Putting an old pc together
 

Hello again. Im in the process of putting an old computer back together for my brother, but im having a bit of a problem. I have everything hooked up right i think, but im getting an error during startup. Its simple and to the point: No Rom Basic, System Halted. Im not sure what this means. I have the cd rom plugged into the secondary ide spot, and the floppy in the floppy spot. Im a little curious as to where the Hard Drive goes. I put it in the Primary connection spot, but im not sure if this is right. I really don't see anywhere else it could go. I have the ram in there, and the video and soundcards too. So i guess i need a little help.

I think you need to flash your BIOS. Sounds like it completely erased.

(SSJ4 Gogitta... you forgot to mention, how... :p)
It sounds like the ROM was previously flashed with the wrong ROM image, and the BIOS is resorting to the read-only section that can only handle a very limited set of things (none of which include booting the computer). I can't remember what it's called off the top of my head, but is the floppy drive doing anything? Usually, with Award BIOSes, it'll run the boot routine off a very properly formatted and automated boot floppy - it'll show nothing on-screen. The computer will boot and run the routine in AUTOEXEC.BAT, but has to be 100% automated, flashing and all. On AMI BIOSes, the BIOS will re-flash itself by running the flasher program off the floppy (no boot). Either way, the first thing that will happen is the floppy will do something, maybe for a short period of time then stop. It's never happened to me but I've read it on a BIOS help page.

The second thing that could be wrong - I think I've seen this message before - try different RAM/video card. If the BIOS wasn't flashed ever (or is unflashable for some old ones), then this must be the case. If the BIOS was toast, the computer wouldn't even make so much as a beep. Nothing... zip. So, try these, and get back to us :)

I really should work at a tech support place :D

I decided to go tinkering in the computer setup options. I just had to get the pc to recognize the hardrive, and ask for a boot record. I put in my installation disk, and it worked. So the problem was actually really simple. Anyway, i still need to swap cd rom drives because the one thats in there now is SLOW! Its about ten years old i think. The system specs are nothing special.
Pentium 2 266
64 MB Ram
32 Mb TNT2 video
Sblive value
I just have to pop a network card in there and my brother will have broadband, but thats all he really wanted anyway.

theres something fun about working on "old" pcs, probably the same feeling people get working on old cars or something.

AACK! That's what the problem was! I knew I recognized that error! *slaps self*
Alright, maybe I do need to work a bit before I take up that tech support job ;)

I also love working on old PCs - try a 12MHz Tandy 1000TX - 286 CPU, no HD, 720kb floppy drive, 800kb RAM (no extended, and the mem above 640 cannot be accessed by DOS alone)...

BTW, Pentium II CPUs are the best thing Intel has put out of its labs yet - I have a P2 333 (o/c'd from 266) that can encode an MP3 at nearly EXACTLY the same speed as my 1GHz P3 laptop (if not faster)... runs XP like a charm... ah, my P2 is so sweet :)
But my AMD Duron 950 could kick all their butts... hehe

Your best bet? Get a big hard drive, add 64 more RAM (total 128, that's what my 333 and my laptop runs), and run XP on it. Or W2K. Something modern. The CPU is not the limitation in the case of a Pentium II, it's usually the MB it's on that causes the bottleneck.

fix your pc!

Something's wrong there. Optical drive performance perhaps?

or maby hes encoding at 2kbps on the P2, and 190 on the P3... ..just a thought. :D

Nope, straight from WAV using Cool Edit Pro 2.0. I NEVER do any CD-to-MP3 encoding directly. Also, the P2 has a 4gb HDD that's slower than molasses. That help? :)

(edit: No, same encoding: 48kbps mono 44.1khz 11000 cap, from a 44.1khz stereo source.)

There is three things wrong with the pc in its current state. It needs more ram, a much faster cd rom, and a bigger hard drive. It probably can't hold much more ram or a bigger hard drive, but i really need to get rid of the crappy 4x cd rom it has. Its horrible.

How much ram can i put in it? Will it hold 128mb's? Im not to worried about the hard drive space, because i won't be running any games on it. I already put Win2000 on it, but only because that is the only OS i had availiable. Should i expect problems with only 64mb ram?

Not with W2K, it should be fine with 64 to start, but any ram that will FIT in the thing, will WORK as well (should be the 168-pin DIMMs, right?).

Yeah, but my p3 has a limit of 384 mb of ram. (Or at least i think it does.) Im thinking that the motherboard in the older pc is gonna have a pretty small limit as well.

Ah... does it use 72-pin SIMM (2 sections on the contacts) or 168-pin DIMM (2 parts plus one small section)? The P2, that is?

(edit: 'cuz my P1 233 server uses the 168-pin DIMMs - top of the line at the time - and will take whatever I throw in its slots!)

Win2k will work with 64mb, it just wont work all that well. 128mb really is the base level for a system you actually use for general work/internet.

Sdram is pretty cheap nowdays (well, it's actually more expensive than pc2100 ddr when you buy it new), and most boards came with at least 3 slots. With a bit of luck only one or two of them will be filled, so you can add another 64mb when you find some. Look on local tech forums with for sale sections and ebay. US$5 should get you a 64mb stick. If you dont want to add ram, consider running win98se on it.

My P2-350/128mb mp3 box struggles a bit when you try to do more than a few things at once, but that's running xp (totally untweaked). With win2k on it, it ran a bit faster, but i still reached the limits of the ram without much trouble.

Old optical drives are awful. I've got an old hitachi 8x that i use for installing os' that i keep on my workbench, as that's about all it's good for. A liteon 52x cdrom should only set you back about us$20-25, and it's worth it.

[edit]falcon: as far as i know, there werent any slot 1 boards that used 72pin edo/fast page ram, they all use sdram[/edit]

They are 168 pinn Ram sticks. It has 3 slots, and im using 2 right now. (2 32mb sticks) I should be able to put a 64mb stick in there?

Oh yeah. Cram a 512 in it. Anything money can buy; the sky's the limit (though I haven't found the top of the sky yet :cool: )

(Edit: Atmo, I OWN a P2 slot1 board that uses 72-pin SIMM!)

Im still skeptical though. Why did the guy at circuit city say that my pc had a limit of 384mb of ram if i could easily shove a 512 in there? I don't think you could even buy 512 mb of ram back when i got the p2. It only had 32mb of ram in it to begin with.

What make/model?

Find your mobo (chipset) on here to see how much ram it can handle.

http://www.viglen.co.uk/support/Faqs/upgrades.asp

Forgot. Turns out I must've already sold it or thrown it out - it shorted out and I finally bought one that handled DIMMs. I think it was an OEM job, though. Maybe I can find it amongst my junk boxes. Maybe I'll just start a "weird PC component scans" thread :)

From the look of things, it can probably hold 128 at least. Its probably pc66 ram right? Because the p3 has pc100, so i figure the older pc uses 66? Oem pc world sells 64mb ram chips for pc66 through 133 computers. The 66 chip is about 15 bucks.

I do have a completely non related pc question to ask. On my p3 system, the one im using now, some websites scroll really choppy. Most websites i visit are really choppy and hard to go up and down smoothly. I just did a format recently, but this problem was there from the start i think. Smooth scroll does nothing to help the problem. This problem gets worse when im running a program in the background, like winamp or foobar player. This really should not be happening because it never did it before. I've tried resetting the internet explorer defaults but it still didn't help. Have any suggestions?

PM me. So far, 2 satisfied customers out of 3 (one still in process). USAF Computer Tech Support Desk at your service! :rolleyes:
...well, it does help to be a computer nerd in my spare time! :D ...

There's a PC66? :weird: Well whatever it is, it must work, since PC100 works in my 233MHz P1 server :)

Yes, you can run PC66 sdram in that board, as it runs a 66mhz fsb. PC100 should work too, as should double sided PC133. Single sided PC133 wont work in older boards (compatibility issue).

Could be video card drivers. If it's only happening on sites that use flash animations you could probably put it down to that, as they do use a bit of cpu time.