MY EXPERIENCES WITH COMPUTERS - ON THE TRAIL OF MORE SPEED

by Bill Wood: ws.wood@zetnet.co.uk

(Ed: In E-Journals 1,2 Bill related his early experiences with computers from the Commodore range through his first PCs. He now takes up the story from where he left off last time.)

In October 1998 I was given a Cyrix 686/200 CPU, only slightly faster than the AMD K5/166, so I was off again on the upgrade trail.

I decided to install a new Shuttle Spacewalker motherboard as it was considered the most suitable for use with this CPU. It was fitted with 16 Mb EDO RAM initially. Mistake No 1 - these chips should be inserted in pairs, so it was back to 2 x 8Mb chips. The hard disk was upgraded to a Western Digital 8.4 Gb. that will probably never require to be replaced in my time. The S3 graphics card was upgraded to an AGP S3 Trio with 4Mb RAM. The sound card was replaced with a Sound Blaster AWE32 and the modem replaced with a 56K PCI data/fax.

After a thorough check that all jumpers and connections were correct it was switch on time - all went well so it was now time to install an operating system. The new hard disk was formatted as one drive, and Windows 95 Version b with USB support was duly installed. The AGP graphics card behaved beautifully. There was no fiddling around and reverting back to the old S3 graphics card as had been anticipated, in view of the problems experienced by an earlier contributor. Installation of the drivers was straightforward.

As the system was now up and running on the 2 x 8Mb chips, a further 16 Mb EDO chip was purchased and the 2 x 16 Mb EDO chips inserted. The BIOS was now showing correctly 32Mb. Wow! 32Mb Ram, this should be great so I thought. Windows 95 should really fly. The result of this part of the upgrade only led to frustration - Windows became unstable and would come up with the message "It is now safe to switch off your Computer" or just simply close down and restart. There appeared to be no logical reason for this behaviour. Again there was much searching and scratching of the head and a walk outside for more fresh air and a cigarette. It was time to reflect on what had been done and what was to be the next move.

You may recall when Bill Ritchie was doing an upgrade how his dog must have thought it had won the Lottery. I do not have a dog, but I must admit to spending more time outside for a cigarette and pondering the question, 'What now?'

Although the system was undoubtedly flaky I made do. Due to circumstances beyond my control I could not afford the time to investigate the likely cause of the problem. When time permitted I decided to reformat the hard disk just in case my problem was being caused by some piece of software.
(Ed: Why, Oh Why, does everyone think formatting the hard disk is the first thing to do. This is the most destructive thing to do and should be the last thing contemplated. If a help line tells you to do this when they first speak to you then save your telephone money. They have no idea what your problem is, just want to get you off the phone and are hoping the problem will go away.)
The intention was to reinstall Windows 95 followed by MS Office 97, testing each part as I went along, this was not to be as I just could not get passed the Winsetup dialogue box telling me that there was an error and that the System would close.

The computer was eventually stripped down leaving only the hard disk, 1 x 3.5 floppy, CD-ROM and graphics card. Once again the hard disk was reformatted ready to install the operating system. The result - Windows would not install. The only items that could be suspect were the CPU and/or the EDO Memory Chips.

At this point I decided to replace the CPU and memory. I purchased a K6/3D/2 300Mhz CPU and a 64 Mb DIMM PC100 memory chip. I checked the jumpers on the motherboard and installed the CPU and memory. Again the hard disk was reformatted ready to install the operating system. The result - Windows would not install.

The computer recognised the CPU and memory so why would Windows not install? It was time to go back to the drawing board. The 64 Mb DIMM was removed and replaced by 2 x 8 Mb EDO ram. Windows loaded. The previous experience of 2 x 16 Mb, which produced instability, was not tried but, when a 32 Mb DIMM was installed Windows would not install. The same situation prevailed with the 64 Mb DIMM. As the system obviously did not like high memory the motherboard was suspected as having a fault. The computer was stripped ready for removal of the board and a trip down to the local supplier for testing. The result of the supplier testing the motherboard produced identical symptoms and a replacement board was provided.

The next stage was to start rebuilding the computer - first off was the new motherboard with K6/3D/2 300Mhz CPU and 64 Mb DIMM PC100, the graphics card and 3.5 floppy. The hard disk was again reformatted ready to install the operating system. The result - Windows 95 installed without a hitch. Having cleared the first hurdle the modem was installed followed by the sound card. With everything fitted the case has now had screws inserted and was looking respectable again after close on six months with the cover just laid in position.

Now, with the machine up and running, I decided to purchase a Mitsumi CD-Recorder. This was fitted without much effort and I followed with the installation of the software supplied. To date I have not had a great deal of success with the CD-R, coming up with an error message of 'Possible buffer underrun'. Another CD-ROM wasted according to the manual. However, I have found that they can be used for the storage of files. If anyone has found the answer to this problem I would be pleased to hear from them, or if there is an alternative to the 'To Go' software please let me know.

I now have a computer with a reasonable turn of speed. Despite the frustrations of the last few months I reckon that, although I have said never again, I probably will! That is unless I listen to the words of wisdom from my Wife - 'If it ain't broke don't fix it.'
(Ed: Do those same words of wisdom work when the wife wants a new dress? Thought not!)

This is the end of my story which I hope has provided both a laugh and also made a few think - gee, I could do that. If I have bored anyone please accept my apologies. If you have bought ready built you will not have discovered the pleasures that comes when all goes well or have enough bits and pieces lying around to just about build another computer.

Ed: I have to admire Bill for his courage to build his own computer and for his tenacity at solving the problems along the way. I have always shied away from this course, despite the cost advantages, because I want a computer that works straight away and hardware is not my strong point. My first laptop came from Epson and first two desktops came from Viglen. I paid a premium price but two out of three worked out of the box and the third, which had a problem, was dealt with in an extremely efficient manner. Just recently I wanted a new PC and having decided that Viglen were charging too much premium now, (Alan Sugar obviously wants an easy retirement), I looked at the options. In the end I decided I still did not want to build my own but I would buy from a local specialist computer shop at a competitive price. I went through the usual turn on and install Windows 98 process fine. However, a day or two later the machine would not turn on at first attempt. Slowly the problem got worse. I decided to take the machine back to the shop and let them look at it. They could find no problem. When it was collected it worked fine every day until I went away for a few days. On my return it would not turn on again. When you have an intermittent problem like this it is extremely difficult to get a shop to do anything, especially if they cannot see the fault. At the moment I am working around the problem by not turning the power off at the mains. The point I am trying to make is you get what you pay for. When I bought at a premium I got something that works. When I reduced the premium I have got irritation in sorting out a problem. When you get the cheapest price possible, build your own, Bill has found you have to be prepared to expend effort and possibly extra cash to get things hunky dory. A more worrying thought is that had not Bill decided to upgrade the memory he would never have known he had been sold a duff motherboard. As we were so fond of saying in the paper journal, Caveat Emptor - Buyer Beware.

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