Snail Mail and Checks to 6 L Reldas Ct Cockeysville, MD 21030
**********DISCLAIMER**********
Although I believe this to be a project that any reasonably intelligent person can accomplish, the Author assumes no responsibility for failed attempts, errors,
omissions or injuries or losses connected to the use of the information contained herein. If you need help, get it. If you are not sure, ask. So there.
**********LEGALESE************
Microsoft, IBM and other company names are registered their respective companies. All products mentioned are copyright their respective companies, and the
companies and products are Registered and Trademarked. Review of their product constitutes and/or implies no relationship and no infringement is intended.
Dedicated to the memory of Farnum Andrew Quillimork, inventor of FAQs.
cCopyright 1989 - 1995 DJ Elliott. All Rights Reserved.
This document is available in Word for Windows 6.0 format and in HTML at my home site. Hard Copies available via snail mail - $5 for the disk, $8 for
hardcopy from the above address.
Graphics, Charts, Table of Contents, Waves and some in depth subjects may be available only in the full Word version, offered above.
If received via BBS, Internet or other electronic means:
I INVITE YOUR COMMENTS AND YOUR CRITICISM. YOU ARE FREE TO UPLOAD IT TO OTHER BBS'S IN ITS ENTIRETY WITH NO
CHANGES TO THE TEXT. COMMENTS SHOULD BE OUTSIDE OF THE ARTICLE.
DJE Version 4.0 October, 1995
Revision History- Original November, 1989 as Build your own IBM Compatible This is a living document. It is corrected and expanded constantly. The date of
the latest modification:October 15, 1995
FULL VERSION HARD COPIES ARE AVAILABLE FOR $8.00 FROM THE ABOVE ADDRESS. FIVE OR MORE COPIES $5.00 EACH. 1,000 OR
MORE COPIES INCLUDE DINNER AT MY PLACE AND A SHOE SHINE.
MODULE 1 - PURPOSE, HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHIES 4
PURPOSE 4
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY - A SHORT INDUSTRY OVERVIEW 6
Who's Who in Nerddom 6
The PC is Born 7
MODULE 2 - OVERVIEW & FAQS 8
A QUICK HARDWARE OVERVIEW 8
UP TO DATE FAQS ABOUT IBM COMPATIBLE PCS 9
MODULE 3 - BASIC PARTS 12
THE BASIC PARTS 12
PREFACE 13
Step One Buy a Magazine! (!?!) 13
Computer Shows 13
Catalogs 14
Discount Store 14
Computer Store 14
THE CASE 14
The XT 15
The AT Case 15
The Baby AT(Aw...isn't it cute??) 15
The Tower 15
The Baby Tower 15
Installation 15
What are all those damn wires in the case?????? 15
Speaker: 16
Reset: 16
Turbo: 16
Turbo LED: 16
KeyLock: 16
Hard Drive LED 16
Power Supply: 17
CPU FAN 17
THE MOTHERBOARD 17
Mini Glossary # 1 CPUs 17
The BIOS (Basic In-Out system [ooh baby]) 18
The PS2 line of IBM 19
Installation: 19
On Getting Fried 20
VLB Motherboards 20
Jumpers 21
MCA (Micro Channel Architecture) 21
ARCHITECTURE 22
ISA,EISA and MCA 22
Local Bus 22
Pentium Motherboards (PCI) 22
Cache Memory 23
L2 Cache 23
POWER SUPPLY 23
Installation 23
THE MEMORY 23
Memory and Speed 24
Parity 24
WAIT STATES 25
RAM 25
ROM 25
SIPPS 25
SPEED 25
CACHE MEMORY 26
MODULE 4 - I/O DEVICES 26
THE KEYBOARD 26
Installation: 26
OTHER STANDARD I/O 27
Installation 27
THE CONTROLLER 27
Types of Floppy Drives 27
HARD DRIVES 28
High Tech Hard Drives 29
Installation 29
SCSI 30
IDE 30
LARGE IDE HARD DRIVE FACTS & FAQS 30
UPGRADING AN IDE TO AN IDE 31
WHAT ARE THOSE OTHER PARAMETERS? 32
BAD SECTORS 32
THE FIRST REBOOT - A PLANNED FAILURE 32
WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE? 33
WHAT IF I CAN"T GET THE OLD HARD DRIVE TO ACT AS SLAVE? 33
WHAT IF NOTHING WORKS BUT ONE DRIVE AT A TIME? 33
MOVING FROM MFM/RLL DRIVES TO IDE. 33
DELETING OLD PROGRAMS 34
HARD DRIVE FAQS BY FARNUM ANDREW QUILLIMORK 34
FORMATTING 37
MODULE 5 VIDEO 37
THE MONITOR 37
VGA Resolutions 38
Installation: 39
VIDEO MEMORY 39
Interlaced Vs Non-Interlaced. 39
Dot Pitch 39
Refresh Rate 39
Windows Accelerators 39
VESA 40
PIXELS 40
The Monitor (video) Board 40
Frequencies 40
MODULE 6 THE M WORD 40
CD'S 40
CD Rom Speed 41
CD Rom Installation 41
A WORD ABOUT WORMS. 43
SOUND BOARDS 43
LIVE VIDEO 43
PLUG N PLAY FOR 95 43
MODULE 7 - BUILDING SUMMARY 44
MODULE 8 - WINDOWS 95, DOS OPERATING SYSTEMS AND STARTUP FILES 44
WINDOWS 95 44
WINDOWS 95 INSTALLATION Q&A'S 45
OPERATING SYSTEMS OTHER THAN WIN 95 48
More Fun with EMM386 49
Ascertaining the DOS Version 50
Backing up startup files 50
Making a Bootable Floppy 51
Using DOS's Edit Command 52
Symptom: Low Memory 52
DATA COMPRESSION 53
MODULE -9 FIRMWARE AND DATA COMMUNICATIONS 54
PORTS 54
PARALLEL 54
SERIAL 54
MODEM MOUSE WARS 55
MODULE 1 - PURPOSE, HISTORY and BIOGRAPHIES
Purpose
Since you are reading this book, you probably fall into one of the following categories: A Build it yourself-er? With very
little know how and using only what you already know about IBM Compatible Computers, it is an easy and enjoyable task
to assemble an 80486 Machine for a total of under $800. This machine will look like a store model and do everything a
store bought system will do, and leave you $200 or more for other pursuits.
The Machine can be built in your spare time in a few days, or over a number of weeks or months, adding the parts as you
can afford them and find them at the right price.
In 1987, this author, knowing absolutely zilch about the inside of a computer, over three months of occasional work and
with no formal training, originally built a 12 MHz 80286 Compatible Machine with 2048K Memory, a 5 1/4 and 3 1/2
Inch drive, a 10 Meg hard disk, Parallel and Serial Ports, and a 1200 bps Modem. Actual work time was in the
neighborhood of 10 hours. There was no test equipment, special tools or mathematics involved. Since that time, I have
assisted in the building of many machines. Over 10,000 people have downloaded this book and many have written to me
with their success at building. The original machine has been upgraded many times and is on it's fourth owner (and still
cookin'). The process itself has become much easier by improvements in the technology. IDE drives that identify
themselves to the machine saves HOURS of work. Parts come already jumpered for IBM Compatibles because 80% of the
worlds computers are just that. In 1987, that just wasn't the case.
Why build a computer instead of buying it? MONEY and fun. This machine you would build using these instructions
would easily go for between $1000 and $1200. Most parts are under warranty, so you are not "stuck" with a computer that
does not work. Just have the offending part replaced or serviced.
Compatibility- What makes this process nearly idiot proof is the architecture- everything plugs in or screws together. If
you can build a model car with Legos or hook up a stereo, you can accomplish this. When you are ready to upgrade it, it
will be a simple task. If you buy a P*ckard B*ll or some such machine, you may find the upgrade path difficult to
impossible.
When IBM made the first PC, they were under the gun to produce a unit to Market in one year flat - so, in a move they
haven't duplicated since (and they haven't had a hit since), they used off the shelf, standard parts for the hardware. This
decision years ago that the MS-DOS PC would be an Open Architecture System gave the world a system that could be
cloned and duplicated, and created today's world of almost single standard computing. It gave us all the ability to run with
the big boys and made Apple an also ran.
Whatever part it is that you are looking for, it is made by a number of different manufacturers at a number of different
price points, and, wonder of wonders- they fit into the same slot the same way. An ABC Motherboard accepts a DEF
Controller, which runs a GHI Hard Drive, which fits into a JKL kit, and takes MNO disks.
This book has evolved from a five page general outline to it's present state. As of the version 2, the article includes a short
preface so that you can first evaluate the project, followed by lengthier information that you will most definitely need
either to narrow down your final buying decision or to support you as you debug your hardware.
Hey, I get lots of notes on the Internet from you guys, and occasional letters, and once in a great while, somebuddy pays
for this sucker. I just received a letter from a guy in Slovenia (formerly Yugoslavia). I know it's for real because they got
stamps with pictures of roaches on them. No shit. He's dodging bullets and eating UN dehydrated Beets n' Bananas
rations and he STILL has the time to learn a little rotten English and send me 10 American Dollars. And he wished me
good Carma [sic] to boot. I got this mental picture of some guy on a bullet riddled, cobblestone street with this striped
shirt, huge mustache and three days stubble, holding his beanie in his hands and selling his father's watch for 10
American Dollars to send me. Of course, the mental picture is in black and white. Which probably explains the black and
white money (just kidding. They were real dollars. I bought a mess of ribs with them.) Carl thanks the guy from Slovenia
for the ribs. I thank him for my good Carma. He'll thank me as soon as I can figger out how to send this rag to Slovenia.
"That'll be $10.47, Sir..." "But...but...I already bought the ribs!" "Scuse me???".
There is very little to fear in making the decision to plunge ahead with this project. It is very hard to fail as long as you
have confidence in yourself, and simply a desire to let the little guy win for a change.
Already Bought It?
Having second thoughts about the power and abilities of what you have? That's OK. You can make the best of what you
have for now by learning about what's under the hood in the following pages. You will learn how to upgrade what's on the
desk to a truly good machine. You will learn whether or not your machine is true ISA (Industry Standard Architecture)
and can be upgraded directly, or if you need to rip out a major part of the system. Don't worry... 90% of compatibles are
just that. Unless of course, you bought a P*ckard-B*ll from C*******r C**y or someplace, in which case you have my
sympathies. This IS NOT an ISA machine. People are telling me that newest P*ckard B*ll is all ISA. I'll believe it when I
see it. Many people waste hours and hours of my time talking about their impending purchase. They sit in my living
room, eat my food, play around on my machine, then go and buy one of those aforementioned machines. They deserve
them. I get really offended when someone tells me about how much PB is improving. Once burned...
Ready to Upgrade?
This book will help you understand the total machine picture, so that you can decide whether it's best to get a bigger hard
drive, add memory or replace the motherboard.
Just Itching to Learn More?
You've come to the right place.
For those of you about to fight your first C:\> prompt, we salute you:
A section for the new user.
Welcome to the world of DOS and IBM. This unique planet is a place like no other you have ever been. Your previous
experience with other computer platforms will only be a good leg up on the total novice due to the unique nature of the
DOS platform IBM Clone.
There will be sections to follow that are of no interest whatsoever to you. Feel free to skip them, but I urge you to at least
scan the contents; you may very well find information that you will want to refer to in a later life.
The message of the book is this: If you ever want to do more than play an occasional game and flounder around the DOS
prompt, calling some $50 an hour guy every time you get an error message, so be it. The world is full of guys who call a
$75 an hour electrician to hook up a new phone or speakers to their stereo. I would rather spend $75 on a better phone or
better speakers, and have the knowledge of how to do it. Many people beg me for a copy of this book, and then, two
months later, I talk to them and they haven't "gotten around to looking at it" but have "gotten around to" buying a $3000
piece of crap computer from BigCity Computer Superstore - and they want to know if I will provide them free support
(no). Don't waste my time or half a tree. You can do this and it will be fun.
Let's plunge into the subject with a quick look at the players.
Biography and History - A short Industry Overview
Who's Who in Nerddom
Understanding use of the machine has as much to do with the personality of it's developers as with actual technical
knowledge. Things are the way they are because the PC was designed by men and women driven by other than normal
business pursuits. Let's meet a couple of key players who actually were responsible for it's development:
Bill Gates - Computer's Elvis. I fully expect him to die one day while performing some obscure physics experiment (Video
Physics lectures are Bill's idea of relaxation) and the BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems) of the world will tout his survival in
hiding, coding mysterious viruses for decades to come. From a future Cover of InfoWorld Weekly: "Gates Spotted in
Janitors Uniform at Comdex!" or "Gates and Mysterious Alien Fathered My Baby in Bizarre Runtime Experiment." He
will join the ranks of Hoffa and Hitler. Bill Gates, of course, began and owns Microsoft, the company that provides the
premier Operating System for the PC, known as MS-DOS, recently supplanted by Windows 95, MS's first GUI Operating
System. PC-DOS Version 1 wasn't written by Gates, it was written by Tim Patterson of Seattle Computing, who sold it to
Microsoft for $50,000. Bill has made billions of dollars from this 50 grand investment, and Tim Patterson now works for
Gates. MS-DOS wasn't even marketed as a separate product until well into Version 3.
IBM Small Systems Group - First, it is important for you to understand that IBM didn't WANT PCs to be great. They
wanted them to be adjuncts to RISC and Mainframe Computers. Every advance in PCs makes another hundred
Mainframes obsolete. IBM makes a hundred bucks or thereabouts on each PC sold. They make mega thousands installing
and supporting each Mainframe (an average 70% Margin). It took them until 1993 to figure out that mainframes aren't
coming back. Duh.
Way back in the 1970's (a millennium in Computers), IBM had made a few attempts at coming out with a personal
computer. As stated above, it was a project that they were, by it's nature, at odds with. Couple that with, according to
many, the IBM way of doing business in the great heyday of Corporations, which is that the Corporation, not the product,
was the goal; forming the right committees and wearing the right tie were business objectives - putting a product out to
market was a necessary annoyance. Having no great enthusiasm for the project, some IBM committee that was under
pressure to produce a progress report gave Boca Raton an ultimatum: produce a PC within one year or perish. Perish in
IBM parlance means that your group will be broken up, you will have a less than perfect performance review, and you will
have to move again. IBM = I've Been Moved. Since no right thinking person wants a poor performance review, these
stalwart men hitched up their gray trousers, straightened their striped ties, and went grudgingly about giving the world a
PC. Certain of it's failure (real computers are mainframes, after all), the group was even allowed autonomy; having
autonomy at IBM is akin to eating pork on a Muslim prayer rug. Unencumbered by the usual IBM flowcharts and
Business Plans (spending six months designing a fancy report with all the right typefaces and just the right amount of
linen in the cover telling everybody what you are going to do just as soon as you finish writing this plan) the Boca
Raton'ers (between the golf course and the Fifties Dance Committee meetings) decided that since there was no way to
produce the proper paperwork AND design a machine in the allotted time, that they would build the machine from already
produced parts and use their time how they knew best, having meetings. Well, they still needed an Operating System. No
one in their right minds at IBM was going to give one line of code to these upstart lepers. "Can you imagine! I spend my
whole career producing software code that adds leap year day to Payroll Accounting Run Modules on the IBM Big Mama
VII, and these outcasts want me to write an assembly routine for a desktop toy! The nerve. I got just 7 months to keep my
nose clean and I'll be a grade 8b, which means that Mary can get that Sun Porch she's been dreaming of. I'm not risking
my Career Development Path for those bozos. Just thinking about it made me late for lunch. Now all the Big Blue Plate
Specials will be picked over."
So the Boca Raton Merry Men set off on a quest to find an operating system, much like Bilbo Baggins set off to find the
King Under the Mountain. They met many colorful characters along the way and had many adventures that they faithfully
set down in their Daily Planners. Although they had no trolls to fight or elves majik to light the trail, they eventually
reached the Western Shores and what they hoped would be the end of their quest. The IBM'ers needed a 16 Bit operating
system, and the alchemist who held this secret formula, called CP/M, (Control Program for MicroComputers) was
supposed to meet with them on his magic mountain. Our heroes in Navy Blue arrived at the appointed hour, with their
famous disclosure document in hand. IBM had (or has) a curious document that we can call the "Playing with the Big
Boys Agreement". It states, more or less, that anything they learn from you can be used as if they had thought of it;
anything you learn from them you must keep secret forever. A Magic Scroll indeed! Well, it seems that the owner of the
Secret Formula was off flying around the countryside in his private plane that he bought with money made from the
Digital Corporation (remember the Rainbow, old timers?), it being such a fine day and all, and his wife, who was
relegated to keeping both feet on the ground, or at least on the desk and to answer the phone, consequently wasn't in the
mood to sign anything. It was still too early for lunch, so the Big Blues flew north to cry on the shoulder of Bill Gates,
who with his partners in Nerddom wrote Programming Languages for various PC upstarts. Bill and his partners had
gained fame by writing a program on streaming paper for the Altair, arguably the first PC, which not only added 2 + 2,
but actually came up with the answer 4! Bill "knew of somebody" who had written such an Operating System, called PC-
DOS. He promised his best efforts to secure it, handed out Kleenexes and lint brushes and the boys went home happy.
Gates' minions promptly called Seattle Computing and bought PC DOS 1.0 for the famous $50 grand. By the way, Gates
was furious at this spending of hard earned capital. PC DOS was now owned by Gates 'n Co., and licensed to IBM. IBM
has the only rights in existence to market their own version of MS DOS called IBM-DOS (currently version 7). In classic
IBM, it doesn't work and is overpriced.
The third and final puzzle piece was the code to hook the off the shelf hardware and the bargained for software together; it
was called the BIOS (Basic In Out System) which was produced in house (good for you, boys!) and burned into EPROMS.
The IBM PC was born, everybody got good performance reviews and... you guessed it, were moved to other groups. Bill
became a billionaire, Seattle Computing has sued Bill, Bill hates IBM and you and I got some good, if not great hardware
and some bad, but not terrible software out of the deal. I haven't gotten closer than 15 feet to William R. Gates III, but I'll
tell you this. Bill is the Tom Edison, the Henry Ford of our day. The man gave us this revolution, whether he meant to or
not. And my hat is off to him. I do admit to disliking the scrubbed to glowing Microsofties that run around in their purple
banlons at COMDEX and such, but, just maybe , I... choke... wanna be one... nah, I'd get canned.
The Steves, et al
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built a computer in their garage to show their friends in the local computer club how cool
they were. They called it an Apple. Their friends thought it was way cool so the Steves decided that building lots of
Apples would be more fun than flipping lots of burgers. Now these guys had good business sense; they built a good
product, kept the trade secrets to themselves, hired good people, paid them well and kept them happy, and totally and
miserably failed to capture the PC Market. Clear?
Why didn't they call it the Burger? Why am I telling you all this? Do you care? The Apple didn't quite begat the
MacIntosh. Steve Jobs was working on a project called the LISA, which got him so busy that he didn't notice that a bunch
of hardware geeks in the other building were working on a project called MacIntosh. MacIntosh took it's basic concepts
from Palo Alto, a research group funded by Xerox, which produced a concept called "windows", a device called the
"mouse" and a printer called a "laser jet". Xerox didn't produce any of this stuff, they only paid millions to develop it. Isn't
this a fascinating business? Do we wonder why the japanese think we're totally nuts? Anyway, LISA was a hideous mess,
so Jobs took credit for the MacIntosh, which was so cool that Bill started snacking on it, picking off the mouse, the GUI,
and, most of all Windows.
Oh, yeah. Steve Jobs subsequently built and crashed an empire by the name of neXt, using hundreds of millions from guys
like Ross Perot. The state of the art manufacturing plant eventually produced a machine that was largely ignored.
Customers would look at the features, look at the hardware... then look at the price and say "neXt!" Cool case, though.
And an honorable mention to:
Lots of folks deserve mention here, but the one that must be mentioned is Mitch Kapor; Mitch made computing worth the
money by making sure Lotus 123 was on as many desk tops as possible; without the spreadsheet, there is no way that the
Desktop PC would have been justified as a necessary business expense; the PC would have given way to the Word
Processor. With Lotus 123, businesses saw a way to make every accounting type account faster and make more money.
Letters don't make money because they are on a PC, but numbers do. Mitch got out of Lotus years ago, and now he's doing
a little thing called the Internet, which is doing for the Modem what Lotus did for the PC. Mitch is a nice guy who even
answers his E-Mail! Let's not forget Andy Grove, the man behind Intel. Despite the early 'dirty silicone dilemma' (great
story!) and current Pentium conundrum, Dr. Andy gave us the Intel 80XXX family of CPUs, which made this whole
revolution possible.
The PC is Born
The IBM PC Clone is a machine that exists because IBM used off the shelf parts that anybody could buy, and, in order to
get it to the Market on time, used an Operating System that wasn't exclusively theirs. The world, therefor, was given,
quite by accident, the most incredible gift since the Internal Combustion Engine - a personal computer in a Free Market.
Had Boca Raton been given the proper time, direction, funding and corporate belief in the project, they would have
produced an IBM only machine, captured a small percentage of the Market, and you and I (or at least I ) would be shut out
of freely participating in this technology. The IBM would have been another Apple. You need memory for an Apple, you
go see an Authorized Apple Dealer, who tells you that you can pay the price or stuff it up your floppy. You need memory
for a Clone, you go to a Computer Show and let the dealers yell each other's price down till the profit margin is as low as
the dealer can go and still go home with Cookie Money, and you buy your memory at fair market price. Excuse me for
being hokey, but this truly is the greatness of America.
That ends your Introduction to Personal Computers. I'll bet I'm the only writer you have ever read that has the ability to
digress before he progresses.
MODULE 2 - OVERVIEW & FAQS
A Quick Hardware Overview
Here is the copy of an actual computer ad. Below it is a quick and dirty summary of what the jargon means. Reading this
book and referring back to it will make these ads make sense to you
VESA LOCAL BUS
486DX2/66 MHZ
80486DX266 CPU
4MB RAM plus 256K Cache
1.2 and 1.44 FDD
210 MB IDE HDD
32bit VESA Local Bus 1 MB
14" SVGA Monitor .28DP 1024 x 768
101 Key Keyboard
DOS 6.22 (or 5.0), WIN 3.1, Mouse
ZIF Socket - Pentium Ready!
80486DX266 CPU - This computer is based on an Intel 80486DX CPU chip (the heart of the computer) whose speed has
been doubled from 33Mhz (it's rated speed) to 66Mhz, but only for internal operations (it won't make your hard drive or
video run faster). This is currently "top of the line" reasonable for home systems. There are suddenly lots of players in this
Market. TI, CYRIX, AMD, etc. Expect to pay a 10 - 25% premium for Intel.
4MB RAM plus 256K Cache - There is 4 Megabytes of Random Access Memory built in. DOS uses the first 640K
(64/100 of a Megabyte) for programs, the next 360K for loading programs high (out of your way) and 3 Megabytes of
XMS (which smart programs like Windows use to hold stuff in extended memory while you aren't using it). 4 meg is OK,
a bit skimpy for a 486DX. 256K cache is a memory speeding scheme. Certain operations which are in line for the CPU to
work on will stand in line in the Cache rather than main memory having to fetch them - which is hence freed to do other
stuff.
1.2 and 1.44 FDD - 1.2 Meg capacity 5 1/4 inch floppy drive and a 1.44 Megabyte capacity 3 1/2 drive. If you want to
drop ANY option, drop the 5 1/4. It's dead. RIP.
210 MB IDE HDD - A 210 Megabyte Hard Disk Drive, used for storage of programs and data - IT IS NOT MEMORY. A
megabyte is 1,024,000 bytes. A byte is akin to a word in a book. 8 bits make up a byte. A bit is akin to a letter in a word.
(OK, OK, so I'm simplifying...) 1K is 1,024 bytes. A page of text is about 1K. 210 Megabytes is 210,000,000 bytes plus
(somebody took my calculator). Windows 3.1 takes 5-25 Meg of hard drive space. 210 Meg is an OK size drive, but
increasing to a 540 Meg drive is no big expense. IDE is the "format" of the hard drive - stands for Imbedded Drive
Electronics. This is the current standard. High end systems will have SCSI drives, and used systems will have MFM or
RLL. IDE is fine. ZIP drives (removable 100 Meg disks) are coming on strong.
32bit VESA Local Bus 1 MB - The Video Card in the system is VESA Local Bus - It has three connectors at the bottom.
The first connector is 8 bit (OK for a serial port card) , the second is the 16 bit connector (OK for normal AT class cards)
and the third, extra connector is 32 bit, which gives it priority with the CPU. It doesn't have to wait in line behind the
floppy drive formatting a disk. It communicates with the CPU directly. This board has 1 Megabyte of Memory of it's own,
so that the image going to the Monitor is pre-processed so the CPU doesn't have to do it.
14" SVGA Monitor .28DP 1024 x 768 - This is a 14" (just like your TV is 20" or 27") Super Video Graphics Array Color
Monitor. Super VGA means it shows lots more colors and lots more information than standard VGA. The difference is
akin to the difference between a color picture in the newspaper and an actual photograph. 1024 X 768 is the maximum
resolution - there are 1024 pixels (dots) across the screen and 768 dots up and down. There is more information and
colors than you would have at standard resolution, 640 across and 480 up and down. .28 is the dot pitch - the smaller the
dot pitch, the clearer the picture. A .39 Monitor will ruin your eyes. Everything appears cloudy.
101 Key Keyboard - BigFD. All keyboards that meet standard for 80286 and up are 101. This is akin to Ford saying all of
it's cars are equipped with a 360 degree round steering wheel. Avoid BTC keyboards. Spend an extra 20 bucks for a
Focus. I think BTC stands for Better Type Carefully. Brand new keyboards may have Windows 95 keys also.
To test a keyboard, forget 'click' - hit the keyboards A-S-D-F keys simultaneously with your left hand fingers three times.
If the keyboard bends, jumps, skitters, moves or otherwise shows itself to be the piece of crap it is, move up. IBM and
Compac make great keyboards. A used keyboard from an obsolete IBM PS/2 is a great buy. (You will need a three dollar
adapter).
DOS 6.22 (or 5.0), WIN 3.1, Mouse - They are providing the operating system - MS DOS version 6.22, or, if you are one
of those ninnies who hates the latest and greatest, they'll give you 5.0; they are also providing Windows version 3.1 and a
mouse.
Pentium Ready! - means that you can swap out the 486 chip with a 586. You won't want to. Trust me. Would you swap
out the 4 cylinder engine in your 1989 car for a 1994 8 cylinder engine or buy a new car? An Overdrive processor will
cost you almost as much as a new motherboard and CPU.
ZIF is zero insertion force. The CPU is clamped rather than forced into the socket on the motherboard using a lever that
makes the whole thing look suspiciously like the paper cutter you use in work. It also works great as a guillotine for
roaches. This whole schlemiel is put here at your expense in case the day ever comes that you need to pop out the CPU.
All of the points above are covered below in much more depth.
Up to date FAQS about IBM Compatible PCs
Okay, having taught night courses in this stuff for a few years, lets jump right to the FAQs.
1) What the hell are FAQ's?
Farnum Andrew Quilimork - who invented a list called Frequently Asked Questions. You will find these as you browse
Bulletin Boards n stuff - such as 'ProComm 2.8 FAQ's'. Farnum has retired on royalties made from this scheme.
2) What's an IBM Compatible?
This term loosely refers to any machine that conforms to the ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) [8/16 bit] and EISA
(Enhanced Industry Standard Architecture) [32 bit] standards. You should be able to pick up any hard drive, floppy,
modem, printer, CD Rom, etc. that says "IBM Compatible" and plop it in, much like you should be able to plug any
toaster in any outlet. Some companies produce machines that claim to be IBM Compatible but accept their own
components only. Classically, P*ckard B*ll is the most notorious. Their products are priced slightly lower than other
brands, they spend a lot on advertising, and they foster 'loyalty' by making their products so that you have to buy P*ckard
B*ll parts. Memory may be soldered on the motherboard, the modem may plug into the motherboard directly, the
controller may be on the Motherboard, etc. This causes problems when you want to switch out the Modem to get above
2400bps, etc. You want a true ISA machine.
3) How do I tell if it is not an IBM Compatible?
Ask lots of questions before you buy. If you are reading this book just to get smart before you buy, you should shop for at
least two weeks and eventually buy your first machine from someone local with a good reputation. It's a real tough call to
buy your first machine from a catalog. Look at the back of the machine. The Video (TV), Mouse, and printer SHOULD
NOT PLUG IN AT THE BOTTOM OF A DESKTOP CASE. Imagine a compass. Imagine that you are looking down at
the top of the case. The Video, Mouse and printer should be in slots which run Northwest to about North, vertically about
halfway up the back of the case. The Keyboard should plug in about due North. The Power should plug in at the
NorthEast corner. That is because the standard ISA Motherboard has bus slots, keyboard connector and power connector
in the same place every time, so that your peripherals will fit into a standard case the right way. This will become hugely
important two years from now when you 'just gotta have more speed'. If your machine isn't standard, it's yard sale time.
Instead of a $500 motherboard and CPU, it's $2500 all over again. Adjust these hints for a Tower. You should still be able
to orient the slots and the Keyboard connector by placing the Tower on it's side. DEMAND to know whether the parts are
ISA. Do not shop name brand computers. Shop name brand PARTS. My brother recently went on a job where the
customer had 'drop kicked' has PC. Seems that after one hour on hold with Tech Support, followed by a recording telling
him that he would be called back within a day, the arrogant techie informed him that his computer couldn't be upgraded
because the memory was soldered in place. He drop kicked it, sending the 5 1/4 drive through the case and shearing off
the simms. How do you upgrade a PB computer? Drop kick it.
4) How does the CPU fit in all this?
CPU's (Central Processing Units) are divided into what we can call families. Lets take for granted you want to run
MSDOS on an IBM Compatible ISA Machine. This describes 99% of you. You need a CPU which is capable of running
MSDOS.
ISA CPU's
Dominated by the Intel series, consisting of 8080,8086,8088,80286,80386xx,80486xx Pentium and Pentium Pro. The bulk
of IBM Compatibles have Intel CPUs. AMD, TI and Cyrix make Intel clones with names like AM486DX2. IBM itself
puts out a line with names like 486SLC which is actually a hopped up 486SX. This is the classic line for running MS-
DOS and it's licensees. IBM makes a licensed and altered flavor called IBMDOS.
Intel type CPUs can run other operating systems, such as XENIX (Unix). CP/M, etc. You would not be able to put in an
Apple boot disk and run an Intel machine. DEC tried to put out a CP/M and DOS machine in the Rainbow, but it was a
frustrating, hideous mess, and DEC priced it's parts and upgrades ridiculously high.
Apple/Macintosh CPUs
Dominated almost exclusively by Motorola. Series including 68000,68010,68020,68030, 68040 and 68060. They run
Apples and Macintosh's. Macintosh compatibles were not allowed to spring up, and Apple controlled the pricing. The
Mac does more elegant Desktop Publishing and is easier to learn, but very limited in that cheap software and hardware
upgrades are practically non-existent. There have been kluges in the past to allow MSDOS to run MAC and MAC to run
MSDOS, but all have been problematical and very slow. The current series of Macintoshes based on the 68040 is the last
line for Mac, which will be abandoned for Power PC. Apple has made arrogant moves before, shipping machines that did
not run earlier generation software, or died in infancy (the LISA, which was abandoned for the Mac). The Mac is being
replaced by the Power PC, and there is a new generation in the works.
Alpha
The first Alpha shipped in 1992, and is a high performing CPU. It is used in high performance servers and Mainframes
made by DEC. You won't see your kid on one of these playing DOOM.
PowerPC
IBM and Apple got together in 1991 with Motorola when they were both pissed off at Bill Gates (Microsoft) and Andy
Grove (Intel). The PowerPC CPU line includes the 601 (50-100mhz), 603 (for portables and laptops), 604 (servers) and
620. All are built on 64bit RISC architecture. Apple revised it's entire hardware strategy and has put out Power Macintosh
and Performa models that run a Macintosh System 7 Operating system which is capable of running MSDOS and
Windows "boxes". Personal experience says that most functions run almost as well as an Intel PC, but communications are
problematic and iffy. If your intent is to run Macintosh stuff 90% of the time and occasionally use a Windows product, the
application seems stable. IBM on the other hand, has floundered and blustered and sound-byted it's way nowhere,
changing major parts of their PowerPC platform at the same time they claim to be shipping. It looks at this writing that a
beta PowerPC OS/2 will ship with some major functionality pieces circumcised. In the future, IBM has promised us, there
will be a single DOS-Macintosh PowerPC platform. Yeah, right. So far Apple has delivered. Unless the architecture is
going to be opened up to the extent of PCs (it won't), pass.
5) I hear ya knockin but you can't come in...How to I get into the BIOS without knowing the key combination?
If all else fails, pull out your controller card and reboot. The machine will say "Hey you idiot, you pulled out the
controller! Press F1 to enter setup". Who's the fool now, fool? Similar results can be had by removing a legal number of
SIMMS (8 down to 4 or whatever).
6) What is Windows 95?
It is the much delayed upgrade for Windows 3.1 and replacement for MS-DOS. Earlier, Windows95 was going to be a big
break from the past, leaving 286-386 and DOS users out in the cold until they could afford to upgrade to 32 bit hardware
and applications. Microsoft is trying to back pedal enough to allow most of our old software and hardware to work,
however poorly, at the expense of some of the functionality of a true 32 bit operating system. It's a hit. A disappointment
in some ways, but a hit. You whould buy Windows 95 if you are willing to work through the normal bugs of any version 1
release. There may not be a driver for your Major Teddy's CD-Soundcard kit for some time. There will be glitches and
bugs which will be worked out by 1.1. I was a beta tester and suffered through the worst of them before the fixes were
released. See my FAQ on Windows 95 installation elsewhere. Should you buy it? I wouldn't run without it, but I'm a
geek... I like solving glitches.
7) I get a lot of memory errors - do I need a bigger hard drive?
No (whine). Please understand this now and forever more - There is Memory - Random Access Memory (called RAM)
installed on the Motherboard which loads stuff to and from the CPU, hard drive, floppies, modem, etc. A hard drive has
SPACE just like a cassette tape has SPACE. Unfortunately, since the beginning of computing, stupid books and articles
have referred to hard drive memory (John Dvorak is STILL doing this). Memory indicates that anything in it disappears
when you turn it off - like your memory will erase when you are dead. Like the original digital TV's - when you turned
them off on any station, turning the set back on took you to channel 2 - it had lost it's memory. To solve Memory errors,
you must deal with the RAM - 640K low ram, 640-1024K UMB ram, and extended RAM - 1024 to 16,000K+. ROM is
Memory with a memory - some form of power, usually a battery - lets it remember your disk drives, date and time, hard
drive size, etc.
8)Oops, what do I do now? (MS-DOS)
OK, so before I read that, my computer said 'not enough memory', so I deleted the files on my hard drive; now it says
"non-System Disk or Disk error when I try to boot up.
You need a boot disk.
Find a friend who knows about DOS and computers and get some help. Almost everybody does something like this at least
once. The boot disk should contain the system files, undelete, SYS, format and F Disk. The mistake is usually in the panic
reaction to it. DON'T PANIC! Do nothing until you determine what is wrong. First, get your hands on a boot disk.
Second, swear you'll have one at the side of your machine forever more. Boot from the disk. Go over to C: and try to do a
directory. If you can, you are in pretty good shape. Try to go to the DOS subdirectory. If it is still there, and has lots of
files, you are in real good shape. Copy COMMAND.COM to the root and try to boot from the hard drive. If you can, read
up on undelete and unformat commands and good luck. All you did was wipe out the root directory, and all you have lost
is those files, including COMMAND.COM and your start up files, but not the hidden files (IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS). Now
you know why they hide them.
If you still cannot boot from the hard drive, but can read other sub-directories, you have managed to erase MSDOS.SYS
and IO.SYS. Running the SYS command from the DOS directory might put you back up. If not, running SYS from a
floppy might put you back up. If you do manage to boot from the hard drive, run some DOS commands (like formatting
disks, etc.) to see if you get Incorrect DOS Version messages. In that event, the restore has caused a mixed DOS version.
You need to reinstall DOS from the floppy disk set as soon as possible. Don't do any real work until then. At the end of
your fix, search the drive for copies of COMMAND.COM, EMM386.EXE and HIMEM.SYS and only keep the versions
which match the version in the restored DOS subdirectory.
If all else fails and you cannot read from the hard drive after booting from disk, get help from a nerd. You need to run
Fdisk, and if it reports OK, reformat the disk. If it cannot read the disk partition, you are in for a low level format and
partition job. Get help here - you cannot use most shareware low level formatters on today's drives.
9)My mouse doesn't work since I added a modem, and, for that matter, neither does the modem.
They are camping on the same IRQ, or com-shift has occurred. Read the relevant section in this book and reset your COM
ports accordingly.
10)What are bits and bytes, and why should I care?
Remember your old math class when they taught binary math? Well, you didn't care then either. Everything a computer
does is based on 0's and 1's, because a computer cannot think... it can only interpret on and off (the abscense or prescence
of current). Bits (on-off switches) get together in groups of 8 to form bytes - humans get together in groups of 8 and call it
a Mormon marriage - never mind. Anyway, these bytes make up numbers and letters, e.g. 0000 0100 is the number 4, and
they add a ninth bit that is like a political officer from the KGB in 70's Russia - it's job is to report any deviant behavior of
the first 8. This is called the parity bit. A 3 1/2 HD diskette holds 1.44 Megabytes, or roughly 1,440,000 bytes. So if a
letter or number is one byte, that disk can hold some 1,440,000 characters of data, such as a document.
11)Why is my 9600bps modem only downloading at 1200bps?
Because they use the same stupid letters for two different things. Your Modem is 9600 bits per second, and the download
rate reported by Zmodem and your com software is in BYTES per second. 8bits x 1200bytes per second = 9600 bits per
second. If your modem AND the other guys modem are advanced enough, you may be able to use compression and bi-
directional transmission to speed this up.
12)I tried to move my hard drive to another machine, the Auto detect IDE worked, but the drive won't run. Why?
Because the drive reports it's DEFAULT parameters to the BIOS, not the ACTUAL. Go back to your old machine and
read the Cylinders, Heads and SPT from the old USER settings, and put them in manually in the new SETUP. Write the
numbers and HD capacity on top of the drive in indelible Marker for the next time.
13)Auto detect didn't work
1 - It's not an IDE drive (manually configure)
2 - The cable is backwards (is power plugged in?)
3 - Try unhooking the data controller cable, reboot, wait through the errors, go into setup, rehook the cable and try again
4 - Make sure it is set properly for Single, Master or Slave.
14)I'm getting bogus, ever changing numbers in CMOS Setup - or - I got cute and changed some CMOS stuff.
First, print out or write down the current CMOS settings, especially for the hard drives. As a last resort, on most
machines, if you put a jumper over pin three and four of the battery connector, turn the machine on and off and put it back
to it's original position, the CMOS will reset and you can start over. See your manual.
15)I put a password into my AMI BIOS, now I can't get in!!!!!!!
Send me five bucks, then read on. 99% of these calls turn out to be a FAILED password setup. If you don't follow
directions to a T, the password resets itself to the DEFAULT rather than NO PASSWORD. The default password is AMI.
MODULE 3 - BASIC PARTS
The Basic Parts
There are a number of items you will need to get started if you are building a machine and they are easily obtained. All
compatibles have the following components:
*A Case
*A Motherboard (w/CPU and BIOS)
*A Power Supply
*A Keyboard
*A Monitor
*A Disk or Hard Drive (I/O device)
*ROM [Read Only Memory] -the basic instructions
*RAM [Random Access Memory]- your work space
*Controllers
The more useful options are:
A second Disk Drive or a Hard Drive;
a Modem;
a Mouse;
a Printer.
The extras include
a Sound card
a CD ROM
Stereo Speakers
Aa scanner
PREFACE
This article started at 5 pages. It has turned into a book. That's good in that I'm passing along lots and lots of information
that will save you days or weeks of trouble and lots of dollars. It's bad in that the technical jargon may turn you off. It
shouldn't. The actual building process is something you absolutely should be capable of doing. Here is a one paragraph
summary of what you will be doing:
You will buy a case, install the motherboard and set a few jumpers per the documentation. You will fill some empty
sockets with memory chips. You will put in a few cards and hook stuff up to them. You now have a computer. You will
turn on the machine and tell the computer about the stuff you have added. That's it. Really. The balance of this article is to
help you decide which monitor, drives, etc. to buy, and then gives lots and lots of advice for avoiding pitfalls along the
way. Each of these pitfalls caused me heartaches and headaches. I pass the solutions on to you so that you may avoid the
problems. There will, in all likelihood, be a debugging period. This is normal for any high tech project. You very likely
will not get every jumper right the first time, unless you are one of those people born with a horseshoe up the butt.
If you want to cut to the skinny, here is a short list of the parts for a recommended system:
You may, for $500, buy the following in one morning at a computer show-
A baby tower case with power supply, an 80386DX motherboard, 2 meg of 1 Meg chips (18 chips) or 2 SIMMS, a 512K
VGA Card, a Mono VGA monitor, a hard floppy controller, a 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 disk drive, a used 100 meg hard drive and
an AT compatible keyboard.
Buy what you can afford and solve the problems as you go along. It's just a logical process.
I have assisted many, many people in building machines, and there are basically two types. The first takes my advice,
begins the building process, and takes the time to read and develop the common sense knowledge necessary to finish this
project and learn a heck of a lot as they go. The second group wants me to be their brain, build it piece by piece for them,
and never crack a magazine or a book. I'll say it just one time: YOU HAVE TO READ TO GET ANYTHING OUT OF
THIS PROJECT. If you do, you will be AMAZED at how easy it is.
Step One Buy a Magazine! (!?!)
An indispensable tool is Computer Shopper Magazine, published Monthly and available everywhere. It lists the
CATALOG prices for everything you need, in all the various options. If you have three weeks to wait, you will get the
absolute best prices on whatever new and current you want (see Computer Shows for the exception). Otherwise, you will
have the basis for comparison for shopping elsewhere.
Spend an entire evening reading this magazine cover to cover- it is equivalent to an entire College Course in 6 hours.
Your head will be stuffed with new information and insights.
A Brief Description of Your Buying Options; advantages and disadvantages.
Computer Shows
Held around the area by different Companies- watch the local paper Business Section and the back of Computer Shopper
Magazine. Careful buying is the watchword. Buy all your Cables and miscellaneous parts here. These shows are getting
harder and harder to find. It's getting too tough to make a profit. It is ABSOLUTELY worth a 60 mile drive to buy at a
show to build a system. You will be in an environment where if a product can be sold at a $2 profit for $20, Harry will
undercut Chen and sell it for $19.
Ask lots of questions about other pieces from information you gleam here, from Magazines, and from Books you run
across. Knowledge is Power. They will mislead you to make a sale- but won't make any patently false statements. My
purchase of a 3 1/2 Disk Drive was a great buy until discovering from the Panasonic Technical Department that it won't
run in Motherboards made after 1985! But the Dealer mailed me a refund. Do be careful and do plan to fight someone
who doesn't want to give you a refund.
No doubt, you are taking a calculated risk. I am on my fourth bad Motherboard from one guy, but generally get very good
parts at these shows. They are, for the most part, name brand parts new in the bag.
Catalogs
As stated before, the main drawback is the wait; and don't forget that you have to add shipping and handling costs to the
price. Invest the dollar to call the Advertiser's Technical Line and ask questions: is this Hard Disk Controller MFM or
IDE? Is it 8 or 16 bit? (don't get thrown by this jargon- you will learn it quickly. It's analogous to asking Is it Front or
Rear Wheel Drive? 4 or 8 Cylinders? Someone who never drove a car would be just as thrown by those questions.)
I have had a real nightmare dealing with a Mail Order house in Texas. We were up to 4 bad shipments before we called
Computer Shopper, who laid down the law to the turkeys. An exasperated president called the day after we called
Computer Shopper and said "What do you want?" We told him, and we got it. Air Freight. Free. Most houses in Computer
Shopper are very reputable. Just be careful, and call the tech line and ask lots of questions. If they have no time for you,
you have no money for them. Do remember, though, that the parts are cheap because they are operating at a small margin.
Don't expect them to spend the day teaching you how to build a computer.
Discount Store
Some Discount Computer houses need careful watching, too. We have a local dealer whose prices can't be beat, but the
product he sells to schmos like you and me are usually the parts that didn't work when he put them into a system. He sells
them over the counter because it's more time effective than troubleshooting the part. He knows that 75% will come back,
giving him an easy RMA and the buyer will figure out what is wrong (wrong jumper, bad partitioning) with the other
25%. So he gets free troubleshooting.
When buying a piece that may take two or three times to install right- such as a Disk Drive- the extra money to buy from a
local store may be worth it. Questions like which pin is this jumper set on to make this Drive B and High Density? is
tough to answer AND make a profit if you are a Catalog Dealer. Make your decision based on how comfortable you are
installing the part. The best source of all is the sales and repair place you now use for work. Making friends with your
Service Rep gets you into the back room- where all the Used but working Parts are kept (and can be bought!!) Where do
you think all the parts went when you upgraded your AT to a 486 at work?
Computer City, a division of Tandy (yeah, Radio Shack) does a decent job at generally decent prices. But it's not the place
to buy parts. If you decide to give up and buy a system, this place is not the worst. But buyer beware! Make sure you have
read this article thoroughly and know what to look for. A better choice might be a medium sized chain like PC
Warehouse, who has yet to give me a bum steer. I had two Acer Monitors in a row go bad in 90 days - he replaced both
and switched to Panasonic.
Computer Store
BIG Companies get BIG prices having slick salesmen who frown knowingly at your questions. They don't want you to
buy a part-they want you to buy a System. Most of the big guys are out of the retail business, because business people in
this country live by a dual standard. They will buy from the big guys at work and pay triple price, but get a discount for
themselves. Once the ComputerLands of the business world figured this out, they went corporate.
Your first buy:
The Case
The XT
An XT style Case Allows for an 8088 based Motherboard or a Baby AT- most motherboards will fit in here. Most will
take ISA components. If you want to make this a long term learning experience, this case can't be beat for being easy to
get "under the hood". The ultimate is a "flip top" XT style case.
The AT Case
The "true" AT Case has become a dinosaur. It's a BIG case designed for an AT size Motherboard. Every motherboard I
have seen in years fits into a Baby AT configuration, and the new AT size cases have provisions for fitting a Baby AT
board. You would want to pick this case if you have saved money by purchasing a full size hard drive that will not fit with
two drives in a smaller case.
The Baby AT(Aw...isn't it cute??)
Uses a Motherboard sized to fit in an XT size case. My original choice. Most AT parts (except a full size Motherboard,
full size Power Supply (XT size) and some old 16 bit cards fit in here.
Absolutely DO NOT BUY "ultra slim line" and such cases. If a standard peripheral won't fit, you are headed in a woefully
wrong direction. I have recently seen some jet black systems. They are now available to be bought case only. Why are
computers white?. Why not paint the case mauve? What do you care? S'matter of fact, I recently did that. Painted my case
my fav'rit flava, cherry red. Looks cool. You still don't care.
The Tower
Sleek, elegant, and powerful looking. Used a lot for Servers, as it has extra bays for multiple hard drives and CD ROM's.
It stands vertical instead of horizontal. The Power Supply is usually bundled with the case.
The Baby Tower
This article just keeps getting longer. This item is practical and pretty reasonable priced. I picked mine up with power
supply for $129. They now go for about $35-60.
Expect to pay $25-80 for the case, up to $125 for a tower case with Power Supply. Buy with confidence from a computer
show or catalog. Hard to mess this one up. Look for reset button, turbo button, turbo led light, hard drive light. The
"digital display" on some cases is incredibly hard to configure for the novice. Save this feat till later if it looks
intimidating. Brush up on yer binary math.
Tower cases are different in one way - the power supply switch is usually wired to the front of the case rather than being
on the power supply. I mention this because it is the one circumstance where you will find 120 Volts inside of the case,
and on some poorly designed models, the connectors are bare. So if you see a switch on the front of the case, be careful
inside UNLESS THE POWER CORD HAS BEEN COMPLETELY DISCONNECTED!
In any event, the case must be large enough to handle standard add in cards. If it won't, you got problems.
Installation
Install the small speaker and LED's (light emitting diodes) and lock, if any, on the case. The speaker may get annoying.
It is loud. Radio Shack can help you install a little switch to turn it off and a headphone jack for private listening of the
annoying beeps. You need to mount these so that the wires don't pull out when you remove the case!
What are all those damn wires in the case??????
Don't Panic. Here's an overview of the most common.
Speaker:
Two wires coming from the speaker. Terminates in a 4 hole socket. The two wires will hook up to the "speaker" pins on
the Motherboard. Plug this in even if you have a sound board to be added at the end of building. Reverse the wires if you
don't get a beep when you turn on the machine. You may have to modify the four hole socket or move a wire to make the
speaker work. This can be frustrating. Two little tiny alligator clips hooked up to the speaker wires and run directly to the
pins on the Motherboard may be the easiest way to debug this. It is important to hook this up early in the process to hear
error beeps in the debug process. The operative pins are One and Four. The speaker jumper goes one of two ways - don't
try connecting to pins two and three or something... for some dumb reason, one of the unused inside pins is +5 volts, and
will fry the speaker.
Reset:
Two wires that plug into a set of pins by the same name on the Motherboard. The pins may be located back by the
keyboard connector. Why? I don't know. Ask somebody else. This is what will cold reboot your machine when you push
the RESET button on the case. Hook it up early. If you are working with a used power supply, remember that the PS is the
weak link in the system, and for a good reason - you want the $30 power supply to fry before the $500 Motherboard.
Banging the power switch on and off 40 times while you are building is not good - think of the switch as having x number
of uses before it fails. Hook up the reset switch and cold boot with it rather than the power switch. I remember one time
when I was working on a customer-friends computer to make $15 adding a 3 1/2. About the fifteenth time I threw the
switch (we had cable problems) the power supply died. Even though I ran to my supplier and replaced the power supply at
cost, he and his two other friends never called me again, and to this day their lips curl when they talk about me. Use the
reset switch.
Turbo:
When you push the turbo button on the case, your machine will toggle between high gear (say 66Mhz) and low (say
33Mhz). Plugs into a set of pins by the same name on the Motherboard. You will want to be able to slow the machine
down when you are trying to trap an error.
Turbo LED:
Two more wires. This will, when wired properly, light up the Turbo light on the case when the machine is in high gear.
KeyLock:
This may be in combination with the Turbo button above. Allows you to lock out the machine with a key. Also plugs into
the Motherboard.
Hard Drive LED
This is usually plugged into your hard disk controller to blink whenever there is hard drive activity. You will eventually
depend on this light to tell you when long operations are actually proceeding when you suspect the machine has frozen.
Also lets you watch for "thrashing". If the hard drive light is constantly or near constantly flashing when you are at work
on the machine, the machine may be desperately trying to keep up with the workload when memory is low by copying
unused in-memory stuff to the hard drive to make room in conventional memory. It means either
You need to install more memory
or
Your machine is not configured well. Becoming a smart user is learning how to tweak your machine to make it run
smooth. Just remember: if your hard drive is thrashing, a power outage could be a disaster.
Power Supply:
Two large white plugs and five or more medium size white plugs. These are the leads from your power supply. (The black
wires go together!) The two large ones hook onto the Motherboard, sending main power to the system. The five or more
smaller ones are the power for internal devices such as disk drives, hard drive(s), CD ROM, etc. One or two very small
leads off of the larger ones are power connectors for 3 1/2 inch drives.
CPU FAN
Two wires leading from a miniature fan sitting on a big chip. This is your CPU fan - 486DX2-4 and Pentium Chips have
heat problems. This fan is necessary - if it gets blocked or unplugged, the CPU will crash after it heats up.
Watch where your wires end up... recently I opened a machine that was having overheating problems. It turned out that
the bundle of above described wires (speaker, etc.) had "landed" on the CPU cooling fan, and was holding it still. You
may want to take some baggie ties and hook the wire bundle out of the way. Ask my brother.
Label these wires before you dis-assemble the unit.
The Motherboard
Now you have a real decision to make- once you make it, you have decided on the basic Architecture of the Machine and
there is no turning back. You now need to decide whether to buy a 8088, 80286, 80386DX, 80386SX, i486DX, i486SX
i486DX2, i486DX4 Pentium (80586)75, 100 or 133Mhz, one of the new clone CPUs or the Pentium Pro (P6). Buy with or
without Local Bus or PCI. Buy with or without Cache. Don't worry about the Motherboard being "Pentium Ready" or such
nonsense. When you are ready for a new CPU, you will be ready for a new Motherboard. Trust me. Many Manufacturers
of Motherboards. Buy whichever one you choose with the highest MHz rating you can afford.
Mini Glossary # 1 CPUs
8080 -
1979 - .33 MIPS (Millions of instructions per second) The original Intel CPU. Pre IBM. 8 Bit. CP/M operating System
8086 - 8088 -
The original PC and XT. About 4.77 MHz. Turbo at 8 MHz. 8 bit. (8087 Math Co-processor) The technology is now as
passé as Leaded Gasoline.
80286
1982 - 1.2 MIPS The original IBM PC-AT 10 - 15 MHz. 16 Bit with eight bit functionality. (80287 Math Co-processor).
Cannot use XMS memory. Wastes resources. Forget it.
80386 SX
Crippled 80386 Chip, supposedly upgradeable to 486. Yeah, and you can upgrade a fart to a methane power plant, too, but
it's still just an exploding fart. (80387SX Math Co-processor).
80386DX
1985 - 5.5 MIPS Bill Gates wanted IBM to use this chip in the AT. Made too much sense. 20 - 40 MHz. 16 bit with 32 Bit
access. (80387 Math Co-processor) Becoming more obsolete each day. Newer software and peripherals just demand too
much. You are going to have to buy the same peripherals for a 486, so why not go 486DX?
80486SX
A 486 with the Math Co-processor disabled. Like a four slice toaster with two openings covered over.
80486SLC
A 486SX chip that has been hopped up by IBM. Not, repeat, not a DX chip.
80486DX
1989 - 20 MIPS A chip way beyond MS-DOS and it's limitations. 33Mhz to 50 MHz. Faster than everything else in the
system, basically sits around a waits for the 8 megahertz bus to send something. Just starting to really come down in price.
The price was kept artificially high for two years or so while Intel was fending off competition.
80486DX2 -
Ai Caramba! Just what the average Joe User needs... another CPU spec. Ok, you got yer 486SX, which is a 486DX with
no Math Co-processor. Now you got yer 486DX2, which employs a clock speed doubler to make a 486DX25 run like a
486DX50. That is, inside the CPU Mondo Condo, Danny Data and his friends are partying at 50 MHz. Danny discovers
that he needs to go out for more beer. He opens the door and steps into a world running in slow motion (25 MHz). He
rides a 16 bit data bus just like the old folks. Danny has to wait in line for beer just like the rest of his 386 friends. He even
has to squeeze through some 8 Bit cards to get to the store. (Danny's a 32 bit kinda guy). He goes home, and from the
moment he passes the doorman and through the revolving door, he's partying at light speed again. Which just makes the
beer go faster, I guess. The lowest standard, because the price is now so reasonable. Approaching $139 for Motherboard
and Clone CPU.
486DX4
So if the DX2 is a clock doubler, then the 80486DX4 is a clock foupler, er, quadrupeler, right? WRONG! It's a clock
tripler. Don't ask me. I failed calculus. I think that a 486DX4/100 is actually a 486-25 at heart.
Make sure if you buy a Clone Chip that you are buying a true DX chip.
Pentium -
1993 - 112 MIPS
(latin for Penthouse Pet of the Month). 70, 90, 100 and 133 MHz. For those of us who just have to know the last digit of Pi
before dinner. (Pi should be saved for after dinner. Sorry). The all new, improved CPU from Intel released in 1993. Why
isn't it called the 586? Intel found out in it's court battles with Cyrix and AMD that the number "486" cannot be properly
protected as proprietary. It will be much harder for Cyrix to get away with putting out a Cyrix Pentium than it would be
putting out a Cyrix 586.
Pentium systems are selling like crazy, driving down the price of the 486. Know what? The typical DOS application can't
use the power of a 486 much less the Pentium. The 486 is a great buy... The Pentium was made to compete with SUN
Microsystems and Mainframes. It uses technology the PC will never ever use while running MS-DOS. There are big
things coming which will make you want to replace the motherboard in 1996.
80286,386,486,286SX,386SX, 486SX Clones.
AMD and Cyrix and some other guys are making clone CPU's. Be careful! They have played games with the numbers in
the past. Make sure that 486 is really Intel 80486 DX compatible. IF it says 486DX2/80, you are safe. If it has funky
letters mixed in, beware.
The future:
P6 Pentium Pro - 1995 - 250 MIPS (est.)
P7 - 1997 - Unknown MIPS
Time out: A word about the BIOS
For whatever board you buy, you must be aware that next to the actual processor the most important consideration is the
BIOS, so it deserves it's own blurb.
The BIOS (Basic In-Out system [ooh baby])
One or two chips for the machine and maybe a separate one for the keyboard. You want the newest BIOS possible, and
that can only be determined by plugging the motherboard in - the copyright year on the chip itself is not accurate. A good
question to ask: Does the BIOS support multiple custom hard drive entries? Secondary Master and Slave IDE drives? One
User Setting Entry does you no good if you have 2 IDE drives you want maximum space from. What is the date of the
BIOS? Award, AMI and Phoenix all make BIOS chips, and they upgrade them constantly. Mr. Mail Order is all too happy
to unload a Motherboard with an old BIOS to Mr./Ms. NewBuilder. I'm not an expert on BIOS chips, but will pass along
that American Megatrends (AMI) is my BIOS of choice. The power and options of your BIOS can make your life easy or
unbearable when you go to upgrade.
The BIOS was a development that happened in the early days of PCs. Since all IBM parts in the IBM PC were off the
shelf, the machine itself was easy to duplicate. The Operating System, bought by Bill Gates from Seattle Computing for
$50,000 and re-sold to IBM and everybody else to the tune of $30 billion or so (nice ROI, Bill!) was no problem to get. It
was the part in between that was tricky - making the machine talk to the software. IBM had that sewn up in their own
little hardware scheme, so some enterprising nerds had to go and write the interface and burn the instructions onto chips,
called CMOS (Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor). The first, second and third attempts were less perfect than
DOS 4.0 or the IBM PC, Jr., believe it or not, and it has taken them years to get it right. Get a BIOS that identifies itself at
boot up time as being a year or less old. DON'T buy a Motherboard with a BIOS dated (not on the chip, in setup!) as
being from the 1991. Buy it only if he will give you a $45 allowance towards new BIOS chips.
The PS2 line of IBM
The PS/2 line of IBM and early Compaqs needed a "set-up disk" to get to the BIOS. Every time you added an option, and
option driver had to be added to the set-up disk. Once you got a 162 error, you were stuck in a loop to BASIC until you
came up with a reference disk with the right added option drivers. Good luck. Most IBM owners don't have the foggiest
idea where their set-up disk is. COMPAC and IBM have now both gone to on board BIOS set-up. Please know and be able
to tell the technician how to get into setup for your BIOS. Not knowing makes you look really, really dumb. It is usually a
key combination that you press during boot up; on AMI it is usually (ESC), on Phoenix (Ctrl-Esc), on new COMPAC's it's
F10, etc.
Installation:
The Motherboard fits into the case with screws and set-offs. Very easy to assemble. Many Motherboards come with
instructions. My first one didn't. If not, take out of a library or buy a book, such as How to Build an IBM Compatible and
Save a Bundle by the late Aubrey Pilgrim.
After putting together many of these things, here is my recommendation for how to proceed. place the Motherboard on a
towel. Follow the manual if you have it and set the jumpers and dipswitches as you think they will end up. Decide where
each connector (Turbo LED, Turbo switch [don't confuse the two], power light, reset, etc.) is going to be hooked. Install
Memory per the Motherboard book. Put standoffs on Motherboard. Slip it into the case a few times on a trial run before
you commit. NO drives or other peripherals should be inside the case yet. You need unobstructed room. Set the
Motherboard, on the towel, very close to the case's power supply. Hook up the power supply connectors to the
motherboard, the keyboard plug, the speaker, and the Video Card (hook up to the monitor). You will need to arrange
everything carefully, and turn on the power. Make sure the memory counts off and the CPU is identified correctly and turn
it off. If memory and CPU look correct, you are ready to install the Motherboard. If they are not, you don't have to
diassemble the whole thing. Re-seat the Memory, check jumpers, etc. and try again. Unhook the power supply connectors.
Pulling the Motherboard in and out of the case is not smart. If there are any metal standoffs on the case, you could scratch
through the circuitry on the bottom of the board. I usually leave the foam backing on the Motherboard when I am
orienting the board to the case and placing standoffs. Take off the foam just before you commit. When you are satisfied
that the board is oriented correctly, hook up the speaker and any wires you decide will be inaccessible once the drive bays
cover them, slip it in and gently move it around, letting the standoffs find the proper holes. Handle this Baby with CARE.
LEAVE it in the plastic wrap till you are ready to install. Put the little white plastic set-offs on the board, not the case. The
white standoffs will slide into keyholes on the case; gently prod them around until they are all in the keys, then work the
Motherboard gently down into the case. Don't get frustrated here. This is not easy. If you get mad and try to force it, you
will be sorry.
Some old cases have metal tabs that stick up from the floor of the Case. Before placing the Motherboard over one of these
tabs, see if you are going to use it for anchoring the board. If you can see the hole in the metal tab through a standoff hole
in the motherboard, use it to anchor the motherboard. Otherwise, take a large screwdriver and push it down. The
Motherboard has many exposed metal surfaces on the bottom, and one of the most common 'no start' problems with
machines is due to Motherboard grounding to the case. Many times I'll put electrical tape over the rails on the bottom of
the case to avoid contact with the bottom of the board.
Back to the standoffs: get a long shaft, small diameter screwdriver to help prod the standoffs into the keys. There will be
one or more places for a screw to attach the Motherboard to the case. If the screw fits right in, the Motherboard is properly
seated. Touch the Metal Case before touching the Board. Practice inserting the Motherboard twice before actually putting
it in. Visualize how it is going to slide in. Don't mess it up here! The Motherboard's keyboard connector should line up
exactly with the keyboard connector hole in the case.
On Getting Fried
Now is probably a good time to talk about Electrical Safety. I wish I had a black and white classroom newsreel with a
bunch of dweebs in Hard-hats you could watch, but MultiMedia presentations are, at this point, still mostly baloney. So,
you'll just have to read this, and, IF you have the Word for Windows version AND you have a sound card, and IF that
sound card is configured correctly, PC Help is proud to present the first multi-media component of Build Yer Own. To
hear yourself being fried to a crisp, double click below:
PC Computing consists of 5 and 12 Volt circuits. Taking a full jolt from a Video Card can hardly be felt. Don't
worry about getting shocked working on the computer unless you do something very, very dumb or you are very, very
unfortunate. You can, however, by not being careful damage the components. The only three places I can think of that you
are likely to get fried are
1) Sticking your hand inside of the Power Supply - that would involve getting past all kinds of safety stuff. Don't do it.
Avoid the switch area of tower. It is easy to forget that there is 120 volts going to this switch WITH THE POWER OFF.
2) Opening a Monitor Case. Don't do it. There is lots and lots and lots of pain and possible death waiting for you in the
back of a CRT. I make my brother open monitors.
3) Sticking your tongue or some damn thing in the power cord. Don't do it.
Turn off and unplug the Computer before working inside.
LEGAL TYPE DISCLAIMER FOR THE ABOVE PARAGRAPHS:
Because I tell you it is very hard to get shocked working on a Computer, that doesn't mean you can't do it. Some fool will
always find a way to get around safety precautions, get themselves hurt, and sue somebody. I am not responsible for
injuries, damages or monetary losses due to use of the material in this article. Take all proper and reasonable safety
precautions.
VLB Motherboards
Okay, this is one of those places where your Eight bucks are well spent. You did send me $8, didn't you? Cases are
designed to hold full size Motherboards. Motherboards are getting smaller and smaller. The case has three rails to hold
the Motherboard in place. Your new Motherboard only falls across two, leaving the last third hanging a half inch in the
air. Therby lies the rub. You install a VLB video card and VLB I/O card, everything works great, then two weeks later
Uncle Spitz (who you did the upgrade for for free because your Aunt Trembelina lent you her car ten years ago) calls and
tells you he has a) no video or b) Hard Drive controller failure. When you get over there and pop off the top ("Yes, a coke
would be nice"... "No, I just ate"... ) the hard drive controller and/or video card has worked up out of the third VLB slot
enough to stop contact. Hopefully he hasn't done anything stupid trying to fix it. Push it back down into the slot and you'll
get a call next time the weather changes (expansion and contraction). This time, do what I do. Gather the following
A chopstick
Elmer's (TM) Glue
A piece of doubleside tape
Cut three peices of chopstick one half inch long. Place one vertically and glue the other two parallel along the base so that
it looks like an inverted "T" with two tops. Place it under the Motherboard so that it holds the Motherboard up under the
32 bit card. Adjust size with sandpaper as necessary. Don't put too much upward pressure on the board. The purpose is to
keep it from pulling down away from the card. Put the doubleside tape on the case floor and the "T" on top of it. You've
built a bridge that will keep the card in the slot.
Back to the Motherboard installation...
Plug the Speaker leads and the Power/Turbo LED's on the Motherboard as indicated. If they don't work when you fire it
up, reverse them. Set the jumpers per the instructions.
Jumpers
I told you this is exciting reading...
If you are installing a used Motherboard with no manual, don't flip any jumpers except as a last resort. If you have the
manual, read it and decide where jumpers will be and change them before you put the board in. Some things to keep in
mind:
If the CPU and Motherboard were bought together, the jumpers are PROBABLY set correctly. Ask when you plunk down
the money. You still should definitely check the jumpers before putting power to the board. Read on.
The most important jumper is CPU voltage. AMD is now making 3 volt CPUs and it will become a trend. Three volt
CPUs can run faster because they generate less heat. AMD says that the same speed in a 5 volt package would actually fry
the circuits together. Make sure of the voltage of the CPU and set that first. Next, set the jumpers for CPU speed. There
may be two or three jumpers relating to this. The trick here is to remember that a DX2/50 chip is a 25 MHz chip, not a
fifty. A DX2/100 is a 50. Set speeds based on the external rated speed of the CPU.
Err on the conservative side for jumpers. Set the VLB Wait State to 1 instead of 0, and change it later when you are
feeling adventurous.
Read slowly and carefully. It all makes sense. If you don't know what difference changing the jumper will make, don't
change the jumper. There are lots of jumpers on lots of cards that are already set for IBM Compatible machines. Changing
the jumper could change the I/O address, change the voltage input from 5 volt to 12 volt, or a hundred other things. Don't
flip a jumper if you don't know what it does.
MCA (Micro Channel Architecture)
(cool graphic)
IBM wants yer money. They came out with Micro Channel for two reasons: 10% to improve the computer, and 90% to
destroy YOUR ability to build your computer with inexpensive, readily available parts.
We ignored it, it went away. Makes every card you bought Useless (notice the capital U) by changing the socket that fits
into the Motherboard. Boo Big Blue. Micro Channel is now officially dead. The technology has been used for such things
as the connectors for local bus. IBM doesn't want to be left out of the rotten, expensive machine market however, so they
have introduced the POWER PC. There is no software and no useful hardware, but IBM gave out some really spiffy
ballpoint pens and T Shirts at Comdex. Hey, they have their priorities straight.
Just think! You can now buy a machine with no operating system or software, and hook it up to O/S2, IBM's operating
system that doesn't work, either! It's such a mystery that their stock went down 66%.
Hey! Sombody just came out with a 486 board that fits in an old PS/2! Now you can spend $400 to make your PS2/30
obsolete for ANOTHER four years!
Their partner, Apple, has put out some pretty decent hardware and software in their version of the Power PC. IBM bought
Lotus. The new version of their spreadsheet will be called 12(to be continued).
Architecture
ISA,EISA and MCA
ISA is Industry Standard Architecture. If you buy parts and build a system that is ISA, you will be a happy person forever.
Or at least a reasonably close facsimile. Make sure your case is big enough to hold the Motherboard, standard expansion
cards and drives. Make sure your Motherboard has plenty (5 or more) expansion slots. Some machines have a
hard/floppy/I/O IDE Controller, an Internal Modem, a Scanner Card, a Video Card, a Tape Backup Card, a CD ROM
Card, a Sound card and a network card. That's eight slots right there. EISA is a newer standard that follows ISA close
enough that you can use regular expansion cards. With EISA, you have more control over the set up process from the Set-
up screen. For example, you could switch COM1 and COM2 devices without opening the machine. MCA stinks.
Local Bus
This is a scheme developed by a bunch of Manufacturers that allows Video and/or I/O to directly address the system and
output and not have to stand in line behind everybody else. Video and Hard Drive access time are your two worst enemies.
Listen carefully here. Increasing CPU speed may not make your system run faster. What matters is how fast the Video and
Hard Drive operate. It is said that a system can't exceed 33 MHz no matter how fast the system purports to be. The eight
bit slot on the motherboard still runs at 8 MHz. So pay attention to Video Speed and Hard Drive Speed if you become
another Nanosecond cutting freak.
VESA Local Bus and Intel Local Bus (PCI) had a brief, intense warfare. VESA has become the standard for both Video
schemes and Local Bus Architecture for the current crop of home class 486's. PCI is more often found in higher end
machines. Intel's scheme is supposedly better in more powerful systems. At COMDEX, they showed some motherboards
which had both VESA and IntelPCI. I wouldn't know which is better because I haven't really tested Intel. Maybe I start
charging $24.95 for this rag, then I can buy some decent equipment. But then I'd get as self important as Phil Katz (Phil
snubbed me at Comdex). Nah... I like me. Most new Motherboards come with local bus, which adds a third slot to
standard cards. Here's a humble drawing of a Motherboard showing the CPU, the BIOS, Memory, the Power Connector
and the Bus slots. This is all you will need to know for general knowledge of the motherboard.
Those of you with a text only copy of this book will just have to imagine all the cool graphics you are missing out on until
you send me eight bucks for copying and shipping.
Pentium Motherboards (PCI)
PCI has become pretty much standard on Pentium motherboards. It is a single connector that looks suspiciously like a
microchannel slot. It takes special PCI cards. You will find extra stuff in your BIOS to control these cards, and extra
jumpers on the board. My discussion of these new features with technicians who build PCs every day say leave them at
their default. They are overkill for the capabilities of todays machines. New buzz acronyms are DREQ, DACK, EPP and
ECP. More as I get into technical details next version.
Some standards have changed on the Pentium Motherboards - those functions which remain the same on nearly all PCs
have been built into the board to free up slots for more exotic equipment. Most likely, you will find the IDE and Secondary
IDE on the motherboard, as well as the floppy controller, printer, and COM 1 and COM 2. Great idea. As long as
everyone adopts the same conventions, we can buy with confidence.
Cache Memory
Cache is used a LOT in PCs referring to different things. SMARTDRV is a software CACHE. There is cache internally in
486DX and above CPUs. A third method of cache is the on board cache you know of as the 256K Cache or 512K cache in
the advertisements for computers. Cache means the same in any context: I will hold the last few instructions
(SMARTDRV) or the next few instructions (CPU Cache [internal cache]) and the external cache. These are chips either
soldered to or plugged into the motherboard in a bank, usually in the SouthEast corner of the board, where it's
inaccessiblility is rarely a problem. These are very fast chips which pre fetch the next instruction(s) for the CPU so that
the CPU does not waste it's precious time going out and looking for the next request by an interrupt. They are usually in
the range of 20-30 Nanoseconds, compared with DRAM memory (SIMMS) which are 70-150 Nanoseconds. They are
usually long and skinny and have values like
8K 8x9 64K
32K 8x9 256K
64K 8x9 512K
128K 8x9 1 Meg
The faster method is write-back. If your CPU is seizing for no good reason, back it off to the second method available in
the BIOS, write-through. "The effect of cache is to reduce the wait states needed by DRAM" according to Wan Foo Chan
of the Motherboard Writers Benevolent Association.
L2 Cache
I mentioned L2 Cache and pipeline in the same breath to a tech friend of mine today, in preparation for this humble
version of UTIBMC, and he make a face like he was having an especially painful bowel movement. Nuff said. Put yer
hard earned cash into a faster Video board.
Power Supply
For an AT, you should go 200-250 Watts. The higher the wattage, the more junk you'll be able to stuff inside. I chewed up
two 130 Watt Supplies. Buy from a Catalog or Discount Store. Power Supplies are the most often repaired item. Don't
buy it used. They go up. Pay $20-40. Most cases nowadays come with the power supply. You want them to go up. Why?
Because a voltage spike that finds it's way through your surge protector (a piece of junk, most likely) should fry the power
supply before it gets to your $700 Motherboard and CPU, right?
Installation
Slips into the case via two slots at the front of the supply, then screws to the Case. Has two plug-ins to the Motherboard.
(May be marked P8 and P9. On old motherboards, the trick to inserting them is to angle the plug back and slide forward
and down at the same time. Newer connectors are usually easier. Make sure the black wires are next to each other when
you plug them in. The Power Supply also has 2-5 or more plugs to go to Drives and such. The little one goes to the 3 1/2
inch drive. Except for that one and the ones for the Motherboard itself, they are all the same. Make sure it comes with a
Power Cord! If not, it's a cheap item ($3 at a show).
You will be tempted to check your installation and turn it on for a second. If you do, you will hear a series of annoying
beeps as the Motherboard comes to life, finds no Monitor, Controller, Drive or Keyboard and not so promptly bails out.
You should hear a gentle whirr from the Power Supply. If you see sparks or smell ozone, shut it down (quick!) and start
over.
Module 4 Ummm, uhhh... oh yeah, Memory!
The Memory
THE place you will have to do some digging. Think of Memory as a commodity- the price fluctuates day to day, and
when you ask for a price, the dealer will likely pick up the phone and call some Chip broker for the latest quote.
Seriously! This is due to 1988's chip shortage, 1992's Korean Tariff, 1993's factory burn out in Singapore. Any dinky
factory that burns down will drive the price of memory up by $3. This is a global economy, folks. Prices have come way
down, but, like gold, some dealers kept the highest price. PLEASE buy from a Catalog or a Show. Compare prices. Be
patient. A national software chain sells 256K chips for $19.99. Pay $1 at a show.
Mini-Glossary #3
Memory and Speed
MEGAHERTZ - The speed rating of the CPU. An XT was 4.77MHz. An AT was 10 MHz. A good 386 board is 33Mhz.
Combines with other parts of the system to determine overall speed. HIGHER IS BETTER.
NANOSECONDS - Memory Chips are rated in Nanoseconds, an infinitesimal measure of time. 60 Nanosecond chips are
faster and more expensive than 70. Two years ago, 120 Nanoseconds was about standard. The range now is usually 60-70-
80. LOWER IS BETTER.
DRAM, SRAM - Dynamic Random Access Memory is what all clones except old COMPACs use to make up the Memory
in your machine, measured in Megs. Don't confuse this with Megabytes of Hard Drive Storage. Individual DRAM chips
are going out of style. Your new Motherboard probably uses SIMMS, which put 9 chips on a single board to make 1 Meg
of Memory (a 1 X 9) that takes less space and is infinitely easier to install. Why 9 1Meg Chips to make 1 Meg of
Memory? 8 1 Meg lines to the CPU plus 1 for parity checking equals 1 eight part Memory bank. 1 X 3 DRAMS are
confusing. Suffice to say that it is 9 1 Meg Chips, stuffed into a three chip package. There are 4 x 9 SIMMS, which puts 4
Meg on each SIMM. The more Memory you stuff on a SIMM, the more Memory will fit on your Motherboard. Older
SIMMS and DRAMS came in 64K and 256K sizes. Buy no smaller than 1 Meg increments. Why? A 256K DRAM or
SIMM is as useless as last week's Lotto Ticket when replaced, which you will want to do almost immediately. You just
throw them away or stuff them in the drawer with your mood ring. SRAM is used in CACHING, a scheme employed by
better Motherboards to speed up the machine. HIGHER IS BETTER.
There are 30 and 72 pin SIMM slots. Thirty pin gave way to 72's a few years back, but so many people complained that
most boards are now what is called hybrid and have both 30 and 72 pin slots. The manual will tell you what combinations
are "legal" in your motherboard. There are special considerations based on how the board is wired. For example, you can
put a so called "double sided" SIMM in 72 pin slot 0, but on many motherboards you must then leave slot 1 empty. Why?
Because there is a RAS signal for each memory bank, and a double sided SIMM uses both RAS signals for the two slots.
A double sided SIMM is usually 2 Meg (one meg on each side) or 8 Meg (four meg on each side.)
EDO Ram is a brand new especially fast RAM.
Numbers you will see...
1 x 9 A one meg SIMM based on 9 chips, 30 pin
1 x 3 A one meg SIMM based on 3 chips, 30 pin
2 X 9 or 1 X 9 DS A double sided one meg SIMM, equals 2 meg, 30 pin
4 x 9 4 Meg 30 pin
1 x 36 as above, but a 72 pin SIMM
4 x 36, etc.
Parity
To save $$$, a lot of memory on the market now are non-parity - that is, they ignore the ninth parity bit. You may find
one meg SIMMS with two chips instead of three, or eight chips instead of nine. If your motherboard runs okay with non-
parity, so be it. You won't know until you plug it in. It may auto-adjust for non-parity, or give you a parity error on bootup
or soon after (scary looking error!). If it does, there may be a setting in the BIOS to accept non-parity.
What is important to know is that you can't tell much about a SIMM by looking at it. The memory dealers at the show
have a little machine that they plug SIMMS into to identify them. If THEY can't tell by looking, that tells YOU not to buy
your Memory on the streetcorner. You may be able to tell the Nanosecond rating by looking at the number carefully. The
number may be something like 514400N-08 or TC5110000AJ-80, both indicating 80 Nanoseconds. What you cannot tell
is if the SIMM will work in an IBM Clone. Give yourself a way to return the chips if they won't work, or if the
combination won't work. You cannot, for example, put some IBM type SIMMS in clones (I got two of 'em). You cannot
put 2 four meg thirty pin SIMMS in most banks of four on motherboards (some you can). You can't mix three chip parity
and non parity in the same bank (usually). You will usually see N or NP indicating No Parity at the end of a number on
the SIMM if you look closely. The one I'm looking at right now is a Samsung two chip non parity one meg SIMM with
the number KMM5810000BN-7 - 70 Nanoseconds and non parity. Works in new motherboards but not older ones.
WAIT STATES
If the CPU runs faster than the Memory Chips, the CPU must go into a WAIT STATE and twiddle it's thumbs while the
Memory Chips finish what they are doing. If your machine locks up on boot, one thing you can try is changing the WAIT
STATE in Set-Up from 0 WAIT STATE to 1 WAIT STATE. Here's a cool little formula to determine the WAIT STATE
of your finished system (not including Cache): 1 DIVIDED by the MHz of your CPU TIMES the number of banks on the
Motherboard TIMES 1000 tells you the Nanosecond Speed of the RAM necessary to run at 0 Wait State. For Example: a
386-33Mhz CPU on a Motherboard with Bank 0 and 1 filled. What Nanosecond RAM Chips do I need to run at 0 Wait
State?
1/33 X 2 x 1000 = 60.61 or 60 Nanosecond Chips to run 0 Wait State.LOWER IS BETTER
RAM
Random Access Memory. If you have 4 Meg of Memory, you have 4 Megabytes of Random Access Memory. Don't fool
yourself into trying to run Windows Enhanced with less than 4 Meg. You'll spend all day watching the hard drive thrash.
HIGHER IS BETTER.
ROM
Read Only Memory - Stuff that gets remembered when the power is turned off. Don't worry about it. It's there. It is
backed up by a Ni-Cad battery or a big Watch type battery. In the case of Ni-Cad, the machine may lose it's CMOS
settings (hard drive type, time, date) if the machine left off for more than two weeks. You can buy Lithium back up
batteries to charge the Ni-Cad. A recent problem bore this out. The guy left the machine off for three weeks, then called
and said the hard drive settings n' stuff were gone. I told him to hook up a back up battery. The machine would still lose
settings overnight. Here's why: Once the Ni-Cad discharges, it needs to run with the power on for a full day to recharge
WITHOUT A BACKUP BATTERY ATTACHED. Weird, huh?
SIPPS
This is a mercifully short lived attempt at putting DRAMS in packages. It gave way to SIMMS. SIPPS are 9 DRAM chips
soldered to a circuit board, with wires sticking out of the bottom that fit into holes on the Motherboard. A hellish
arrangement.
SPEED
Memory speed is measured in nanoseconds. The LOWER the number, the faster the chip. Usual values are 60, 70, and 80
Nanoseconds, with 100 Nanoseconds and 120 Nanoseconds going out. Believe it or not, many vendors charge the same
price, what ever the speed. You can usually have one bank of 80 and one bank of 100 or 120, but cant mix them in the
same row. The machine will operate at the speed of the slowest bank. LOWER IS BETTER.
How much Memory? Windows 3.1 - 4 Meg. Windows 95 - 8 Meg. DOS only - get a life.
At boot up time, the information in ROM is copied to the area above 640K because RAM runs much faster than ROM.
See the difference by going into setup and diabling all Shadow RAM. Machine runs like your momma.
Above 1 Meg is Extended or Expanded. Expanded Memory (also called LIM for Lotus, Intel, Microsoft, the consortium
that approved it) used to be more useful, "paging" in and out in 64K chunks to imitate regular Memory, usable in Lotus
123, CAD programs and not much else. A few of the old Memory boards use Static RAM chips. Expanded Memory was
usually bought on cards that plugged into a bus slot. Memory is typically on board the Motherboard these days via
SIMMS, and is handled via a software device driver called an XMS Manager. 99% of all new Software is written with
XMS in mind. The program turns over control of Memory to the XMS Manager, who either negotiates with DOS or does
an end around to avoid DOS. The upshot is, the Driver sweats keeping the program running and not you. DOS 5 and up
comes with EMM386, which handles both simulated Expanded (ram) and Extended (noems) emulations. XMS only
works full function in 386SX and up. Windows, being the hog that it is, uses a Hard Disk Swap File to further keep you
running without out of memory error messages. Keep at least 2 Meg available on a Hard Drive for Windows Swap File to
use. Memory errors in Windows 3.1 are usually related not to memory itself but by a finite amount of RESOURCES
allocated to the machine. Each DOS program that starts eats a percentage of the resources allocated, doesn't return it
when it terminates, and when you reach 30% or less, it's goodbye to Jane. Time to re-boot.
If you have never installed chips before, take apart something old, like a radio or answering machine that no longer works
(every house in America has a broken answering machine, I think). Make sure it is unplugged (of course) and find an IC
chip (described above) (one that's in a socket, not soldered in) and insert a small screwdriver under the chip as far as it
will go without force. Pull up gently. Stop. Go to the other end of the chip and repeat. Slip the screwdriver a little further
in. Pull up gently. That should do it. If you can't pull it out, there are IC extractors available very cheap (and very
expensive. I had to buy a $60 one for special job) at electronics stores. Repeat until the chip comes out. Removing chips is
a developed art. I still break them, and the genius manufacturers couldn't be bothered to key the chips to only go in one
way. Put it back in. Repeat this a number of times.
Go ahead and, with help if needed, install the SIMMS. There is a notch on one side of the SIMM which keeps it from
installing backwards. Slide the SIMM into the slot on the Motherboard on an angle. Push gently until it feels well seated,
then pull up on the SIMM until you hear a satisfying little click. Visually inspect the SIMM to see that it sits straight and
even in the slot, then move on to the next. A few older motherboards do not have a lever arrangement to hold the SIMM.
Instead, it pushes straight down into the slot. These are not fun to work with.
CACHE MEMORY
All newer Motherboards have slots for Cache Memory chips. Most times, the Cache is pre-installed, but a super bargain
Motherboard may just have the empty slots. This is relatively cheap memory to install, and works by pre-fetching the next
instruction for the CPU. The CPU can concentrate on the job at hand, much like a surgeon is much more efficient if
he/she doesn't spend valuable time looking in drawers for a retractor, but instead has an assistant to fetch instruments.
Cache speeds the overall efficiency of the system. Usual values are 64K, 128K and 256K Cache. Higher Cache sizes are
rare in 486 boards, as tests show that the return in efficiency is low.
Don't confuse this with CPU INTERNAL Cache. Higher CPU chips have an internal cache to handle more than one
instruction at a time. You cannot physically add or remove internal cache.
Module 4 - I/O Devices
Keyboards, Floppy Disks, Hard Drives, CD's n' such (I/O devices)
An I/O device sends (in) or recieves (out) instructions to/from the CPU. A keyboard is an INPUT only device (yeah,
except for the little lights).
The Keyboard
May be bought refurbished from a store. You MUST buy an Enhanced 101 keyboard for a 286 or higher. Old XT's used a
different processor, even though the connector still fits! The enhanced has some neat extra keys, extra Ctrl and Alt Keys,
and F11 and F12. Some keyboards are switchable from XT to AT. Pay $20 (used) to $100 (fancy extras). Avoid keyboard
companies that consist of three letters, the first of which is a B. Focus is a good brand. Look for a nice click when you
press the keys, LED's for NumLock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock. If you want a GREAT keyboard, get a used IBM. They
do make the best keyboards for some reason. If you do, you will need to get an adapter to the bigger size clone style plug.
Available at most computer stores. Compaq uses the same (almost) smaller plug. Make sure the adapter works with the
Compaq keyboard, if that's what you have. Some have trackballs built in. The trackball will die after 6 months, but, then
again, so will a $100 trackball. New keyboards have extra "Windows 95 keys" just like the Apple has Apple keys. Now I
know why they say Windows 95 = Mac 1989.
Installation:
Has a round plug. Plugs into the back of the case.
Other Standard I/O
Before you can load a program or save a file, you need to put it someplace semi-permanent. This is because when you exit
a program or turn the computer off, everything disappears! Lost forever. Gone. Quicker than Ross Perot. You need a
device or devices to save work to a floppy or hard disk. Get at least a 3 1/2 High Density. Make the 3 1/2 the "A" drive.
Installation
You need a board. Read the rest of this article before deciding.
You need a hard/floppy or floppy controller. You need it to be MFM, RLL, SCSI, IDE, Enhanced IDE or ESDI for the
Hard Drive. Make sure the controller you buy is proper for your Hard Drive and make sure it is 16 bit if you are building a
286 or up. VESA local bus controller cards can speed the system, but I'm no big fan of these because there are too many
competing "Standards" and more than once I have pulled a VLB card out and replaced it with a 16 bit. Ploblems instantly
disappear.
The Controller
The typical card is the IDE paddle card which handles the following: Two IDE hard drives via one cable with two
connectors. Two floppy drives via one cable with two connectors. Two serial ports and one parallel ports plus a game port.
All for about $12-20. If the IBM Clone had never come to be, you can bet the card would cost $149.
Floppy drives: Hook up the cable to the IDE card, matching pin one on the card with the side of the cable with the red
stripe. The floppy cable may have four connectors, two card edge and two female pin connectors. The female pin
connector nearest the end hooks up to the back of the 3 1/2 inch drive. (pin 1 to pin 1). If there is no female pin out, you
need a converter to plug into the card edge connector and then to the drive.
Watch it! There are connector boards with both the card edge to pin out converter and a large power suply to small power
supply converter - that's great, but SOME MANUFACTURERS PUT PIN 1 on the LEFT of the drive, and OTHERS PUT
IT TO THE RIGHT! So this nifty little converter board may be BACKWARDS. Again, check pin 1 to pin 1 all around. If
the floppy lights as soon as you turn the machine on, it is backwards. Hook the card edge connector directly to the 5 1/4
floppy, the "B" drive.
Notice if the Floppy Cable has a twist in the wires - it should. If it does not, either
1)Set the jumpers on the 3 1/2 to drive 0 - no easy feat
or
2)Buy another cable - $5
The purpose of the twist is to fool the machine into accepting both floppies as drive one, allowing you to reverse "A" and
"B" without changing jumpers on the drive.
There is also usually a slot in the female portion of the card edge connectors to keep you from putting it on backwards.
Plug one plug from the power supply into the "A" drive with a converter if one is not supplied from the power supply. If
you have bought a second drive, the other card edge connector hooks to that drive to make it drive B.
Types of Floppy Drives
Besides the old standby 360K 5 1/4, there is a high density 5 1/4 that stores 1.2M of data. This drive is problematical.
You will not be able to write to a low density diskette and use it on another computer with a low density drive without
using the /4 switch when formatting. There are also 3 1/2 inch drives. The disks it uses are hard, less likely to go bad,
and fit in your shirt pocket without a sleeve. Wonderful. Old low density 3 1/2's stored 720k and quickly went out of
fashion. High Density 1.44's are the standard. Buy the high Density. Pay $15 (used) to $50. There are new combination 3
1/2 and 5 1/4 drives that only take one slot. If you definitely need 5 1/4, go this route and save the slot for a CD.
There are some new drives out there. There are 2.88 Meg 3 1/2 drives. Why??? How dumb do they think we are? Are we
supposed to buy this overpriced drive, pay for overpriced disks, and drool for 5.6 meg disks next year? Anything less than
a 10 Meg disk is silly when it takes 1 Meg to save a decent Drawing. AVOID this drive and wait for Floptical prices to
come down. There are new ZIP drives (I hear FUJI invented them). They are, in effect, 130 Meg floppies, which allows
you to use it as a hard drive and change operating systems as easily as changing your socks. You do change your socks,
don't you? You could have a 130 Meg DOS 6.22 disk, a 130 Meg Windows 95 disk, an OS/2 boot, etc. Wow. I hope it
catches on. I like it.
Don't listen to the guys who tell you that 720K disks formatted to 1.44 aren't reliable. Hogwash. Caution: Some computer
manuals claim that you should never do this. They say that the low density disks are not made to be formatted high, and
you will lose data. I have NEVER had this happen, so you make the call. If the only copy of your will is on a low density
disk formatted to high, back it up somewhere. Personally, I could write my will on the LABEL of a 3 1/2. You used to be
able to jumper HD drives to read low density disks high without drilling the little hole on the left side, but with the newer
IDE controllers, the old jumper trick no longer works. Now I gotta drill little holes in the left hand side of low density
disks. I still refuse to buy high density disks.
Some machines, notably IBM and Compac, have controllers that don't check for the little hole. They assume all 3 1/2
disks are high density unless told otherwise. That makes for great workday productivity, but the problem crops up
constantly at work, where people who work on IBM-Compac all day take some disks home to work on their new clone,
and report to me that the disks are "bad". Keep in mind that when you get calls for bad disks, there are usually two causes:
1) Low density disks have been formatted to high on an IBM-Compac, and they are taken home to a clone which checks
for the high density hole, doesn't find it, calls it low density and can't read it. The user has to format his low density disks
to 720K with the following command (DOS 5 and later)
C:\> FORMAT A: /F:720
(change drives as necessary) or drill a hole. This has to be done carefully so that little bits of plastic don't get into the
actual disk area in the plastic envelope.
2) The machine (especially a laptop) is being operated in high humidity. I found that when I brought my laptop home and
humidity was high from the Air Conditioner being off during the day (I'm a cheap bastard), I would get loads of disk
errors until the place dried out. This explained many here to fore mysteries of reports of disks people took home being
bad, only to check out fine in work the next day. Live n learn.
Hard Drives
Archaic note: You can sometimes put a 8 bit hard drive controller in a 16 bit board. You can put a 16 bit VGA card in an
8 bit slot. But, wonder of wonders, you can't seem to put a 16 bit VGA Card in a 16 Bit slot with an 8 bit hard drive
controller! It seems that the second 8 bits of the VGA card conflicts with the addresses used by the 8 bit hard drive
controller. And you wanted to be a computer repairman! Figured this out after hours of agonizing over a failing system
where all cards checked out OK individually. It has to do with interrupts and memory addresses that differ between 86
class and X86 class machines.
Ok, ready for some jargon? There are MFM drives (usually old) RLL, SCSI (pronounced Scuzzy for some warped
reason), IDE and ESDI drives. Buy whatever you get the best deal on, and fills your purposes (if you can afford ESCI, you
probably aren't interested in building) but your controller MUST be compatible with that type. Buy a 16 Bit controller
card. You can get 40, 80, 120, 1 Gigabyte and up Megabytes of hard disk space. Hard drive prices crashed in 1994-95,
and the price differences between 500 and 850 meg drives is very low. 100 and 200 Meg Hard drives are selling for as low
as $50 used as people pull them from machines to go bigger. Buy a compatible Hard/Floppy controller to match the drive
and 8 bit for XT or 16 bit for AT to control all the drives. BUY NOW. The industry will reach a point where it will
manufacture a 'hard drive crisis' like they did with memory and the price will rise and stabilize.
Older MFM/RLL Drives are also split into Stepper Motor and Voice Coil. Be aware the stepper motor are cheaper and
will give you great service, but cannot be moved without "parking" the drive. A stepper motor hard drive is just like a
turntable; if you shake the drive, the needle will go skittering across the surface of the drive platter, destroying data as it
goes. Most MFM/RLL hard drive repairs are reformatting as a result of the user banging the machine around, or, (GASP!)
turning the machine over and shaking it to get out a loose screw. Voice Coils can be safely moved, and are more
expensive. Ask the seller which the drive is.
There are new hard drives which store information on glass prisms. Great. I can just see me dropping one. I hope they
make them out of jelly jars. They never break. Especially the ones with Pebbles and Bam-Bam on the side.
High Tech Hard Drives
SCSI works by putting the controller on the Hard Drive, and the floppies work off of that controller. IDE is an animal
unto itself. IDE also puts the controller on the drive, and then plugs into a card (not a controller) that also has the parallel,
serial, game port and floppy controller on the same card. An OK hard drive is rated at 28Ms. The price is coming down
on the IDE cards, too. Expect to pay $20 for a regular IDE with I/O, and $119 for a new, lower priced cache controller.
RLL is dead. RLL was really MFM type technology but used Run Length Limited encoding to format the drive at 26
sectors per track instead of 17. Increases the capacity of the hard drive by 50%. What doesn't work in most cases is
formatting a MFM drive on an RLL controller. The drive works for two days then poops out. There seems to be no way to
look at a used controller and tell if it is MFM or RLL. Make sure. Also be VERY wary of used controllers thrown in a box
for $5 apiece. Most of these boards have been stripped of their chips, or have broken pins on the connectors.
Installation
MFM/RLL: There is one big cable that goes from both Hard Drives to the controller and a small one called a data cable
that goes from each drive to the controller. Match pin one to pin one all the way around. IDE/SCSI: There is one
connector that hooks from the drive to the interface board. The actual controller is built into the drive's logic board. Slide
the Hard Drive into the case, connect these cables, and plug in the power supply lead. For two drives, get a book and
follow the instructions. It's not that hard, but you have to deal with twisted cables and terminating resistors and such for
MFM/RLL, and Master/Slave settings for IDE. The terminating resistor goes on the last physical device. There may be a
jumper on the board to hook up the light on the case so that it merrily blinks when your hard drive is working.
Beware of old MFM systems that call themselves IDE. Citizen called their hard drive system IDE, but it used MFM drives
and connectors. A call to their tech service confirmed this.
The MFM/RLL hard drive must be set up in your BIOS program, then low-level formatted and high level formatted. Pick
up a book at the library, borrow one or ask a friend. The procedure is not difficult. The shareware programs IAU and
HDDIAG makes the process easy and configures the drive to it's optimum performance. IDE drives NEVER get low level
formatted without a specific IDE formatter. If you do, it goes stupid and becomes an MFM.
On clone 286, 386 and 486 machines, you must pick an entry from your Set-up program, which comes up when you start
the computer. It is accessed by a particular keystroke, referenced on the screen before the machine actually boots DOS.
The message will say something like "Press DELETE to enter Set-up". Set-up writes your component information into the
CMOS. CMOS stands for something or other which I always forget. Oh, yeah, CompliMentary Oxide Semiconductor.
Shareware programs are available to help you pin down which "number" of a standard set of numbers your hard drive type
is. An old IBM 10 meg drive is #1. An old Seagate 412 is #23. The BIOS will ask you for this number. If you bought from
Crazy Johns Un-guaranteed Hard Disk Bargain Nearly New Shop, you may have to do some digging to find the number.
Disk Manager, which comes with Seagate Hard Drives, will interrogate the drive for you, but is a real pain in the butt
when the drive isn't Seagate. Here's a real kluge. My hard drive didn't fit my table, so I hooked the hard drive up to a
machine with a settable drive table, formatted it, then saved the settings to the disk with Disk Manager. If the drive ever
crashes, I'll probably have to repeat this process or update my BIOS. You need to know the number of cylinders and
number of heads, at a minimum. The number of sectors for MFM is usually 17 sectors, RLL 26 or 27. Call the local
computer club to track down a list of hard drive specs. You match the number of cylinders and number of heads in the
drive table in your set-up program WITHOUT GOING OVER. Just like the Price is Right (hi Bert!). If your drive has 8
heads, you can pick 5,6,7 or 8, but not 9.
The IDE drive table entry is determined by MULTIPLYING the number of heads x the number of sectors x the number of
cylinders, and matching that to the drive table entry that most closely equals the number of heads x cylinders x sectors.
Sheesh.
The advantage is, you are not limited to the closest without going over rule. The one thing you MUST NOT DO is low
level format an IDE drive!!! They are low level formatted at the factory. If you do a low level format, it becomes an MFM
drive. This exciting information was passed on to be by the Seagate technical department AFTER I had low level
formatted my first IDE three times trying to get the bear to work. There was NOTHING in my documentation telling me
not to do a low-level. I had to get another drive and start over to get the full performance from the drive.
SCSI
involves setting the hard drive table to "not installed". The information on the drive is send to the BIOS at boot up time.
IDE
Imbedded Drive Electronics puts the controller on the drive, where it belongs. As long as your Motherboard's BIOS has
User Settings entries, installing a drive 540 Meg or less should be easy. If the Motherboard is new enough to have AUTO
DETECT IDE HARD DRIVES, the job is a breeze. What follows is a lot of pain boiled down a few pages which deals
with what happens when the drive is over 540 Meg. Grab a fresh cuppa coffee and read on:
LARGE IDE HARD DRIVE FACTS & FAQS
THE WHAT OF IT
Hoo-boy. This can be tough, and it shouldn't be. I'm going to cut through all the horse hockey and give you the straight
scoop on large hard drives, hopefully BEFORE you run up against it.
THE WHY OF IT
DOS is limited to 540 Megabytes in a hard drive partition. They never imagined you would need more. 1024 Cylinders is
the most you can specify. With half the planet wanting to put in at least an 820 Meg Drive, the Industry had to come up
with a workaround. So they did. They ALL came up with workarounds, and therby lies the rub. You buy a new Hard
Drive, and maybe a new, "Super IDE" controller (I've yet to find one that works better than a normal IDE card for the
hard drive part, and there are a lot of bad 16550 UARTs [COM port drivers] according to Industry sources), and you go to
install - The Motherboard says, "Turn this stuff on in the BIOS", the Controller says "Throw these jumpers" and the Hard
drive says "Use this Utility Disk." You soon find out that turning all three on leads to disaster. Just to make it more fun,
different Hard Drive manufacturers and controller companies and BIOS makers have DIFFERENT schemes. So what do
you do when a Western Digital Caviar is on C: and a Maxtor is on D:? And I guess you expect an answer...
THE HOW OF IT
As usual in this business, keep the solution simple and elegant. Don't make an OS/2 out of it. Look at the overall system
you are going to end up with, and take the shortest distance between the two points. Play around with getting fancy later.
Let's say you are going to end up with a 850 Caviar (TM) drive on C: and your old hard Drive on D:. Your old stuff will
be transfered to C:.
First, prepare your old system. Do the following in order.
Upgrade to DOS 6.22.
Scan the existing drive, including all partitions and compressed mounted drives. Defrag all of them. Dump any temporary
files and remove any cross allocation "phantom directories". That's those directories with names like TBLCH!@.&^%.
You CAN get rid of these even though you get Access Denied or Directory not empty errors. How? Send me $10 in a self
addressed... nah. Here goes. Your key is a cool little DOS utility called DELTREE. Go to the root of the drive and first
attempt to RENAME the directory -
RENAME TBLCH!@.&^% DUMPIT
If you get Access Denied, run ATTRIB and remove any attributes.
ATTRIB TBLCH!@.&^% -r -a -s -h
If the directory contains any weird characters like smiley faces, go into super nerd high gear. You can RENAME these
characters using the ALT key and the numeric keypad. Get a list of the ASCII codes from the back of a DOS book, or hunt
and peck them yourself. Say the character is the paragraph symbol (a backward p). You would hold down the right ALT
key and type 020 on the numeric keypad. Let go. Wow! There it is! You can use that symbol in a RENAME or DELTREE
command. You may need to load ANSI.SYS depending on your machine. RENAME the file/directory name to something
normal. Once you have the phantom directory renamed to something normal, DELTREE it. This does the amazing feat of
removing all unaccessible sub-directories and files under it.Cool, huh?
DELTREE DUMPIT
DELTREE is a powerful command. Don't misuse it. If you do, special agents of Geek International will hunt you down
and kill you. Scan and defrag again. Now that the drives, partitions and compressed volumes are cleaned up, move any
information in partitions to the root partition, go into FDISK and remove any logical drives, leaving the empty partitions.
Careful here! Read up on it if you need to. You want all your files in one big C: drive. Leave extra space unallocated. Next
uncompress all compressed volumes, whether DBLSPACE or DRVSPACE or STACKER (TM) or whatever. ZIP
directories to disk as necessary to make room. Remove DBLSPACE and DRVSPACE to get rid of .INI files (removing
these in DOS parlance doesn't mean deleting the files, just removing the .INI files and such.) Disable CD ROM drives by
REMming out entries in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. Dump any references to STACKER or D*SPACE in
CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT with REM statements. Once you have one big, clean partition you are ready to
move on. Do not continue until nothing is left but C: at reboot. Defrag once more.
Make a system disk. I repeat, make a system disk. (FORMAT A: /S). If you want to be really cool, next XCOPY the hard
drive utility disk to this system disk (as your legal backup copy). What Utility Disk??!??. Uh-oh. Read on.
Back up if you need to - at least backup your DATA files to disk.
UPGRADING AN IDE TO AN IDE
Contrary to what you would think would be logical, first install the new Hard Drive as C:. You MUST do this, or it will be
prepared as not bootable by the disk utility.Trust me. I learned the hard way.Go into the BIOS (AMI - Press <DEL>,
Packard Bell and Acer may be <CTRL_ALT> <ESC>, etc) and WRITE DOWN THE PARAMETERS OF THE
EXISTING HARD DRIVE. Remove the old hard drive by (turn it off first) disconnecting the flat gray controller cable.
Note that the cable has a red stripe on one side. This indicates Pin 1. Remove the four prong power cable. Remove the
drive and mark the parameters on the drive top with a Magic Marker (TM somebody or other, I'm sure) and place the
drive somewhere safe, like in a small bag and put it in a drawer. Don't set it down next to the dog's water bowl. Touch
something metal to discharge static and then remove the new hard drive from the bag. The instructions with the drive, if
there are any, will tell you how to set it for "Master". Since the dealer didn't give you the manual or the disk, at this point
put everything away safely, get in your car, go back to the dealer and demand the disk and the manual. He will eventually
succumb and give you a xerox copy and a disk copy of the utility disk. They usually only get one per box of drives. Drive
back home and get back to where we were. Don't you wish you had read this first? One manufacturer's drive has jumpers
MR for Master, SL for Slave, and CS for Connect here if you are Stupid. Choose Master for the first (C:) hard drive you
are installing. Now the fun part. You must figure out how to set the old drive for Slave. Many drives do have a separate
jumper setting for one-drive-only, just to confuse matters more. When you are confident that the new hard drive is Master
(C: or Drive 0) and the old hard drive is Slave (D: or Drive 1), move on. If you are going to hunt and peck your way
around, start by marking down the original positions of the jumpers. Duh. Connect the new hard drive with the end of the
gray cable, Pin 1 to Pin 1. Look closely at the hard drive to find the "1". Hook up the power connector. There should be a
second connector in the middle of the gray cable. Hook your old hard drive here and find a power connector for it. If you
find that the IDE Cable only has one connector and/or there is no spare power connector, get back in you car, drive back
to the dealer and buy a two connector IDE cable and/or a "Y" connector for the power connector. By the way, never
connect a power connector with the power on. Don't fry your brand new hard drive.Turn on the machine. If the hard drive
light comes on as soon as you turn on the machine and you get "Hard Drive Controller Failure" no matter what you do you
most likely have the cable backwards. Your original installer may also have put the cable itself on backwards. Get Pin 1 to
Pin 1 all around. When you start back up, the Motherboard may hang after the memory check. This is normal. Wait it out.
The older the Motherboard, the longer the wait.You will get a friendly message like :Drive C: Failure, Drive D:
failure.Get back into the BIOS. If you have a fairly recent Motherboard, your BIOS will have a wonderful option called
AUTO DETECT IDE DRIVES. Let's assume it has this sweet utility and you can have two User specified settings. Run
detect on Drive 0 and Drive 1. If it finds both, you are doing great. If it doesn't, you have some cable and jumper work to
do. If it recognizes drive 0 and not drive 1, you may be running an old Disk Manager or some such which over-rides the
BIOS and you are going to have to read the section below and do it the hard way, or you do not have the old drive set
correctly for Slave, OR the second hard drive is so old it is hopelessly confused.
If AUTO DETECT IDE HARD DRIVES is not a BIOS option, you must specify at least the Cylinders, Heads and Sectors
per track in the User Settings entry at the end of the hard drive table. If User Settings aren't allowed in your BIOS, get a
life and go get a Motherboard dated 1990 or later. Sheesh. Most new drives have Cylinders, Heads and Sectors per Track
listed on the top of the drive. If not, and you don't have a manual, you can use one of many shareware and freeware
utilities available online to query the geometry from the drive, or get a book or look in a book in the library. You must
have these numbers, unless you are using a hard disk installation utility which masks all this stuff. That's nice for today,
but you really should understand the process on some level. Maybe you don't care..
With MFM/RLL drives, the actual geometry had to be specified - with IDE, it is only necessary to specify the Megebyte
total, which is calculated as CYLINDERS x HEADS x SECTORS PER TRACK (x 512 bytes per sector). When the BIOS
goes out to query the drive for readiness, the actual geometry is reported by the drive to the BIOS. As long as the BIOS
can get to this information (and it is valid), the drive will initialize. Driver manufacturers use this query to end around
DOS and bypass the limitations. The limitations are 1024 Cylinders, 16 Heads and 64 Sectors per Track (times 512 bytes
per sector equals 536M).
WHAT ARE THOSE OTHER PARAMETERS?
Write Precompensation, Skew, Landing Zone, etc. are important to MFM/RLL drives, but usually not to IDE. Set Write
Precompensation to 65535 and the Landing Zone to one cylinder higher than the number of Cylinders Specified. Leave
other values at 0. Your Disk Utility may change these numbers. If they do, leave them alone.
Some machines only have one User definable setting. It may still be possible to have the Utility Disk set these up by
overriding the BIOS. It may be messy. I can't cover all possible scenarios.
BAD SECTORS
IDE drives usually don't have bad sectors. If you get a drive that was used in an OS/2 system, you may need to low level
format it; you must find an IDE low level formatter that recognizes your drive type. DO NOT USE an MFM/RLL low
level formatter - it will destroy the factory parameters and turn it into a smaller, slower hard drive. You may need to run
the low level formatter two or three times to completely get rid of OS/2 left behinds - they can show up as bad sectors to
the formatter. Three times usually does it. If the low level formatting immediately starts counting off bad sectors, stop it
and remove any other hard drive in the system. I don't know why, but sometimes you have to.
There are two kinds of bad sectors - hard and soft. Soft occurs when the formatter is unable to initialize a sector because of
a random peice of dust in the drive or a hard to erase bit of data, like an OS/2 boot sector. You can usually format away
soft errors with persistance. Bad Hard sectors are defects on the platters themselves, usually on the inner tracks, and are
there to stay. Mapping out bad sectors will make the drive work, but be aware that when you move the drive to another
system, you may have a hell of a time because the geometry of the mapped out drive - say 1009 x 16 x 64 - is different
than the geometry in the BIOS settings and the original geometry that may be used by the setup utility, which may take
the Cylinders, Heads and SPT from a table based on the hard drives model. You may need to low level format, including
generating a new map to get it to work in another system. This stuff is made to be set up once and used till it dies. Many
of the early IDE hard drives develop bad tracks near the end of the drive. A trick I have used to get these drives working is
to make a small parition at the end of the drive with FDISK - say the last two Meg - and leave them without a logical
drive assignment. High level formatting then succeeds.
THE FIRST REBOOT - A PLANNED FAILURE
When you get to the point where both drives are recognized, save into the BIOS and reboot with the SYSTEM
DISKETTE floppy. If you didn't make a system diskette, you are **cked. I warned you. (Reinstall the old hard drive and
start over.) You may need to go into the BIOS and enable BOOT FROM FLOPPY. Probably not. On reboot with the
SYSTEM DISKETTE, You will get another error message along the lines of Drive C: Failure, Drive D: Failure or CMOS
options not set. This is normal. Place your Utility diskette in the drive and start your Disk program. With Disk Manager
(Copyright and Trademark Ontrack), type DM/m. The /m parameter gives you more control over what happens. If you
live right, both drives will be detected, and the only preparation necessary is to allocate one big partition on Drive 0 and
high level format. DO NOT LOW LEVEL FORMAT. To be absolutely safe, disconnect the gray cable from the second
hard drive just before you partition or format the new drive, in the unlikely event you are specifying the wrong drive. After
the partition and high level format (this may be masked by user friendly (?) schemes by some disk utilities), reconnect the
second hard drive. Do not do anything to Drive 1. Disk Manager (TM) or your disk utility will write special start up files
to the new drive to do an end run around DOS. Imagine a big, stupid guard standing in a doorway. It is $50 to get in for
adults, $15 for children under 12. When he asks you how old you are, say 11 even if you are 99. He'll let you pass for $15.
That's how this works. "How big are you?" asks DOS. "540 Meg" answers the 1.2 Gig Hard Drive at every boot up. "Duh,
OK" says DOS thoughtfully. DOS never thinks to ask the BIOS, which in most cases reports the true geometry, or, if it
runs out of User Setting entries, a fake entry. Don't flip out if your new drive ends up set up as 30 Meg. If it works, it
works. The BIOS is what checks the hard drive for geometry validity, and it is the hard drive utility's job to handle this.
WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE?
Okay, so who is going to control the Enhanced IDE settings of my hard drive? The hard drive itself!!! If you give control
to the BIOS or the controller, you are giving control to a device that does not know what the hard drive will expect, but
the hard drive always will. Set the BIOS to disable 32 bit access, large hard drive partion, LBA, etc, and only turn them
on as last resort. Some machines, such as some Gateway 2000s (TM) need LBA turned ON. LBA is Logical Block
Addressing. Don't use it if you don't need it to get the drive running. A few machines, including some 486 PS/2's, won't
work at all with partitions bigger than 540 Meg. Other operating systems, such as OS/2 and some flavors of UNIX may
need special setup or may not be able to run partitions larger than 540.
Leave the Controller set for normal hard drive and play with Super Speed access or whatever later. Ignore the Utility disk
that comes with the controller unless you are installing a third and fourth hard drive. Although it is logical to tell the
BIOS you have a large hard drive and the controller the same, the reality is that you ONLY NEED TO TURN IT ON
ONCE. If you tell two or three devices to enable large drives, they will fight each other merrily, with you losing. Same
with 32 bit access. The 32 bit access driver which comes with Windows does not work with large hard drives. The newer
BIOS, newer Controller card and large hard drive all come with replacement drivers for Windows 32 bit access. Use the
hard drive's utility again. Only it knows what works with the drive. Logical, right?
WHAT IF I CAN"T GET THE OLD HARD DRIVE TO ACT AS SLAVE?
I was afraid you would ask. Messy, but possible.Still begin by setting up the new hard drive as C:. You have to. You have
no choice. If you don't it will never boot. Since the new hard drive is faster and will hopefully outlive the old hard drive,
you want it as the boot device. Once you have the new hard drive working correctly as C:, remove it and re-install the old
hard drive as C:,(change the BIOS) the new hard drive as D:. Follow the steps below to transfer the files, then remove the
old hard drive, and replace it with the new hard drive. This works most of the time. Do not erase the old hard drive!
Resetting the new hard drive as C: rarely but occasionally fails, necessitating a re-partioning, putting you back to square
one. Sorry. Sometimes it is just impossible to set these drives up easily. You may end up doing a back up and restore no
matter what you try.
WHAT IF NOTHING WORKS BUT ONE DRIVE AT A TIME?
You probably have a very old IDE drive as the original. You have three choices:
1) Back up to disk or Zip to disk
2) Back up to tape or
3) Take the machine over to a friend's house, and stop at the dealer (oh, no, again?) and buy a null modem cable (Laplink
(TM) cable). Make sure you also buy any 25pin to 9pin converters you need, which means you must determine whether
the open COM port you are going to use on both machines are 25 or 9 pins. Convince the friend that you are competent
enough to install one of your hard drives in his machine, and that you can put it back together so that he can still play
tetris tonight. Install one hard drive in his machine (assuming he/she has an existing IDE controller), have the other
working in yours, type HELP INTERSVR at the DOS prompt and use DOS 6.22's built in machine to machine transfer
utility. Get your friends machine back to normal, and get the hell out of there before he starts Tetris.
MOVING FROM MFM/RLL DRIVES TO IDE.
If you have two flat cables (a fat and a skinny) plus a power connector running from your old hard drive, you have an
MFM or RLL drive installed. My sympathies. Back up to disk or tape, remove the old hard drive AND controller, put in
an IDE controller (actually, it's not a controller, just the card to handle the controller on the IDE drive itself. That's why
it's called IMBEDDED DRIVE ELECTRONICS.) and install the new drive. Consider COM port and LPT port changes
this causes. If your Modem is on COM 2, you have to change COM 2 on the IDE card to COM 4. But thats another book.
DELETING OLD PROGRAMS
Yep, I agree. Get rid of some of that old stuff before you go through this process. But watch out if you are a heavy
Windows user. Windows programs install DLL files and VBX files and fonts and all kinds of stuff to your Windows and
WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdirectories. Blow the 30 bucks and buy an uninstaller. Always remove Windows programs with
an uninstaller. There is no other way to tell what DLLs are used by what Windows program, unless you are a total dweeb
and actually LIKE doing hex dumps till 3 am. Windows 95 has a hidden utility called RunDLL that allows you to run a
DLL like an EXE to see what it does.
Hard Drive FAQs by Farnum Andrew Quillimork
WHAT IS DRIVE ROCKET (TM) and why should I care?
DRIVE SPEEDER UPPERS
Most "high speed" IDE controllers and new hard drives come with speed 'em up schemes to make your hard drive go
faster. I'm not going to tell you not to play with them, but DON'T use them until your hard drive has been working for a
good week. Especially if you leave an old hard drive in the machine, and run the speeder upper against that. I'm sure most
of them work fine most of the time. but I've had to low level format a couple of drives after three days of high speed
operation, and I've lost a work hard drive's data to cross allocations (before I knew the DELTREE trick). SCANDISK is a
good way to find out if the speeder upper is going to trash your drive ( if, indeed, it trashes your drive, you now know.
This is tough love stuff). Whatever drive speeder you choose to mess with, use the Advanced Options to thoroughly test
the best settings for it. One particular make has a quick check option. If you run the quick install it may actually slow your
drive down. There are three 'most popular' speed up schemes:
1) 32 bit access under Windows (TM), Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (TM) and Windows '95 (TM). With the
aforementioned codicil of replacing the driver with 540+ drives, this is a very stable utility which works with all but some
some real old programs.
2) A new technology in most new IDE hard drives is called MBS (Multiple Block Size) or read-and-write-multiple mode.
3) An older hard drive may be able to use a scheme where a utility will install a device driver to execute I/O (In/Out)
requests in RAM rather than the norm, which is BIOS calls (much slower). Your BIOS may offer Shadow RAM, which is
an older technology alternative. To use device driver RAM I/O, you have to disable Shadow RAM. Test both for speed
SO HOW DO I KNOW IF MY HARD DRIVE IS QUICKER?
We sometimes (or at least I) wonder when all is said and done if the system really ended up any quicker. You can
download Benchmarks till you are blue in the modem, but many benchmarks, especially those touting a particular
product, make end runs around the BIOS and sometimes even hard code information the system will look for (especially
in Video Benchmarking) in the Hardware Device! I say the proof is on my wrist. When all is said and done, when the
high speed drive is installed, the speeder upper is running, the controller is set to use higher data rates, the BIOS is at 0
wait state, and the VESA Local bus Video Card with Windows Accelerator is installed, all I care about is the WIN test.
It's a moronic little test that anyone can do. Before you make any changes to your system, take off your watch, go to a
DOS prompt and type WIN. Mark the number of seconds till the Hour Glass is replaced by the pointer. Make your
changes. Repeat. Tweak your changes. Repeat. Try different combinations. Repeat. Doesn't it all come down to how long
it takes to load Windows and Windows programs? Who cares if the data rate is 10 times faster if the CPU is slugging
along and backed up to next tuesday, or all your wait states are 2 and your external cache is turned off in the BIOS? Be
results oriented, and don't worry about Benchmarks. If you play DOOM all day or run CAD all day, time them instead.
SO WHY DOES MY HARD DRIVE END UP WITH LESS MEGABYTES THAN THE DRIVE IS SUPPOSED TO
HAVE?
The Driver manufacturer is using Binary Millions (1,024,000) and the operating system and software are using Decimal
Millions (1,000,000). See this effect most clearly by running MEM/C|MORE from the DOS prompt. Notice the numbers
on the lines versus the numbers in parenthesis.
(DOS 6.22 is a registered product of Microsoft Corporation)
