~An Upgrading Story

YOU CAN UPGRADE YOUR MACHINE - OR CAN YOU ?


This is a small but true story about everyday folk (or just 1 
person) who believes that he can upgrade his 386 SX PC to a Ninja 
486 DX without any previous knowledge of computer building 
whatsoever. 

This tale all began at the Computer Shopper Show at the NEC some 
months back. It began with a longing to have a 486 machine, without 
either being ripped off or spending too much. 

After much soul searching and numerous treks around quite honestly a 
very poor show, (not very many stalls there), I hesitated and 
eventually bought a 486 'green' (whatever that is) motherboard from 
'Simply Computers' with the proviso that I would not have to change 
any of my cards, you know video drivers and the such like. The board 
I bought was and still is a VESA board with 8X30  and 2X72 pin 
memory slots, but only 3 vesa and 3 ISO. 

This sounded OK. as my memory consisted of 4X1meg 30pin simms anyway 
and I didn't want to have any more expense just yet. So I bought 
this board and took it home. I spent the next week just taking it 
out of it's packaging and gazing in awe and wonder at my Ninja 
board, until I looked in the manual. There must have been around 30 
'jumpers' listed that do this and that and if it doesn't do this or 
that it does something else. So for the next week the board stayed 
in it's box while I made excuses to the rest of the family why I 
hadn't started the job. So being cajoled a little I started to ---- 
buy the other bits and pieces to go with it. A processor, a fan and 
heatsink, a new I/O card with a 16550 UART chip and a new 540 meg 
HD, all from 'Express Micro's'. 

So one sunny day in May, I started the job. I first Make sure that I 
am 'grounded' and  fit the processor, heat sink and fan. Remember 
that although the processor will go in it's slot in any of four ways 
there is only one right way and that is to find PIN 1, and put it in 
it's proper pin hole in the board. Pin 1 on this processor had a 
very and I mean VERY SMALL GOLD SQUARE at it's base, make sure this 
pin goes into the right hole on the processor slot... Put the heat 
sink on the top and the fan on top of that - it's easy. Make sure 
that the  power lead is still connected to both socket and machine ! 
Very important for grounding, the use of a small extension lead here 
came in very useful indeed, and remove the case. Then, carefully one 
by one I extracted all the expansion cards in the machine, removed 
the ribbon cables and Voila ! There in its glory was the 386 
motherboard ready to be taken out. So remove the screws that hold it 
in place, and slightly slide it towards the front of the case to 
disengage the holding lugs from the case itself. Remove the power 
supply leads remembering at this time that the two black leads go 
together when refitting, and that was that. A couple of minutes 
later and the memory was out of one and into the other.  

The fitting of the 486 board was easy, just the reversal of taking 
out the 386 board but the only snag I had there was the setting of 
the jumpers. The manual, although good, assumes that you have PC 
build experience but after a few tries - it didn't work. Hours 
passed, days passed, how the hell was I going to get this board to 
work. After calling 'Simply Computers' and basically talking to them 
for ages, it appeared that I would have to send the board back as 
faulty, so pretty *****ed off at that I try again. 

To keep the story short, yes I managed it - not without a few 
problems though. Initially the motherboard refused to give any sound 
at all, and even later on when I'd taken the system apart and 
re-built it changing jumpers on the way - nothing worked, apart from 
a small red light in one corner. No matter how I configured the 
board it just wouldn't go so after 6 days of studying the 'manual', 
changing the jumpers and 'phoning the suppliers (who decided that it 
would be best if it went back - because they had had a few 'DOA's' 
in the last batch of boards) I admitted defeat and reluctantly re 
packaged the board and bought stamps to the value of 2.35, damn 
postage is dear now, to send the entire thing back. 

Just as a last ditch attempt I telephoned a local supplier - 
Compu-Skills in Rugby, fishing for info. you know the sort - I tell 
him that I'm going to buy a board and can he explain how to fit it. 
So he tells me about the fitting, and on, and on and on, I think 
he'd had a pretty slow day up to now, so after 20 minutes I try to 
end the conversation and he says to me that I might just have the 
wrong type of memory 8 chip - no parity, when I really need 9 chip - 
with parity so in the end I tell him that I've got an old board 
(what a lie) that doesn't work either and does he want a look at it 
and the memory. He agrees ! So twenty minutes later there I am board 
in hand inside his 'shop'. 

I told you it might be a long story - anyway he looks at the board, 
checks all the jumpers and finds none in the wrong position, takes 
apart one of his showroom models, plugs my board in and...VOILA.... 
it works. Giving him my endless thanks and promising all my custom 
for the next decade, I rush home - plug it in and ......... Nothing. 

OK., felling pretty p****d off now I start taking the expansion 
cards out and....... Bingo..... I forgot to switch the power off and 
hey... it's now working. Oh joy of joys the damn things up and 
running - Award Bios, 4096 memory, run CMOS to configure peripherals 
etc. etc. Well was I glad or what - not boring you I hope - It's not 
everyday that I get to experience the utter depression of trying to 
fit a motherboard you know. Well I will cut it short here, the 
problem seemed to be one of the cards I had in the slot, to be more 
specific my hand scanner card. It is an eight bit card but I had put 
it into a VESA slot -  well it was the only slot left, how was I to 
know ? Anyway, I moved all the other cards around and fitted the 8 
bit into a normal 16 bit slot and everything works okey-dokey, so 
that was it, what a pain in the a*** that was, but you learn 
something new everyday and I'd learnt enough in three days to last 
me for months. So here I am now, running this 486 with an intimate 
knowledge of whats in the box  and one or two tips for someone else 
out there who's having trouble with getting a motherboard running. 
What about the salesman at Compu-Skills who you so skilfully conned 
into having a look at your board I hear you cry, - you don't cry ? 
Well after promising him the earth and giving him countless praise 
for his impressive skills I did go back today and keeping my 
promise, which I always do, I  purchased a 170 meg hard drive from 
him,  which is sitting on the shelf in front of me - waiting for the 
box to be opened again - is it grinning at me or what - I have  a 
feeling that there might be another story here - waiting so with 
that I'll close now and...... open the box.          

Mike Lubieszico         
