Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004, David Lane wrote:

> Sindi,
> 
> There never has been any consistency in older mother-boards being able to
> handle Windows.I have an older 586 AMD PCCHIPS mother board that handled one
> version of Win95 but not another,but ran blazingly fast with the one that
> worked.With Win 3.11 WFWG and DOS 6.22 it was a very dependable PC that
> networked well,ran most any game (16 bit or DOS) and ran a BBS for over a
> year with no complaint.The versions of Windows are not even consistent in
> how they run on two identical machines.The DOS foundation usually runs fine
> regardless,although that can give you fits.The point is,a lot of these old
> PCs ran OEM versions of Windows,tailored for them,and generic installs
> sometimes fair badly.It's a crap-shoot.Given good RAM,CPUs and clean
> connectors (don't overlook corrosion,esp black corrosion),they should all
> work with Linux to some degree.

The following might explain why two of our motherboards work fine at 
150MHz (Cyrix cpu, the sort that runs hot, with a large heatsink and fan) 
but either won't boot at all (start to boot, then a black screen with 
blinking cursor), or boot but no video (we had to move the PCI video card 
to the slot nearest the power supply to fix this - it worked in any 
position at the slower speed, why is this?) and then Windows crashed 
continuously at 166 (but I think it worked at 150MHz, however we were 
trying to make something for a version of AOL that demanded 166MHz).  The 
combination of Windows, higher speeds and thus higher heats, and older 
boards with probably dying components must have done it.  But linux works 
perfectly on these two computers at 150MHz, and not on two slightly newer 
computers that run fine in DOS.  An art not a science.  


>    Of course some could have bad resistors (esp power regulators) and
> capacitors.With heat and age anything is possible.One thing too that you
> might overlook,I've noticed that Linux keeps a processor a lot more active
> than DOS and even Win95.That has to translate into heat.Some of the older
> CPUs were not cooled that well.With Windows 95 (which a lot were made
> for)and the limited RAM of the time,processors didn't get that hot.Some that
> had nothing,under Linux may need heat-sinks,some with heat-sinks,may need
> heat-sinks and fans.It's only limited by how much you want to fool with them
> until you determine,it just isn't going to work,or you get them running.You
> gotta admit,it's more fun than a lot of things you could be doing (and more
> frustrating!........lol)
> 
> David Lane
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