While trying to correct an IRQ conflict I entered my BIOS and used the F5 key to reset to defult. After I rebooted I get the memory count and a message that says " press F1 to enter setup" BUT.. it just hangs there, and won't continue to boot. If you press F1 it gives the message " entering setup, please wait" but it will stay there forever too. I can't get into setup or get past it. I tried clearing the CMOS but that doesn't help. The battery is integrated into the RTC chip. I did find that if I unplug the Power cable to the hard drive It will boot farther but only allow access to the floppy. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm out of thing to try. Don't understand why setting the defaults in BIOS caused this. Below is the system description. (also tried removing all cards)

Intel P5-75 Proc.
" Premeire PCI ll M/B ( plato )
64MB memory
Matrox Mystique video


Thanks in advance, John

Sounds like when you cleared your BIOS you have removed your Hard Disk type. Older Bios types do not autodetect your hard disk at book up. You need to do it within BIOS itself.

Try hitting F1 as soon as it appears and seeing if you have and option to Auto Detect Hard Disk. Then when its done you will need to save settings and reset. This is how I cured the self same problem on a old PC of mine. Also remember to plug the Hard disk back in http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif

Well, I finally did get into the Bios and RECALL was correct. The Hard Drive info was gone. I couldn't use autodetect because this drive was an upgrade and the BIOS didn't support drives larger than 1 gig. So I have ti use the Easy Drive software etc. that came with the drive. ( western digital 4.3 gig ) Anyway, I entered the params and it finally loaded the OS. Now, there's other problems. If I put the sound card back in it won't boot. Just hangs after the "hard drive installed" message. It's and old Aztech sound card and the CD drive has to use it for the interface...I think. I know the M/B manual talks about two IDE interfaces but one is for PCI and the other for ISA. Would the CD Drive work if I pluged it into the free IDE connector? Afraid to try. I can live without the sound card but It seems I won't have the CD Drive available and I need that. The CD ROM is an old Teac CD-55A and the manual indicates it needs the sound card as and interface. If I upgrade the CD Drive would I need an IDE interface card? Can't understand why It won't boot with the sound card back in. I'm a little confused as to what settings I should use in the BIOS for configuring. The options are "use setup utility" and use " ICU "

Thanks for the response RECALL, any more suggestions are welcome. I'm thinking now that maybe I shold upgrade the M/B but then I don't think there are any boards out there that will support a Pent. 75mhz and have SIMM slots for memory. Don't really want to trash the mem. Thanks again.

Nope, can't use the CD ROM on the IDE controller. That's a Panasonic interface, and has to be run from the sound card.

Try removing the sound card and see if it will boot, and try to boot into safe mode. Remove the sound card and CD ROM from device manager, reboot and let it come up without them. Then shut down and try to install the sound card by itself, you have to load the sound card drivers before you can install or use the CD ROM. Then install the CD ROM, after you get the sound card installed and working. In many cases you'll find that no WIN 95 drivers are available for Panasonic interface CD ROM drives, only DOS/Win 3.x. Might be worth it to bite the bullet and invest in an ATAPI CD ROM, they're not very expensive these days. And they work on the IDE controller. The sound card will still work.

Plenty boards are out there that will support a P-75 CPU, just have to know where to look. I'd bet I can find one in under 15 minutwes, and a CPU to go with it. Here's where:
CSO (http://www.computersurplusoutlet.com) They usually have older Pentium boards, and often CPU's too. I saw some 486 boards and CPU's there not long ago...You might even find out you can get a board and faster CPU for less than you thought you'd get the board alone. I'd say under $100 for both. Pricewatch (http://www.pricewatch.com) might be worth a look too. And any board that supports a 75MHz CPU is very likely to have 72 pin SIMM slots too. Watch out though, don't go for a board with an Intel 430 (HX,VX,FX,TX) series chipset, they work great, but can only cache 64MB memory, so if you add more it will actually slow the system down instead of speeding it up.

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Thanks Pete, I tried the CSO link and they do have some older stuff but the boards I saw were for specific cases, i.e. Dell, Compaq. I did use Pricwatch and found a board+cpu combo for 137.00. It's a Soyo SY-5EHM and the Proc is an AMD K6-2 550mhz. Doesn't sound bad. This board will take either SIMM OR DIMM memory. Never heard of the chipset though. I'm going to think about this option. I could get a cheap sound card and ATAPI CD Drive for another $60 or so.

One thing I don't understand is the descriptions of the IDE ports for my current board. below is the M/B Manual's descrition of them.


IDE SUPPORT
The Premiere/PCI II baseboard provides two IDE interfaces. The primary interface uses the PC Tech RZ1000 chip which resides on the baseboard's PCI bus; no PCI slot is consumed. IDE mode-3 operation is supported to maximize bandwidth between the RZ1000 and the drive, and the BIOS supports 32 bit programmed I/Os to maximize bandwidth between the processor and RZ1000. A secondary IDE interface is implemented on the ISA bus using the SMC 37C665. Type F DMA access to this device is supported by the system BIOS. The system BIOS supports Logical Block Addressing on both IDE interfaces.


What would you connect to the IDE ISA port? Wouldn't anything connected to that run very slow?


Thanks again guys.

John DeSantis

That CSO link is just what I have been looking for. Thanx http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/cool.gif

The ISA IDE port is probably the secondary IDE channel, where the CD ROM usually goes if it's ATAPI. Hard drives can be connected there too, but will not have the same support as on the primary channel, newer ATA-66 UDMA drives would show reduced performance, or might not be compatible with this interface, I'm not sure which. Not fully informed on newer interfaces. I would stick to CD ROM for that channel, it's data transmission rate is within the capabilities of this channel.

Check CSO again, a couple weeks ago they had a motherboard and 500MHz CPU for around $339, I think it was, and sounded pretty good. Might have a CD ROM cheap too. They often have older units at great prices, and I'll go for a 24X or below every time, due to the quicker spin-up time. Using a 16X now, and love it, only takes a second to spin up, while the newer 40X and up take 5 seconds or more. That adds to the time it takes to open Windows Explorer, since it won't open till it knows whether data is on the CD ROM to be displayed. Other programs will sometimes act the same.

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If you had everything...Where would you put it?

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