Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!edsews!einstein!cirian
From: cirian@einstein.eds.com (Steve Cirian)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: 386 upgrade
Message-ID: <353@einstein.eds.com>
Date: 15 Feb 91 22:42:57 GMT
References: <5772@swi.swi.psy.uva.nl>
Organization: EDS/TSD - Troy, MI
Lines: 83

In article <5772@swi.swi.psy.uva.nl>, stolk@swi.psy.uva.nl (Stolk Bram) writes:
/ 
/ 	-1- My Harddisk was a lot slower (3 times) on the 386.
/ 	    this was because in my XT the controller could run at
/ 	    interleave 1:3, now in my AT it requires 1:6. How come?
/ 	    I thought interleave was effected by controller only.

The interleave works like this:  with an interleave of 1:3, the processor gets
a piece of information, and then requires 3 more spins of the disk to process
it.  With a faster processor, it can process the piece of info in only the time 
it takes for one spin of the drive (1:1 interleave).  With the move to a faster
processor (386), you should be able to bump up the interleave to 1:1 (or
whatever the HD controller supports).  A question for you:  what made it 
necessary to drop the interleave down to 1:6?  Was it a failure at the better
interleave rate?

/ 
/         -2- This one is real weird: I had 2 drives: A & B. Drive B 
/ 	    only worked when the baydoor of A was closed! And mind:
/ 	    I did not give the drives the same designation! A's LED
/ 	    went on at 'A:' and B's on 'B:'. Maybe this was caused
/ 	    by the fact that I could not find a terminating resistor
/ 	    on my Toshiba 3.5' drive.

It's possible, I'm not sure about this one.  There might possibly be a problem
with your drive controller, if your hard drive and floppies are both acting
flakey.  What type of controller is it, and does it support both the HD and
FD's?  Was this setup working before you installed the new motherboard?  
Doublecheck the BIOS setup, and see if the floppies are properly defined.

/ 
/         -3- The RAM-check at start up counts upto 640K, while I have 1MB.
/ 	    Norton SI reports: 0K extended. Although I do have a fine
/ 	    working BIOS-shadow. Even if I disable shadow: still no extended
/ 	    memory.

The BIOS checks the memory as follows:  a max of 640K conventional, and then
from 1MB on up as extended/expanded.  The extra 360K in between is called high
memory, and does not usually show up during the memory check.  It can not be
defined as extended/expanded (at least without special drivers).  The high 
memory can be used for shadow BIOS, etc, even though it is not defined as 
extended.  In fact, I think if you were able to define it as extended, that
having the video and/or system BIOS mapped to this area would not be a good
idea (i.e.- what happens when a program writes over this area in memory?  The
high memory is normally not accessable by programs, unless a special driver is
used to define this as extended memory, in which case you would want to disable
shadow RAM).

/ 
/         -4- My Modem refuses to work, I tried all IORQ's and COM's.
/ 	    Although my scanner/adlib/....etc all worked fine

I need more info on this one.  What type of modem, what comm software are you
using, does Norton (you mentioned it above) show any conflicts in IRQs, what
lights come on when you turn the modem on, what happens when you try to dial 
using your comm 'ware, what is your initialization string?

/ 
/         -5- My EGA had difficulty keeping up the pace, when in graphicmode.
/ 	    It distortes some pixels when running at 33MHz. Is this because
/ 	    my wait states are chosen to operate my 80ns main memory? Or
/ 	    is the speed for my EGA-memory independed from mainboard?
/ 

With 80ns memory, you should probably be running 0 wait states, but this should
not have much to do with the video board.  What brand of board is it?  I would 
check the doco that came with it to see what the maximum bus speed the card will
operate at is.  The 386/33 probably runs its bus at 10MHz or higher.  Older EGA
cards may not support this speed.  I think it is possible to change the bus 
speed, as well as the processor speed,  on this type of motherboard, but I am
not sure how.  Consult the doco that came with the motherboard.

Good luck,


Steve Cirian


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