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I took my case out of storage and opened it up to begin checking out the power supply. I discovered that the power supply had been wired incorrectly to the power switch (both neural lines were connected correctly, but the brown and black wires for power were swapped. This would have resulted in another exploded case if I had plugged it in and turned it on as-is). I fixed the wiring, then got out my old 100MB Seagate hard drive (which used to be installed in my current system before I upgraded to a 540MB Maxtor) and attached it to an appropiate power cable. I then plugged the case into a wall outlet and turned it on.
Success! Cooling fan came on (very quiet) and hard drive spun up. The front panel LED's came on, though the only meaningful one was the power light. I turned the system off and removed the 100MB hard drive.
Although I won't have my CPU chip until Tuesday evening at the earliest, I went ahead and started on the task of installing my new motherboard into my new case. This turned out to be a good thing as it was a time consuming job which means I won't need to go through a lot of delays just to test my new CPU chip.
One of the biggest concerns I've had is about ESD, as I don't have a wrist-band to keep myself grounded. But by working on a wooden table on a tile floor, and keeping myself in constant contact with the metal frame of the case, I was able to minimize the risk of ESD damage.
My first task was to work the motherboard into the appropiate space inside the case. This required tilting and angling the motherboard while sliding it around, while making sure that none of the components got bent or knocked off and that the board didn't get warped. Which was not as difficult as it sounds, actually; the key being not to use any force, but instead just gently push in the directions of least resistence.
Once the board was in place I had to mount it with the screws provided. While the case came with plenty of screws, there were of course no specifications on their size, purpose, quantity... It took some trial and error. Plastic pegs were provided that give the motherboard it's basic "grip" onto the case, but screws are necessary to hold it firmly. I ended up having to take the motherboard out (I didn't really expect to get away with only going through it once), so I could screw in some special support nuts (a screw with a hole in it for another screw to go in). After a few hours of steady, cautious effort the motherboard was installed.
After that, I had to hook-up the power connectors from the power supply. Power connectors come in several different standard sizes and shapes, and you can't fit them together incorrectly in most cases, so it's relatively easy to locate the correct connectors. But the wiring diagram that came with the case was still quite helpful. Then all I had to do was hook up the panel cables to the motherboard. This included the Hard drive light, Turbo button and Turbo light, Reset button, Keyboard lock, etc.
The final step was hooking up the cables to the motherboard. I connected the serial and parallel port cables to the appropiate parts of the back of the case and plugged them into the labeled ports on the motherboard. Then I attached the Floppy Drive Controller cable and the Hard Drive Controller cable.
Having obtained both my second 8MB SIMM chip and my Pentium 100Mhz CPU chip, I was able to install the chips into the motherboard of my new computer Tuesday evening.
I went ahead and powered off my old system and opened up the case. I removed my first 8MB SIMM chip from the Packard Bell, as I would need both 8MB SIMM's to use my new computer. I installed the chips into the first bank of SIMM slots on the motherboard. SIMM chips are pretty easy to install, as they can only go in one way (thanks to an alignment notch). The chip is inserted at an angle and then pushed into an upright position to lock into place.
Installing the CPU chip was even simpler. Lifted the lever on the ZIF socket, lined up notched corner of CPU chip with notched corner of socket and let the chip slip into place. Then I pushed the lever back into place. Simple and effective.
I also had to install the RAM cache chip module. While the motherboard came with the module, it was not installed. A simple matter of inserting it into the appropiate socket on the board.
I installed my new 2 GB Maxtor hard drive into Not-A-Cray today. Not having the documentation included turned out to be a trivial inconvenience, thanks to the documentation on Maxtor's homepage. I did have to unplug the power cable for the tape drive to be able to give power to the new hard drive, though.
After placing the new drive in its 3.5" bay and bolting it in place, I attached the IDE controller cable and power cable. The drive's jumpers were set to allow it to be the slave in a dual-drive system. I had to make sure the CD-ROM drive was on the second IDE controller for this to work, though.
The Maxtor hard drive came with pre-installed software called "Max*Blast" which is basically Maxtor's hard drive partitioning and setup software (my first Maxtor drive did not come with any such software). With large capacity drives you need to either have a BIOS that supports Logical Block Addressing (LBA), or have special drivers installed allowing the computer to access the drive's full capacity. Fortunately, the AMI BIOS on my Intel motherboard comes with LBA support. I went ahead and set-up the drive as one large partition.
Date: 8/19/96
I'm fairly peeved at the limitations of my case. I now realize I should have held out for my original intentions in a computer case: a 300Watt power supply and 8 bays. Because of the smaller size power supply in this case, it is not possible to have the CD-ROM drive, two hard drives, and the tape drive installed at the same time. And I was even planning on adding a third hard drive. &LB:(
So I had to remove the 100MB Seagate so I could install the new CD-ROM drive I got. I'm going to need to buy a bigger case with a greater power supply before I can get the new hard drive I've been intending to purchase. *grumble*
This does teach something important: Think very carefully about your purchases ahead of time, and try and find out as much as possible about what you are buying before taking it home.
Date: 8/8/96
I decided to go ahead and add in my old 100MB Seagate hard drive into my new system. I haven't used it for some time because my old system didn't have enough power cables or bays to hold two hard drives and a tape drive.
Installing the 100MB hard drive required using a small adaptor bracket that came with the case. The mounting screws were a bit difficult to install. I've started to get annoyed with some of the short-comings of the case.
After installing the new hard drive, I plugged everything back in and booted up. The Advanced/EV's BIOS properly spotted the new IDE drive and configured for it. Now I have a 100MB drive to be dedicated soley to permanent swap space and temporary scratch files.
Date: 7/16/96
I had to remove both the floppy drive and the hard drive from my existing machine (the Packard Bell unit) to install into my new computer. I had already taken the case off to remove the SIMM chip earlier, so I already had direct access to the inside of the computer. I removed the bolts holding the drives in place, and unplugged them from the power and controller cables.
Installing the drives into the new machine proved a bit tricker than I anticipated, as I had to determine both which drive should go into which slot, as well as what screws to use to install them. I have a total of 6 bays in the new case: three 5.25" bays and three 3.5" bays. All but one of the 3.5" bays are exposed (aka "external"; meaning that there's an opening in the front panel of the case so a drive with removable media can be installed and accessible), so where to put the hard drive was a pretty obvious choice. But I then noticed that the speaker was installed directly underneath that slot. I don't particuarly like the idea of a magnet that close to my hard drive, nor does it make much sense to muffle it so badly. So I pulled the speaker out of its bracket and tucked it away in a nice safe spot away from the components of the motherboard.
I eventually installed the hard drive, floppy drive, and tape drive into my new system. A bit of trial and error was necessary to determine which screws had the right fit, and I discovered a metal bracket included with the case was intended to be used as a space, which I did. All the drives are now solidly in place. Initial tests indicate they are all functioning normally.
While my Samsung CD-ROM drive has continued to work without fail, I have noticed some erratic behavior recently. Occasionally the drive door insists on auto-closing after you eject it, and for no apparent reason I've had the system claim it couldn't locate the CD in the drive.
Whether this problem is related to drivers, hardware failure, or just a dirty lens I don't know yet.
Date: 8/19/96
The new CD-ROM drive I ordered arrived via UPS today. While it was packaged a bit oddly (the screws were placed in a spare self-adhesive shipping P.O. envelope), everything is intact.
First, I installed the CD-ROM drivers included. This way I could test
the drive on my first boot after installing it, rather than having to install
the driver afterward and boot a second time.
Installing the drive was slick. Inserted into an empty 5.25" bay, attached
IDE drive cable and appropiate power cable.
Plugged computer back in and booted. The CD-ROM drive came on-line with
no problem. I used a CD-ROM of my wife's to test the drive, and it worked
fine. Only hitch was that I can't hookup the audio connector for the CD-ROM
drive to my soundcard, as my antiquated SoundBlaster card doesn't support
the necessary connector. *sigh*
The speed is indeed impressive. Installing several demo programs from a CD took no significant time (less than a minute). Despite what I had read in my research, the drive is very quiet, though it does get a bit warm. Also, it comes with a handy "play/advance" button which can be used to play an audio CD without any software control. You can also use the same button to skip forwards a track. I'm listening to Iron Maiden's "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son" CD right now, thanks to a pair of headphones. I definately recommend this drive, though of course only time will bring up any hidden conflicts or flaws.
While the hardware installation proved simple, it took me several days to get all the software issues worked out. I had to download updated drivers for Windows95 from Creative Labs site, and then I had to hand-correct the settings the installation program screwed up under my DOS partition. I also had problems with After Dark 4.0 crashing or losing sound, but eventually I got those worked out.
Date: 1/10/97
After finally obtaining my new sound card, I was ready to install it. I shut down my system, then removed the case. I pulled out the old soundcard from it's EISA slot and put it aside. One drawback of the SoundBlaster 16 card is that it only seems to be available as an EISA card, so you don't get the performance edge of a PCI interface (and techincally, my motherboard performs better with no EISA/ISA cards installed). I'm not sure if a PCI version of this particular sound card is even available.
After plugging in the new sound card, I plugged in the CD audio cable that came with my CD-ROM drive. This allows the music from audio CD's played on the drive to come out of the soundcard. I also plugged in my speakers and microphone. I then turned the computer on and after it booted, installed the necessary drivers for Windows95 to use the soundcard.
After adding on my new high-capacity hard drive, I was ready to go ahead and install Windows 95. I ended up copying everyting from the C drive to the new D drive, then re-partitioning and re-formatting the C drive to allow for the installation of multiple Operating Systems.
The details of the process, which took sometime to complete, will not be documented here. I'm only focusing on the hardware with these pages. I will just say that eventually I did get OS/2 Warp and Windows95 installed and functioning. I had Linux installed for a time but opted to remove it until I can get a more up-to-date version.
After finally receiving the 512 KB COAST module I ordered from Aberdeen, I held off installing it until I completed some tasks I was doing with my PC. I then shut the system off and unplugged the power cord.
I had to remove the existing COAST module from the PC in order to install the new one. COAST modules don't use any sort of locking mechanism (unlike SIMM sockets or ZIF CPU sockets), so pulling one out is a bit tricky. Once I removed the old chip, I inserted the new COAST module. I then plugged the power cord back in and powered on my system.
While the computer came on and the drives spun up as normal, nothing else happened. I didn't get the usual video BIOS display from my video card, and after several moments powered the PC off. I checked the chip to make sure it was properly seated completely, then tried again.
In all, I did over a dozen checks and was never able to get the module to work. Not only did my system not boot, I didn't even get any error beeps from the motherboard (which is capable of detecting quite a few hardware configuration errors). I did end up testing the module in a friend's system the next day (by request of the tech I spoke to at Aberdeen) and his system had no problem booting. Whether the module was active or not, however, we were unable to determine.
At this point, I'm preparing to send the module back to Aberdeen and get a replacement. If that doesn't work, I'm probably going to sell it to my friend at cost and try and get the upgrade from somewhere else.
Date: 2/20/97
Once I received my memory (two 16 MB 60ns SIMM chips), it took almost no time to install it. I simply shut my system off, unplugged it, and then inserted the two new modules in their SIMM sockets (making sure the notches were lined up correctly).
I then plugged my computer back in and turned it on. The AMI BIOS immediately and accurately detected the new memory. I strongly recommend using a modern BIOS in any computer, if not just to ease installs such as this.
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