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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - Hardware / Software - What use for a computer with a broken disk controller? |
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HyperHacker Star Mario Finally being paid to code in VB! If only I still enjoyed that. <_< Wii #7182 6487 4198 1828                    Since: 11-18-05 From: Canada, w00t! My computer's specs, if anyone gives a damn. STOP TRUNCATING THIS >8^( Last post: 6310 days Last view: 6310 days |
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I just picked up a nice old computer, it'd be great except the onboard IDE controller seems to be b0rked. CD-ROM drives quit reading about the middle of the disc and hard disks just fail at random, when they work in other computers. So can anyone think of a use for it? Figure it could boot Linux over a network or something. 
It's got 256MB of RAM and a Pentium 2 at about 400mhz. Has USB, sound and network cards and a DVD-ROM. Even came with a TV tuner card. (edited by HyperHacker on 11-12-06 07:55 PM) |
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FreeDOS + Giant Red Koopa Legion: freedos = fritos  Since: 11-17-05 From: Seattle Last post: 6309 days Last view: 6309 days |
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| You you changed the cables? Most often, those are the problem, instead of hte actual controller.
With only 256MB RAM, you could boot a minimal OS over the network, though don't expect anything spectacular from it. You could also use a floppy-distro and turn it into a router/firewall. |
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emcee Red Super Koopa Since: 11-20-05 Last post: 6309 days Last view: 6309 days |
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| You can always get a PCI IDE controller. | |||
Boom.dk Since: 11-18-05 From: Denmark Last post: 6327 days Last view: 6309 days |
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| Many old sound cards have a built in IDE controller, I think... Anyway... As weird as it may sound, bad RAM can be the cause of disc read failure. I've seen it with two computers now (an old one with SD RAM and a newer one with DDR RAM), both with the same symptoms. We're talking CD read failures in the middle of a Windows installation (the disc was completely fresh and without a scratch), bluescreens bitching about ntfs.sys when reading from the disc, etc. I changed the RAM, and everything was good.
This may not be your problem, but you could try to take a one of the RAM blocks out (given there is more, duh). |
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FreeDOS + Giant Red Koopa Legion: freedos = fritos Since: 11-17-05 From: Seattle Last post: 6309 days Last view: 6309 days |
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| Hmm, if it is bad RAM, he could try testing it with memtest86 | |||
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HyperHacker Star Mario Finally being paid to code in VB! If only I still enjoyed that. <_< Wii #7182 6487 4198 1828 Since: 11-18-05 From: Canada, w00t! My computer's specs, if anyone gives a damn. STOP TRUNCATING THIS >8^( Last post: 6310 days Last view: 6310 days |
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| I wish it were that easy. Shoot, scratch that. It was the other computer whose RAM tested OK. I started Memtest86 on this one shortly before submitting this post and it spat out a load of errors right away.  I'm in a hurry though so I'm just gonna shut it off, submit the post as-is and go to work.
The specific problem is read/write errors. If I try to copy a CD to any hard drive (using a DVD drive I know works great) it copies very, very slowly. Copying the I386 directory on a WinXP SP2 setup disc had taken nearly 11 hours before I stopped it! (This was with both HD and DVD-ROM on the same cable though, which supposedly degrades performance.) Windows XP setup will get to where I choose a drive, and prompt me to format the partition. If I choose to do so, about half the time it quits at 20% (NTFS quick format) stating the disk is damaged. Either way, shortly after formatting (or choosing a partition if I don't format) I get random BSODs - BAD_POOL_CALLER, REGISTRY_ERROR, etc. No apparent pattern to them. I also have a second computer which I managed to squeeze XP into, and it's working nice except for one bug. I put in a PCI Ethernet controller (tried 3 of them) and it won't connect. Usually it says a cable is unplugged, while the LEDs on the card and router disagree. Sometimes it tries to connect, fails to get an IP address, and then says it's unplugged. The same cable worked great on my laptop. Of the three NICs I tried, one was from my main computer which works, and one was already in that computer and used to work great with Win98. Any ideas with this one? I suspect a dead PCI controller. I only have a sound card and TV tuner card to test it with. XP doesn't see the sound card at all (possibly because it's an old one, like PCI but bigger) and claims it has no drivers for the TV tuner which I'd believe.
[edit] Yep, it was RAM alright. I yoinked one of the two RAM sticks to test the other. Shoulda seen the pretty colours and funny characters Memtest86 spat out just trying to boot up.  Switched it for the other and it tested and installed just fine. I even found two more bringing it back up to 192MB, compared to the 256MB it would have if the second stick worked, pretty good I'd say. XP runs nicely on it, the video card is SSSSSLLLLOOOOOWWWW but hopefully I can get the PCI one working which is a bit newer.
The built-in sound card isn't working well though. (I gave up on the ISA card which Windows still won't see, given that the latest drivers are for Windows 3.1 and require signing up for 489657436587435 mailing lists to get, though I got it to make some interesting and very loud noises.  ) It's a C-Media CM8330 or something along those lines. No mention of it in the BIOS but it's there. It plays sound, but there's major distortion. It crackles as if the buffer weren't big enough. Playing with settings I got it to be a bit less noticeable but that just added a weird mechanical echo effect and disabled the volume control. It's as if the system's just not fast enough to keep up, but CPU usage only gets to ~60%, and this happens even with the WAV files Windows plays when message boxes pop up and such. The biggest tihing I noticed was when I have Task Manager open, it crackles quite loud every time the window updates, in addition to the constant crackling in the background. Also, for some reason it can't be muted.
I couldn't find any WinXP drivers so I had to use Win2K ones instead. Win98 ones also exist but it won't install them. Another minor problem I noted is it can't find my laptop by name on the LAN, but DNS works and it can find it by IP.
Also, yay Zoltrix for having such a nice website offering drivers, hints and related programs even for ancient hardware. And boo C-Media for making people sign up for spam lists (enjoy your spam, admin@127.0.0.1) just to see if drivers are available. |
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FreeDOS + Giant Red Koopa Legion: freedos = fritos Since: 11-17-05 From: Seattle Last post: 6309 days Last view: 6309 days |
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| ISA? I haven't seen a motherboard with that bus since the first Pentium computers
I'm not surprised that Windows XP doesn't support it; it might be somewhat surprising if a free OS supported it (old hardware support isn't too common). Definately find a PCI or AGP sound card if you can. |
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HyperHacker Star Mario Finally being paid to code in VB! If only I still enjoyed that. <_< Wii #7182 6487 4198 1828 Since: 11-18-05 From: Canada, w00t! My computer's specs, if anyone gives a damn. STOP TRUNCATING THIS >8^( Last post: 6310 days Last view: 6310 days |
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| Yeah, that's the term I'm looking for. I wasn't expecting much support for it. Shame because it's a very nice card. I'ma try the PCI video card in a few minutes, but I still need to fix that sound bug, since I intend to pick up a TV-out card and use this as a media center system of sorts.
[edit] I think that video card may be toast. I got it working with an older one (crappy resolution/colours though ), but somehow that seems to have destroyed the network card that was installed (Windows no longer detects it at all, another one works fine). Anyway neither of them are much more use than the built-in video since it's TV-Out I need.
Been playing with the sound system. The distortion is definitely related to video. Dropping the resolution to 800x600 15bit (from the monitor's native 1600x1200 24bit) signifigantly reduces the distortion. There are two sound devices listed, CM8330 and CM8330 SB16. The former has crackling while the latter has a mechanical echo effect (voices sound like they're coming from a robot ) and no volume control. Really interesting is that if I minimize the player (Winamp or VLC) the distortion gets a lot worse...
The sound seems to work just fine with Winamp with Create Primary Buffer enabled, using the first sound device, at 800x600, as long as Winamp is not minimized. I'm hoping this problem might just go away when I install a new video card. Of course, if VLC can't do the same, then there's still a problem.
Minimizing Winamp just causes some crackling until I bring it back. Minimizing VLC completely destroys the sound until I restart it. Just using 1600x1200 with 15-bit colour lets it play just fine for about a minute before it starts breaking. I'll have to poke at the BIOS settings and see if this can be fixed somehow... Pfft no. (edited by HyperHacker on 11-17-06 02:54 AM) |
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Sukasa Birdo Not quite as active as before. Xkeeper supporter Xk > ||bass I IP Banned myself! Twice!  Since: 11-17-05 From: Somewhere over there Last post: 6310 days Last view: 6309 days |
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| that audio distortion happens on EVERY single computer in the school library too. Probably a crappy product line., and not your fault. just get a REAL sound card.
Ad ISA? holy crap. Well, if you haven't, try looking for ISA drivers for WinXP, and don't forget ISA isnot plug-and-play compatible. |
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HyperHacker Star Mario Finally being paid to code in VB! If only I still enjoyed that. <_< Wii #7182 6487 4198 1828 Since: 11-18-05 From: Canada, w00t! My computer's specs, if anyone gives a damn. STOP TRUNCATING THIS >8^( Last post: 6310 days Last view: 6310 days |
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| Meh, I don't think I'll find or need any support for the ISA card.
Anyway I tried using a PCI video card to fix the sound issue, but no help. Then I tried using the PCI sound card from my other computer and onboard video. This has almost completely fixed the problem. Winamp plays perfectly as long as other programs aren't hogging CPU power. VLC has the occasional blip and messes up the start a bit, and still goes crazy when minimized, which doesn't happen on other computers. Still needs work, but it's quite an improvement. There are huge problems with any sort of video (~10 FPM and red/blue are swapped) but a new video card should help that. |
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