cleanly and you
start to realise how excessively specced new machines are.

Yep...I rebuild hundreds of machines every year...they are all discards...
mostly p1's , p-II's and p-III's

They run lean and mean...and generally perform better than some new machines
running with 10 or 20 items in startup and all kinds of gui bells and
whsitles which do nothing
but hog resources.

Yes a 486 can run win98 and using win98lite...with the win95 explorer shell
even a 486 can run win98 quite well.

Just for laughs, I put win95 on a 386 and it's fine for basic use.

BTW: Very little here gets sent to the computer scrap yard...

Last year someone needed a 386 because they were running some software they
wrote
many years ago...
and it would not run on their new machine with a faster cpu...
they said it was written too long ago for them to recall how they wrote it
and did not think they were up to the task of re-writing it for a fast
cpu...

though i insisted that i did not want any money for the 386
they insited on paying me!!!!