Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!bwdls58!mlord
From: mlord@bwdls58.bnr.ca (Mark Lord)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: floppy drive problems
Keywords: floppy failures
Message-ID: <3974@bwdls58.UUCP>
Date: 23 Aug 90 21:20:21 GMT
References: <1990Aug23.044922.23723@midway.uchicago.edu>
Sender: mlord@bwdls58.UUCP
Reply-To: mlord@bwdls58.bnr.ca (Mark Lord)
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 32

In article <1990Aug23.044922.23723@midway.uchicago.edu> veve@quads.uchicago.edu (jack lewis vevea) writes:
>I would appreciate any ideas from hardware aces about what might
>be the problem here.  I have a 10-month old AT clone, 640k, 80-meg
>Seagate, high-density 5-1/4 and 3-1/2 inch floppies.  Since I
>acquired the machine, the floppies have frequently been subject
>to seemingly random failures (during format, copy, or backup) that
>require rebooting.  The failures occur frequently enough that I have
>been unable to back up the hard drive, which, needless to say,
>leaves me a bit insecure.

I once had a machine with similar symptoms.  

The problem turned out to be the 10Mhz motherboard..  It was functionally ok,
but the design ran the expansion bus at 10Mhz also.  Since most add-on cards,
such as disk controllers etc.. are designed for a 6Mhz or 8Mhz bus, problems
would happen every now and then.  

The floppy disk controller was the ONLY card I had which would not work
reliably at the high speed.  The hard drive controller, on the same card,
worked just fine.  Strange, eh.

If your machine has a SLOW speed mode (as opposed to the faster TURBO mode),
then switch it to slow speed and try again.  If everything works, then this
may be the problem.  A different motherboard DESIGN is required (or a disk
controller that can keep up with a fast bus).

Have fun.
-- 
 ___Mark S. Lord__________________________________________
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