Hello Jerry,
I would check to make sure the memory is seated correctly on both
machines. You may even go as far as pulling some of the memory, if it
looks corroded, or if it is sitting crooked or whatever. Chip creep is
common in the PC/XT machines, probably the AT too.
Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA
"Jerry J. Haumberger" wrote:
>
> Hi, folks --
>
> One of my dear old PCs is an authentic IBM XT with a BIOS dating
> from 1-10-86. Occasionally, the machine -- when idle from anywhere
> between a few minutes to several hours -- freezes up. The screen
> appears normal, cursor blinking, but without any ability to change
> anything with the keyboard. The original diagnostic disk indicates
> Error 102, which is a system unit/board error -- maybe. I've not
> seen a *precise* meaning for 102 (100 is normal; anything higher
> indicates an abnormality). All other parts of the computer pass
> the diagnostic tests, except for when I connect one or both of
> the ports of a dual serial/parallel card to a printer and an
> external modem. Thinking that this card was the culprit, I
> removed it but would still experience the occasional freeze; I
> even stripped the machine down to a bare-bones system and
> experienced the same thing. Odd thing about it is that as long
> as I'm working along with the machine, nothing happens -- it's
> only when the machine is idle for some period of time that it
> acts this way.
>
> Does this problem sound familiar to anyone? Any ideas?
>
> Also, on this authentic IBM AT (on which I'm writing this
> message to you), I've noticed a few times that the screen will
> go blank, except for the message "Parity Check 1; 60000 (s)".
> My understanding is that Parity Check 1 indicates an error in
> one of the RAM memory chips, but the error has only occured when
> I'm using Net-Tamer along with a certain WordStar-like little
> editor called "Edit.com" while writing a *new* e-mail message.
> Does anyone understand what the "60000 (s)" stands for, and
> whether it's possible for a program bug to cause such an error
> message?
>
> In both of the errors of these two machines, it is always possible
> to reboot and return to normal. It only bothers me that I can't
> figure out precisely what is occuring.
>
> Thank you for your suggestions!
>
> Jerry [o:--] "The" IBM AT/5170 model 319 [--^~---] 9600kbps/30M HD
> *1986 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| [ =====_] 512k RAM - 8MHz
To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message.
Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies.
More info can be found at;
http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
