Hi - I just joined this list and thought I'd introduce myself before firing off some
questions right away. Even though I
am in possession of semi modern PC and Mac computers, I have an ongoing interest in
older machines - partly out of
nostalgia and partly out of admiration for how much can be done with so little (both
power and price).
Anyway - I just rescued a 386 from the dumpster and was wondering about its video
card. For some reason it is an 8 bit
card with both VGA and EGA connectors. I have what I "believe" is an EGA monitor here
and it hooks up fine to the 9-pin
connector, but does not sync properly with the card..... I see 2 images simultaneously
with one of the images wrapping
around the side of the screen. The card works fine on my multisync 15" monitor. I have
tried EVERY dip switch setting
and can not get this card to work with the EGA monitor. When the machine boots - the
card comes up saying "VGA mode"...
so I imagine there must be other modes in the card as well (hopefully EGA). Is it
possible that my other monitor is a
CGA monitor? (just got it for free too) There is no description on the monitor itself.
Also - the IDE drive in this machine has died - and I was hoping to use an old clunker
RLL or MFM or whatever it is that
I pulled out of an XT. Unfortunately when I put the card into the 386 I only get HD
controller failure errors... though
I do notice the lights on the drive light up. Also, when I try to fdisk the drive it
lights up momentarily and then
fdisk quits with an error along the lines of "can't use this drive". The old IDE
controller is still in there because it
also contains the floppy, serial and parallel ports. Unfortunately I don't know the
proper DIP switch settings to
disable the HD controller on this board. Is there a conflict happening between the 2
controllers that is preventing the
use of the MFM drive? Also - I found a proper BIOS type entry for the drive.... should
this be set up to the drive type
or to no type at all? The IDE/Floppy/Serial/Parallel board is a (C) 1987 Compaq
product.... but of course there is no
technical information available on their web site.
Thanks for your help - I'm hoping to give this machine to my father in law once its up
and running dependably so that he
has something to play with.
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