The Lazarus Project; or, getting old ain't for sissies!
 

Well, for a diversion, I have decided to pull my old 1995 Pentium 100 with Win95 out of the closet and thrust it back into action, playing Aces of the Deep, Silent Steel, Wolfpack, Silent Hunter I, and other pre-millenium subsims.

It has not been turned on in over 3 years, so of course when I plugged it in, it won't run. First, it tells me there is a 127 System Board Error
then it goes to the Set-up Utility menu and there are three other errors waiting:

161 Bad CMOS Battery (how could it be naughty, it's been asleep 3 years?)
163 Date and Timer Incorrect
1762 Configuration Change has occurred

Ok, so if I exit the setup utility, I get a black screen with a simple white diagram of a floppy poised to enter a drive, with an insistent flashing error suggesting I press F1. Now, I have seen this before, I think it meant the old fella cannot access the hard drive or the Win95 OS. Probably forgot where it put it...

So, I suppose I need a new CMOS battery, and I better check the hard drive connections. Tomorrow I will start Googling, but in the meantime, I was wondering about your experiences with something like this. A really old PC, being rudely jerked out of its blissful slumbers...

Neal

Onkel,can't you sleep?
 

161 Bad CMOS Battery (how could it be naughty, it's been asleep 3 years?)Dead !
Replace It's in a coma
163 Date and Timer Incorrect-F1,it wants you to enter BIOS,set date/time. New battery,should activate memory,allowing a sys restore,or sys recovery.
1762 Configuration Change has occurred-restore-unknown how except suggestion above. Keep that boat afloat.LOL

Neal I just booted up my old Compaq Win95 and it's smooth as a baby's bot. No problems with it. ;)

Replacing the battery should fix all of those first few errors. I had to do this a few years ago. Write down all the info on the battery and I think you can still get them at Radio Shack or whatever your electronics store of choice is. Mine was a bit of a B to remove and replace so you may be in for a struggle.

You may want to try the above first before tackling the second problem as it will cure your computer's Alzheimers, as you know. After you do the usual connection checks, go to the BIOS and check all the stuff there, namely that you are booting from HDD. Beyond that, post back with any discoveries or progress you make!

I usually see a lot of old systems at places like Salvation Army and Waterfront Mission, Goodwill, etc. Great places to find old National Geographic maps, books, furniture, etc.

Yours, Mike

Ok, status update: I pulled the PS so I could get at the motherboard battery. It was still a struggle, but I got it out. I went to Circuit City and had the Joe grab a new one. Got home, put it in... it was too thin and the little clip did not press it down properly :dead: So I will go back tomorrow and ask for a "thicker" one. Alas.

You can get those batterys from any drug store too...popping those batterys out was the way to get around someone who has passworded the boot sequence...btw some of those cmos batterys were never made to be removed...:o the best part about messing with that computer is ya can't really go wrong now can ya :)...if the clip wont sit it securely insert a few small layers of tin foil to make contact

Good idea about the tinfoil, I'll try it. thanks

Ok, got another battery, a thicker one that happened to match the same part number as the old one :doh:

Now, when the PC is turned on, it take about 30 seconds before the monitor kicks in, and then it only displays the two lines of text describing the video card, it does not even go forward to the POST or IBM setup utility screen.... :shifty:

Oh boy, something is happening... after rebooting about 30 times, it now goes to the IBM POST screen and the Ram counts up, but reeeeeeeaaaly slowly. When it gets to 97MB of Ram, nothing happens and F1 won't take it to the setup utility.

I am thinking I may try plugging in another hard drive and see what happens. Or it may be time to build a new Olde PC. Parts should be cheap :) I need a Pentium 133 and MB, a 64MB ram chip, and a Soundblaster 16 ISA card.:hmm:

Hmmmm. Perhaps time to start swapping out components to test for defective hardware.

Yeah, I think you are right, will go by a computer shop tomorrow and see if I can find an old, cheap hard drive.

Hay there Neal, have you tried dosbox or any of the other dos emulators? With a bit of tweaking they can be set up to run most games. I regularly play a few games from the past. Just the other day I had Eye of the Beholder running, sure beats the pants off a lot of modern rpg’s.

Anyway, is does not sound like a HD problem. Seems to be having trouble with ram. You could try to disconnect the hard disk completely just to see if it makes a difference and to see how far it gets in the boot sequence.

Solution to your problem "Onkel Neal" ?


Find a large ROUND file and store it there. Use that extra new closet space for something good like PRIZES for new contests.:D :D :D

Ever thought of using one of these Neal?

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/er-defib.jpg

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Love the idea though, I think there might be an old computer gathering dust in the attic somewhere...maybe some day I'll switch it on and see what happens....with the fire brigade on speed-dial of course :smug: