From netcomsv!amd!decwrl!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!MathWorks.Com!bigboote.WPI.EDU!wpi.WPI.EDU!ralf Tue Jan 18 20:41:24 PST 1994 Article: 2106 of comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Xref: netcom.com comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:95362 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video:2740 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.comm:1143 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage:2106 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom:1789 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems:1191 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.networking:772 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips:1895 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc:1577 comp.answers:3474 news.answers:17087 Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!amd!decwrl!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!MathWorks.Com!bigboote.WPI.EDU!wpi.WPI.EDU!ralf From: ralf@chpc.org (Ralph Valentino) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.comm,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.networking,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.* Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Part 1/4 Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc Date: 18 Jan 1994 16:33:42 GMT Organization: Center For High Performance Computing Lines: 1304 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Expires: 11 Feb 1994 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <2hh316$ok8@bigboote.WPI.EDU> Reply-To: ralf@wpi.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: wpi.wpi.edu Summary: This is a monthly posting containing a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers) pertaining to hardware and IBM PC clones. It should be read by anyone who wishes to post to any group in the comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.* hierarchy. Originator: ralf@wpi.WPI.EDU Archive-name: pc-hardware-faq/part1 Last-modified: 1994/01/10 Version: 1.0 This FAQ was compiled and written by Willie Lim and Ralph Valentino with numerous contributions by others. Acknowledgements are listed at end of this FAQ. Copyright notice: The comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.* Frequently Asked Questions is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY. No author or distributor accepts responsibility to anyone for the consequences of using it or for whether it serves any particular purpose or works at all, unless he says so in writing. Refer to the GNU General Public License for full details. Everyone is granted permission to copy, modify and redistribute this FAQ, but only under the conditions described in the GNU General Public License. Among other things, the copyright notice and this notice must be preserved on all copies. Where section authors are noted, the copyright is held by that author. Where no author is noted, the copyright is held by the FAQ editors Willie Lim (wlim@lehman.com) and Ralph Valentino (ralf@wpi.wpi.edu). Changes, additions, comments, suggestions and questions to: Ralph Valentino ralf@wpi.edu Table of Contents: S) 1.0 Introduction Q) 1.1 What does this FAQ cover? Q) 1.2 Where can I find the latest copy of this FAQ? Q) 1.3 Is it ok to (sell/buy/job-offer/advertise) things here? Q) 1.4 Where should I post? Q) 1.5 How come no one answers my questions? Q) 1.6 What are the going prices for...? Q) 1.7 What is the history of the IBM PC? S) 2.0 Motherboards Q) 2.1 What are the differences between the 80x86 CPUs? Q) 2.2 How do I pick the right processor? Q) 2.3 What is the difference between the 386SX/386DX and 486SX/486DX? Q) 2.4 What is a ZIF socket? Q) 2.5 What is over clocking and should I do it? Q) 2.6 Which is faster, a DX-50 or DX2-66 Q) 2.7 *What is the P24T/Overdrive? Q) 2.8 *What are the differences between the 80x87 co-processors? Q) 2.9 *Would a co-processor speed up my machine? Q) 2.10 *Can I use a x387 with my 486? Q) 2.11 Memory terminology, what does it mean? Q) 2.12 What happen to my 384k? Q) 2.13 How do I tell how big/fast my SIMMs are? Q) 2.14 What speed SIMMs do I need? Q) 2.15 Will 9 chip and 3 chip SIMMs work together? Q) 2.16 What do wait states and burst rates in my BIOS mean? Q) 2.17 Cache terminology, what does it mean? Q) 2.18 How do I upgrade the size of my cache? Q) 2.19 Do I need to fill the "dirty tag" RAM socket on my motherboard? Q) 2.20 How fast do my cache RAMs have to be? Q) 2.21 Which is the best cache policy, write-through or "write-back?" Q) 2.22 What about an n-way set associative cache, isn't it better? Q) 2.23 *Which is better, ISA/EISA/VLB? Q) 2.24 *What are the (dis)advantages of ISA/VLB/EISA SCSI? Q) 2.25 *What is PCI? Q) 2.26 Will an ISA card work in an MCA (PS/2) machine? Q) 2.27 *What does the "chip set" do? Q) 2.28 What is bus matering and how do I know if I have it? Q) 2.29 Can I put an ISA cards in EISA slots? Q) 2.30 How should I configure ISA/VLB cards in the EISA config utility? Q) 2.31 What is the difference between EISA Standard and Enhanced modes? Q) 2.32 Is there any point in putting more than 16M in an ISA machine? Q) 2.33 What disadvantages are there to the HiNT EISA chip set? Q) 2.34 *Should I change the ISA bus speed? Q) 2.35 Where do all the IRQ's go? S) 3.0 IO controllers/interfaces Q) 3.1 *How do IDE/MFM/RLL/ESDI/SCSI interfaces work? Q) 3.2 *How can I tell if I have MFM/RLL/ESDI/IDE/SCSI? Q) 3.3 *Do caching controllers really help? Q) 3.4 Do IDE controllers use DMA? Q) 3.5 *How do I get an MFM/RLL/ESDI & IDE drive to coexist with each other? Q) 3.6 *Why won't my two IDE drives work together? Q) 3.7 *Which is better, VLB or ISA IDE? Q) 3.8 How I install a second controller? Q) 3.9 Which is better, SCSI or IDE? Q) 3.10 Can MFM/RLL/ESDI/IDE and SCSI coexist? Q) 3.11 What's the difference between SCSI and SCSI-2? Are they compatible? Q) 3.12 Can I share SCSI devices between computers? Q) 3.13 How do I swap A: and B: Q) 3.14 What is a 16550 and do I need one? Q) 3.15 *Are there any >4 serial port cards? Q) 3.16 Should I buy an internal or external modem? Q) 3.17 What do all of the modem terms mean? Q) 3.18 *What kinds of sound cards are avalable? Q) 3.19 Where can I find EISA sound and IO cards? Q) 3.20 *How does the keyboard interface work? Q) 3.21 *Can I fake a keyboard so my computer will boot without it? S) 4.0 Storage/Retrieval Devices Q) 4.1 What is the CMOS/jumper setting for my hard drive? Q) 4.2 Why do I lose x Meg on my hard drive? Q) 4.3 *Should I get an IDE/floppy/SCSI tape drive? Q) 4.4 How come I can't fit as much stuff on my tape drive as they claim? S) 5.0 Video Q) 5.1 *Can I use two video cards in the same system? Q) 5.2 *What kinds of monitors are available? Q) 5.3 *Can I get an RGB monitor to work with my PC? Q) 5.4 *How can I hook more than one monitor to my video card? Q) 5.5 *Which video card is best for DOS/Windows/X11/OS2? Q) 5.6 *What is the black horizontal line on my monitor? S) 6.0 Systems Q) 6.1 *What should I upgrade first? Q) 6.2 *Do I need a CPU fan / heat sink? Q) 6.3 What does the turbo switch do? Q) 6.4 Should I turn my computer/monitor off? Q) 6.5 Are there any manufacturers/distributers who read the net? S) 7.0 Diagnostics Q) 7.1 *What do the POST beeps mean? Q) 7.2 What do the POST codes mean? Q) 7.3 *I think my cache is bad. What's a good diagnostic? S) 8.0 Misc Q) 8.1 What is the pin out for ...? Q) 8.2 *Where are benchmark programs located. What do they mean? Q) 8.3 What size should I set my DOS partitions to be? Q) 8.4 Why won't my system boot from the hard drive? Q) 8.5 How do I clean my computer? Q) 8.6 *What OS's are available for the PC? Which are free? Q) 8.7 *How can I transfer files from my PC to a Unix system? Q) 8.8 Why doesn't my new device work as fast as it should? Q) 8.9 My drive lists a MTBF of 300,000 hours. Will it really last 34 years? Q) 8.10 How do I find pin 1 on my chip/card/cable/connector? Q) 8.11 I've run out of power connectors, what can I do? S) 9.0 References Q) 9.1 *What other FAQ's are out there? Q) 9.2 What do the industry acronyms stand for? Q) 9.3 Where can I get the ISA/EISA/VLB/PCI/etc specs? Q) 9.4 What books are available for the PC architecture? Q) 9.5 What's the phone number for... S) 10.0 Acknowledgments: * = incomplete S) 1.0 Introduction Q) 1.1 What does this FAQ cover? This FAQ covers Frequently Asked Questions from all groups in the comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.* hierarchy. Software topics are only included if they are directly related to hardware or hardware interfacing. Q) 1.2 Where can I find the latest copy of this FAQ? If you haven't done so, new users on the net should read news.announce.newusers. In particular, the following posts are a good idea: A Primer on How to Work With The Usenet Community Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Usenet Hints on Writing Style for Usenet This FAQ is currently posted to news.answers, comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware, comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom, comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips, comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.comm, comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc, comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.networking, comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage, comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems, and comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video. All posts to news.answers are archived and are available via anonymous FTP, uucp and e-mail from the following locations: FTP: FTP is a way of copying file between networked computers. If you need help in using or getting started with FTP, send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with send usenet/news.answers/ftp-list/faq as the body of the message. location: rtfm.mit.edu [18.70.0.224] directory: /pub/usenet/news.answers/csiph-faq filenames: part1 to part3 location: ftp.uu.net [137.39.1.9] directory: /archive/usenet/news.answers/csiph-faq filenames: part1.Z to part3.Z [use uncompress] location: nic.switch.ch [130.59.1.40] directory: info_service/Usenet/periodic-postings filenames: [Check info_service/Usenet/00index] UUCP: location: uunet!/archive/usenet/news.answers/csiph-faq/ filenames: part1.Z to part3.Z E-mail: Send email to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu containing these lines: send usenet/news.answers/csiph-faq/part1 ... send usenet/news.answers/csiph-faq/part3 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware archives You can find a dozen or more sites in the US, Europe and Japan that store the FAQ and archives for this various newsgroups by using the Internet search programs, Archie or Wais. One location is: location: wilma.cs.brown.edu: filenames: pub/csiph/ Q) 1.3 Is it ok to (sell/buy/job-offer/advertise) things here? No, none of the above fit within the charter of the comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.* hierarchy, therefore such posts are considered unacceptable. For buying/selling things, use groups with the words 'wanted' or 'forsale', and for job offers, use groups with the words 'jobs'. All of these can be found in the misc.* hierarchy. For comercial advertisements, use only the biz.* hierarchy as per the guidelines of USENET. (refer to the news.* groups for more information). Q) 1.4 Where should I post? [From: grohol@alpha.acast.nova.edu (John M. Grohol)] This Pointer will help you find the information you need and get your questions answered much quicker than if you were to simply crosspost to every hardware newsgroup in existence. It is provided as a public service. Comments are welcome. Question on... Post to... ---------------------------------- -------------------------------- Networking/networks comp.sys.novell comp.dcom.lans.* (where * equals: ethernet; fddi; misc; token-ring) Servers comp.dcom.servers Modems comp.dcom.modems Printers comp.periphs.printers SCSI devices comp.periphs.scsi Other peripherals comp.periphs Soundcards comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard Other hardware questions comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc Non-commercial sale of hardware misc.forsale.computers.pc-clone Commercial sale of hardware biz.computers.hardware ---------------------------------- -------------------------------- Question on... NEW GROUPS TO POST TO: --------------------------------- -------------------------------- Monitors/video cards comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video Modems/fax cards/comm questions comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.comm Hard/floppy/tape drives & media comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage CD-ROM drives & interfaces comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom Questions on computer vendors comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems PC networking/networks comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.networking System chips/RAM chips/cache comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips ---------------------------------- -------------------------------- All hardware discussions of a misc. nature will be moved to the new newsgroup, comp.sys.ibm.hardware.misc, in 1 month, at which time, comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware will be removed. You can help make this transition easier by posting only to the new misc. newsgroup now, or at least by crossposting to the new newsgroup. The new groups were passed during a CFV conducted according to Usenet Guidelines throughout the month of October, 1993. Q) 1.5 How come no one answers my questions? If you don't give enough information when asking your question, then people will not be able to answer it. If you're not willing to take the time to look up the necessary information, then why should you expect people to take the time to answer your question? For instance, if you're asking a question about SCSI, it is very important to know what type of SCSI host adapter (controller) you have. Some other important things to mention are which device drivers/tsr's you are loading, what other similar devices you have in your system, and exactly what in your setup has changed since it last worked. Q) 1.6 What are the going prices for...? If you're looking for new equipment, pick up a copy of Computer Shopper. This is the "bible" for buying new equipment. Skim through it for the best prices and give these distributers a call. In most cases, the advertisements must be placed months in advance; the actual price may be even lower than the advertised price! Two other things to note are the warranty, return policy and location of the company (companies within the same state as you may be required to add extra sales taxes). If you're looking for the expected price of used equipment, then scan the newsgroup misc.forsale.computers.pc-clone for similar items. This will give you the best idea as what to expect. Don't make assumptions that the price of used equipment will follow the market trends of new equipment. For instance, when new memory prices nearly doubled, the used prices were barely effected. Q) 1.7 What is the history of the IBM PC? [From:] Around 1978 and '79, the market served by IBM's Data Entry Systems division began to change. Instead of terminals and minicomputers or mainframes, customers began demanding autonomous, low cost, single-user computers with minimal compute power or connectivity, but compliance to standards like the ASCII alphabet and the BASIC programming language. The closest product in IBM's line was the 5110, a closed, BASIC-in-ROM machine with a tiny built-in character display. The 5110 was uncompetitive, and IBM started losing bids from key customers, mostly government agencies. Data Entry commissioned a consulting firm (Boca Associates?) to design a stop-gap machine to fill what was perceived within IBM as a short-lived, specialized niche. It was intended that the stop-gap machine would only be offered for a couple of years until it would be replaced in "The Product Line" by an internal IBM design. Some IBM executives believed the single-user desktop system was a fad which would die out when the shortcomings of such systems became appreciated. The motherboard design was based very closely on a single-board computer described in a 1978 (?) Intel application note. (Anybody got an original copy of this collector's item? Among other things, Intel argues that 640KB is more memory than single-user applications will ever need, because of the efficiency of segmented memory "management"!) The expansion slot "bus" is based on an Intel bus called Multibus 1, which Intel introduced in its microprocessor software development equipment in the mid '70s. The Monochrome and Color Graphics Display Adapters are based on application notes for the Motorola 6845 video controller chip, except that the strangely interlaced pixel addresses in the CGA appears to have been a design error. The "event driven" keyboard is an original design, but the concept is from the Xerox Alto and Star graphics workstations. The keyboard noise and "feel" are intended to emulate those of the IBM Selectric typewriter. The Cassette Interface design is original, but similar in concept to the one on the Radio Shack TRS-80. Data Entry Division approached Digital Research Inc. to offer its popular CP/M-86 operating system on the machine, but DRI rebuffed them. IBM's second choice was BASIC-in-ROM vendor Microsoft, which had no OS product at the time but quickly purchased a crude disk operating system from struggling Pacific Microsystems(?) to offer it to IBM. Its command interpreter was an imitation of Unix' Bourne Shell, with the special characters changed to avoid infringing AT&T's rights. Data Entry Division began bidding this system in various State procurements, without any plan to offer it to the public. It became obvious that the Cassette Interface and optional 360KB Flexible Disk Drive were inadequate. The Cassette Interface was dropped, and an optional Fixed Disk Drive offered on a revised model known as the IBM Personal Computer XT. (A fixed, or "hard" disk had been offered on the PC by special order, with a Xebec controller, but few were sold.) The disk controller was designed around the Western Digital 1010 chip, and its design is taken directly from a WD application note. The XT succeeded beyond all expectations. IBM offered the system to the public after it became clear that no other division was going to come up with anything timely. IBM published complete schematics and ROM listings, encouraging clones. In 1984, IBM introduced an upwardly compatible model based on the Intel 80286. The expansion slot "bus" was extended to 16-bit data path width the same way Intel had extended Multibus: by adding data and address bits, a signal for boards to announce their capability to perform 16-bit transfers, and byte swapping on the motherboard to support the 8-bit boards. S) 2.0 Motherboards Q) 2.1 What are the differences between the 80x86 CPUs? [From: jabram@ichips.intel.com (Jeff Abramson)] Processors (x86,x88,x286,x386SX/DX,x486SX/DX,Pentium) The Intel Architecture: Overview The Intel Architecture has transformed from a simple 16 bit processor (8086) to the standard for cost-effective, high performance volume computing. Over 80% of all personal and small business computers have Intel Architecture processors, ranging from the 8086 to the Pentium. Since the creation of the Intel386 processor, several imitators have started production of various 386 and 486 versions, some 100% compatible and some not. The following table describes the Intel family of processors: Bus widths CPU Int Ext Adr Speeds (MHz) Comments -------------------------------------------------------------------- 8088 16 16 20 7/4 to 16 PC, PC-XT CPU. Intel and others -------------------------------------------------------------------- 8086 16 8 20 Max 16 General use with Intel controller parts. -------------------------------------------------------------------- 80186 16 16 20 Max 16 An 8086 with some integrated components. -------------------------------------------------------------------- 80286 16 16 24 Max 20 The PC-AT CPU. Basic increase in memory addressing. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Intel 80386 32 32 32 20,25,33 New features, Jump to i386 32 bit addressing. Intel386SX 32 16 24 Smaller bus Intel386DX 32 32 32 Intel386SL 32 16 24 Low Power (notebooks) Intel 80387 Math coprocessor for 386 based CPU. -------------------------------------------------------------------- AMD 386 (Am386) 40 Reversed engineered SX,DX,SL parts available Intel part with copied microcode. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Intel 486 (i486) 32 32 32 20,25,33,50 New features, i486SX No FloatingPoint i486DX Includes FloatingPoint i486SL Low power SX (No FP) i486DL Low power DX (FP) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Intel i486DX2 32 32 32 40,50,66 Clock doubled 486DX. Either add to existing system or replace CPU. External speed does not change. (All have FP) -------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM Blue Lightning 486 50,66 Clock doubled versions of IBM's 486 chips. No FP unit. 75 Clock tripled version. -------------------------------------------------------------------- AMD Am486 25,33,40,50 Reversed engineered SX, DX, DXL, DX2 available Intel part with copied microcode. Currently attempting a "real" part. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Cyrix 486DLC/SLC: This is really a 386 that Cyrix calls a 486. No FP and is known to have incompatibilities. It is pin compatible with the Intel386. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Intel Pentium: 64 64 32 60,66 Superscalar pipelined 128 core, optimized FP, 64-but burstable bus. System Mgmt Mode. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Q) 2.2 How do I pick the right processor? [From: jabram@ichips.intel.com (Jeff Abramson)] This is a hard question. You have tradeoffs between price, performance, compatibility, upgradebility, and power consumption. As a desktop unit owner, you probably have less concerns about power... The frequency of the CPU defines how fast its internal clock runs. This defines how fast instructions are executed. In many ways, this is meaningless, because a RISC machine (MIPS) running at 100MHz may in reality be slower than a 50Mhz i486 because a RISC system must execute more instructions to perform the same function (in some cases). Even when comparing processors in the same family, this info can be misleading. For example, an Intel486-25 is faster than an AMD386-40, since the 486 has microarchitectural advancements over the 386. The same can be said for the Pentium, where a 66Mhz Pentium is twice as fast as a 66MHz 486. For compatibility, keep in mind that the Intel parts are the basis for all of these processors. Therefore you always run the risk that an imitator's part may not be compatible. AMD chips are compatible because they are copied. For some of you, these factors may be important. As far as upgradability goes, this depends on both your motherboard and the processor. If you purchase a 486DX, then you can upgrade to a DX2 and double your internal clock simply by buying an overdrive chip if your motherboard has the ZIF socket. If it doesn't then you can replace the CPU with a DX2. Many new 486 motherboards contain overdrive sockets for the not-yet-released Pentium chip that is pin compatible. Q) 2.3 What is the difference between the 386SX/386DX and 486SX/486DX? [From: jabram@ichips.intel.com (Jeff Abramson)] The Intel386DX contains full 32 bit buses for external data, internal data, and address. The Intel386SX contains a smaller 16 bit external data bus, and a smaller 24 bit address bus. The Intel486DX contains a floating point unit, the Intel486SX does not. A common rumor is that the 486SX is simply a DX part that has a failure in the floating point unit, so it has been disabled and the part has been produces as an SX. This was true for early production parts and samples, but not for the mass produces SX parts that we see today. Q) 2.4 What is a ZIF socket? [From: jabram@ichips.intel.com (Jeff Abramson)] ZIF stands for Zero Insertion Force, and describes a socket on your motherboard that supports an upgrade processor (overdrive processor). In general, an overdrive upgrade works in conjunction with your original processor so you cannot remove the original processor after upgrade. NOTE: Some motherboards do not have a ZIF socket so you must replace the existing processor to upgrade. Q) 2.5 What is over clocking and should I do it? [From: jabram@ichips.intel.com (Jeff Abramson)] Overclocking is a term generally used to describe how you have increased the clock frequency on your board to run your system at a higher speed. For example, if you plug a 25MHz i486 into a board that is configured to run a 33MHz i486, then you are overclocking your CPU. Most boards allow you to configure your clocking via jumpers, and others require a new clock oscillator. Although users have had success with overclocking, it is a dangerous practice for two reasons. First, the chip has been designed to meet a certain speed. Therefore, some circuits do not have the margin to operate at a higher frequency. The chips coming from a wafer have various speed specs (statistical distribution), so you may be lucky and own a CPU that has the circuit margins you need to overclock. But you don't know - and if you overclock, you may get data failure. The data failure may be reproducable - and therefore avoidable, but most likely not. Second, you have reliability concerns when overclocking. Overclocking means faster frequency, which means more current and power. This can lead to real failures in your CPU. Electromigration is one such failure where metal lines in your CPU will actually break or connect if they get too much current. This is irreversable, and most likely not covered under warranty. So when can you overclock? Really only if you don't care about burning out your CPU and you don't care if you get wrong data every now and then. If you own a machine and you use it just for games, then overclocking may be something to try - and you simply upgrade to a new CPU when you burn out the current one. Otherwise, it's not worth the small performance gain. Q) 2.6 Which is faster, a DX-50 or DX2-66 The two processors are relatively close for overall usage. The DX-50 has more I/O bandwidth and the DX2-66 has more computational power. Q) 2.7 *What is the P24T/Overdrive? Q) 2.8 *What are the differences between the 80x87 co-processors? Q) 2.9 *Would a co-processor speed up my machine? Q) 2.10 *Can I use a x387 with my 486? Q) 2.11 Memory terminology, what does it mean? [From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)] Read/write memory in computers is implemented using Random Access Memory chips (RAMs). RAMs are also used to store the displayed image in a video board, to buffer frames in a network controller or sectors in a disk controller, etc. RAMs are sold by their size (in bits), word width (how many bits can you access in one cycle), and access time (how fast you can read a location), among other characteristics. SRAMs and DRAMs --------------- RAMs can be classified into two types: "static" and "dynamic." In a static RAM, each bit is represented by the state of a circuit with two stable states. Such a "bistable" circuit can be built with four transistors (for maximum density) or six (for highest speed and lowest power). Static RAMs (SRAMs) are available in many configurations. (Almost) all SRAMs have one pin per address line, and all of them are able to store data for as long as power is applied, without any external circuit activity. In a dynamic RAM (DRAM), each bit is represented by the charge on a *very* small (30-50 femptofarads) capacitor, which is built into a single, specialized transistor. DRAM storage cells take only about a quarter of the silicon area that SRAM cells take, and silicon area translates into cost. The cells in a DRAM are organized into rows and columns. To access a bit, you first select its row, and then you select its column. Unfortunately, the charge leaks off the capacitor over time, so each cell must be periodically "refreshed" by reading it and writing it back. This happens automatically whenever a row is accessed. After you're finished accessing a row, you have to give the DRAM time to copy the row of bits back to the cells: the "precharge" time. Because the row and column addresses are not needed at the same time, they share the same pins. This makes the DRAM package smaller and cheaper, but it makes the problem of distributing the signals in the memory array difficult, because the timing becomes so critical. Signal integrity in the memory array is one of the things that differentiate a lousy motherboard from a high quality one. SIMMs and SIPPs --------------- Through the 1970s, RAMs were shipped in tubes, and the board makers soldered them into boards or plugged them into sockets on boards. This became a problem when end-users started installing their own RAMs, because the leads ("pins") were too delicate. Also, the individual dual in-line package (DIP) sockets took up too much board area. In the early 1980s, DRAM manufacturers began offering DRAMs on tiny circuit boards which snap into special sockets, and by the late '80s these "single in-line memory modules" (SIMMs) had become the most popular DRAM packaging. Board vendors who didn't trust the new SIMM sockets used modules with pins: single inline pinned packages (SIPPs), which plug into sockets with more traditional pin receptacles. PC-compatibles store each byte in main memory with an associated check bit, or "parity bit." That's why you add memory in multiples of nine bits. The most common SIMMs present nine bits of data at each cycle (we say they're "nine bits wide") and have thirty contact pads, or "leads." (The leads are commonly called "pins" in the trade, although "pads" is a more appropriate term. SIMMs don't *have* pins!) At the high end of the PC market, "36 bit wide" SIMMs with 72 pads are gaining popularity. Because of their wide data path, 36-bit SIMMs give the motherboard designer more configuration options (you can upgrade in smaller chunks) and allow bandwidth-enhancing tricks (i.e. interleaving) which were once reserved for larger machines. Another advantage of 72-lead SIMMs is that four of the leads are used to tell the motherboard how fast the RAMs are, so it can configure itself automatically. (I do not know whether the current crop of motherboards takes advantage of this feature.) "3-chip" and "9-chip" SIMMs In 1988 and '89, when 1 megabit (1Mb) DRAMs were new, manufacturers had to pack nine RAMs onto a 1 megabyte (1MB) SIMM. Now (1993) 4Mb DRAMs are the most cost-effective size. So a 1MB SIMM can be built with two 4Mb DRAMs (configured 1M x4) plus a 1Mb (x1) for the check-bit. VRAMs ----- In graphics-capable video boards, the displayed image is almost always stored in DRAMs. Access to this data must be shared between the hardware which continuously copies it to the display device (this process is called "display refresh" or "video refresh") and the CPU. Most boards do it by time-sharing ordinary, single-port DRAMs. But the faster, more expensive boards use specialized DRAMs which are equipped with a second data port whose function is tailored to the display refresh operation. These "Video DRAMs" (VRAMs) have a few extra pins and command a price premium. They nearly double the bandwidth available to the CPU or graphics engine. (As far as I know, the first dual-ported DRAMs were built by Four- Phase Systems Inc., in 1970, for use in their "IV-70" minicomputers, which had integrated video. The major DRAM vendors started offering VRAMs in about 1983 [Texas Instruments was first], and workstation vendors snapped them up. They made it to the PC trade in the late '80s.) Speed ----- DRAMs are characterized by the time it takes to read a word, measured from the row address becoming valid to the data coming out. This parameter is called Row Access Time, or tRAC. There are many other timing parameters to a DRAM, but they scale with tRAC remarkably well. tRAC is measured in nanoseconds (ns). A nanosecond is one billionth (10 e-9) of a second. It's so difficult to control the semiconductor fabrication processes, that the parts don't all come out the same. Instead, their performance varies widely, depending on many factors. A RAM design which would yield 50 ns tRAC parts if the fab were always tuned perfectly, instead yields a distribution of parts from 80 to 50. When the plant is new, it may turn out mostly nominal 70 ns parts, which may actually deliver tRAC between 60.1 ns and 70.0 ns, at 70 or 85 degrees Celcius and 4.5 volts power supply. As it gets tuned up, it may turn out mostly 60 ns parts and a few 50s and 70s. When it wears out it may get less accurate and start yielding more 70s again. RAM vendors have to test each part off the line to see how fast it is. An accurate, at-speed DRAM tester can cost several million dollars, and testing can be a quarter of the cost of the parts. The finished parts are not marked until they are tested and their speed is known. Q) 2.12 What happen to my 384k? The memory between 640k and 1Meg is used for the BIOS, the video aperture, and a number of other things. With the proper memory manager, DOS can take advantage of it. Many systems, however, won't identify its existence on boot. This does not mean it isn't there. Q) 2.13 How do I tell how big/fast my SIMMs are? Individual DRAMs are marked with their speed after they are tested. The mark is usually a suffix to the part number, representing tens of nanoseconds. Thus, a 511024-7 on a SIMM is very likely a 70 ns DRAM. (vendor numbering scheme table to be added) Q) 2.14 What speed SIMMs do I need? [From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)] There is no reliable formula for deriving the required RAM speed from the clock rate or wait states on the motherboard. Do not buy a motherboard that doesn't come with a manual that clearly specifies what speed SIMMs are required at each clock rate. You can always substitute *faster* SIMMs for the ones that were called out in the manual. If you are investing in a substantial quantity of RAM, consider buying faster than you need on the chance you can keep it when you get a faster CPU. That said, most 25 MHz and slower motherboards work fine with 80 ns parts, most 33 MHz boards and some 40 MHz boards were designed for 70 ns parts, and some 40 MHz boards and everything faster require 60 ns or faster. Some motherboards allow programming extra wait states to allow for slower parts, but some of these designs do not really relax all the critical timing requirements by doing that. It's much safer to use DRAMs that are fast enough for the no-wait or one-wait cycles at the top end of the motherboard's capabilities. Q) 2.15 Will 9 chip and 3 chip SIMMs work together? [From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)] Almost always. But there are exceptions. 1. Some motherboards do not supply enough refresh address bits for a 4Mb x1 or a 1Mb x4 DRAM. These old motherboards will not work with 4 MB 9-chip SIMMs or 1 MB 3-chip SIMMS. 2. Some EL CHEAPO motherboards do not have proper terminations on the lines which drive the DRAM array. These boards may show only marginal compatibility with various SIMMs, not working with all prefectly good SIMMs you try, favoring SIMMs with parameters skewed towards one end or another of the allowed ranges. In some cases, most of the SIMMs you happen to try might be 9-chip modules, and in other cases they might be 3-chip modules. A random selection of a dozen SIMMs might lead you to conclude the motherboard doesn't "work" with 3-chip modules, or with a "mixture" of 3-chip and 9-chip modules. You might find the real solution is to use SIMMs one speed faster than the manual calls for, because the particular motherboard design just cuts too many things too close. Q) 2.16 What do wait states and burst rates in my BIOS mean? [From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)] Modern motherboards are equipped with variable clocks and features for tuning board performance at each speed. The BIOS knows how to program the register bits which control these options. 1. Wait states may be adjustable to allow for slower DRAMs or cache RAMs. If you don't have a motherboard manual, or it doesn't say, then you will just have to experiment. 2. Sometimes a wait or two on a write is required with write-through cache. The programming allows for slower DRAMs. The extra wait state may cost you enough time that you would do better running at a slower clock rate where the wait state is not required. 3. Burst rates refer to the number of wait states inserted for each longword access in the cache fill cycle. Bob Nichols (rnichols@ihlpm.ih.att.com) adds: These numbers refer to the number of clock cycles for each access of a "burst mode" memory read. The fastest a 486 can access memory is 2 clock cycles for the first word and 1 cycle for each subsequent word, so "2-1-1-1" corresponds to "zero wait states." Anything else is slower. How fast you can go depends on the external clock speed of your CPU, the access time of your cache SRAMs, and the design of the cache controller. It can also be affected by the amount of cache equipped, since "x-1-1-1" is generally dependent on having 2 banks of cache SRAMs so that the accesses can be interleaved. With a 50MHz bus (486DX-50), few motherboards can manage "2-1-1-1" no matter how fast the SRAMs are. At 33MHz or less (486DX-33, 486DX2-66), many motherboards can achieve "2-1-1-1" if the cache SRAMs are fast enough and there are 2 banks equipped (cache sizes of 64KB or 256KB, typically). Q) 2.17 Cache terminology, what does it mean? [From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)] Why cache improves performance ------------------------------ Today's microprocessors ("uPs") need a faster memory than can be made with economical DRAMs. So we provide a fast SRAM buffer between the DRAM and the uP. The most popular way to set it up is by constructing a "direct mapped cache," which is the only setup I'll describe here. Generic motherboard cache architecture -------------------------------------- The direct mapped cache has three big features: 1. a "data store" made with fast SRAMs, 2 a "tag store" made with even faster SRAMs, and 3. a comparator. The data store is the chunk of RAM you see in the motherboard price lists. It holds "blocks" or "lines" of data recently used by the CPU. Lines are almost always 16 bytes. The address feeding the cache is simply the least significant part of the address feeding main memory. Each memory location can be cached in only one location in the data store. There are two "policies" for managing the data store. Under the "write-back" (or "copy-back") policy, the master copy of the data is in cache, and main memory locations may be "stale" at times. Under "write-through", writes go immediately to main memory as well as to cache and memory is never "stale." The tag store mantains one "word" of information about each line of data in the data store. In a "write-back" or "copy-back" cache, the tag word contains two items: 1. the part of the main memory address that was *not* fed to the data store, and 2. a "dirty" bit. A write-through cache doesn't need a dirty bit. The tag store is addressed with the most significant address bits that are being fed to the data store. The tag is only concerned with the address bits that are used to select a line. With a 16 byte line, address bits 0 through 3 are irrelevant to the tag. An example: The motherboard has 32 MB main memory and 256 KB cache. To specify a byte in main memory, 25 bits of address are required: A0 through A24. To specify a byte in data store, 18 bits (A0 through A17) are required. Lines in cache are 16 bytes on 16 byte boundaries, so only A3 through A17 are required to specify a line. The tag word for this system would represent A18 through A24 (plus dirty bit). The tag store in this system would be addressed by A3 through A17, therefore the tag store would require 16 K tag words seven bits wide. The dirty bit is written at different times than the rest of the tag, so it might be housed separately, and this tag store might be built in three 16K x4 SRAMs. What happens when it runs ------------------------- Each motherboard memory cycle begins when the uP puts out a memory address. The data store begins fetching, and simultaneously the tag begins fetching. When the tag word is ready, the Comparator compares the tag word to the current address. If they match, a cache hit is declared and the uP reads or writes the data store location. If the hit is a write, the copy-back cache marks the line "dirty" by setting its dirty-bit in the line's tag word. The write-through motherboard simultaneously stores the write data in data store and begins a DRAM write cycle. The uP moves on. If the tag word doesn't match, what a bummer, it's a cache miss. If the line in cache is dirty, double bummer, the line must be copied back to main memory before anything else can happen. All 16 bytes are copied back, even if the hit was a one-byte write. This data transfer is called a "dirty write flush." On a read-miss, the motherboard has to copy a line from main memory to cache (and update the tag, the whole operation is called a "cache fill"), and the uP can stop waiting as soon as the bytes it wants go by. On a write-miss, the caches I've worked with ignore the event (that's an oversimplification) and the main memory performs a write cycle. I've heard of systems that fill on a write-miss, that is they replace the cache line whenever it misses, read or write, dirty or not. I've never seen such a system. Terms ----- The 486, the 68020, and their descendants have caches on chip. We call the on-chip cache "primary" and the cache on the motherboard "secondary." The 386 has no cache, therefore the cache on a 386 motherboard is "primary." I like to call the DRAM array "core" for brevity. Motherboard = "mb." Megabyte = "MB." Problems -------- I added "core" and I had to disable my secondary cache to get the board running. Or, I added core and performance took a dive. Disabling secondary cache improved it, but still real slow. What happened? Whenever you are adding memory and you cross a power-of-2 address boundary, another address bit becomes interesting to the tag. That is, the tag does not care when you add your 8th MB (MB) but it cares a lot about the new address bit 24 when you add your 9th MB, or your 17th (bit 25). Evidently, at the low-price end of the mb market there are boards with not enough tag RAM sockets to support all the core they can hold. Most of these EL CHEAPO mbs don't even try to use cache in the region beyond the tag's coverage. Some of them don't have the logic to stay out or the BIOS doesn't know to enable it. These boards just don't run right. Do not buy a mb if you are not sure it can cache all of core. The worst case is with core fully stuffed with whatever the board claims to hold, and the smallest cache configuration. Some motherboards ask you to add cache when you add core, so that they don't have to provide for that worst case tag width. These motherboards may ask you to move some jumpers in the tag area. The jumpers control which address bits the tag looks at. Do not buy a motherboard if you don't know how to set all the jumpers. Q) 2.18 How do I upgrade the size of my cache? Look in your motherboard manual. Each motherboard is different. You will have to add or replace cache RAMs and move jumpers. Q) 2.19 Do I need to fill the "dirty tag" RAM socket on my motherboard? [From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)] Perhaps you don't *have* to for the board to run, but the missing RAM will cost you performance. Most "write-back" mbs cope with the missing RAM by treating all lines as dirty. You get a lot of unneccessary write cycles; you might even do better with write-through. Your bargain-basement no-documentation no-brand mb might not have the pullup resistor on that socket, and it might run for a second, ten minutes, or ten years with that pin not driven. I think it's a pointless risk to leave the socket empty. Q) 2.20 How fast do my cache RAMs have to be? [From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)] Only the person who designed your mb knows for sure. There is no simple formula related to clock rate. However, most people tell me their 33 MHz mbs' manuals call for 25 ns data store and 20 ns tag store, and their 40 and 50 MHz mbs want 20 ns data store and 15 or 12 ns tag. Tqhe tag has to be faster than data store to make time for the comparator to work. Do not buy a motherboard if you do not know what speed and size of cache RAMs it requires in all its speeds and configurations. If you're not sure, it doesn't hurt to use faster RAMs than your manual calls for. If your manual says 20 ns for location x and you happen to have 15 ns parts, it's ok to "mix" the speeds. It's ok to "mix" RAMs from more than one manufacturer. However, the faster RAMs will not buy you more performance. Q) 2.21 Which is the best cache policy, write-through or "write-back?" [From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)] For most applications, copy-back gives better performance than write-through. The amount of win will depend on your application and may not be significant. Write-through is simpler, but not by much any more. Q) 2.22 What about an n-way set associative cache, isn't it better? [From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)] At the high end of the mb market, caches are available with more than one set. In these caches, the data store is broken into two or four parts, or sets, with a separate tag for each. On a miss, clever algorithms (such as Least Recently Used) can be used to pick which set will be filled, because each set has a candidate location. The result is a higher hit rate than a direct mapped (single set) cache the same size can offer. The primary cache on the 486 is four-way set associative. Q) 2.23 *Which is better, ISA/EISA/VLB? Q) 2.24 *What are the (dis)advantages of ISA/VLB/EISA SCSI? Q) 2.25 *What is PCI? (note: this section is being worked on) Q) 2.26 Will an ISA card work in an MCA (PS/2) machine? No, they will not. MCA, unlike EISA and VLB, is not backward compatible with ISA. Q) 2.27 *What does the "chip set" do? Q) 2.28 What is bus matering and how do I know if I have it? Bus mastering is the ability of an expansion (ISA/EISA/VLB/MCA/etc) card to directly read and write to main memory. This allows the CPU do delegate I/O work out to the cards, freeing it to do other things. For all of the above busses, bus mastering capability is assumed. Unless specifically stated otherwise, you should assume each slot has this capability. For cards, this is not assumed. If you want a bus mastering card, you should specifically request it and expect to pay more. Note that some cards (RLL/MFM/IDE/com) are not available in bus mastering versions. Q) 2.29 Can I put an ISA cards in EISA slots? Yes, you can put ISA cards in EISA slots, the EISA bus was specifically designed to be 100% ISA compatible. ISA cards will not directly effect the performance of EISA cards; a well balanced system will have both. Note, however, that the total bandwidth of the bus will be split between all cards, so there is a strong advantage to using EISA cards for the high bandwidth devices (disk/video). Q) 2.30 How should I configure ISA/VLB cards in the EISA config utility? Only EISA cards matter in the ECU; ISA and VLB entries are only place markers. While this is a good way to keep track of IRQ, DMA and BIOS conflictions, ISA and VLB need not be placed in the configuration at all, nor should it be assumed that the settings for them match the actual card settings. If you wish to add them, you can use the "Generic ISA Card" configuration file for either. Do not expect card vendors to supply them. Q) 2.31 What is the difference between EISA Standard and Enhanced modes? Many EISA cards support both Standard (ISA) and Enhanced (EISA) modes. In Standard mode, the card will appear to be an ISA card to the OS; it will generate edge triggered interrupts and only accept ISA addressing (for bus mastering cards), for instance. An important thing to note is that the card may still do EISA specific things like 32-bit data bus mastering and EISA configuration setup as this functionality is hidden from the OS. Q) 2.32 Is there any point in putting more than 16M in an ISA machine? [From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)] Sure. Even inferior operating systems can use it for something. The question is how much performance it buys. In ISA, the DMA channels and bus-mastering IO cards can only address the first 16 MB. Therefore the device drivers have to copy data up and down or just not use the space. I am told the Linux SCSI drivers know how to do this. I don't know about OS/2 or MSWindows. Q) 2.33 What disadvantages are there to the HiNT EISA chip set? [From: ralf@wpi.wpi.edu (Ralph Valentino)] The HiNT Caesar Chip Set (CS8001 & CS8002) can come in three different configurations. All three of these configurations have EISA style connectors and are (sometimes incorrectly) sold as EISA motherboards. The differences should be carefully noted, though. The rarest of these configuration uses a combination of the first HiNT chip (CS8001) and the Intel chip set. This configuration can support the full EISA functionality: 32 address bits, 32 data bits, level sensitive (sharable) interrupts, full EISA DMA, watch dog (sanity) timer, and so forth. The second configuration is called Super-ISA, which uses both of the HiNT chips. This configuration is very common in low-end models. It supports a very limited functionality: 24 address bits, 32 data bits, edge triggered (non-sharable) interrupts, ISA (16 data, 24 address) DMA, and no watch dog timer. Some EISA boards, such as the Adaptec 1742A EISA Fast SCSI-2 host adapter, can be configured to work in this mode by hacking their EISA configuration file (.CFG) to turn off these features. Other EISA cards require these features and are therefore unusable in these systems. The final configuration is called Pragmatic EISA, or P-EISA. Like Super-ISA, both HiNT chips are used but external support logic (buffers and such) are added to provide a somewhat increased functionality: 32 address bits, 32 data bits, edge triggered (non-sharable) interrupts, ISA (16 data, 24 address) DMA, and no watch dog timer. The full 32 bits for address and data allow bus mastering devices access to the complete range of main memory. As with Super-ISA, there may be incompatibilities with some EISA cards. Q) 2.34 *Should I change the ISA bus speed? Q) 2.35 Where do all the IRQ's go? [From: wlim@lehman.com (Willie Lim)] Default settings. IRQ DMA IO BASE Card or Device ADDRESS (HEX) === === ======== =============== 0 * * timer (reserved) 1 * * keyboard (reserved) 2 * * interrupt 8-15 (cascade) 2 * 330 MPU-401 Emulation (PAS 16) 3 * 2F8 COM2: 3 * 2F8 COM4: 3 * 300 3Com Etherlink II, II/TP, II/16, II/16TP, 16/16TP 3 * 300 Novell NE2000 3 * 300 SMC/Western Digital 8003EP, 8013EWC, 8013WB 4 * 3F8 COM1: 4 * 3F8 COM3: 5 * 278 LPT2: 5 * 368 Ungermann-Bass Ethernet NIUpc (long), NIUpc/EOTP (short) 5 * ??? DEC etherWORKS LC, Turbo, Turbo/TP 5 1 220 Sound Blaster Emulation (PAS 16) 5 5 A20 Proteon P1390 6 * * floppy disk controller 7 * 378 LPT1: (PRN:) 7 3 * Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (PAS 16) 8 * * clock (reserved) 9 * * reserved 9 5 300 Boca Ethernet (BEN100, BEN102, BEN300) 10 * * unassigned 11 * * unassigned 12 * * unassigned 13 * * math co-processor 14 * * hard-disk 15 * * secondary disk controller S) 3.0 IO controllers/interfaces Q) 3.1 *How do IDE/MFM/RLL/ESDI/SCSI interfaces work? Q) 3.2 *How can I tell if I have MFM/RLL/ESDI/IDE/SCSI? Q) 3.3 *Do caching controllers really help? Q) 3.4 Do IDE controllers use DMA? No, they do not. This is a rumor that keeps popping up. This may change on the next revision of the standard. Q) 3.5 *How do I get an MFM/RLL/ESDI & IDE drive to coexist with each other? Q) 3.6 *Why won't my two IDE drives work together? Q) 3.7 *Which is better, VLB or ISA IDE? Q) 3.8 How I install a second controller? [From: strople@ug.cs.dal.ca (PAUL LESLIE STROPLE)] The following should solve about 95% (9.5?) of second controller problems, if only to tell you it can't be done! Generic Second Controller Installation: 1) Normally the MFM/IDE/RLL controller is set up as the primary, and the ESDI/SCSI as the secondary; One reason for this is because the ESDI/SCSI controller cards are usually more flexible in their set up and secondly this method seems to work (probably due to reason one). 2) Your primary controller is set up using all the normal defaults: - Floppy at primary address(3F0-3F7). - Hard disk enabled, at primary addresses (1F0-1F7), BIOS address C800 and interrupt 14. 3) Your secondary controller is set up as: - Floppy drives disabled - Hard disk controller enabled, secondary address(170- 177) and interrupt 15. - NOTE: onboard bios set to D400, or D800 can be used, if there is a conflict. 4) Computer BIOS Setup: - Any drive(s) on the primary controller (MFM/IDE), should be entered in the BIOS setup as usual. - You DO NOT enter the drive types for the hard disks on the secondary controller, even if there are only two drives in the entire system i.e., if one drive on each controller you only enter the drive type of the hard disk on the primary controller -- the 2nd drive type is left as not installed (0). Operating System: If you do the above steps you now have the hardware setup correctly; your only other problem may be with the operating system. Different OSs handle secondary controllers differently; as well, different controllers handles same OSs differently (scared yet?). For example: with DOS you may require a device driver (available from the manufacture or through third party companies, such as Ontrack Computer Systems -- more on Ontrack later). Some flavors of UNIX handle a mixture of controllers better than others (e.g., IA 5.4 had probs mixing ESDI and SCSI controllers under certain conditions). Procedure: You should verify that your secondary controller, and associated hard drives, are working properly (you can try this by installing it as the primary system -- removing existing system first!). Follow above steps 1 to 4, pray, and turn on system! If it still won't work you may need additional drivers. First check with the supplier or manufacture (I know, for example, a DTC ESDI controller comes with the DOS drivers included, and it works perfectly). I am not sure of operating systems supported by Ontrack Data Systems. I know that their DOS driver can assist secondary controllers, even allowing two IDEs to co-exist. Likewise, the drivers can also install virtually any drive, regardless of what is supported by the BIOS. BIG NOTE: The features required in a secondary controller a normally not found on a $30.00 IDE controller. The best thing to do it, if possible, is to get a guarantee from the supplier/manufacture that if it doesn't work (and they can't make it) then they will take it back. Ontrack supplies a complete range of hard disk products and services -- from driver software, data recovery services, to media and data conversions (including tape backups). The product I know them from is DiskManager. Disk Manager is a utility for hard disk management. It will allow you to setup and install virtually any hard disk, regardless of disk's layout and BIOS options available. Disk Manager (version greater than 5.2.X, or there abouts) includes a driver for co-resident controllers. For driver to work the co-res board must be able to hit the above addresses and must be WD1003 AT command set compatible (this includes most IDE and ESDI boards). DM contains a number of features, including full diagnostics. You may not need to know the disk's geometry, as there are numerous layouts stored internally. All you need to do is select the correct model and DM does the rest. To contact Ontrack: U.S. (800)-872-2599; UK 0800-24 39 96 this is either an address or phone number! outside U.K. (but NOT U.S.) 44-81-974 5522 Q) 3.9 Which is better, SCSI or IDE? [From: ralf@wpi.wpi.edu (Ralph Valentino)] IDE vs SCSI Non-issues: 1) SCSI and IDE devices cost approximately the same for the same features (size, speed, access time). Shop around for good prices. Advantages of IDE: 1) faster response time (low request overhead) 2) hard drive interface is compatible with RLL/MFM/ESDI: any driver for one (including the main system BIOS) will run the other. 3) IDE controllers are considerably cheaper ($150 and up) than SCSI host adapters. 4) Will always be the boot device when mixed with SCSI. Advantages of SCSI: 1) Supports up to 7 devices per host adapter. This saves slots, IRQ's, DMA channels and, as you add deviceds, money. 2) Supports different types of devices simultaneously the same host adapter (hard drives, tape drives, CDROMs, scanners, etc). 3) SCSI devices will work in other systems as well (Mac, Sparc, and countless other workstations and mainframes). If you change platforms in the future, you will still be able to use your SCSI devices. 4) Automatically configures device type, geometry (size), speed and even manufacturer/model number(SCSI-2). No need to look up CMOS settings. 5) Busmastering DMA (available in all but a few cheap SCSI host adapters) decreases amount of CPU time required to do I/O, leaving more time to work on other tasks (in multitasking OS's only). 6) Software portability - drivers are written for the host adapter, not the specific device. That is, if you have a CDROM driver for your host adapter, you can purchase any brand or speed SCSI CDROM drive and it will work in your system. 7) Will coexist with any other type of controller (IDE/RLL/MFM/ESDI) or host adapter (other SCSI cards) without any special tricks. SCSI host adapters do not take up one of the two available hard drive controller port addresses. 8) greater bandwidth utilization (higher throughput) with multiple devices. Supports pending requests, which allows the system to overlap requests to multiple devices so that one device can be seeking while the second is returning data. 9) Ability to "share" devices between machines by connecting them to the same SCSI bus. (note: this is considerably more difficult to do than it sounds). 10) Bridges are available to hook RLL and ESDI drives to your SCSI host adapter. (note: these tend to be prohibitively expensive, though). Warnings: 1) With otherwise equal drives, IDE will perform better in DOS due to low command overhead. SCSI, however, will perform better in multitasking OS's (OS/2, Unix, NT, etc). If you see speed comparisons (benchmarks), make sure you know what OS they were run under. 2) Most benchmarks only test one aspect of your system at a time, not the effect various aspects have on each other. For instance, an IDE drive may get faster throughput but hurt CPU performance during the transfer, so your system may actually run slower. Similar confusions arise when comparing VLB and EISA host adapters. 3) When comparing two systems, keep in mind that CPU, memory, cache, and bus speed/type will all effect disk performance. If someone gets great I/O performance with a particular controller/drive combination on his Pentium, you should not expect your 386SX-25 to get such I/O performance even with the exact same controller/drive combination. 4) Similarly sized or even priced drives may not perform equally, even if they're made by the same manufacturer. If you're going to compare two drives, make sure they have the exact same model number. (IDE drives usually have an 'A' and SCSI drives usually have an 'S' appended to their model number). =============== Ralph Valentino (ralf@chpc.org) (ralf@wpi.wpi.edu) Hardware Engineer, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Center for High Performance Computing, Marlborough MA From netcomsv!amd!decwrl!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!MathWorks.Com!bigboote.WPI.EDU!wpi.WPI.EDU!ralf Tue Jan 18 20:41:41 PST 1994 Article: 2107 of comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Xref: netcom.com comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:95364 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video:2742 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.comm:1144 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage:2107 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom:1790 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems:1192 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.networking:773 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips:1896 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc:1578 comp.answers:3475 news.answers:17088 Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!amd!decwrl!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!MathWorks.Com!bigboote.WPI.EDU!wpi.WPI.EDU!ralf From: ralf@chpc.org (Ralph Valentino) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.comm,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.networking,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.* Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Part 2/4 Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc Date: 18 Jan 1994 16:35:11 GMT Organization: Center For High Performance Computing Lines: 1669 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Expires: 11 Feb 1994 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <2hh33v$onc@bigboote.WPI.EDU> Reply-To: ralf@wpi.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: wpi.wpi.edu Summary: This is a monthly posting containing a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers) pertaining to hardware and IBM PC clones. It should be read by anyone who wishes to post to any group in the comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.* hierarchy. Originator: ralf@wpi.WPI.EDU Archive-name: pc-hardware-faq/part2 Last-modified: 1994/01/10 Version: 1.0 Q) 3.10 Can MFM/RLL/ESDI/IDE and SCSI coexist? The PC is limited to two drive controllers total. SCSI, however, is a "host adapter" and not a drive controller. To the rest of your system, it appears more like an ethernet card than a drive controller. For this reason, SCSI will always be able to coexist with any type dive controller. The main drawback here is that on most systems, you must boot off a disk on the primary drive controller, if you have one. That means if you have SCSI and IDE in your system, for example, you can not directly boot from the SCSI drive. There are various ways to get around this limitation, including the use of a boot manager. Q) 3.11 What's the difference between SCSI and SCSI-2? Are they compatible? The main difference between SCSI and SCSI-2 are some new minor features that the average person will never notice. Both run at a maximum 5M/s. (note: Fast and Wide SCSI-2 will potentially run at faster rates). All versions of SCSI will work together. On power up, the SCSI host adapter and each device (separately) determine the best command set the speed that each is capable of. For more information on this, refer to the comp.periphs.scsi FAQ. Q) 3.12 Can I share SCSI devices between computers? There are two ways to share SCSI devices. The first is removing the device from one SCSI host adapter and placing it on a second. This will always work if the power is off and will usually work with the power on, but for it to be guaranteed to work with the power on, your host adapter must be able to support "hot swaps" - the ability to recover from any errors the removal/addition might cause on the SCSI bus. This ability is most common in RAID systems. The second way to share SCSI devices is by connecting two SCSI busses together. This is theoretically possible, but difficult in practice, especially when disk drives are on the same SCSI chain. There are a number of resource reservation issues which must be resolved in the OS, including disk caching. Don't expect it to 'just work'. Q) 3.13 How do I swap A: and B: [From: rgeens@wins.uia.ac.be (Ronald Geens)] To swap A: and B: drives : 1) open up your machine to see if look at the cable that interconnects the 2 drives. 2) if the cable is twisted, there is no problem, just switch the connectors from 1 drive to the other.And change the bios-setup. 3) if the cable isn't twisted (which is very,very rare), it's a little harder: leave the cables as they are, but change the jumpers on the drive. (this sounds a lot tougher, but it can usually be done without to much hassle. When the cable connecting the 2 drives is just a flat one (like the harddisk cable) then you must play with the jumpers on the drives: Most of the time, there is a jumper with 4 pins, with the following layout: _ |1| |2*3| --- Where the * is the 4th unnumbered pin. Normally the A: drive will have a jumper on pin 2 & 4 and the B: drive on 1 & 4. Just change these jumpers around, (i.e. new A: 2&4, new B: 1&4) and change the BIOS configuration. 4) Don't panic if it doesn't work, just make sure all cables are conected properly and if that doesn't work just restore everything to its old state. PS. By twisted cable, I mean that between the A: and B: drive, a few wires of the flat cable are turned around. [From: sward+@1.EDU (David Reeve Sward)] I have found two ways to do this: I originally switched their positions on the cable attached to the controller, and changed the BIOS to reflect this. I recently got a gsi model 21 controller for my IDE drive, and this controller allows you to specify which drive is A: and B: in software (it lights the LEDs in turn and asks which is A: and which is B:). This did not require a cable change (but I still changed by BIOS). Q) 3.14 What is a 16550 and do I need one? The 16550 is a UART with a 16 byte FIFO. A UART is the part of a serial port that takes byte-wide (characters) data and converts it to bit-wide (serial) data, and visa versa. The FIFO is a buffer which can hold characters until the CPU is ready to remove it. The 'normal' UART in the PC (the 8250 or 16450) only has a 1-byte FIFO. The additional 15 bytes can be useful when the CPU is busy doing other things - if the CPU isn't able to remove data fast enough, it will be lost. A very important thing to note is that under DOS, the CPU doesn't have anything else to do, so the 16550 is wasted. Only under multitasking operating systems does it really become useful. The 16550 will *not* make your file transfers any faster, it will only prevent data from being lost and relieve your CPU of some overhead. If you notice system performance dropping like a rock when file transfers are occurring, a 16550 may be helpful. If you see re-transmissions (bad packets) or "FIFO overrun's" during file transfers under a multitasking OS, try the same thing under DOS - if the errors go away, then chances are a 16550 will be useful. If they remain, then your problem is likely to be elsewhere. Q) 3.15 *Are there any >4 serial port cards? Q) 3.16 Should I buy an internal or external modem? [From: arnoud@ijssel.hacktick.nl (Arnoud Martens)] While low speed modems are often only produced as an internal PC card, most modem manufacturers provide two versions of their higher speed modems: 1: internal ISA bus card, specially designed to work with the standard PC bus. You just plug it in and configure it to use on port. 2: external modem that has to be connected to the serial ports of your PC (com 1-4), using a serial RS232 cable. In most cases the functionality of these two is equal. There are however some differences in using, maintaining and buying these modems. It is very difficult to give an definite answer as to which one is better, it completely depends on your own situation. Some of the points that are in favor of an external modem are: * It has lights showing the status of the connection, this can be useful in those (rare) cases that you have problems with the connection. * It can be used on a wide range of systems. External modems are connected using a RS232 cable, a standard that most computer systems support. So you can as easily use your external modem on a Mac, Amiga or Unix box as on your PC. * It doesn't consume power inside the PC (it uses a normal net adapter), and doesn't produce any heat inside your PC. On the other hand the internal modem has also a couple of advantages compared to an external modem: * It is always cheaper, Somewhere in the order of 10% less compared to the same external modem. * It doesn't need special serial hardware since it has already been integrated on the board, which will make it even more cheaper. So basically if portability of your modem is an issue, you are better of with an external modem. But if you only intend to use the modem with your PC and don't have any power problems, an internal modem is the best choice. Q) 3.17 What do all of the modem terms mean? [From: arnoud@ijssel.hacktick.nl (Arnoud Martens)] A modem (MOdulator-DEModulator) is a device capable of converting digital data from your computer into an analog signal that is suitable for transmission over low band width telephone lines. A modem thus makes it possible to connect two computers over a telephone line and exchange data between them. Basically a modem picks up the phone, and dails a number. A modem on the other side will pick up the phone and the two modems will negotiate which protocol to use. When they agree the actual transmission of data can begin. The major feature of a modem is the speed that it can achieve connecting to other modems. This speed is often expressed in baud or bits per second. The first is a feature of the line and specifies how much of the bandwidth of the phone channel is used and is fixed to 2400 baud. A baud is defined as the number of lines changes per second. Bits per second is the actual amount of data transmitted in one second. Most modems are capable of sending more than one bit per line transition by using very intelligent signal modulation techniques. So the bps can be eight times higher compared to trhe baud rate. The modulation techniques that a modem uses are standarized by the ITU-T ( former CCITT), so that modems of different brands can connect to each other as they use the same modulation schemes. These standards are often incorporated in a protocol definition that is referred to by the letter V followed by a number. The most common protocols are: V21: (300 baud) V22bis: (2400 baud) V32: (9600 baud) V32bis: (14400 baud) A modem is often advertised only by its fastest protocol, most of these modems "speak" slower protocols as well. There are also standards on using data compression by the modem, such as MNP5 and V42bis, and error control protocols (V42 and MNP4). These standards can reduce the transmitted data by a factor four, by using advanced compression techniques. To give you an idea a how fast fast is in modem technology: V32bis transmits somewhat like 1600 characters per second (that is ~33% of 1 page of text). Transferring a file of 1Mb takes about 12 minutes. Using V42bis can speed up transmission to 4000 characters per second for uncompressed data. Apart from these standardized protocols there are also faster protocols which are supported by some modem manufacturers. But remember anything faster than 14k4 is *not yet* standarized, and often different manufacturers use their own modulation scheme that allows only their own modems communicate at that speed. The most common high speed protocols are: V32 terbo (19200 baud) V34 (28800 baud) or Vfast. The standard for V34 is being worked on, it will be released somewhere in 1994. Some modem manufacturers already sell modems with the (prelimenary) V34 standard. If you are serious about buying a fast modem, upgradability to this standard should be provided by the manufacturer. When you use your modem it is important to differentiate between command status and connect status of your modem. When you are connected to an another modem everything you send to the modem, will be transmitted to the other modem. In command mode everything you type will be recieved and interpreted by the modem. Command mode allows you to change the default settings for youyr modem. In command mode it is likely that your modem will respond to the Hayes AT command set. "AT commands" all have prefix AT, and can be used to change the (default) settings of your modem. To check if your modem works, fire up a terminal program (such as kermit), connect to your modem (in kermit c [ENTER]) and issue AT [ENTER], if your modem works it should respond with OK. For a list of all "AT commands" see the manual of your modem, as most AT commands are modem specific. If you buy a fax-modem, you should pay attention to a couple of things. First the modem must support Class 2 fax commands, furthermore automatic fax mode selection is a big pro. That means if you receive a call the modem is capable of detecting a fax message or a modem connection and act properly (start up a fax receiving program or spawn something like a login process on the connection). Finally there is no best modem to get, brands and qualities change very fast, as do the prices. If you are interested in buying one, subscribe to the newsgroup comp.dcom.modems, most postings in this group are very brand oriented and you will recognize fast enough which users are satisfied over their modems and which are not. Q) 3.18 *What kinds of sound cards are avalable? Q) 3.19 Where can I find EISA sound and IO cards? Chances are that you won't be able to find them anywhere, and if you do, they won't be worth the money. Sound and IO cards have very low bandwidth requirements, over 10 times lower than the ISA bandwidth and over 60 times lower than the EISA bandwidth. For this reason, there is no advantage in placing them on the more expensive EISA cards when the less expensive ISA will more than suffice, especially considering than all ISA cards will work in an EISA bus. Q) 3.20 *How does the keyboard interface work? [this section being worked on] Q) 3.21 *Can I fake a keyboard so my computer will boot without it? [this section being worked on] S) 4.0 Storage/Retrieval Devices Q) 4.1 What is the CMOS/jumper setting for my hard drive? [From: Carsten Grammes (cagr@rz.uni-sb.de)] Configuration of IDE Harddisks ============================== last update: 6. Jan. 1993 collected by Carsten Grammes (cagr@rz.uni-sb.de) and published on comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware as part of the FAQ. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is explicitly NO WARRANTY that the given settings are correct or harmless. (I only collect, I do not check for myself!!!). There is always the possibility that the settings may destroy your hardware! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Since I hope however that only well-minded people undergo the effort of posting their settings the chance of applicability exists. If you should agree or disagree with some setting, let me know immediately in order to update the list. If you possess a HD not mentioned here of which you know BIOS and/or jumper settings, please mail them to me for the next update of the list! Only IDE (AT-Bus) Harddisks will be accounted for. If not specified the Landing Zone should be set equal to the number of cylinders. If not specified the 'Write Precompensation' should be set 65535. (There are BIOSes that don't even ask for it). On most IDE disks these values are dummies, relicts from old MFM times. The capacity given here is sometimes in Megabytes (1000000 bytes) and sometimes in MB (1048576 bytes). Don't worry! The only right way to calculate the capacity is cyl * heads * sec/tr * 512 which gives the capacity in bytes! Dividing by 1000000 or 1048576 gives the capacity in Megabytes or MB respectively. If you get problems when installing 2 HD's with correct BIOS and jumper settings, try to swap drive 1 and 2, often that helps. Please don't flame me because of the 'layout' of the list. Since the available information is so strongly varying I often only pack _YOUR_ mail to me into the list. If someone feels encouraged to improve this, I would be glad to receive a 'lifted' version. But there should be all info contained! Since the list is rather long, I give here a summary of all drives described therein. ************* ALPS Alps alps DR311C ************* CDC Cdc cdc BJ7D5A 94155-48 94335-100 94166-141 94171-300 736 SABRE BJ7D5A 94295-51 94355-55 94166-182 94171-344 850 SABRE BJ7D5A 94155-57 94355-100 94186-383 94181-574 1230 SABRE 94155-21 94155-67 94155-135 94186-383H 94208-51 94155-25 94155-77 94205-77 94186-442 94211-91 94155-28 94155-85 94355-150 94216-106 94221-190 94155-36 94155-86 94335-150 94356-200 94351-172 94155-38 94205-51 94156-48 94161-86 368 SABRE 94335-55 94156-67 94166-101 94161-121 500 SABRE ************* CONNER Conner conner CP342 CP2034 CP2084 CP3044 CP3104 CP3204 CP30084 CP344 CP2044 CP3000 CP2124 CP3111 CP3204F CP30104 CP2024 CP2064 CP3024 CP3184 CP3114 CP30064 CP30084E CP30174E CP30174E CP3304 CP3544 CP30204 CP30204 CP3364 CP3554 CP30254 CP30254 CP3504 CP30101 ************* FUJITSU Fujitsu fujitsu M2611T M2612ET M2613ET M2614ET M2618T M2622T M2623T M2624T ************* HEWLETT PACKARD Hewlett Packard hewlett packard HP Hp hp C2233 ************* IBM Ibm ibm WDA-L160 WDA-L42 IBM 85 MB IDE (number not known) ************* JVC Jvc jvc JD-E2085M ************* KALOK Kalok kalok KL3100 KL3120 ************* MAXTOR Maxtor maxtor LXT-200A 2585A 7120A LXT-213A 7040A 7131AT LXT-340A 7060A 7213A LXT437A 7080A 7245A LXT535A ************* MICROPOLIS Micropolis micropolis 2105A 2112A ************* MICROSCIENCE Microscience microscience 7100-00 8040-00 7070-20 7100-00 7100-20 8040 ************* MINISCRIBE Miniscribe miniscribe 8225AT 8051AT 8450AT ************* NEC Nec nec D3735 D3755 D3756 D3741 ************* QUANTUM Quantum quantum 40AT LPS52AT ELS42AT 80AT LPS80AT ELS85AT 120AT LPS105AT ELS127AT 170AT LPS120AT ELS170AT 210AT LPS170AT LPS540A 425AT LPS240AT ************* RODIME Rodime rodime RO3058A RO3088A RO3095A RO3128A RO3135A RO3059A RO3089A RO3129A RO3139A RO3209A RO3259A ************* SAMSUNG Samsung samsung SHD-3101A SHD-3061A SHD-3062A ************* SEAGATE Seagate seagate ST1057a ST1144a ST138a ST274a ST3283a ST1090a ST1156a ST1400a ST280a ST351ax ST1102a ST1162a ST1401a ST3051a ST9051a ST1111a ST1186a ST1480a ST3096a ST9077a ST1126a ST1201a ST157a ST3120a ST9096a ST1133a ST1239a ST2274a ST3144a ST9144a ST3243A ST125a ST2383a ST325ax ST351AX ST9235A (maybe others) ************* TEAC Teac teac SD-3105 ************* TOSHIBA Toshiba toshiba MK1122FC MK2024FC MK2124FC MK2224FC MK234FCH MK234FCF ************* WESTERN DIGITAL Western Digital western digital WDAC140 WDAC280 WDAC1170 WDAC2120 WDAC2170 WDAC2200 WDAC2250 WDAC2340 WDAC2420 WD93044-A WDAH260 WDAH280 WDAP4200 And here it comes... ************* ALPS Alps alps ************* Manufacturer: ALPS ELECTRIC Co. BIOS settings: Model Heads Cylinders Sectors L-Zone Size DR311C 14 868 17 868 105 MB (Real geometry of drive: 2108 cyl. 2 heads 49 sectors/track 32k internal cache) Jumpers: C/D -ACT -DSP -HSP MS3 SYNC DC MS0 MS1 MS2 Master drive & no slaves present: jumpers on C/D and -ACT. No other jumpers installed, function unknown. *************************** C D C *********************************** I have the feeling that not all of these are IDE... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODEL ST-506 CAP CYL H RWC WPC ENC RATE ACCESS SPT COMMENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BJ7D5A 77731614 5.25FH 23 670 4 375 375 M 5 17 BJ7D5A 77731608 5.25FH 29 670 5 375 375 M 5 17 BJ7D5A 77731613 733 5 - - 5 17 94155-21 WREN-1 5.25FH 21 697 3 698 698 M 5 28 MS 17 94155-25 24 697 4 698 128 M 5 17 94155-28 24 697 4 698 128 M 5 17 94155-36 WREN-1 5.25FH 36 697 5 698 698 M 5 28 MS 17 94155-38 31 733 5 734 128 M 5 17 94155-48 WREN-2 5.25FH 40 925 5 926 926 M 5 28 MS 17 94295-51 WREN-2 5.25FH 43 989 5 990 990 M 5 28 MS 17 94155-57 WREN-2 5.25FH 48 925 6 926 926 M 5 28 MS 17 94155-67 WREN-2 5.25FH 56 925 7 926 926 M 5 28 MS 17 94155-77 WREN-2 64 925 8 926 926 M 5 17 94155-85 WREN-2 5.25FH 71 1024 8 - - M 5 28 MS 17 94155-86 WREN-2 5.25FH 72 925 9 926 926 M 5 28 MS 17 94205-51 5.25HH 43 989 5 990 128 M 5 32 MS 17 94335-55 3.5" 46 - 5 - - M 5 25 MS 17 94335-100 3.5" 83 - 9 - - M 5 25 MS 17 94355-55 SWIFT-2 3.5" 46 - 5 - - M 5 16.5 MS 17 94355-100 3.5" 83 - 9 - - M 5 16.5 MS 17 ST-506 RLL 94155-135 WREN-2 5.25HH 115 960 9 - - R 7.5 28 MS 26 94205-77 WREN-2 5.25HH 63 989 5 - - R 7.5 28 MS 26 94355-150 3.5" 128 - 9 - - R 7.5 16.5 MS 26 94335-150 3.5" 128 - 9 - - R 7.5 25 MS 26 ESDI 94156-48 WREN-2 40 925 5 926 926 N 5 28 MS 94156-67 WREN-2 56 925 7 926 926 N 5 94156-86 WREN-2 72 925 9 926 926 N 5 94166-101 WREN-3 5.25FH 86 969 5 970 970 N 10 16.5 MS 94166-141 WREN-3 5.25FH 121 969 7 970 970 N 10 16.5 MS 94166-182 WREN-3 5.25FH 155 969 9 970 970 N 10 16.5 MS 94186-383 WREN V 5.25FH 383 1412 13 - - R/N 10 8.3 MS 94186-383H WREN V 5.25FH 383 1224 15 - - R/N 10 14.5 MS 94186-442 WREN V 5.25FH 442 1412 15 - - R/N 10 16 MS 94216-106 WREN-3 5.25FH 91 969 - - - N 10 16.5 MS 94356-200 SWIFT 3 3.5" 172 - 9 - - R/N 10 16.5 MS WREN III 5.25HH 106 969 5 - - R/N 10 18 MS SCSI 94161-86 WREN-3 5.25FH 86 969 - - - 16.5 MS 94161-121 WREN-3 5.25FH 121 969 - - - 16.5 MS 94171-300 WREN-4 5.25FH 300 1365 9 - - R 16.5 MS 94171-344 WREN V 5.25FH 344 1549 9 - - Z 9-15 17.5 MS 94181-574 WREN V 5.25FH 574 1549 15 - - Z 9-15 16 MS 94208-51 94211-91 WREN-3 5.25FH 91 969 - - - 16.5 MS 94221-190 WREN V 5.25HH 190 1547 5 - - R 10-15 8.3 MS 94351-172 SWIFT 4 3.5" 172 - 9 - - 10 16.5MS WREN III 5.25HH 106 969 5 - - R/N 10 18 MS SMD 368 SABRE 8" 368 - 10 - - 1.8 18 MS 500 SABRE 8" 500 - 10 - - 2.4 18 MS 736 SABRE 8" 741 - 15 - - 1.8 16 MS 850 SABRE 8" 851 - 15 - - 2.4 16 MS 1230 SABRE 8" 1236 1635 15 - - 2.4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CAP = CAPACITY IN FORMATTED MEGABYTES CYL = MAXIMUM NUMBER OF CYLINDER H = NUMBER OF DATA HEADS RWC = START REDUCED WRITE CURRENT WPC = START WRITE PRECOMP ENC = ENCODING METHOD R=RLL, M=MFM,Z=ZBR RATE = TRANSFER RATE IN MEGABITS/SEC ACCESS= AVERAGE ACCESS TIME SPT = SECTORS/TRACK X 512 bytes FH = FULL HIGH FORM FACTOR HH = HALF HIGH FORM FACTOR R = RLL (run length limited) N = NRZ (non return to zero) M = MFM (modified frequency modulation) SA = STAND ALONE Z = ZBR Jumpers are not know (yet). ************************** CONNER Conner conner ************************** Conner drives are low level formatted at the factory. It is only necessary to r un SETUP, FDISK and DOS FORMAT. Model Hds Cyls Sec Pcomp L-Zone Type Table LED CP342 4 805 26 0 805 17 n/a A CP344 4 805 26 0 805 17 1 A CP2024 2 653 32 0 653 2 3 n/a CP2034 2 823 38 0 823 *UT 3 n/a CP2044 4 552 38 0 552 17 3 n/a CP2064 4 823 38 0 823 *UT 3 n/a CP2084 8 548 38 0 548 *UT 3 n/a CP3000 2 1047 40 0 1047 17 1 A CP3024 2 636 33 0 636 2 1 A CP3044 1 1047 40 0 1047 17 1 A 5 980 17 (also reported) CP2124 8 560 53 0 560 *UT 3 n/a CP3184 6 832 33 0 832 *UT 1 A CP3104 8 776 33 0 776 *UT 1 A CP3111 8 833 33 0 833 *UT 1 A(?) CP3114 8 832 33 0 832 *UT 1 A CP3204 16 683 38 0 683 *UT 2 B CP3204F 16 683 38 0 683 *UT 3 B CP30064 4 762 39 0 762 *UT 2 B CP30084 8 526 39 0 526 *UT 2 B CP30104 8 762 39 0 762 *UT 2 B CP30084E 4 903 46 0 903 *UT 4 C CP30174E 8 903 46 0 903 *UT 4 C CP30204 16 683 38 0 683 *UT 4 C CP30254 see below CP3304 16 659 63 0 659 *UT 4 D CP3364 16 702 63 0 702 *UT 4 C CP3504 16 987 63 0 987 *UT 4 D CP3544 16 1024 63 0 1024 *UT 4 C CP3554 16 1054 63 0 1054 *UT 3 B Table 1 jumper settings: Single drive = Jumper ACT and C/D Master drive = Jumper ACT, C/D and DSP. Slave drive = No jumpers installed. Table 2 jumper settings: Single drive = Jumper E2 Master drive = Jumper E1 & E2 Slave drive = No jumpers installed. Table 3 jumper settings: Single Drive = Jumper C/D Master Drive = Jumper C/D and DSP Slave Drive = No jumpers installed Table 4 jumper settings: Single and Master drive = Jumper C/D Slave drive = no jumper ALL CONNER 20 MBYTE DRIVES USE DRIVE TYPE 2. ALL CONNER 40 MBYTE DRIVES USE DRI VE TYPE 17. * UT = Universal translate. Select a drive type that is close to, but does not ex ceed the megabyte capacity of the drive. The drive will translate to the megaby te capacity you have selected. LED A: J-4 B: J-1 C: J-5 D: J-3 Pin 1 = + Pin 3 = + Pin 3 = + Pin 3 = + Pin 2 = - Pin 4 = - Pin 4 = - Pin 4 = - Conner drives are low level formatted at the factory. It is only necessary to run SETUP, FDISK, and DOS FORMAT. Comment concerning CP3000 jumpers: According to your list, all Conners should be 2 or 3 jumpers only. That's why I'm puzzled with the 4-jumper Conner CP-3000. In addition to the common jumpers present in Conner - C/D, DSP & ACT, there is an extra one: HSP By trial and error, HSP seems to follow DSP setting. > When I installed a Conner CP3204F (203 MB) as master and a WD Caviar 2200 > (203 MB) as slave, both with and without the "CP" jumper, the Caviar had > seemingly normal behaviour. However, when doing writes to the Caviar, once > in a while it would overwrite directories etc. Using FASTBACK was almost > impossible. > > The workaround is to install the Caviar as the master, and the Conner > as the slave. and: information: I am slaving a Conner CP3000 40Meg to a Western Digital Caviar 2200 212 Meg. the results: I first found out that pin 1 on the CP3000 was LABELED INCORRECTLY on the PC board....had to flip the IDE cable (which made the cable install much more cleanly- no flips....shoulda been my first clue that something was not correct, oh well) next: I had to DOS-format the CP3000 ALONE on the PC system before it wanted to work with the WD caviar.... weird also: the WD Caviar is partitioned: C:\ was the first 100 Meg and D:\ was the second 100 Meg. After the CMOS was correctly configured and the drives brought online, the PC AUTOMATICALLY assigned the drives as thus: C:\ first 100 Meg partition on the WD D:\ 40 Meg Conner E:\ second 100 Meg partition on the WD even FDISK reports the above. Conner CP 30254 Capacity: 250 MB Dimensions: 3,5 inch, lowprofile (1 inch) IDE interface Cylinders Heads Sectors Physical specs.: 1985 4 62 Logical specs.: 895 10 55 seek time 12 ms Rotation speed 4542 rpm jumpers C/D 1 drive master Y 2 drive master Y 2 drive slave N/Y ---- Subject: Re: Conner CP 30254 I tried several combination and even called Conner for info on configuring two Conner drives as master (301??, a 300+ M Connder drive) and slave (30254). The jumpers that worked are: Pins Jumpers Master 1-2 Y (factory setting) 3-4 Y (factory setting) Slave 1-2 N 3-4 Y (factory setting) So the C/D should mape to Y/N instead of N/Y in the table. -- Some notes made whilst configuring a pair of Conner IDE drives for Master/Slave operation from Hyundai Super-LT6 Laptop 386sx-20. Final Working Configuration Drive 1: CP3000 40 Mb Type 17 977 cyl 5 hds 17 sec/trk Pre 300 LZ 977 Verified configuration as per Grammes' list. HSP does need to follow DSP (empirically) - failure to do so produced behaviour such as LCD screen display scrambling on ROM boot. Single, Master and Slave configurations all checked out. Drive 2: CFA170A 170 Mb Unknown type 332 cyl 16 hds 63 sec/trk Pre --- LZ --- Did not appear on Grammes' list. Successful configuration resulted close to that shown as Table 3 for Conner drives, as follows: Single 2 links (not C)/D and (not A)/(?) Master 1 link (not C)/D Slave 0 links One link is listed here as (not A)/(?) due to a hole being drilled through the (?) part of the silk screening ... The drives worked together as either slave or master ... -- Connor CP30101 760 cyl, 8 hds, Precomp -1, Landing 760, Sec/Track 39, ECC 7 Capacity 121.41M ************************ FUJITSU Fujitsu fujitsu *************************** DETAILS OF FUJITSU DRIVES M261xT (Standard) M2614ET M2613ET M2612ET M2611T Heads (physical) 8 6 4 2 Cyl (physical) 1334 1334 1334 1334 Sec/trk 33 33 33 33 Speed (rpm) 3490 3490 3490 3490 Capacity 180MB 135MB 90MB 45MB +-----------------------------------------------+ | | +--+ | PSU | | CNH-2 | +--+ 1 | 1 | | . LED | | | CNH-1 9 CNH-3 Connector | | | 1 6..1 o o | 40-way | | . | | | IDE | | . | | | . | | | 12 | +--+ | +-----------------------------------------------+ Pin Function Position * 1- 2 Active mode 2- 3 Slave present mode 4- 5 Pin 27=IOCHRDY CNH-1 JUMPERS * 5- 6 Pin 27=RESERVED 7- 8 2 drive system * 8- 9 1 drive system 10-11 Pin 29=IRQ14 : Pin 31=RESERVED * 11-12 Pin 31=IRQ14 : Pin 29=RESERVED Pin Function Position 1- 2 SLAVE drive mode CNH-2 JUMPERS * 4- 5 MASTER drive mode 7- 8 ECC 4 bytes * 8- 9 ECC 7 bytes Pin Function Position 1- 2 Write protect enabled CNH-3 JUMPERS * 2- 3 Write protect disabled 4- 5 -6 Reserved Key: * (I guess!) marks factory default setting for jumper BIOS SETTINGS BIOS setting for the M2614ET in my system is 667 cylinders, 33 sectors and 16 heads. > I was trying to set my IDE drive in the subject above to a slave drive for > A Conner 170MB drive and contacting the support company gave me this answer (which works). The factory default on SW2 is On Off Off Off Off Off (1-6). This sets the drive to be a single drive. Setting SW2 to Off On On Off Off Off makes it a slave drive. SW1 has been set to On Off Off On (1-4) all along. MODEL CYLINDERS HEADS SECTORS CAPACITY (Million bytes) M2622T 1013 10 63 326.75 M2623T 1002 13 63 420.16 M2624T 995 16 63 513.51 There are 6 switches on the switch block on these drives. Only 4 of them have a use that I am aware of (from my M2624T manual): Master/Slave Master (*) SW1-5 OFF Slave SW1-5 ON ECC bytes 4 bytes (*) SW1-4 OFF 7 bytes SW1-4 ON Write Protect Disabled (*) SW1-3 OFF Enabled SW1-3 ON IO Channel Ready Disabled (*) SW1-1 OFF Enabled SW1-1 ON I have no idea about the function of SW1-2 and SW1-6. The values listed with a (*) are the factory default settings. M2618T 202MB Cyl/hd/spt 718 12 48 ********************* Hewlett Packard **************************** HEWLETT PACKARD Hewlett Packard hewlett packard HP Hp hp C2233 227 MB Cyl/hd/spt 733 12 53 ********************* IBM Ibm ibm **************************** WDA-L160 163 MB Cyl/hd/spt 984 10 34 WDA-L42 42MB Cyl/hd/spt 977 5 17 Jumpers for IBM WDA-L160: Fit JP2 for Master or single drive Remove JP2 and fit JP3 for Slave JP1 appears to be always fitted. Functions of other jumpers unknown at present. Position of jumpers: ----------------------------------------- | Drive Mechanism | | | ----------------------------------------- PCB . . . . . . . . JP 4 3 2 1 Also: IBM 85 M IDE (number not known) 10 Heads 984 Cylinders 17 Sectors 0 WPC 984 LZ Patches as for L160 above ********************* JVC Jvc jvc **************************** JD-E2085M 79 MB Cyl/hd/spt 973 4 43 *********************** KALOK Kalok kalok *************************** KALOK KL3100 105 MB BIOS: cyl 979 heads 6 sectors 35 KALOK KL3120 120 MB BIOS: Cyl 981 heads 6 sectors 40 The following jumper settings have been reported for KL3100 but are probably also valid for other Kalok drives. Single HD: o o o o o o o o o-o <-- same row as pin 1 of the IDE connector. Master (disk 1): o o o o o | o o o o o Slave: o o o o o | o o o o o These 5 pairs of pins are at the righthand side of the disk. ************************ MAXTOR Maxtor maxtor *************************** Model Cyls Heads Sectors Precomp Landing Zone ---------- ----- ----- ------- ------- ------------ LXT-200A 816 15 32 0 816 LXT-213A 683 16 38 0 683 LXT-340A 654 16 63 0 654 LXT437A 842 16 63 0 842 LXT535A 1036 16 63 0 1024 Jumpers are as follows: The bottom of the drive looks like this (well, sort of): | o o 1-2 | | o o 3-4 | | o o 5-6 | | o o 7-8 | | o o 9-10 | | | +[POWER] [IDE CONNECTOR]-----+ Single drive Dual Drive System Pin numbers Jumper System Master Slave ----------- ------ ------------ ------ ----- 1-2 Slave Drive remove remove install 3-4 Activity LED optional optional optional 5-6 Slave Present remove remove optional 7-8 Master Drive remove install remove 9-10 Sync Spindle remove (n/a) optional* remove * only one drive (the master) in an array should have this jumper installed. Hd Cyl spt Maxtor 2585A 10 981 17 Maxtor 7060A 16 467 17 62,0 J14 closed, J13 closed Maxtor 7060A 7 1024 17 59,5 J14 open, J13 open Maxtor 7060A 4 762 39 58,0 J14 closed, J13 open Maxtor 7060A 8 925 17 57,9 J14 open, J13 closed Maxtor 7120A 16 936 17 124,3 J14 closed, J13 closed Maxtor 7120A 14 1024 17 119,0 j14 open, J13 open Maxtor 7120A 8 762 39 116,0 J14 closed, J13 open Maxtor 7120A 15 900 17 112,0 J14 open, J13 closed Maxtor 7120A 8 824 33 106,2 J14 Jumpers for the above 2 drives: J11 I/O-channel ready ( open: disabled; close: enabled ) J13 see above J14 see above J15 operation-status ( open: normal; close: factory ) J J J J J 2 1 1 1 1 0 9 8 7 6 Power data-cable J16: Idle mode latch ( open: disabled; close: enabled ) J17: drive model ( open: 7060A; close 7120A ) J18: ECC Bytes ( open: 7 bytes; close: 4 bytes ) Master/Slave: drive is master and alone : J20 closed, J19 closed drive is master of two drives: J20 closed, J19 open drive is slave of two drives : J20 open , J19 closed Maxtor 7213A Default (power-up) AT BIOS Translation Parameters (others possible) Cyl Hds SpT MBytes 683 16 38 212 There are two sets of jumpers. A set of 5 and a set of 4. With the power and IDE connector toward you, the set of 5 is numbered (left to right) J16 - J20 , and the set of 4 is numbered (bottom to top) J22-J25. The only jumper of normal interest is J20. Jumper it for only drive in a single drive system, or master drive in a dual drive system. Remove the jumper J20 for slave drive in a dual drive system. J19 is a dummy and may be used to store the spare shunt if the drive is configured for a slave mode. Jumpers J17, J18, J24, J25 are factory reserved. Abnormal operation may occur if jumpered. Jumper 22 is sync spindle enabled/disabled (open=disabled) Jumper 23 is sync slave/master (open=slave) Jumper 16 is I/O Channel Ready (open=disabled) Maxtor 7245A (245Mb IDE; self-parking; Universal Translate): Drive type : User defineable Cyl Hds WPC LZ S/T 967 16 0 0 31 (WPC and LZ optional) Master(2): J20 closed Slave(2): J20 open (use J19 for shunt storage) Single: J20 closed Basic Specifications ------------------------------------------------------------------- Formated Data Sect. Average Model Capacity Cylinders Heads Disks Track Cache Seek Time 7080A 82.2 MB 1.170 4 2 36 32k 17ms 7040A 41.1 MB 1.170 2 1 36 32k 17ms AT BIOS Translation Parameters ---------------------------------+--------------------------------- Model Cyls Heads Spt MB | Model Cyls Heads Spt MB 7080A 1039 9 18 82.1 | 7040A 524 4 40 40.9 981 10 17 81.4 | 981 4 17 40.7 832 6 33 80.4 | 977 5 17 40.5 497 10 33 80.0 | 1024 9 17 76.5 | Technical Notes: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ * The WPC and Landing Zone BIOS entieres do not need a specific number for proper operation. Maxtor AT interface hard drives will ignore and override any numbers programmed. * Drive is low-level formated with 1:1 interleave at factory, with any defects retired to a dedicated non-destructive zone. * The drive's on-board controller will auto-translate every cylinder, head, and SPT combination listed in the parameters table. Therefore, configuration jumpers J13 and J14 are not required for most AT BIOS setup applications. * The 7080A is shipped with J17-J20 jumered and the 7040A is shipped with J18-J20 jumpered to operate as single AT IDE drives. J20 and J19 control master/slave operation. 7080A / 7040A Jumper Designation ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jumper | 21111 1111 | J3 1 +12V DC J7 1 +5V Position | 09876 5431 | 2 +12V Ground 2 +12V | | 3 +5V Ground 3 Ground Pins +[4321]--[1 ]--[321]+ 4 +5V DC J3 Power Data Cable J7 Power J20 J19 Master/Slave Select (*) Single Drive closed, closed Master (Dual) closed, open Slave (Dual) open, closed J18 ECC Bytes (*) closed 4 Bytes / open 7 Bytes J17 Drive Model open 7040A / closed 7080A J16 Idle Mode Latch (*) open disabled / closed enabled J15 Reserved for Factory (*) open normal / closed factory J11 I/O Channel Ready (*) open disabled / closed enabled J14 J13 Default Configuration at Power Up Cyls Heads SpT MB J14 J13 (J17) 40MB (*) 981 5 17 40.7 open open open 524 4 40 40.9 open closed open 80MB (*) 981 10 17 81.4 open open closed 832 6 33 80.4 open closed closed 1024 9 17 76.5 closed open closed (60MB) 762 4 39 58.0 closed closed closed ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (*) = Default Note: A spare jumper is supplied across J13 and J14. >I have a 7131AT maxtor in my machine and setup info as follows: > > 1002 cylinders > 8 heads > 32 sectors > 0 precomp > 1002 LZ > ********************* MICROPOLIS Micropolis micropolis *********************** Drive 2105A 2112A ---------------------------------------- Unformatted MB 647 1220 Formatted MB 560 1050 Platters 5 8 Heads 8 15 Cylinders 1760 1760 ---------------------------------------- Performance (both): Track to track (read) 1.5 msec Track to track (write) 2.5 msec Average 10 msec Max 25 msec Avg Rotational Latency 5.56 msec Rotational speed 5400 rpm (+/- 5%) Data Transfer Rate upto 5Mbytes/sec Internal data rate 24-40 Mbits/sec BIOS Settings: 2105A 1084 cyl 16 heads 63 sectors 2112A* master 1024 cyl 16 heads 63 sectors slave 1010 cyl 16 heads 63 sectors * the 2112A emulates both master and slave Jumpers (labelled J6 on the drive) ---- |oo| W1\ only these 2 are used |oo| W2/ |oo| |oo| |oo| ---- W2 W1 -- -- in in 2112A only - drive emulates both master + slave in out Drive is master, slave is present out in Drive is slave out out Drive is master, no slave present (ie single drive) ***************** MICROSCIENCE Microscience microscience ***************** MicroScience Model: 7100-00 Heads: 7 Cylinders: 855 S/T: 35 (?) Size: 105M Model # 8040-00. Size 40M 5hd/17sec/977cyl Model # cyls # heads spt lz precomp cap (formatted) 7070-20 960 5 35 960 960 86 MB 7100-00 855 7 35 855 855 107 MB 7100-20 960 7 35 960 960 120 MB 8040 1024 2 40 1024 1024 41 MB (NOTE: I have no jumper information on the model 8040) On the 7xxx series the jumper pins are bent parallel to the board. When they are pointing toward you #1 is on the left, there are 8 altogether. single drive all open master drive 1-2 shorted slave drive 7-8 shorted *************** MINISCRIBE Miniscribe miniscribe ************************ Miniscribe MODEL AT CAP CYC H RWC WPC ENC RATE ACCESS SPT COMMENTS 8225AT 3.5" 21 745 2 - - 8 28 MS 28 8051AT 3.5" 42 745 4 - - 8 28 MS 28 8450AT 3.5" 42 745 4 - - 8 40 MS 28 Master(2): 5-6 Slave(2): 1-2 Single: 1-3 (shunt storage) *************************** NEC Nec nec ********************************* NEC D3735, 40 MB BIOS: Cyl 537 Head 4 sect 41 NEC D3755, 105 MB BIOS: Cyl 625 Head 8 sect 41 NEC D3756, 105 MB BIOS: Cyl 1005 Head 12 sect 17 NEC D3741, 44 MB BIOS: Cyl 423 Head 8 sect 26 WPcom 0 LZone 424 Jumper JP12 JP13 (for all above NEC drives) Single 0 0 Master 1 0 Slave 1 1 There have been reported difficulties in using WD Caviar as Master and NEC drives as slave - the other way it works. ************************ QUANTUM Quantum quantum ************************* Logical Specs for Quantum AT Drives COMPLIMENTS OF COMPUTER BROKERS OF CANADA Model Cap Avg Acc Cylinders Heads Sectors/Track (MB) (ms) 40AT 42 19 965 5 17 80AT 84 19 965 10 17 120AT 120 15 814 9 32 170AT 168 15 968 10 34 210AT 209 15 873 13 36 425AT 426 14 1021 16 51 LPS 52AT 52 17 751 8 17 LPS 80AT 83 17 611 16 17 LPS 105AT 105 17 755 16 17 LPS 120AT 122 16 901 5 53 LPS 170AT 160 15 968 10 34 LPS 240AT 245 16 723 13 51 LPS 540A see below ================================================= Legend: 1=Jumper Installed 0=No Jumper ================================================= 40 & 80 AT Jumpers DS SS Meaning 1 0 Single drive configuration 1 1 Master of dual drive 0 0 Slave of dual drive 0 1 Self-Seek Test ======================================================= 120, 170, 210 & 425 AT Jumpers DS SP SS Meaning 0 0 0 Slave when the Master is Quantum PRODRIVE other than 40/80A 0 0 1 Slave in PRODRIVE 40/80A mode 0 1 0 Slave when Master is non Quantum Drive 0 1 1 Not Used 1 0 1 Master drive PDIAG mode checking DASP for slave 1 1 0 Master in PDIAG mode using SP to check if slave present 1 1 1 Master in 40/80A mode using SP to check if slave present 1 0 0 Single drive ======================================================= LPS 52, 80, 105, 120, 170 & 240 AT Jumpers DS SP DM* Meaning 0 0 0 Slave in standard PDIAG mode for compatibility with drives that use PDIAG-line to handle Master/Slave communications 0 0 1 Slave in PRODRIVE 40/80A mode compat. without using PDIAG line 0 1 0 Self Test 0 1 1 Self Test 1 0 0 Master in PDIAG mode using DASP to check for Slave 1 0 1 Master in 40/80A Mode using DASP to check for Slave 1 1 0 Master in PDIAG mode using SP to check for Slave without checking DASP 1 1 1 Master in 40/80A mode using SP to check for Slave without checking DASP ====================================================================== * While my Spec form marked the jumper name DM, it is labeled as CS on my LPS 240AT drive. Quantum LPS540A: 1120 cyl. 16 hds. 59 sec/trck 541MB 1024 cyl. 16 hds. 63 sec/trck 528MB The second option is for those that will use the drive under DOS (1024 limit without driver support). 9-12ms avg. access time ECC Reed Solomon, 4,500 rpm, local bus support, fast multiword DMA, 128k cache (of this 32k is used by firmware), read/write caching. The QUANTUM ELS series: Model Cap Avg Acc Cylinders Heads Sectors/Track (MB) (ms) ELS42AT 42 - 968 5 17 ELS85AT 85 - 977 10 17 ELS127AT 127 - 919 16 17 ELS170AT 170 - 1011 15 22 Write precomp = 0 for all Quantum drives ( probably no significance) Landing Zone = Cylinders Straps: If an ELS drive is master only, use DS master with slave, DS or, DS and SP in some cases slave, no strap ********************* RODIME Rodime rodime ****************************** Information for RO 3008A and RO 3009A series hard disk drives: Drive Types Model Cyls Hds Sectors/Trk No. blocks Formatted Cap. ------- ---- --- ----------- ---------- -------------- RO3058A 868 3 34 88,536 45.33 MByets RO3088A 868 5 34 147,560 75.55 MByets RO3095A 923 5 34 156,910 80.33 MByets RO3128A 868 7 34 206,584 105.77 MByets RO3135A 923 7 34 219,674 112.47 MByets RO3059A 217 15 28 91,158 46.67 MByets RO3089A 325 15 28 136,737 70.00 MByets RO3129A 492 15 28 206,645 105.80 MByets RO3139A 523 15 28 219,735 112.50 MByets RO3209A 759 15 28 319,053 163.35 MByets RO3259A 976 15 28 410,211 210.02 MByets Link Options In order to install the Rodime Ro 3000A series drives the dumpers for the single/dual drive and LED operation on the drive need to be set as described in the relevant product specification. I a single drive environment the drive is described as a Master. In a dual drive environment the drives are described as a Master and a Slave. This is due to the protocal the takes place between the two drives when performing diagnostics. There are four links, LK1, LK2, LK4 and LK5, adjacent to the 40 way interface connector. They have the following functions and are described in order as viewed from the end of the drive, with the first jumper described nearest the 40 way interface connector. LK2: LED When fitted, this jumper connects the LED drive to pin 39 of the interface. This allows a LED to be connected to the interface. An external current limiting resistor needs to be fitted in series with the LED when this option is selected. The value of the resistor will be dependant on the LED type chosen but will be in the range of 130 Ohms ot 220 Ohms. LK1: Dual Drives This jumper must be fitted when two drives are attached to a single bus. It fallows communication across the 40 way interface connector, indicating, to the Master drive, the presence of a Slave. LK4: Master When fitted this signifies that the drive jumpered is a Master. If there are two drives connected on a single bus then only one may be jumpered in this way. LK5: IOChRdy When fitted this connects the IOChRdy signal to the drive, it is fitted when the drive is used in host systems that have a higher data transfer rate than the drive i.e. greater than 4 MBytes per second when using 1:1 interleave. This jumper is not normally fitted as most hosts transfer at a lower rate than 4 MBytes per second. There are four possible Master/Slave configurations in which a drive(s) may be jumpered: Master, single drive with LED on interface LK2 & LK4 fitted. Master, single drive without LED on interface LK4 only fitted. Master, dual drive without LED on interface LK4 & LK1 fitted. Slave, dual drive without LED on interface No jumpers fitted. Master, dual drive with LED on interface LK4, LK1 & LK2 fitted. Slave, dual drive with LED on interface LK2 only fitted. The Master drive will delay power-up for approximately two seconds to reduce power surges in applications where dual drives are used. The other connections for a LED will be found close to the 28 way connector at the other end of the drive. This LED driver is not affected by the link options. An internal current limiting resistor is on the drive for this LED driver. Refer to the product specification for further details. *************************** SAMSUNG Samsung samsung ************************* CYL hd Sectors SHD-3101A 776 8 33 (100 MB) (MB = 1024 bytes) SHD-3061A 977 7 17 (56.76 MB) SHD-3062A 917 15 17 (114 MB) for drive SHD-3101A, SHD-3061A and SHD-3062A 2 drives Jumper 1 drive Master Slave C/D J J NJ DSP NJ J NJ ACT J (1) (1) HSP NJ NJ (2) J = Jumpered NJ = No Jumpered (1) In a two-drive system,it is possible to drive one LED with both drives. An external current limiting resister is required (2) If the drive is connected to a host that requires that the - DIRVE SLAVE PRESENT be supplied from the slave drive via the interface signal - HOST SLV/ACT, then this jumper must be installed, the ACT jumper must not be installed because the two jumpers are mutually exclusive *************************** SEAGATE Seagate seagate ************************* There is a list of most Seagate HD (including MFM, SCSI, ESDIand IDE) on every Simtel mirror under /msdos/dskutl/1seagate.zip It contains info about the following drives: st1144a st138a st274a st3283a st1057a st1156a st1400a st280a st351ax st1090a st1162a st1401a st3051a st9051a st1102a st1186a st1480a st3096a st9077a st1111a st1201a st157a st3120a st9096a st1126a st1239a st2274a st3144a st9144a st1133a st125a st2383a st325ax additional info: ST3243A 204 MB Cyl/Hd/spt 1024/12/34 ST351AX 41 MB 820/6/17 ST9235A 200 MB 985/13/32 and also... pd1: (on SIMTEL mirrors) 1SGATHTX.ZIP Seagate tech support's disk ref (needs HHV20) This is a concise and complete source of information for all hard disks that Seagate makes, including MFM, RLL, IDE, and SCSI types. This information includes: Detailed technical specifications for each drive Switch and Jumper settings for each drive (more than just settings for BIOSs and low--level formatting routines) Miscellaneous notes about each drive This is the most up-to-date information that Seagate provides on its BBS. It is dated 05/14/93. This file is a hypertext version of file 1SEAGATE.ZIP and requires HHV20.ZIP to view it. ******************* TEAC Teac teac ******************** Model: SD-3105 Cyls. Heads Sect/T PreCmp LZone Capacity ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ --------- Physical 1282 4 40 - - 105021440 BIOS (AMI) 641 8 40 0 0 105021440 (100.2M) (Award) 926 13 17 0 0 104778752 (99.9M) (Phoenix) 776 8 33 0 0 104890368 (100.0M) Connectors and Jumpers: +----+ 1 Jumper Function |....| +---+ +-------/ /---+ 2 0 0 ON: -ACT selected (ext.LED) | | |...| |::::::/ /::::| :::: OFF: -SLV PRESENT selected +----+ +---+ +-----/ /-----+ 3 1 1 ON: Two HDD's J2 J7 40 J1 ---- OFF: Single HDD Power (Power) Signal Jumpers 2 ON: Master (/Single) OFF: Slave (with 2 units used) 3 ON: -I/O CH RDY not output OFF: -I/O CH RDY is output Master Slave Settings: Jumper no.: 1 2 ----------------------- Single....: 0 1 1, ON = jumpered Master....: 1 1 0, OFF = not jumpered Slave.....: 1 0 ********************* TOSHIBA Toshiba toshiba *************************** cap Cyl Hd spt MK1122FC 41 977 2 43 MK2024FC 82 977 4 43 MK2124FC 124 934 16 17 MK2224FC 203 684 16 38 MK234FCH 101 845 7 35 Toshiba MK 234FCF. 845 Cyl 7 Head 0 Pre 845 LZ 35 Sectors 101 Size The jumpers settings I got from Toshiba. They refer to connector PJ10, the 1st being the pair of pins closet to the outside of the drive and the 6th being the pair closest to center of the drive. configuration jumpers on ------------ ---------- single drive 1st and 3rd master w/ slave 1st, 3rd, and 4th slave 1st **************** WESTERN DIGITAL Western Digital western digital ************** Caviar series: Name Size (Mb) Cylinders Heads Sectors ---------------------------------------------------- WDAC140 40.7 980 5 17 WDAC280 81.3 980 10 17 WDAC1170 163 1010 6 55 WDAC2120 119.0 1024 14 17 WDAC2170 162.7 1010 6 55 WDAC2200 202.8 989 12 35 WDAC2250 244 1010 9 55 WDAC2340 325.4 1010 12 55 WDAC2420 405.6 989 15 56 > My 1st HD was a Quantum (LPS) 105AT (I assume th LPS, as I haven't any > docs.) > >LPS 105AT 105 17 755 16 17 > The second was a Western Digital Caviar 340Mb: > >WDAC2340 325.4 1010 12 55 > Using the information from your document, I set up the Quantum as master > and the WDC as slave. This worked fine most of the time, but when booting > sometimes HDD-controller errors occured. When I switched the drives (WDC > as master, Quantum as slave) it worked perfectly, as has done ever since. Manufacturer: Western Digital Serie: Caviar Name: WDAC2420 Size(Mb): 405.6 Cylinders: 989 Heads: 15 Sectors: 56 (uses dynamic translation) Jumpers: CP MA SL The drive runs as a slave with a WDAC2200 as master just fine. Please note that these are the *recommended* CMOS parameters. All the disks support so-called dynamic translation, and should thus be able to work with any parameters having fewer sectors than the total number of sectors on the disk. Now, according to the manual, the jumper settings are as follows: Jumper CP MA SL ------------------------------------------------- Single 0 0 0 Master 0 1 0 Slave 0 0 1 Slave with Conner CP342 or CP3022 1 0 1 Maybe there are 2 kinds of Caviar's floating around: If your jumpers read MA SL and SI then use: Jumper SI MA SL Single 1 0 0 Master 0 1 0 Slave 0 0 1 There have been reported difficulties in using WD Caviar as Master and NEC drives as slave - the other way it works. > When I installed a Conner CP3204F (203 MB) as master and a WD Caviar 2200 > (203 MB) as slave, both with and without the "CP" jumper, the Caviar had > seemingly normal behaviour. However, when doing writes to the Caviar, once > in a while it would overwrite directories etc. Using FASTBACK was almost > impossible. > > The workaround is to install the Caviar as the master, and the Conner > as the slave. > I had a WD pirana 4200 (212 mb) IDE drive and added a Caviar 2340 (341 mb) > drive. No matter what I did with the CMOS settings, as soon as I define > the D drive (as anything) and rebooted, it would hang for about 2 minutes > and then report "D: drive failure". I am using an intelligent IDE controller > since my AMI bios was too old to support IDE drives. > > The fix was to call the 4200 the slave and the 2340 the master. > All has been working fine since then. WD93044-A (40 MB) BIOS-Settings 977 cyln, 5 heads, 17 sect, LZone: 977 +-------+ +---+---+---+ 1: drive is master | cable | | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2: drive is slave +-------+ +---+---+---+ 3: second drive is a conner-drive No jumper set: this is the only drive. WDAH260 60MB Cyl/Hd/spt 1024 7 17 WDAH280 82MB 980 10 17 WDAP4200 202MB 987 12 35 ******************** Useful telephone numbers... ******************** Conner: BBS: 408-456-4415 Talk info: 1-800-426-6637 FaxBack: 408-456-4903 The "Talk info" number above is now a Fax-on-demand system. Very nice, considering both the incoming call and outgoing fax are paid for by them! You can also speak with a human for technical assistance at this number. (Conner Europe (in UK) ; +44 628 777277 (voice) +44 628 592801 (fax)) Miniscribe: 303-651-6000 Maxtor: Info/tech support: 800-262-9867 FAX-back: 303-678-2618 BBS: 303-678-2222 They list their 800 number as 1(800)2-MAXTOR. Quantum: 408-894-4000 408-944-0410 (Support) 408-894-3218 (FAX) 408-894-3214 (BBS) Seagate: Info/tech support: 408-438-8222 FAX-back: 408-438-2620 BBS: 408-438-8771 Western Digital: Info/tech support: 714-932-4900 BBS: U.S. 1200/2400 714-753-1234 U.S. 9600 714-753-1068 France 1200/2400 ..-331-69-85-3914 (? French code is 33 not 331) Germany 1200/2400 ..-49-89-922006-60 U.K. 1200/2400 ..-44-372-360387 The US Toll free number for Western Digital tech support is 800-832-4778 ******************* last but not least ***************** If I could help you with my little collection and if you live in a part of the world far away from me, how about a postcard for my pinboard? I will surely answer! Carsten Grammes Saarbruecker Str. 47 D-66292 Riegelsberg Germany =============== Ralph Valentino (ralf@chpc.org) (ralf@wpi.wpi.edu) Hardware Engineer, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Center for High Performance Computing, Marlborough MA From netcomsv!amd!decwrl!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!MathWorks.Com!bigboote.WPI.EDU!wpi.WPI.EDU!ralf Tue Jan 18 20:42:29 PST 1994 Article: 2108 of comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Xref: netcom.com comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:95365 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video:2743 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.comm:1145 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage:2108 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom:1791 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems:1193 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.networking:774 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips:1897 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc:1579 comp.answers:3476 news.answers:17089 Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!amd!decwrl!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!MathWorks.Com!bigboote.WPI.EDU!wpi.WPI.EDU!ralf From: ralf@chpc.org (Ralph Valentino) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.comm,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.networking,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.* Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Part 3/4 Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc Date: 18 Jan 1994 16:36:39 GMT Organization: Center For High Performance Computing Lines: 918 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Expires: 11 Feb 1994 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <2hh36n$oru@bigboote.WPI.EDU> Reply-To: ralf@wpi.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: wpi.wpi.edu Summary: This is a monthly posting containing a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers) pertaining to hardware and IBM PC clones. It should be read by anyone who wishes to post to any group in the comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.* hierarchy. Originator: ralf@wpi.WPI.EDU Archive-name: pc-hardware-faq/part3 Last-modified: 1994/01/10 Version: 1.0 Q) 4.2 Why do I lose x Meg on my hard drive? [From: Mike Long ] The problem here is that there are two different measures of hard drive storage, both called megabytes. Computer hardware works on the basis that one megabyte equals 2^20, or 1048576 bytes. Hard drive manufacturers, on the other hand, use a megabyte that has 1000000 bytes, because it makes the drive looks larger. When buying a hard drive, you should expect to lose almost 5% of what the manufacturer claims the drive size to be. The manufacturers are not totally at fault. The first track of the drive is used for the partition table and master boot record. The amount of data lost here depends on your drive parameters; usually there are between 32 and 64 sectors (512 bytes/sector) on this first track, so you lose between 16384 and 32768 bytes that way. Additional space is taken up by two hidden files on your boot drive. If you are running MS-DOS, these files are IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS. If you are running PC-DOS, the names are IBMIO.SYS and IBMDOS.SYS (?). [From: ralf@wpi.wpi.edu (Ralph Valentino)] Many drives these days advertise unformatted capacity. The actual formatted capacity may be significantly lower than this as space is taken up marking tracks, sectors, CRC's, etc. Exactly how much lower depends on the the size of the sectors. For instance, placing 1k sectors on the disk instead of the usual 512 byte ones may slightly increase the usable storage space on the disk. Note, however, that many OS's insist you stick to the 512 byte sectors so this option is best left alone. A large number of drives also do auto-mapping of bad sectors; when a sector goes bad, it will automatically use a spare it kept aside during the format. This is very handy as the OS never needs to deal with the problem and some OS's, like DOS, will mark a whole cluster bad when a single sector goes bad. These spare sectors, as many as one per track, remain hidden from the OS but still take up space on your hard drive. When you get to drives larger than 1.0 gig (SCSI), many host adapter BIOS's can not deal with this as the BIOS was never designed to handle more than 1024 cylinders, 64 heads, and 32 sectors per track. (1024 * 64 * 32 * 512bytes/sec = 1.0 gig). Luckily, some OS's (like OS/2) ignore the BIOS all together and read the actual geometry from the disk itself. If, however, you're not using such an OS and you notice that you only have 1.0 gig available, you may want to check with the manufacturer of your SCSI host adapter to see if a newer BIOS is available. Q) 4.3 *Should I get an IDE/floppy/SCSI tape drive? Q) 4.4 How come I can't fit as much stuff on my tape drive as they claim? Most tape drives these days advertise capacity with an expected compression ratio. If you are backing up compressed files (.Z,.ZIP, .ARC, .JPEG, and so forth) then the drive's own compression scheme will not be as effective. For these cases, the actual capacity of the tape will be closer to the "uncompressed" capacity. A second reason is that some tapes assume you will be taking full advantage of their "streamers". Streaming collects a number of tape blocks and writes them all at once, preventing the need for backing up the tape after each block. This positions the blocks closer together on the tape. If your backup program is slow, some streamers won't be quite as effective. If you hear the tape drive motor backing up the tape alot on writes, this could be the case. S) 5.0 Video Q) 5.1 *Can I use two video cards in the same system? Q) 5.2 *What kinds of monitors are available? Q) 5.3 *Can I get an RGB monitor to work with my PC? Q) 5.4 *How can I hook more than one monitor to my video card? Q) 5.5 *Which video card is best for DOS/Windows/X11/OS2? Q) 5.6 *What is the black horizontal line on my monitor? S) 6.0 Systems Q) 6.1 *What should I upgrade first? Q) 6.2 *Do I need a CPU fan / heat sink? Q) 6.3 What does the turbo switch do? [From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron L. Spitzer)] It slows your system down so you can play games that were written with timing mechanisms based on CPU execution rate. I know of three implementations: 1. A programmable divider delivers the clock signal at two different speeds. 2. Extra wait states are inserted in all memory cycles. 3. Dummy DMA cycles or extra referesh cycles are inserted. The first is by far the most common. Q) 6.4 Should I turn my computer/monitor off? Turning a device on/off causes thermal stress. Leaving it on causes wear and tear (even on non moving parts). The only thing you shouldn't do is quickly power cycle the computer. If you turn it on/off, leave it that way for at least a few seconds. Other than that, it's up to you. Q) 6.5 Are there any manufacturers/distributers who read the net? Yes, it is known that Zeos, Gateway 2000, Adaptec, HP and others all read the net to some extent. However, for best results, use the support phone numbers. S) 7.0 Diagnostics Q) 7.1 *What do the POST beeps mean? Q) 7.2 What do the POST codes mean? [From: zz96sr@sdacs.ucsd.edu (Steve Rusk)] All personal computer error codes for the Power On Self Test, General Diagnostics, and Advanced Diagnostics consist of a device number followed by two digits other than 00. (The device number plus 00 indicates successful completion of the test.) This list is a compilation from various sources, including USENET's Info-IBMPC Digest, IBM Technical Reference Manuals, and IBM Hardware, Maintenance and Service manuals. 01x Undetermined problem errors. 02x Power supply errors. 1xx System board errors. 101 System board error - Interrupt failure. 102 System board error - Timer failure. 103 System board error - Timer interrupt failure. 104 System board error - Protected mode failure. 105 System board error - Last 8042 command not accepted. 106 System board error - Converting logic test. 107 System board error - Hot NMI test. 108 System board error - Timer bus test. 109 Direct memory access test error. 121 Unexpected hardware interrupts occurred. 131 Cassette wrap test failed. 152 161 System Options Error-(Run SETUP) [Battery failure]. 162 System options not set correctly-(Run SETUP). 163 Time and date not set-(Run SETUP). 164 Memory size error-(Run SETUP). 199 User-indicated configuration not correct. 2xx Memory (RAM) errors. 201 Memory test failed. 202 Memory address error. 203 Memory address error. 3xx Keyboard errors. 301 Keyboard did not respond to software reset correctly, or a stuck key failure was detected. If a stuck key was detected, the scan code for the key is displayed in hexadecimal. For example, the error code 49 301 indicates that key 73, the PgUp key, has failed (49 hex = 73 decimal). 302 User-indicated error from the keyboard test, or AT keylock is locked. 303 Keyboard or system unit error. 304 Keyboard or system unit error; CMOS does not match system. 4xx Monochrome monitor errors. 401 Monochrome memory test, horizontal sync frequency test, or video test failed. 408 User-indicated display attributes failure. 416 User-indicated character set failure. 424 User-indicated 80 X 25 mode failure. 432 Parallel port test failed (monochrome adapter). 5xx Color monitor errors. 501 Color memory test failed, horizontal sync frequency test, or video test failed. 508 User-indicated display attribute failure. 516 User-indicated character set failure. 524 User-indicated 80 X 25 mode failure. 532 User-indicated 40 X 25 mode failure. 540 User-indicated 320 X 200 graphics mode failure. 548 User-indicated 640 X 200 graphics mode failure. 6xx Diskette drive errors. 601 Diskette power-on diagnostics test failed. 602 Diskette test failed; boot record is not valid. 606 Diskette verifysd function failed. 607 Write-protected diskette. 608 Bad command diskette status returned. 610 Diskette initialization failed. 611 Timeout - diskette status returned. 612 Bad NEC - diskette status returned. 613 Bad DMA - diskette status returned. 621 Bad seek - diskette status returned. 622 Bad CRC - diskette status returned. 623 Record not found - diskette status returned. 624 Bad address mark - diskette status returned. 625 Bad NEC seek - diskette status returned. 626 Diskette data compare error. 7xx 8087 or 80287 math coprocessor errors. 9xx Parallel printer adapter errors. 901 Parallel printer adapter test failed. 10xx Reserved for parallel printer adapter. 11xx Asynchronous communications adapter errors. 1101 Asynchronous communications adapter test failed. 12xx Alternate asynchronous communications adapter errors. 1201 Alternate asynchronous communications adapter test failed. 13xx Game control adapter errors. 1301 Game control adapter test failed. 1302 Joystick test failed. 14xx Printer errors. 1401 Printer test failed. 1404 Matrix printer failed. 15xx Synchronous data link control (SDLC) communications adapter errors. 1510 8255 port B failure. 1511 8255 port A failure. 1512 8255 port C failure. 1513 8253 timer 1 did not reach terminal count. 1514 8253 timer 1 stuck on. 1515 8253 timer 0 did not reach terminal count. 1516 8253 timer 0 stuck on. 1517 8253 timer 2 did not reach terminal count. 1518 8253 timer 2 stuck on. 1519 8273 port B error. 1520 8273 port A error. 1521 8273 command/read timeout. 1522 Interrupt level 4 failure. 1523 Ring Indicate stuck on. 1524 Receive clock stuck on. 1525 Transmit clock stuck on. 1526 Test indicate stuck on. 1527 Ring indicate not on. 1528 Receive clock not on. 1529 Transmit clock not on. 1530 Test indicate not on. 1531 Data set ready not on. 1532 Carrier detect not on. 1533 Clear to send not on. 1534 Data set ready stuck on. 1536 Clear to send stuck on. 1537 Level 3 interrupt failure. 1538 Receive interrupt results error. 1539 Wrap data miscompare. 1540 DMA channel 1 error. 1541 DMA channel 1 error. 1542 Error in 8273 error checking or status reporting. 1547 Stray interrupt level 4. 1548 Stray interrupt level 3. 1549 Interrupt presentation sequence timeout. 16xx Display emulation errors (327x, 5520, 525x). 17xx Fixed disk errors. 1701 Fixed disk POST error. 1702 Fixed disk adapter error. 1703 Fixed disk drive error. 1704 Fixed disk adapter or drive error. 1780 Fixed disk 0 failure. 1781 Fixed disk 1 failure. 1782 Fixed disk controller failure. 1790 Fixed disk 0 error. 1791 Fixed disk 1 error. 18xx I/O expansion unit errors. 1801 I/O expansion unit POST error. 1810 Enable/Disable failure. 1811 Extender card warp test failed (disabled). 1812 High order address lines failure (disabled). 1813 Wait state failure (disabled). 1814 Enable/Disable could not be set on. 1815 Wait state failure (disabled). 1816 Extender card warp test failed (enabled). 1817 High order address lines failure (enabled). 1818 Disable not functioning. 1819 Wait request switch not set correctly. 1820 Receiver card wrap test failure. 1821 Receiver high order address lines failure. 19xx 3270 PC attachment card errors. 20xx Binary synchronous communications (BSC) adapter errors. 2010 8255 port A failure. 2011 8255 port B failure. 2012 8255 port C failure. 2013 8253 timer 1 did not reach terminal count. 2014 8253 timer 1 stuck on. 2016 8253 timer 2 did not reach terminal count, or timer 2 stuck on. 2017 8251 Data set ready failed to come on. 2018 8251 Clear to send not sensed. 2019 8251 Data set ready stuck on. 2020 8251 Clear to send stuck on. 2021 8251 hardware reset failed. 2022 8251 software reset failed. 2023 8251 software "error reset" failed. 2024 8251 transmit ready did not come on. 2025 8251 receive ready did not come on. 2026 8251 could not force "overrun" error status. 2027 Interrupt failure - no timer interrupt. 2028 Interrupt failure - transmit, replace card or planar. 2029 Interrupt failure - transmit, replace card. 2030 Interrupt failure - receive, replace card or planar. 2031 Interrupt failure - receive, replace card. 2033 Ring indicate stuck on. 2034 Receive clock stuck on. 2035 Transmit clock stuck on. 2036 Test indicate stuck on. 2037 Ring indicate stuck on. 2038 Receive clock not on. 2039 Transmit clock not on. 2040 Test indicate not on. 2041 Data set ready not on. 2042 Carrier detect not on. 2043 Clear to send not on. 2044 Data set ready stuck on. 2045 Carrier detect stuck on. 2046 Clear to send stuck on. 2047 Unexpected transmit interrupt. 2048 Unexpected receive interrupt. 2049 Transmit data did not equal receive data. 2050 8251 detected overrun error. 2051 Lost data set ready during data wrap. 2052 Receive timeout during data wrap. 21xx Alternate binary synchronous communications adapter errors. 2110 8255 port A failure. 2111 8255 port B failure. 2112 8255 port C failure. 2113 8253 timer 1 did not reach terminal count. 2114 8253 timer 1 stuck on. 2115 8253 timer 2 did not reach terminal count, or timer 2 stuck on. 2116 8251 Data set ready failed to come on. 2117 8251 Clear to send not sensed. 2118 8251 Data set ready stuck on. 2119 8251 Clear to send stuck on. 2120 8251 hardware reset failed. 2121 8251 software reset failed. 2122 8251 software "error reset" failed. 2123 8251 transmit ready did not come on. 2124 8251 receive ready did not come on. 2125 8251 could not force "overrun" error status. 2126 Interrupt failure - no timer interrupt. 2128 Interrupt failure - transmit, replace card or planar. 2129 Interrupt failure - transmit, replace card. 2130 Interrupt failure - receive, replace card or planar. 2131 Interrupt failure - receive, replace card. 2133 Ring indicate stuck on. 2134 Receive clock stuck on. 2135 Transmit clock stuck on. 2136 Test indicate stuck on. 2137 Ring indicate stuck on. 2138 Receive clock not on. 2139 Transmit clock not on. 2140 Test indicate not on. 2141 Data set ready not on. 2142 Carrier detect not on. 2143 Clear to send not on. 2144 Data set ready stuck on. 2145 Carrier detect stuck on. 2146 Clear to send stuck on. 2147 Unexpected transmit interrupt. 2148 Unexpected receive interrupt. 2149 Transmit data did not equal receive data. 2150 8251 detected overrun error. 2151 Lost data set ready during data wrap. 2152 Receive timeout during data wrap. 22xx Cluster adapter errors. 24xx Enhanced graphics adapter errors. 29xx Color matrix printer errors. 2901 2902 2904 33xx Compact printer errors. Q) 7.3 *I think my cache is bad. What's a good diagnostic? S) 8.0 Misc Q) 8.1 What is the pin out for ...? [From: ralf@wpi.wpi.edu (Ralph Valentino)] This is a list of the pinouts to the more common PC hardware interfaces. It is by no means complete. While I have taken care not to make any mistakes, I urge you to take caution when using these tables. Also, please keep in mind that these are only tables, they are not a guide to hardware hacking and do not attempt to explain drive capabilities, signal timings, handling care, or other interface issues. As always, make sure you know what you're doing before you start hooking wires to your PC. 5pin DIN Male DB15-S Male --+-- ---------------------- / ^ \ \ 1 2 3 4 5 / | 1 3 | \ 6 7 8 9 10 / \ 425 / \ 11 12 13 14 15 / ----- ---------------- DB9 Male DB15 Male ------------- -------------------------- \ 1 2 3 4 5 / \ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 / \ 6 7 8 9 / \ 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 / --------- ---------------------- DB25 Male IDC-50 Male ------------------------------ ------------------- \ 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 ... 13 / | 1 3 5 7 ... 49 | \ 12 13 14 15 16 .......25 / | 2 4 6 8 ... 50 | -------------------------- ------------------- (Power Connector) Male __________ / \ | 4 3 2 1 | ------------ 30 pin SIMM 72 pin SIMM ------------------------------- --------------------------------------- | | | | ) | ) _ | --|||||||||||||||||||||||||--- --|||||||||||||||/ \|||||||||||||||--- 1 30 1 36 37 72 EISA/ISA/VLB ----------------------------------------------- | (component side) | | | | VLB __ ISA-16bit __ ISA-8bit __| ||||||||| ||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||| A1(front)/B1(back) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | <-EISA C1/D1 E1(front)/F1(back) G1/H1 PCI Cards Universal/3.3V/5V and 32/64 bit. PCI Universal Card 32/64 bit ---------------------------------------------------------------- | PCI Component Side (side B) | | | | | | optional | | ____ mandatory 32-bit pins 64-bit pins _____| |___| |||||||--|||||||||||||||||--|||||||--|||||||||||||| ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ b01 b11 b14 b49 b52 b62 b63 b94 PCI 5V Card 32/64 bit | optional | | ____ mandatory 32-bit pins 64-bit pins _____| |___| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||--|||||||--|||||||||||||| PCI 3.3V Card 32/64 bit | optional | | ____ mandatory 32-bit pins 64-bit pins _____| |___| |||||||--||||||||||||||||||||||||||--|||||||||||||| Power Connector Male pin assignment 1 +12V 2 +12V return 3 +5V return 4 +5V MIDI 5pin DIN MIDI In MIDI Out pin assignment pin assignment 1 N/C 1 N/C 2 N/C 2 GND 3 N/C 3 N/C 4 Current Src 4 Current Sync 5 Current Sync 5 Current Src Floppy Disk Controller IDC-34 Male pin assignment pin assignment 1 GND 2 Density Select 3 GND 4 (reserved) 5 GND 6 (reserved) 7 GND 8 Index 9 GND 10 Motor Enable A 11 GND 12 Drive Sel B 13 GND 14 Drive Sel A 15 GND 16 Motor Enable B 17 GND 18 Direction 19 GND 20 Step 21 GND 22 Write Data 23 GND 24 Floppy Write Enable 25 GND 26 Track 0 27 GND 28 Write Protect 29 GND 30 Read Data 31 GND 32 Head Select 33 GND 34 Disk Change Game Port DB15-Female pin assignment pin assignment 1 +5V DC 2 Button 4 (A_PB1) 3 Position 0(A_X) 4 GND 5 GND 6 Position 1 (A_Y) 7 Button 5(A_PB2) 8 +5V DC 9 +5V DC 10 Button 6 (B_PB1) 11 Position 2(B_X) 12 GND 13 Position 3(B_Y) 14 Button 7 (B_PB2) 15 +5V DC Serial Port DB9-Male DB25-Male 9-pin 25-pin assignment 1 8 DCD (Data Carrier Detect) 2 3 RX (Receive Data) 3 2 TX (Transmit Data) 4 20 DTR (Data Terminal Ready) 5 7 GND (Signal Ground) 6 6 DSR (Data Set Ready) 7 4 RTS (Request To Send) 8 5 CTS (Clear To Send) 9 22 RI (Ring Indicator) Parallel Port DB25-Female pin assignment pin assignment 1 -Strobe 2 Data 0 3 Data 1 4 Data 2 5 Data 3 6 Data 4 7 Data 5 8 Data 6 9 Data 7 10 -Ack 11 Busy 12 Paper Empty 13 Select 14 -Auto Feed 15 -Error 16 -Init 17 -Slct in 18 GND 19 GND 20 GND 21 GND 22 GND 23 GND 24 GND 25 GND AT Keyboard Connector 5pin-DIN pin assignment 1 Keyboard Clock 2 Keyboard Data 3 N/C 4 GND 5 +5V IDE Hard Disk Interface IDC-40 Male pin assignment pin assignment 1 -Reset 2 GND 3 Data 7 4 Data 8 5 Data 6 6 Data 9 7 Data 5 8 Data 10 9 Data 4 10 Data 11 11 Data 3 12 Data 12 13 Data 2 14 Data 13 15 Data 1 16 Data 14 17 Data 0 18 Data 15 19 GND 20 Key 21 (reserved) 22 GND 23 -IOW 24 GND 25 -IOR 26 GND 27 IO Chrdy 28 Ale 29 (reserved) 30 GND 31 IRQ14 32 -IOCS16 33 Addr 1 34 (reserved) 35 Addr 0 36 Addr 2 37 -CS0 (1F0-1F7) 38 -CS1 (3f6-3f7) 39 -Active 40 GND VGA DB15-S Female pin assignment pin assignment 1 Red 2 Green 3 Blue 4 Minitor ID bit 2 5 N/C 6 GND 7 GND 8 GND 9 N/C 10 GND 11 Monitor ID bit0 12 Minitor ID bit 1 13 Horizontal Sync 14 Vertical Sync 15 N/C ISA Bus Connector EISA Bus Connector ----------------- ------------------ Back Side Component Side Back Side Component Side pin assignment |pin assignment |pin assignment |pin assignment B1 GND |A1 CHCHK# |F1 GND |E1 CMD# B2 Reset DRV |A2 SD7 |F2 +5V |E2 START# B3 +5V |A3 SD6 |F3 +5V |E3 EXRDY B4 IRQ9 |A4 SD5 |F4 --- |E4 EX32# B5 -5V |A5 SD4 |F5 --- |E5 GND B6 DRQ2 |A6 SD3 |F6 ACCESS KEY |E6 ACCESS KEY B7 -12V |A7 SD2 |F7 --- |E7 EX16# B8 NOWS# |A8 SD1 |F8 --- |E8 SLBURST# B9 +12V |A9 SD0 |F9 +12V |E9 MSBURST# B10 GND |A10 CHRDY |F10 M/IO# |E10 W/R# B11 SMWTC# |A11 AEN |F11 LOCK# |E11 GND B12 SMRDC# |A12 SA19 |F12 (reserved) |E12 (reserved) B13 IOWC# |A13 SA18 |F13 GND |E13 (reserved) B14 IORC# |A14 SA17 |F14 (reserved) |E14 (reserved) B15 DACK3# |A15 SA16 |F15 BE3# |E15 GND B16 DRQ3 |A16 SA15 |F16 ACCESS KEY |E16 ACCESS KEY B17 DACK1# |A17 SA14 |F17 BE2# |E17 BE1# B18 DRQ1 |A18 SA13 |F18 BE0# |E18 LA31# B19 REFRESH# |A19 SA12 |F19 GND |E19 GND B20 BCLK |A20 SA11 |F20 +5V |E20 LA30# B21 IRQ7 |A21 SA10 |F21 LA29# |E21 LA28# B22 IRQ6 |A22 SA9 |F22 GND |E22 LA27# B23 IRQ5 |A23 SA8 |F23 LA26# |E23 LA25# B24 IRQ4 |A24 SA7 |F24 LA24# |E24 GND B25 IRQ3 |A25 SA6 |F25 ACCESS KEY |E25 ACCESS KEY B26 DACK2# |A26 SA5 |F26 LA16 |E26 LA15 B27 T/C |A27 SA4 |F27 LA14 |E27 LA13 B28 BALE |A28 SA3 |F28 +5V |E28 LA12 B29 +5V |A29 SA2 |F29 +5V |E29 LA11 B30 OSC |A30 SA1 |F30 GND |E30 GND B31 GND |A31 SA0 |F31 LA10 |E31 LA9 |H1 LA8 |G1 LA7 D1 M16# |C1 SBHE# |H2 LA6 |G2 GND D2 IO16# |C2 LA23 |H3 LA5 |G3 LA4 D3 IRQ10 |C3 LA22 |H4 +5V |G4 LA3 D4 IRQ11 |C4 LA21 |H5 LA2 |G5 GND D5 IRQ12 |C5 LA20 |H6 ACCESS KEY |G6 ACCESS KEY D6 IRQ15 |C6 LA19 |H7 D16 |G7 D17 D7 IRQ14 |C7 LA18 |H8 D18 |G8 D19 D8 DACK0# |C8 LA17 |H9 GND |G9 D20 D9 DRQ0 |C9 MRDC# |H10 D21 |G10 D22 D10 DACK5# |C10 MWTC# |H11 D23 |G11 GND D11 DRQ5 |C11 SD8 |H12 D24 |G12 D25 D12 DACK6# |C12 SD9 |H13 GND |G13 D26 D13 DRQ6 |C13 SD10 |H14 D27 |G14 D28 D14 DACK7# |C14 SD11 |H15 ACCESS KEY |G15 ACCESS KEY D15 DRQ7 |C15 SD12 |H16 D29 |G16 GND D16 +5V |C16 SD13 |H17 +5V |G17 D30 D17 MASTER16# |C17 SD14 |H18 +5V |G18 D31 D18 GND |C18 SD15 |H19 MAKx |G19 MREQx VESA Standard Feature Connector pin assignment pin assignment 1 PB 2 PG 3 PR 4 PI 5 SB 6 SG 7 SR 8 SI 9 Dot Clock 10 Blank 11 HSync 12 VSync 13 GND 14 GND 15 GND 16 GND 17 Ext Video Sel 18 Ext Sync Sel 19 Ext DotClock Sel20 N/C 21 GND 22 GND 23 GND 24 GND 25 N/C 26 N/C Null Modem: Connector 1 to Connector 2 DTR DSR/DCD DSR/DCD DTR RTS CTS CTS RTS TXD RXD RXD TXD GND GND 30 pin Fast Page Mode SIMM 256kx8 256kx9 1Mx8 1Mx9 4Mx8 4Mx9 pin assignment|pin assignment|pin assignment|pin assignment 1 Vcc |9 Gnd |17 A8 |25 DQ7 2 -CAS |10 DQ2 |18 A9 |26 QP 3 DQ0 |11 A4 |19 A10 |27 -RAS 4 A0 |12 A5 |20 DQ5 |28 -CASP 5 A1 |13 DQ3 |21 -WE |29 DP 6 DQ1 |14 A6 |22 Gnd |30 Vcc 7 A2 |15 A7 |23 DQ6 8 A3 |16 DQ4 |24 N/C Notes: QP, CASP and DP are N/C on all x8 bit modules a9 is a N/C on 256k modules a10 is a N/C on 256k and 1M modules 72 pin Fast Page Mode SIMM 256k/512k/1M/2M/4M/8M x 32/36 bit pin assignment|pin assignment|pin assignment|pin assignment 1 Gnd |19 A10 |37 MP1 |55 DQ11 2 DQ0 |20 DQ4 |38 MP3 |56 DQ27 3 DQ16 |21 DQ20 |39 Gnd |57 DQ12 4 DQ1 |22 DQ5 |40 -CAS0 |58 DQ28 5 DQ17 |23 DQ21 |41 -CAS2 |59 Vcc 6 DQ2 |24 DQ6 |42 -CAS3 |60 DQ29 7 DQ18 |25 DQ22 |43 -CAS1 |61 DQ13 8 DQ3 |26 DQ7 |44 -RAS0 |62 DQ30 9 DQ19 |27 DQ23 |45 -RAS1 |63 DQ14 10 Vcc |28 A7 |46 N/C |64 DQ31 11 N/C |29 N/C |47 -WE |65 DQ15 12 A0 |30 Vcc |48 N/C |66 N/C 13 A1 |31 A8 |49 DQ8 |67 PD1 14 A2 |32 A9 |50 DQ24 |68 PD2 15 A3 |33 -RAS3 |51 DQ9 |69 PD3 16 A4 |34 -RAS2 |52 DQ25 |70 PD4 17 A5 |35 MP2 |53 DQ10 |71 N/C 18 A6 |36 MP0 |54 DQ26 |72 Gnd Notes: MP0,MP1,MP2,MP3 are N/C on all x32 bit modules a9 is a N/C on 256k and 512k modules a10 is a N/C on 256k, 512k, 1M and 4M modules RAS1/RAS3 are N/C on 256k, 1M and 4M modules SCSI Connector Pinouts (Single Ended) IDC-50 Male pin assignment|pin assignment|pin assignment|pin assignment 01 GND |02 -DB0 |27 GND |28 GND 03 GND |04 -DB1 |29 GND |30 GND 05 GND |06 -DB2 |31 GND |32 -ATN 07 GND |08 -DB3 |33 GND |34 GND 09 GND |10 -DB4 |35 GND |36 -BSY 11 GND |12 -DB5 |37 GND |38 -ACK 13 GND |14 -DB6 |39 GND |40 -RST 15 GND |16 -DB7 |41 GND |42 -MSG 17 GND |18 -DBP |43 GND |44 -SEL 19 GND |20 GND |45 GND |46 -C/D 21 GND |22 GND |47 GND |48 -REQ 23 GND |24 GND |49 GND |50 -I/O 25 (open) |26 TERMPWR SCSI Connector Pinouts (Differential) IDC-50 Male pin assignment|pin assignment|pin assignment|pin assignment 01 (open) |02 GND |27 GND |28 GND 03 +DB0 |04 -DB0 |29 +ATN |30 -ATN 05 +DB1 |06 -DB1 |31 GND |32 GND 07 +DB2 |08 -DB2 |33 +BSY |34 -BSY 09 +DB3 |10 -DB3 |35 +ACK |36 -ACK 11 +DB4 |12 -DB4 |37 +RST |38 -RST 13 +DB5 |14 -DB5 |39 +MSG |40 -MSG 15 +DB6 |16 -DB6 |41 +SEL |42 -SEL 17 +DB7 |18 -DB7 |43 +C/D |44 -C/D 19 +DBP |20 -DBP |45 +REQ |46 -REQ 21 DIFFSENS |22 GND |47 +I/O |48 -I/O 23 GND |24 GND |49 GND |50 GND 25 TERMPWR |26 TERMPWR PCI Cards Universal/3.3V/5V and 32/64 bit pin assignment |pin assignment |pin assignment |pin assignment B1 -12V |A1 TRST# |B48 AD[10] |A48 Ground B2 TCK |A2 +12V |B49 Ground |A49 AD[09] B3 Ground |A3 TMS |B50 (KEYWAY2) |A50 (KEYWAY2) B4 TDO |A4 TDI |B51 (KEYWAY2) |A51 (KEYWAY2) B5 +5V |A5 +5V |B52 AD[08] |A52 C/BE[0]# B6 +5V |A6 INTA# |B53 AD[07] |A53 +3.3V B7 INTB# |A7 INTC# |B54 +3.3V |A54 AD[06] B8 INTD# |A8 +5V |B55 AD[05] |A55 AD[04] B9 PRSNT1# |A9 reserved |B56 AD[03] |A56 Ground B10 reserved |A10 +Vi/o |B57 Ground |A57 AD[02] B11 PRSNT2# |A11 reserved |B58 AD[01] |A58 AD[00] B12 (KEYWAY1) |A12 (KEYWAY1) |B59 Vi/o |A59 +Vi/o B13 (KEYWAY1) |A13 (KEYWAY1) |B60 ACK64# |A60 REQ64# B14 reserved |A14 reserved |B61 +5V |A61 +5V B15 Ground |A15 RST# |B62 +5V |A62 +5V B16 CLK |A16 Vi/o |B63 reserved |A63 Ground B17 Ground |A17 VNT# |B64 Ground |A64 C/BE[7]# B18 REQ# |A18 Ground |B65 C/BE[6]# |A65 C/BE[5]# B19 +Vi/o |A19 reserved |B66 C/BE[4]# |A66 +Vi/o B20 AD[31] |A20 AD[30] |B67 Ground |A67 PAR64 B21 AD[29] |A21 +3.3V |B68 AD[63] |A68 AD[62] B22 Ground |A22 AD[28] |B69 AD[61] |A69 Ground B23 AD[27] |A23 AD[26] |B70 +Vi/o |A70 AD[60] B24 AD[25] |A24 Ground |B71 AD[59] |A71 AD[58] B25 +3.3V |A25 AD[24] |B72 AD[57] |A72 Ground B26 C/BE[3]# |A26 IDSEL |B73 Ground |A73 AD[56] B27 AD[23] |A27 +3.3V |B74 AD[55] |A74 AD[54] B28 Ground |A28 AD[22] |B75 AD[53] |A75 +Vi/o B29 AD[21] |A29 AD[20] |B76 Ground |A76 AD[52] B30 AD[19] |A30 Ground |B77 AD[51] |A77 AD[50] B31 +3.3V |A31 AD[18] |B78 AD[49] |A78 Ground B32 AD[17] |A32 AD[16] |B79 +Vi/o |A79 AD[48] B33 C/BE[2]# |A33 +3.3V |B80 AD[47] |A80 AD[46] B34 Ground |A34 FRAME# |B81 AD{45] |A81 Ground B35 IRDY# |A35 Ground |B82 Ground |A82 AD[44] B36 +3.3V |A36 TRDY# |B83 AD[43] |A83 AD[42] B37 DEVSEL# |A37 Ground |B84 AD[41] |A84 +Vi/o B38 Ground |A38 STOP# |B85 Ground |A85 AD[40] B39 LOCK# |A39 +3.3V |B86 AD[39] |A86 AD[38] B40 PERR# |A40 SDONE |B87 AD[37] |A87 Ground B41 +3.3V |A41 SBO# |B88 +Vi/o |A88 AD[36] B42 SERR# |A42 Ground |B89 AD[35] |A89 AD[34] B43 +3.3V |A43 PAR |B90 AD[33] |A90 Ground B44 C/BE[1]# |A44 AD[15] |B91 Ground |A91 AD[32] B45 AD[14] |A45 +3.3V |B92 reserved |A92 reserved B46 Ground |A46 AD[13] |B93 reserved |A93 Ground B47 AD[12] |A47 AD11] |B94 Ground |A94 reserved Notes: Pins 63-94 exist on 64 bit PCI implementation only KEYWAY1 exists on Universal and 3.3V boards, they are Ground on 5V boards KEYWAY2 exists on Universal and 5V boards, they are Ground on 3.3V boards +Vi/o is 3.3V on 3.3V boards, 5V on 5V boards, and define signal rails on the Universal board. (Still need to add MFM/RLL, VLB) Q) 8.2 *Where are benchmark programs located. What do they mean? Q) 8.3 What size should I set my DOS partitions to be? [From: Mike Long ] This depends on what cluster size you want. A smaller cluster size is better, because a small file takes up a whole cluster if there is even one byte in it; the leftover space is called "slack." If you have N files on your drive, and your cluster size is S bytes, then you can expect to lose N*S/2 bytes to slack space on the average. The table below shows the maximum partition size to get clusters of a given size. You cannot format a hard drive under DOS with a cluster size less than 2K. +-------------------+-----------+-------+ | Cluster size | Partition | FAT | | | size | type | +-------------------+-----------+-------+ | 2K (2048 bytes) | 32 MB | FAT12 | | 2K (2048 bytes) | 128 MB | FAT16 | | 4K (4096 bytes) | 256 MB | FAT16 | | 8K (8192 bytes) | 512 MB | FAT16 | | 16K (16384 bytes) | 1 GB | FAT16 | | 32K (32768 bytes) | 2 GB | FAT16 | | 64K (65536 bytes) | 4 GB | FAT16 | +-------------------+-----------+-------+ Another consideration is backup. If you backup to tape, you should have disk partitions smaller than the capacity of a single tape for ease in backup. Q) 8.4 Why won't my system boot from the hard drive? If you can boot from a floppy and see the files on your hard drive, then chances are there's something wrong with your MBR (Master Boot Record) / partition table. The first thing you should try is: "FDISK /MBR". This will fix the master boot record without effecting the contents of your disk. If this doesn't work, the next thing to try is verifying that you have your Primary DOS Partition set active. To do this, enter "FDISK" and chose "Set active partition" (usually the second option) then pick "Primary DOS Partition". Then exit and reboot. This too will not effect the contents of your disk. If neither of these things work, then the next thing to try is reformatting your hard drive (FORMAT C: /SYS). Note that this will erase all of the files on your hard drive, so back up anything you want to save first!!! If all three of these suggestions fail, then chances are you have a more serious problem. Q) 8.5 How do I clean my computer? Clean the outside with a damp (not wet) cloth with a mild dish washing detergent after unplugging the system. Let it dry completely before plugging your system in. Do not clean the inside - computer components are not susceptible to common house hold dust. Unless you have special equipment, you will more likely cause more harm than help to your computer if you try. Q) 8.6 *What OS's are available for the PC? Which are free? Q) 8.7 *How can I transfer files from my PC to a Unix system? Q) 8.8 Why doesn't my new device work as fast as it should? The performance of individual components in your system are highly dependent the rest of your system. For instance, the transfer rate of drives, usually measured in megabytes per second, can depend on the drive controller, bus type and OS. Video card speed, sometime measured in Winmarks, highly depends on the speed of your main CPU as well as the OS. When ever you see a statement on the speed of the device, be sure to check the small print to determine what type of system and under what conditions the speed was measured. Don't be fooled by benchmark numbers. Another important corollary of this is *never* post benchmarks - they offer little to no information for comparison with other systems. Benchmarks are only useful for comparison purposes when run in a controlled environment, and even then to a limited degree. Q) 8.9 My drive lists a MTBF of 300,000 hours. Will it really last 34 years? No, Mean Time Between Failure is a statistical term. A closer interpretation is that if you had 300,000 drives, you can expect to replace one every hour. Q) 8.10 How do I find pin 1 on my chip/card/cable/connector? Pin 1 is always marked in one way or another to avoid confusion due to symmetry (after which known numbering schemes can be used). The most important thing to note is that the orientation of the letters or numbers printed on the chip have absolutely nothing to do with the actual orientation of the pins. Never assume that all chips should be readable from the same angle! The most obvious marking for pin 1 is a small number '1'. The first thing you should do is look very carefully for it. Ribbon cables are often marked with a blue or red stripe on pin 1. Some chips are marked with a dot, notch or small angled cut in the material just above pin 1. Rectangular chips are usually marked with a notch on one of ends; the first pin counter clockwise from this notch is pin 1. Q) 8.11 I've run out of power connectors, what can I do? Assuming your power suply is actually strong enough to power all of your devices, you can pick up a Y-adapter at your local Radio Shack. =============== Ralph Valentino (ralf@chpc.org) (ralf@wpi.wpi.edu) Hardware Engineer, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Center for High Performance Computing, Marlborough MA From netcomsv!amd!decwrl!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!MathWorks.Com!bigboote.WPI.EDU!wpi.WPI.EDU!ralf Tue Jan 18 20:42:51 PST 1994 Article: 2109 of comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Xref: netcom.com comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:95366 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video:2744 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.comm:1146 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage:2109 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom:1792 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems:1194 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.networking:775 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips:1898 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc:1580 comp.answers:3477 news.answers:17090 Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!amd!decwrl!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!MathWorks.Com!bigboote.WPI.EDU!wpi.WPI.EDU!ralf From: ralf@chpc.org (Ralph Valentino) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.comm,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.networking,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc,comp.answers,news.answers Subject: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.* Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Part 4/4 Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc Date: 18 Jan 1994 16:37:57 GMT Organization: Center For High Performance Computing Lines: 927 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Expires: 11 Feb 1994 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <2hh395$ovk@bigboote.WPI.EDU> Reply-To: ralf@wpi.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: wpi.wpi.edu Summary: This is a monthly posting containing a list of Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers) pertaining to hardware and IBM PC clones. It should be read by anyone who wishes to post to any group in the comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.* hierarchy. Originator: ralf@wpi.WPI.EDU Archive-name: pc-hardware-faq/part4 Last-modified: 1994/01/10 Version: 1.0 S) 9.0 References Q) 9.1 *What other FAQ's are out there? Q) 9.2 What do the industry acronyms stand for? [From ralf@wpi.wpi.edu (Ralph Valentino)] This is a list of 250+ acronyms which commonly come up in discussion of hardware. It does not contain abbreviations or names that don't stand for anything, nor does it attempt to explain exactly what the technology does, where it can be found, nor even how to use it in a sentence. So, is it completely useless? Well, sometimes just knowing what an acronym stands for is enough to tell you what people are talking about or where to go to get more information about it. If anyone has any additions, comments, or corrections, please forward them to me directly. Keep in mind that I have tried to avoid software topics except where they overlap with hardware ones, so don't bother telling me what BASIC stands for as it is outside the scope of this list. AC Alternating Current AE Applications Engineer AI Artificial Intelligence ALU Arithmetic-Logic Unit AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMI American Megatrends Inc. ANSI American National Standards Institute ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange ASPI Advanced SCSI Programming Interface ATDM Asynchronous Time Division Multiplexing ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode BBS Bulletin Board System BCC Block Check Character BCD Binary Coded Decimal BE Back End BiCMOS Bipolar Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor BIOS Basic Input / Output System BNC BPS/bps Bytes/bits Per Second BSC Binary Synchronous Communications BSD Berkeley Standard Distribution CAM Content Addressable Memory CAS Column Address Strobe CBX Common Branch eXtender CCD Charge Coupled Device CCITT Consultative Committee of International Telephony and Telegraphy CD Carrier Detect CDROM Compact Disk Read Only Memory CGA Color Graphics Array CISC Complex Instruction-Set Computer CLA Carry Lookahead Adder CMOS Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor CP/M Control Program / Monitor CPI Clocks Per Instruction CPU Central Processing Unit CR Carriage Return CRC Cyclical redundancy check CRQ Command Response Queue CRT Cathode Ray Tube CS Chip Select CSMA Carrier Sense Multiple-Access CSMA/CD Carrier Sense Multiple-Access with Collision Detect CSR Command Status Register CTS Clear To Send DAT Digital Audio Tape DC Direct Current DCD Data Carrier Detect DCE Data Circuit-terminating Equipment DEC Digital Equipment Corporation DES Data Encryption Standard DIN Deutsche Industrie Norm DIP Dual-In-line Package DIS Draft International Standard DMA Direct Memory Access DOS Disk Operating System DPE Data Parity Error DPSK Differential Phase Shift Keying DRAM Dynamic Random Access Memory DSP Digital Signal Processor DSR Data Set Ready DTE Data Terminating Equipment DTMF Dual-Tone MultiFrequency DTR Data Terminal Ready EBCDIC Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code ECC Error Correction Code ECL Emitter-Coupled Logic ECU EISA Configuration Utility EEPROM Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory EGA Enhanced Graphics Array EIA Electronic Industries Association EISA Enhanced Industry Standard Architecture EMI Electro-Magnetic Interference EMF Electro-Magnetic Force EMS Expanded Memory Specification EOF End Of File EOL End Of Line EPROM Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory ESD Electro-Static Discharge ESDI Enhanced Small Devices Interface FAT File Allocation Table FCC Federal Communications Commission FDDI Fiber Distributed Data Interface FDM Frequency Division Multiplexing FDX Full-Duplex Transmission FE Front End FF Form Feed FIFO First-In First-Out FILO First-In Last-Out (same as LIFO) FM Frequency Modulation FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array FSF Free Software Foundation FSK Frequency Shifty Keying FTP File Transfer Program GAS Gallium Arsenide GFLOPS Billions of FLOating Point Operations Per Second ("GigaFlops") GNU Gnu's Not Unix GUI Graphical User Interface HDD Hard Disk Drive HDX Half-Duplex Transmission HPFS High Performance File System I/O Input / Output IBM International Business Machines Corp. IC Integrated Circuit IDC Insulation Displacement Connector IDE Integrated Device Electronics IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers IMP Interface Message Processor IPC InterProcess Communication IRQ Interrupt ReQuest ISA Industry Standard Architecture ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network ISO International Standards Organization LAN Local Area Network LAPM Link Access Procedure M LCD Liquid Crystal Display LED Light Emitting Diode LF Line Feed LIM Lotus/Intel/Micosoft Expanded Memory Manager Specification LRU Least-Recently Used LSB/lsb Least Significant Byte/bit LSI Large Scale Integration MAN Metropolitan Area Network MB/Mb Mega Bytes/bits MBR Master Boot Record MCA Micro Channel Architecture MCGA MCM Multi-Chip Module MFLOPS Millions of FLOating Point Operations per Second ("MegaFlops") MFM Modified Frequency Modulated MHz MegaHertz MIDI Musical Instrument Data Interface MIMD Multiple-Instruction Multiple-Data MIPS Millions of Instructions per Second MISD Multiple-Instruction Single Data MMU Memory Management Unit MNP Microcom Network Protocol MODEM MOdulator / DEModulator MOPS Millions of Operations Per Second MOS Metal-Oxide Semiconductor MP MultiProcessor MPP Massively Parallel Processor MSB/msb Most Significant Byte/bit MSDOS Microsoft Disk Operating System MSI Medium Scale Integration MTBF Mean Time Between Failure N/C No-Connect NBS National Bureau of Standards NEMA National Electrical Manufacturers Association NFS Network File System NFU Not-Frequently Used NMI Non-Maskable Interrupt NMOS Negatively doped Metal-Oxide Semiconductor NOP No OPeration NRU Not-Recently Used NSF National Science Foundation NVRAM NonVolatile Random Access Memory OCR Optical Character Recognition OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer OS Operating System OSF Open Software Foundation PAL/PLA Programmable Array Logic (Logic Array) PB Push Button PBX Private Branch eXtender PC Personal Computer, Program Counter PCB Printed Circuit Board PCI Peripheral Component Interface PCM Pulse Code Modulation PE Processor Element PFF Page Fault Frequency PGA Pin Grid Array PIC Programmable Interrupt Controller PIO Programmed Input/Output PLCC Plastic Leaded Chip Carrier PLL Phase Locked Loop PMOS Positively doped Metal-Oxide Semiconductor POST Power On Self Test PROM Programmable Read-Only Memory PSTN Public Switched Telephone Network PTE Page Table Entry QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation QFP Quad-FlatPack QIC Quarter Inch Cartridge RAID Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks RAM Random Access Memory RAMDAC Random Access Memory Digital to Analog Converter RAS Row Address Strobe RCA Radio Corporation of America RCC Routing Control Center RFC Request For Comments RFI Radio Frequency Interference RI Ring Indicator RISC Reduced Instruction-Set Computer RLL Run Length Limited RMM Read Mostly Memory (same as EPROM) RMS Root Mean Squared RMW Read Modify Write ROM Read-Only Memory RPC Remote Procedure Call RPM Rotations Per Minute RTC Real Time Clock RTS Request To Send SAM Sequential Access Memory SASI Shugart Associates Standard Interface SCSI Small Computer Systems Interface SDLC Synchronous Data Link Control SDLC Synchronous Data Link Control SIMD Single-Instruction Multiple-Data SIMM Single Inline Memory Module SIPP Single Inline Pinned Package SISD Single-Instruction Single-Data SLIP Serial Line Internet Protocol SMD Surface Mount Device SNA System Network Architecture SNR Signal to Noise Ratio SO/SOL Small OutLine SOIC Small Outline Integrated Circuit SPOOL Simultaneous Peripheral Operation On Line SPT Sectors Per Track SRAM Static Random Access Memory STDM Synchronous Time Division Multiplexing STN Super Twisted Nematic STU Streaming Tape Unit SVGA Super Video Graphics Array TCM Trellis Code Modulation TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol TDM Time Division Multiplexing TI Texas Instruments TLB Translation-Lookaside Buffer TPI Tracks Per Inch TSR Terminate and Stay Resident TTL Transistor-Transistor Logic TUV Technischer Ueberwachuags Verein UART Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter UDP User Datagram Protocol UMB Upper Memory Block UPS Uninterruptible Power Supply USL Unix System Labs UUCP Unix to Unix Copy Program VCR Video Cassette Recorder VESA Video Enhanced Standards Association VGA Video Graphics Array VLB VESA Local Bus VLIW Very Long Instruction Word VLSI Very Large Scale Integration VM Virtual Memory VME Versa Module Eurocard VRAM Video Random Access Memory VTR Video Tape Recorder WAN Wide Area Network WATS Wide Area Telephone Service WD Western Digital WORM Write-Once Read-Many WS Wait State XGA XMS Extended Memory Specification XOR Exclusive-Or ZIF Zero Insertion Force Q) 9.3 Where can I get the ISA/EISA/VLB/PCI/etc specs? You can get the PCI Local Bus Specification from: PCI Special Interest Group M/S HF3-15A 5200 NE Elam Young Parkway Hillsboro, OR 97124-6497 Phone: (503) 696-2000 Fax: (503) 693-0920 Q) 9.4 What books are available for the PC architecture? Edward Solari _ISA & EISA_ Theory and Operation Annabooks, San Diego CA USA ISBN 0-929392-15-9 This is an excellent book on the EISA and ISA architectures. Everything you need to know to make your own card, from timing to ECU config files. Tom Shanley _EISA System Architecture_ MindShare, Inc, Richardson, TX USA ISBN 1-881609-03-0 This book is good for an overview of the EISA and, in part, ISA systems. It doesn't go into enough detail to design boards from, but, as a quote from the sleeve says "The co-ops in the group have found them to be especially useful." [From: cls@truffula.sj.ca.us (Cameron Spitzer): Edward Solari _AT Bus Design_ Annabooks, San Diego CA USA ISBN 0-929392-08-6 This book describes the expansion slot which appeared in IBM's Personal Computer AT. This bus is now known as the Industry Standard Architecture Bus, or just ISA. It gives enough functional and timing detail for the hardware designer to ensure a new Adapter's compatibility. It does not discuss any of the defacto-standard Adapters, peripherals, or BIOS features, and gives only an overview of the memory and IO layout. The timing details are for the nominal 8 MHz bus clock. Recent practice of drastically increasing this clock rate is not discussed. _EISA Specification_ BCPR Services Inc. POB 11137 Spring TX 77391 (713)251-4832 This book *specifies* the Extended ISA. The expansion slot and motherboard IO deviced are described. Also, a file format is defined for describing the configuration of an EISA-compatible Adapter. Q) 9.5 What's the phone number for... [From: zeos@zeos.com] This list of industry phone numbers is provided as a service to the net community. It is not meant to be complete by any means, but if you have any suggestions for additions, or if you find any errors which should be corrected, please feel free to email me at support@zeos.com. This list will be reposted periodically with the appropriate updates. Thank you to all who have sent me corrections/additions. Currently posted to: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware, biz.zeos.general Latest modification date: November 1, 1993 *=Updated/corrected/added since last modification (#) 3Com ...................... BBS ................... 408-980-8204 3Com ...................... CardFacts ............. 408-727-7021 3Com ...................... T/S ................... 800-876-3266 (A) Acer Technologies Corp..... Tech Support .......... 408-922-0333 Actix Systems ............. Sales ................. 800-927-5557 Actix Systems ............. Service ............... 408-986-1625 Adaptec ................... BBS ................... 408-945-7727 Adaptec ................... General ............... 800-959-7274 Adaptec ................... Tech Support .......... 408-945-2550 Ahead Systems ............. General ............... 415-623-0900 *A.I.R. .................... Voice ................. 408-428-0800 *A.I.R. .................... Fax ................... 408-428-0950 ALR ....................... T/S ................... 714-458-1952 Altima .................... T/S ................... 800-356-9990 Altos Computer Systems .... General ............... 408-258-6787 Always Technology ......... Sales/Tech Support .... 818-597-1400 AMD ....................... Literature ............ 800-222-9323 AMD ....................... Main .................. 800-538-8450 AMD ....................... Tech Support .......... 800-292-9263 Amdek ..................... T/S ................... 800-722-6335 American Power ............ T/S ................... 800-788-2208 American Megatrends (AMI) . BBS ................... 404-246-8782 V.32bis American Megatrends (AMI) . T/S ................... 404-246-8600 AMIPRO .................... Cust. Service ......... 404-399-5505 AMIPRO (Upgrade to 3.0) ... Upgrading ............. 800-872-3387 Andataco .................. C/S ................... 800-443-9191 Andataco .................. Fax ................... 619-453-9294 APCUG (Association of PC User Groups) .......... BBS ................... 408-439-9367 Appian .................... Main .................. 408-730-5400 Appian .................... Tech Support .......... 800-422-7369 *Apple Computer ............ Fax Back .............. 800-SOS-APPL *Apple Computer ............ T/S USA Only .......... 800-SOS-APPL *Areal Technology Inc ...... General ............... 408-436-6800 *Artisoft .................. BBS ................... 602-884-8648 *Artisoft .................. T/S ................... 602-670-7000 *Artisoft .................. Sales ................. 800-TINY-RAM Ashton-Tate ............... BBS ................... 213-324-2188 AST Research .............. T/S ................... 800-727-1278 AST Research .............. BBS ................... 714-727-4723 AST Research .............. BBS(>9600) ............ 714-727-4132 Atari ..................... General ............... 408-745-2000 AT&T ...................... Tech Support .......... 800-247-1212 AT&T Support .............. BBS ................... 908-769-6397 ATI Technologies .......... Compuserve ............ 74740,667 *ATI Technologies .......... Compuserve ............ GO ATITECH- *ATI Technologies .......... Customer Service ...... 905-882-2626 *ATI Technologies .......... BBS ................... 905-764-9404 *ATI Technologies .......... Fax ................... 905-882-2620 *ATI Technologies .......... Sales ................. 905-882-2600 *ATI Technologies .......... Tech Support .......... 905-756-0711 Award (Bios) .............. BBS ................... 408-370-3139 Award (Bios) .............. Tech Support .......... 408-370-7979 (B) Boca ...................... T/S ................... 407-241-8088 Borland ................... Automated Support ..... 800-524-8420 Borland ................... BBS ................... 408-439-9096 Borland ................... Compuserve ............ GO BORLAND Borland ................... Fax Back .............. 800-822-4269 Borland ................... Sales ................. 800-331-0877 Borland ................... T/S ................... 408-438-5300 Borland ................... T/S ................... 800-252-5547 Box Hill Systems .......... General ............... 800-727-3863 Brother ................... T/S ................... 800-284-4357 Brown Bag Software ........ BBS ................... 408-371-7654 BusLogic .................. Tech Support .......... 408-492-9090 *BusLogic .................. Tech Support .......... 408-988-7338 *BusLogic .................. Tech Support FAX ...... 408-492-1542 BusLogic .................. BBS ................... 408-492-1984 Byte (magazine) ........... BBS ................... 617-861-9764 (C) Cabletron Systems ......... T/S & Sales ........... 603-332-9400 Calcomp ................... T/S ................... 800-CAL-COMP Canon ..................... Main Office ........... 516-488-6700 Canon ..................... Tech Support .......... 800-423-2366 Cardinal (Techs) .......... Tech Support .......... 717-293-3135 Cardinal 14.4 modem ....... Tech Support .......... 717-293-3124 CD Publishing Corp ........ General ............... 800-333-7565 CD Publishing Corp ........ General ............... 604-874-1430 CD Publishing Corp ........ FAX ................... 604-874-1431 CD-ROM Inc ................ General ............... 303-526-7600 CD-ROM Inc ................ Fax ................... 303-526-7395 Central Point Software .... BBS ................... 503-690-6650 Central Point Software .... T/S ................... 503-690-8080 Central Point Software .... PC Tools Tech Support . 503-690-8090 Chicony ................... Tech Support .......... 714-771-9067 Ciprico ................... General ............... 612-559-2034 *Cirrus .................... BBS ................... 510-440-9080 Citrix .................... General ............... 305-755-0559 Citrix .................... General ............... 800-437-7503 Citrix .................... Fax ................... 305-341-6880 CMS Enhancement, Inc. ..... T/S ................... 714-222-6000 *Colorado Memory Systems ... BBS ................... 303-635-0650 (8N1) Colorado Memory Systems ... Tech Support .......... 303-635-1500 Commodore Business Mach.... Tech Support .......... 215-431-9100 Compaq .................... BBS ................... 713-378-1418 Compaq .................... General ............... 713-370-0670 Compaq .................... Tech Support .......... 800-345-1518 Compaq .................... T/S ................... 800-888-5858 Compati ................... Tech Support .......... 815-756-3411 Compuadd .................. Tech Support .......... 800-456-3116 CompUSA ................... General ............... 703-749-4488 CompuServ Info. Serv. ..... General ............... 800-848-8199 Computer Peripherals Inc .. BBS ................... 805-499-9646 Computer Peripherals Inc .. Tech Support .......... 805-499-5751 Computone Corp. ........... BBS ................... 404-343-9737 Computone Corp. ........... BBS ................... 404-664-1210 Computone Corp. ........... General ............... 404-475-2725 Computone Corp. ........... Tech Support .......... 404-475-2725 x250 Conner Peripherals ........ BBS ................... 408-456-4415 V.32 Conner Peripherals ........ Fax Back .............. 408-456-4903 Conner Peripherals ........ Tech Support .......... 408-456-3388 Conner Peripherals ........ Tech Support .......... 800-421-1879 Conner Peripherals ........ Tech Support .......... 800-426-6637 Control Data Corp. (CDC) .. General ............... 612-851-4131 Core International ........ BBS ................... 407-241-2929 Core International ........ Tech Support .......... 407-997-6044 Corel ..................... General ............... 800-836-7274 CPI ....................... T/S ................... 800-235-7618 *Creative Labs ............. T/S ................... 405-742-6622 Crosstalk Communications .. BBS ................... 404-641-1803 CTX (monitors) ........... Repair Services ....... 800-289-2189 CYRIX ..................... General ............... 214-234-8387 CYRIX ..................... General ............... 800-FAS-MATH CYRIX ..................... Technical Support ..... 800-848-2979 x325 CYRIX ..................... T/S ................... 800-GO-CYRIX CYRIX ..................... T/S ................... 800-327-6284 (D) Dallas (chip)............. Tech Support .......... 510-796-6100 Data Shield ............... T/S ................... 312-329-1601 Data Technology Corp ...... BBS ................... 408-942-4197 Data Technology Corp ...... Tech Support .......... 408-262-7700 Datapoint ................. General ............... 210-593-7000 Dell Computer ............. Customer Service ...... 800-624-9897 Dell Computer ............. Sales ................. 800-426-5150 Dell Computer ............. Tech Support .......... 800-624-9896 Dell Computer ............. BBS ................... 512-338-8528 Dell Computer ............. Tech Fax .............. 800-950-1329 Diamond ................... BBS 2400 baud.......... 408-730-1100 Diamond ................... BBS 9600 baud ......... 408-524-9301 Diamond ................... Fax ................... 408-773-8000 Diamond ................... Tech Support .......... 408-736-2000 Diconix ................... T/S ................... 513-259-3100 Digiboard Inc. ............ BBS ................... 612-943-0812 Digiboard Inc. ............ Tech Support .......... 612-943-9020 Digital Equip. Corp.(DEC) . General ............... 508-493-5111 Digital Research .......... Tech Support .......... 408-646-6464 Digitrend Systems Corp. ... General ............... 818-772-0190 Dilog ..................... General ............... 408-241-3192 Distr. Process Technology . Tech Support .......... 407-830-5522 DPT (Dist Process Tech) ... BBS ................... 407-831-6432 DPT (Dist Process Tech) ... General ............... 407-260-3566 DPT (Dist Process Tech) ... Tech Support .......... 407-830-5522 DTC ....................... Fax ................... 408-942-4052 DTC ....................... Fax Back .............. 408-942-4005 DTC ....................... General ............... 408-942-4000 Durant Technologies ....... T/S ................... 800-451-4813 Dysan Corp................. Tech Support .......... 408-988-3472 (E) Eastman Kodak ............. T/S ................... 800-255-3434 Emerald Systems ........... T/S ................... 800-366-4349 Epson ..................... T/S ................... 800-922-8911 Epson ..................... Tech Support .......... 213-539-9955 Everex Systems ............ BBS ................... 510-438-4650 Everex Systems ............ Tech Support .......... 510-498-1115 Exabyte Direct Srvce Admn . Fax ................... 303-447-7199 Exabyte ................... T/S ................... 800-445-7736 (F) Fifth Generation Systems .. BBS ................... 504-295-3344 Fifth Generation Systems .. T/S ................... 800-766-7283 Fifth Generation Systems .. T/S: Mace, Fastback ... 800-873-4384 Flashllink ................ BBS ................... 717-293-3074 FlashTek .................. BBS ................... 208-883-3859 FlashTek .................. Email ................. flashtek@proto.com FlashTek .................. England ............... 44-476-74108 FlashTek .................. General ............... 208-882-7275 FlashTek .................. Orders ................ 800-397-7310 FreeLance ................. Cust Support .......... 800-223-1662 Fujitsu America, Inc. ..... Tech Support .......... 800-826-6112 Fujitsu America ........... T/S ................... 408-432-1300 Future Domain ............. Tech Support .......... 714-253-0400 Future Domain ............. Update Center ......... 800-879-7599 (G) Gateway ................... General ............... 800-846-2000 Gateway ................... Tech Support .......... 800-846-2301 Gateway ................... T/S ................... 714-553-1555 Gazelle Systems ........... T/S: Optune ........... 800-233-0383 Genoa ..................... BBS ................... 408-943-1231 Genoa ..................... Tech Support .......... 408-432-9090 Genovation ................ General ............... 714-833-3355 Genovation ................ Fax ................... 714-833-0322 GeoWorks .................. T/S ................... 415-644-3456 Gibson Research ........... BBS ................... 714-362-8848 Gibson Research ........... Sales-T/S: Spinwrite .. 714-362-8800 Goldstar .................. T/S ................... 800-777-1192 Goldstar .................. Tech Support .......... 408-432-1331 Gravis .................... Tech Support .......... 604-431-1807 Gravis .................... BBS ................... 604-431-5927 (H) HardDrives Intl............ Sales? ................ 800-998-8093 Hayes ..................... T/S ................... 404-441-1617 Hayes Public BBS .......... BBS ................... 404-446-6336 Hayes On-line ............. BBS (product info) .... 800-874-2937 Headstart ................. T/S ................... 800-722-6224 Hercules Computer Tech. ... BBS ................... 510-623-7034 Hercules Computer Tech. ... Tech Support .......... 510-623-6030 Hewlett-Packard Co. ....... Tech Support .......... 800-858-8867 Hewlett-Packard Co. ....... T/S ................... 415-540-0749 Hitachi ................... T/S ................... 224-785-9770 Houston Instruments ....... T/S ................... 800-444-3425 Hyundai Electronics ....... Tech Support .......... 800-234-3553 (I) i-link .................... General (Germany) ..... +4930-216-20-48 i-link .................... email (Germany) ....... info@ilink.de IBM PC Users Group ........ BBS ................... 404-988-2790 *Indelible Blue ............ General ............... 800-776-8284 *Indelible Blue ............ General ............... 919-878-9700 *Indelible Blue ............ Fax ................... 919-878-7479 Intel ..................... BBS ................... 503-645-6275 (8N1) Intel ..................... Cust. Support/FaxBack.. 800-538-3373 Intel ..................... Fax ................... 800-458-6231 Intel ..................... Fax ................... 503-629-7580 Intuit .................... ....................... 800-624-8742 Iomega .................... T/S ................... 800-456-5522 Irma DCA .................. T/S ................... 404-740-0300 Irwin ..................... T/S ................... 800-421-1879 (K) Kaypro .................... Tech Support .......... 619-481-3900 Kensington Microware ...... T/S ................... 800-535-4242 Keytronics ................ Tech Support .......... 800-262-6006 Kodiak Technology ......... Tech Support .......... 800-777-7704 Kodiak Technology ......... BBS ................... 408-452-0677 Kurta ..................... T/S ................... 800-645-8782 Kyocera Unison Inc......... General ............... 415-848-6680 (L) LAN (magazine) ............ BBS ................... 415-267-7640 Leading Edge .............. Customer Service ...... 800-874-3340 Leading Edge .............. Tech Support .......... 800-245-9870 Lexmark ................... BBS ................... 606-232-5238 Lexmark ................... Fax ................... 606-232-2380 Lexmark ................... Voice ................. 606-232-3000 Logitech .................. BBS ................... 510-795-0408 Logitech .................. Tech Support .......... 510-795-8100 Lotus ..................... Cust. Support ......... 800-223-1662 Lotus Development ......... General ............... 617-577-8500 Lotus Tech Support ........ Support ............... 404-399-5505 (M) Mace, Paul Software ....... BBS ................... 714-240-7459 Mace, Paul Software ....... Tech Support .......... 800-523-0258 Macronix ...California .... Tech Support ...only... 408-453-8088 Macronix .................. Tech Support .......... 800-468-4629 Magnavox .................. T/S ................... 800-722-6224 Maynard Electronics........ General................ 800-227-6296 Maxtor/Miniscribe ......... BBS ................... 303-678-2222 Maxtor/Miniscribe ......... General ............... 303-651-6000 Maxtor/Miniscribe ......... Tech Support .......... 800-356-5333 Maxtor .................... T/S ................... 800-2-MAXTOR McAffee Assoc ............. BBS ................... 408-988-4004 MediaVision ............... Tech Support .......... 800-638-2807 MediaVision ............... BBS ................... 510-770-0527 Megahertz Corp. ........... T/S ................... 800-527-8677 Metheus ................... T/S ................... 503-690-1550 Microbotics ............... Tech Support .......... 214-437-5330 Micronet .................. General ............... 714-837-6033 Micronics ................. General ............... 415-651-2300 Micropolis Corp. .......... BBS ................... 818-709-3310 Micropolis Corp. .......... Tech Support .......... 818-709-3325 Microscience Int .......... Tech Support .......... 408-433-9898 DIRECT SUPPORT FOR MICROSOFT PRODUCTS Microsoft ................. BBS ................... 206-646-9145 Microsoft ................. BBS 9600 .............. 206-936-6735 Microsoft Access .................................. 206-635-7050 Microsoft Basic PDS ............................... 206-635-7053 Microsoft C Compiler .............................. 206-635-7007 Microsoft COBOL ................................... 206-637-7096 Microsoft DOS 5 ................................... 206-646-5104 Microsoft DOS 5 recordings ........................ 206-646-5103 Microsoft Excel for Macintosh ..................... 206-635-7080 Microsoft Excel for Windows & Excel for OS/2 ...... 206-635-7070 Microsoft FORTRAN Compiler ........................ 206-635-7015 Microsoft LAN Manager for UNIX .................... 206-635-7021 Microsoft Macro Assembler ......................... 206-646-5109 Microsoft Mail for Windows & Mail for Macintosh ... 206-637-9307 Microsoft Money for Windows ....................... 206-635-7131 Microsoft Mouse, BallPoint, & Hardware ............ 206-637-7096 Microsoft Pascal .................................. 206-637-7096 Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows .................. 206-635-7145 Microsoft PowerPoint for Macintosh ................ 206-635-7145 Microsoft Profiler ................................ 206-635-7015 Microsoft Project for Windows and Macintosh ....... 206-635-7155 Microsoft Project for MS-DOS ...................... 206-635-7155 Microsoft Publisher for Windows ................... 206-635-7140 Microsoft Quick Assembler ......................... 206-635-7010 Microsoft QuickC Compiler ......................... 206-635-7010 Microsoft Test Tools for Windows .................. 206-635-7052 Microsoft Visual Basic Startup .................... 206-646-5105 Microsoft Windows Applications for OS/2 ver. 2.0 .. 206-635-7247 Microsoft Windows Environment ..................... 206-637-7098 Microsoft Windows Applications .................... 206-637-7099 Microsoft Word for Macintosh ...................... 206-635-7200 Microsoft Word for MS-DOS ......................... 206-635-7210 Microsoft Word for OS/2 ........................... 206-454-2030 Microsoft Word for Windows ........................ 206-462-9673 Microsoft Works for Macintosh ..................... 206-635-7160 Microsoft Works for MS-DOS ........................ 206-635-7150 Microsoft Works for Windows ....................... 206-635-7130 ***** ALL OTHER PRODUCTS .......................... 206-454-2030 MICROSOFT STARTUP AND INSTALLATION SUPPORT Microsoft LAN Manager Startup (first 30 days only). 206-635-7020 Microsoft MS-DOS 5.0 (first 90 days only) ......... 206-646-5104 Microsoft QuickBASIC Startup ...................... 206-646-5101 Microsoft SQL Server Startup (first 30 days only).. 206-637-7095 Microsoft Visual Basic Startup .................... 206-646-5105 Microsoft Windows Entertainment Pack .............. 206-637-9308 Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK)... 206-635-3329 FAST TIPS SERVICES Microsoft Excel for Macintosh ..................... 206-635-7081 Microsoft Excel for Windows ....................... 206-635-7071 Microsoft MS-DOS 5.0 .............................. 206-646-5103 Microsoft Project for Windows ..................... 206-635-7156 Microsoft Visual Basic ............................ 206-646-5107 Microsoft Windows ................................. 206-635-7245 Microsoft Word for Macintosh ...................... 206-635-7201 Microsoft Word for MS-DOS ......................... 206-635-7211 Microsoft Word for Windows ........................ 206-635-7231 INCREMENTAL FEE-BASED SUPPORT Microsoft OnCall for Basic $2/min.................. 900-896-9999 Microsoft OnCall for Basic $20/call ............... 206-646-5106 Microsoft OnCall for MS-DOS $2/min................. 900-896-9000 Microsoft OnCall for MS-DOS $20/call .............. 206-646-5108 Microsoft OnCall for Visual Basic $2/min........... 900-896-9876 Microsoft OnCall for Visual Basic $20/call ........ 206-646-5106 Microsoft Network Support $175/call ............... 206-635-7022 Mitsubishi Inc. ........... T/S ................... 800-344-6352 Mitsubishi Inc............. Tech Support .......... 213-515-3993 Mitsumi ................... ................... 516-752-7730 Mountain Computer, Inc .... BBS ................... 408-438-2665 Mountain Computer, Inc .... General ............... 800-458-0300 Mountain Computer, Inc .... Tech Support .......... 408-438-7897 Mouse Systems ............. BBS ................... 510-683-0617 Mouse Systems ............. Tech Support .......... 510-656-1117 Mylex ..................... BBS ................... 510-793-3491 Mylex ..................... ....................... 800-776-9539 Mylex ..................... Technical Support ..... 510-796-6100 (N) National Semiconductor .... BBS ................... 408-245-0671 National Design ........... ....................... 800-253-8831 *NCR ....................... Video Chip Support .... 800-543-9935 NEC ....................... T/S ................... 708-860-0335 NEC ....................... Tech Support ..fax..... 708-860-5475 *NEC ....................... Tech Support ..faxback. 800-366-0476 NEC ....................... Tech Support ..General. 800-388-8888 NEC ....................... Tech Support ..BBS..... 508-635-6328 NeXT Answers .............. Fax Back .............. 415-780-3990 NeXT Answers .............. automated email ....... nextanswers@next.com Norton .................... Tech Support .......... 213-319-2020 Norton/Symantec ........... BBS ................... 408-973-9598 Novell .................... Tech Support .......... 800-526-5463 (O) Okidata ................... T/S ................... 800-634-0089 Okidata ................... Tech Support .......... 609-235-2600 Olivetti Office USA ....... General ............... 201-526-8200 OMTI/Scientific Micro ..... Tech Support .......... 408-954-1633 Ontrack Computer Systems .. BBS ................... 612-937-0860 Ontrack Computer Systems .. Data Recovery ......... 800-872-2599 Ontrack Computer Systems .. Sales Dos utils ....... 800-752-1333 Ontrack Computer Systems .. Sales: Disk Manager ... 800-752-1333 Ontrack Computer Systems .. Tech Support .......... 612-937-2121 Orange Micro .............. T/S ................... 714-779-2772 Orchid Technology ......... BBS ................... 510-683-0327 Orchid Technology ......... General ............... 510-683-0300 Orchid Technology ......... Sales ................. 800-767-2443 Orchid Technology ......... Tech Support .......... 510-683-0323 (P) Pacific Data Product ...... T/S ................... 619-597-3444 Packard Bell .............. Tech Support .......... 800-733-4411 Panasonic ................. T/S ................... 800-222-0584 Panasonic Communica'n Sys.. BBS ................... 201-863-7845 Panasonic Printers ........ Cust Support .......... 708-468-5440 Paradise .................. Tech Support .......... 800-832-4778 PC Power and Cooling ...... ....................... 800-722-6555 PC Power and Cooling ...... ....................... 619-931-5700 PCubid (CPU fans) ......... General ............... 916-338-1338 Perstore .................. BBS ................... 602-894-4605 Perstore .................. Tech Support .......... 602-894-4601 Phoenix (Bios) ............ Tech Support .......... 617-551-4000 PKWare (PKZip) ............ BBS ................... 414-354-8670 Plus Development .......... BBS ................... 408-434-1664 Plus Development .......... Tech Support ...Calif.. 800-826-8022 Plus Development .......... Tech Support .......... 900-740-4433 Practical Peripherals ..... T/S ................... 818-991-8200 Priam Systems ............. Tech Support .......... 408-954-8680 Prime Solutions ........... Tech Support Disk Tech. 800-847-5000 Princeton Graphics ........ T/S ................... 404-664-1010 ProComm Support ........... BBS ................... 314-474-8477 Programmer's Workshop ..... General ............... 800-336-1166 Programmer's Workshop ..... General ............... 216-494-8715 Programmer's Workshop ..... General ............... 216-494-5260 Proteon ................... T/S ................... 508-898-3100 Pure Data ................. T/S ................... 800-661-8210 (Q) *QMS ....................... BBS ................... 205-633-3632 *QMS ....................... FAX ................... 205-633-3145 *QMS ....................... General ............... 205-633-4300 QNX ....................... T/S ................... 613-591-0941 Quantum ................... T/S ................... 408-894-4000 Quantum ................... T/S ................... 408-944-0410 Quarterdeck ............... BBS ................... 310-396-3904 Quarterdeck ............... BBS ................... 310-314-3227 V.32bis Quarterdeck ............... Customer Service ...... 800-354-3222 Quarterdeck ............... Fax ................... 310-314-3217 Quarterdeck ............... Sales ................. 310-392-9851 Quarterdeck ............... Tech Support .......... 310-392-9701 Quarterdeck ............... Tech Support - Fax .... 310-399-3802 Quarterdeck ............... Tech Support DeskView.. 310-392-9851 Quarterdeck ............... Tech Support Manifest.. 310-392-9851 Quarterdeck ............... Tech Support - UK ..... +4471 973-0663 QIC Standards Inc ......... General ............... 805-963-3853 QIC Standards Inc ......... Fax ................... 805-962-1541 Quick Link II SW .......... General ..14.4 Modem .. 714-362-5800 (R) Rancho Technology ......... Tech Support .......... 714-987-3966 RC Electronics ............ General ............... 714-375-3791 Ricoh Corp ................ General ............... 201-882-2000 (S) S3 ........................ ................... 408-986-8144 Samsung Info. Syst......... BBS ................... 408-434-5684 Samsung Info. Syst......... Tech Support .......... 800-446-0262 Santa Cruz Operation (SCO). Tech Support .......... 800-347-4381 Sanyo Storage Products .... General ............... 714-724-1505 Seagate Technology ........ BBS ....USA............ 408-438-8771 Seagate Technology ........ BBS ....UK............. 44-628-478011 Seagate Technology ........ BBS ....Germany........ 49-89-140-9331 Seagate Technology ........ BBS ....Singapore...... 65-227-2217 Seagate Technology ........ General ............... 408-438-6550 Seagate Technology ........ Tech Support .......... 408-438-8222 Seagate Technology ........ Customer Service ...... 800-468-3472 Seagate Technology ........ Sales ................. 408-438-8111 Sharp ..................... T/S ................... 708-759-8555 Shugart ................... Tech Support .......... 714-770-1100 Silicon Valley Computers .. BBS ................... 415-967-8081 Silicon Valley Computers .. General ............... 415-967-1100 Softlogic Solutions ....... Tech S Disk Optimize .. 800-272-9900 Softronics ................ Fax ................... 719-548-1878 Softronics ................ T/S ................... 719-593-9550 Sony ...................... T/S ................... 408-944-4323 SMC ....................... BBS ................... 714-707-2481 V.32 SMC ....................... T/S ................... 800-992-4762 Specialix Inc ............. General ............... 408-378-7919 Specialix Inc ............. UK .................... 44-0-932-354254 SPSS ...................... Sales ................. 800-543-2185 SPSS ...................... Tech Support .......... 312-329-3410 SPSS ...................... BBS ................... 312-836-1900 Stac Electronics .......... Tech Support .......... 619-431-6712 Star (Printers) ........... T/S ................... 908-572-3300 STB Systems ............... General ............... 214-234-8750 STB Systems ............... Fax ................... 214-234-1306 STB Systems ............... BBS ................... 214-437-9615 Storage Dimensions ........ Tech S Speedstor ...... 408-395-2688 Summagraphics ............. T/S ................... 203-384-1344 Syquest ................... ....................... 415-226-4000 Syquest ................... BBS ................... 510-656-0473 Sysgen .................... T/S ................... 800-821-2151 (T) Tandy Corp................. General ............... 817-390-3011 Tandy Corp................. Tech Support .......... 817-878-6875 Tatung Co. of America ..... Tech Support .......... 213-979-7055 Teac America, Inc. ........ Tech Support .......... 213-726-0303 Tech Data ................. Tech Support .......... 800-553-7977 Tech Data ................. BBS ................... 813-538-7090 Telebit Corp. ............. Tech Support .......... 800-835-3248 Telix Support ............. BBS ................... 416-439-9399 Texas Instruments ......... Tech Support .......... 512-250-7407 TOPS Support .............. BBS ................... 415-769-8874 Toshiba America ........... BBS ................... 714-837-4408 Toshiba America ........... Tech Support .......... 800-999-4273 Trantor ................... BBS ................... 510-656-5159 Trantor ................... FAX ................... 510-770-9910 Trident ................... BBS ................... 415-691-1016 Trident ................... Tech Support .......... 415-691-9211 Tripplite ................. T/S ................... 312-329-1601 *Tseng Labs ................ General................ 215-968-0502 *Tseng Labs ................ Fax ................... 215-860-7713 (U) Ultrastor ................. BBS ................... 510-623-9091 Ultrastor ................. General ............... 714-581-4100 Ultrastor ................. Tech Support .......... 510-623-8955 Unicore ................... General ............... 800-800-2467 Unicore ................... General ............... 508-686-6468 USNO Time of Day .......... BBS ................... 202-653-0351 U.S.Robotics .............. T/S ................... 800-342-5877 U.S.Robotics .............. BBS ................... 708-982-5092 UUNET ..................... ................... 800-488-6386 (V) VESA ...................... General ............... 408-435-0333 VESA ...................... FAX ................... 408-435-8225 Video Seven ............... T/S ................... 800-248-1850 (W) Walnut Creek (CDROM) ...... General ............... 800-786-9907 Walnut Creek (CDROM) ...... General ............... 510-947-5996 Walnut Creek (CDROM) ...... FAX ................... 510-947-1644 Wangtek ................... VOICE ................. 805-583-5255 Wangtek ................... FAX ................... 805-582-8249 Weitek Corp. .............. General ............... 408-738-8400 Weitek Corp. .............. Fax ................... 408-738-1185 Weltec .................... T/S ................... 714-669-1955 Western Digital ........... BBS ................... 714-753-1234 2400b Western Digital ........... BBS ................... 714-753-1068 9600b Western Digital ........... France ................ 331-69-85-3914 Western Digital ........... Germany ............... 49-89-922006-60 Western Digital ........... Tech Support .......... 800-832-4778 Western Digital ........... Tech Support .......... 714-932-4900 Western Digital ........... UK .................... 44-372-360387 WordPerfect Corp........... BBS ................... 801-225-4414 WordPerfect Corp........... Tech Support .......... 800-541-5096 Wyse Technology ........... BBS ................... 408-922-4400 Wyse Technology ........... Tech Support .......... 408-435-2770 (X) Xerox Computer Serv........ General ............... 213-306-4000 (Z) Zenith .................... T/S ................... 708-808-4300 Zeos International ........ Sales ................. 800-423-5891 Zeos International ........ Upgrade Sales ......... 800-874-2943 Zeos International ........ Customer Service ...... 800-848-9022 Zeos International ........ Tech Support .......... 800-228-5390 Zeos International ........ T/S Fax ............... 612-633-4607 ZEOS Online Graphics BBS... BBS ................... 612-633-0815 Zyxel Communications ...... Service Center ........ 714-693-0804 Zyxel Communications ...... BBS ................... 714-693-0762 S) 10.0 Acknowledgments: Thanks to the following people for their contributions to the faq: Carsten Grammes (cagr@rz.uni-sb.de), Mike Long (mike.long@analog.com), Cameron L. Spitzer (cls@truffula.sj.ca.us), John M. Grohol (grohol@alpha.acast.nova.edu), Jeff Abramson (jabram@ichips.intel.com), Ronald Geens (rgeens@wins.uia.ac.be), Paul Leslie Strople (strople@ug.cs.dal.ca), David Reeve Sward (sward+@1.EDU), zeos@zeos.com, Steve Rusk (zz96sr@sdacs.ucsd.edu), Arnoud Martens (arnoud@ijssel.hacktick.nl) and the many others who helped bring the FAQ to where it is today. =============== Ralph Valentino (ralf@chpc.org) (ralf@wpi.wpi.edu) Hardware Engineer, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Center for High Performance Computing, Marlborough MA