IBM XT (5160) does not boot

[joja]

I have an IBM XT (5160) which does a double beep after memory check. It than emits an error message and says press F1 to recover. After doing that I will find myself within a BASIC environment.

I have now the followig questions:
1) What is wrong if the system does a double beep after memory check?
2) As far as I have seen, the CPU is boarded on an 8-bit ISA expansion
card. May the CPU be an 80386, as these numbers are on the chip?
3) How can I leave the basic environment and boot from HDD?
4) Why doesn't the system boot from HDD (why not boot DOS)?

Thanks for any hints!
--Joja

[Paleo Pete]

The 5160 is an XT, 8088 or 8086 CPU (I have a 5160, it's one of the later model XT's) and it should be found on the motherboard, usually close to the keyboard plug. I don't think a 80386 chip could be made to work, it's a 16 bit chip in an 8 bit machine. I guess stranger things have been known to happen, but I doubt if it would work.

Two beeps: Initialization Error, DMA, ROM, Floppy, Serial or Parallel

From Here (http://www.a1computers.net/AB1.HTM)

I would suspect ROM memory, possibly RAM as well. Try this. Open the case, make sure you ground yourself on the chassis, then push all the IC chips into their sockets, and be careful not to apply heavy pressure, to avoid bending and cracking the motherboard. Socket creep is a possibility on a machine that old, that's caused by repeated expansion and contraction causing the chips to "creep" out of their sockets.

Also pull and reseat all expansion cards a couple of times to clean up the contacts.

That's all I can think of right now...I can't think of the command to get out of BASIC, try quit, exit, prompt, system...it's been a long time since I had to try and do it, scrambled my brain for hours...

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[vantim]

I am referencing "Troubleshooting your PC Bible fifth edition. And it says Two short beeps indicates a display error- display type switch set incorrectly or bad display adapter.

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Tim Jones MCSE