I'm having trouble reviving a socket 7

Darth · Jan 20, 2004

A friend of mine gave me a socket 7 system consisting of a sis 5571 chipset motherboard, pentium 1 150mhz (standard voltage), a bunch of EDO RAM and two old hard drives. When i try to boot this thing up, it stalls on the system configuration screen and it lists no Cache Memory. I've gone through the bios looking for Cache memory settings but i dont know what they do. can any old school overclockers give me a hand?

Mr. $T$ · Jan 20, 2004

Is there a little brown slot that kinda looks like a AGP slot with a noch almost in the middle next to the CPU?

Darth · Jan 20, 2004

no there is nothing like that i found out now that its an a very old MSI board based off the sis5571 chipset.

I disabled the external cache, now it gets past that system configuration screen but the computer will not boot off anything, not a:, c:, or cdrom

xb-70 · Jan 20, 2004

OOOO old classic stuff

, Do you have a model number that way maybe we can get an idea of what you are working with. The issue may be that you do not have an external cache card installed in your system. These were used before they had the process technology to fit a lot of chache on the actual processor die. This was frequently nicknamed COAST (Cache on a Stick). Any way here is a pic to help with identification.

(Credit Given to THG)
The Cache is the vertical card in the slot.

Darth · Jan 20, 2004

thanks, i dont have a slot like that. but i disabled the external cache and now i've run into more problems the computer refuses to boot off the hard drive, a: drive, or cd rom drive. i had it working with the a drive for a sec but then it just stopped... now its not booting off anything again. i think the IDE controller is gone.

Damnit, im trying to remember how i got it to boot off the a: ....

after i booted of a: , i couldnt access any fixed drives, again, i think the IDE controller is toast.

Mr. $T$ · Jan 21, 2004

This may sound stupid but some of the older boards don't have the wounderfull plastic guards around the IDE set of pins and if so you may have the cables in backwards..?

Darth · Jan 21, 2004

no im sure the cables are in the right way. im just afraid that they weren't before. Oh well, maybe i'll just get a new socket 7 motherboard off ebay.

xb-70 · Jan 22, 2004

If the motherboard does not have plastic "anti-error" guards you should be able to tell by lining the redstripe on the IDE/Floppy cable with pin one on the motherboard. The pin numbers are usually silkscreened around the connectors. Also do you have a digi cam a picture of the board would be really helpful (I'm a visual person)
glad to help
xb-70

coin · Jan 23, 2004

I had a quick flick through the MSI archive website and none of the boards listed there used cache slots. The links to BIOS updates are still active so if you can get it to boot to the A: drive again try a quick BIOS upgrade to see if that solves the issue. Try restting the BIOS and replacing the BIOS battery. I know the batery shouldn't affect the board once it's powered on but I have known a failed/old battery affect booting

I'm having trouble reviving a socket 7

Darth

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xb-70

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