Author Topic: Motherboard woes  (Read 44360 times)

Marc

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Motherboard woes
« on: October 31, 2014, 05:40:26 pm »
My Intel motherboard is on it's last leg.  The IDE portion of the board went out about a year ago rendering my dvd drive unuseable.(I run SCSCI devices, 2 hard drives and a cd r/w). and now it is hard to power up. I took the case off and shorted the start pins and after about 10 minutes of trying to start it I finally got it to run.  Am running it 24 hours a day now. I'm looking for a new board.  I need 2 pci slots (3 would even be nicer). I'm running EC/S 2.1. Can anyone steer me to a motherboard that will work? Will 2.1 run a wireless mouse and keyboard? Note, I do have a Fry's near me.
Thanks for any help. I have been running OS/2 since dos days and hate to give it up.

Marc
« Last Edit: October 31, 2014, 06:00:32 pm by Marc Bryant »

Pete

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Re: Motherboard woes
« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2014, 06:37:20 pm »
Hi Marc

I suspect it may help if you identify the Intel CPU in use as that will affect your mainboard selection - or are you intending to upgrade CPU and, probably, RAM as well?

Are you sure it is a mainboard problem you need to resolve? Difficulty "firing up" a computer is often related to Power Supply problems.

I have 2 eCsSsystems here using Logitech wireless keyboards http://support.logitech.com/en_ca/product/cordless-desktop-comfort-laser

These keyboards were supplied in a set with a wireless mouse that worked OK but both the Mrs and I prefer a wireless trackball as we don't need to chase a trackball around the (physical) desktop http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/wireless-trackball-m570

I do know that Microsoft wireless keyboards/mice have not worked with eCS in the past - not sure if the problems have been resolved - but I have not had any problems with Logitech wireless keyboards/mice/trackballs.


Regards

Pete





Marc

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Re: Motherboard woes
« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2014, 07:44:37 pm »
I'm looking for a whole new board with a new cpu and ram. Power supply is good.  It's the board.

ivan

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Re: Motherboard woes
« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2014, 08:27:34 pm »
Hi Mark, the last person that told my service manager that the power supply was good was shown that the 3.3v DC was in fact only supplying 2.5v.  We hooked up a new power supply and the computer worked as it should. I should add here that you can generally use the 'health check' in the bios to see what the voltages are that the board sees from the power supply.

As for a new board, there are several that will work without problems - just make sure any with uefi bios have a way to switch it off.  I can't say anything about Intel CPU based boards - we use and supply AMD processors but that is a personal decision.

The computer I am using at the moment has a slightly older ASUS board - M4A78LT-M LE - with a 4 core AMD processor.  It has 2 x 1TB SATA disks and 2 x 2TB SATA disks, 4GB DDR3 memory and there are 1 x PCIe x 16, 1 x PCIe x 1 and 2 standard PCI slots, all powered with an 800w power supply.  Unfortunately the built in lan chip doesn't have an OS/2 driver but everything else works as expected.

All I can recommend is that you start by looking for boards that have the number of slots you require then look at their specifications and what chips they use for lan, sound etc.  Once you have a short list then download the user manuals and have a good look at the specifications summary and also check what special drivers they use.  Almost any board that will run Linux will run OS/2 - eCS.   
« Last Edit: October 31, 2014, 08:30:47 pm by ivan »

Andreas Schnellbacher

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Re: Motherboard woes
« Reply #4 on: October 31, 2014, 08:48:10 pm »
Am running it 24 hours a day now. I'm looking for a new board.  I need 2 pci slots (3 would even be nicer). I'm running EC/S 2.1. Can anyone steer me to a motherboard that will work?
I will order this AMD one the next days: http://geizhals.de/msi-a88x-g41-pc-mate-7793-037r-a1074142.html

Before that, I looked at this Intel board (together with a cheap Intel CPU): http://geizhals.de/msi-h87-g41-pc-mate-7850-001r-a953906.html

I can't say that these boards work well. But from the infos I sampled over a longer time, I think they should.

guzzi

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Re: Motherboard woes
« Reply #5 on: October 31, 2014, 11:32:43 pm »
n my (limited) experience both ASUS and Intel boards generally work well wit eCS. As said before, get a board with either a BIOS or a UEFI that can be switched to legacy BIOS mode. Check which chipsets are used for sound and LAN and see if they will work with ECS supplied drivers. It never hurts to have an extra PCI slot, in case you can't get sound or LAN to work just slip in some cheap generic card that is supported.

Olafur Gunnlaugsson

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Re: Motherboard woes
« Reply #6 on: October 31, 2014, 11:52:26 pm »
Am running it 24 hours a day now. I'm looking for a new board.  I need 2 pci slots (3 would even be nicer). I'm running EC/S 2.1. Can anyone steer me to a motherboard that will work?
I will order this AMD one the next days: http://geizhals.de/msi-a88x-g41-pc-mate-7793-037r-a1074142.html

Before that, I looked at this Intel board (together with a cheap Intel CPU): http://geizhals.de/msi-h87-g41-pc-mate-7850-001r-a953906.html

I can't say that these boards work well. But from the infos I sampled over a longer time, I think they should.

Would he not be better off with a AMD board with a AM3+ socket? under eCS the GPU portion of the FM chip is kind of wasted and you can get a faster AM3+ or FX with an AM3+ pin layout than a comparable FM1/FM2 chip. A cheap GPU card would be a better buy ....

A cheap 760 board  like:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-760ga-p43-(fx)-amd-760g-s-am3plus-ddr3-sata-iii-6gb-s-sata-raid-pcie-20-(x16)-d-sub-atx

Or even a cheap 970 board that is much more up to date if he runs other OS's as well:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigabyte-ga-970a-ud3p-amd-970-sam3-am3plus-ddr3-pcie-20-(x16)-2-way-crossfirex-atx

Andi B.

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Re: Motherboard woes
« Reply #7 on: November 01, 2014, 11:40:05 am »
I'm looking for a new board too. First thought it will be a MSI H87-G43 as my current MSI works well. But now I think I'll buy an Asus H87-PRO. Unfortunately it will take some weeks till I can say anything about eCS on it.

Marc

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Re: Motherboard woes
« Reply #8 on: November 04, 2014, 03:31:08 pm »
Thanks for all the suggestions.  Will go to Frys' and get the model numbers and d/l the manuals. I'm looking for a mid range to high end board as I run Windoze in a VM and need the horsepower. 3 slots would be nice as I'm have 2 scsci cards and a soundblaster card. (Sound in Windoze doesn't work on the intel board, in fact I'm using the audio drivers from ECS 1.0). What other lan adapter chipsets work besides Intel?

Dariusz Piatkowski

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Re: Motherboard woes
« Reply #9 on: November 09, 2014, 12:01:05 am »
I've been happily (for the most part...lol) running a MSI 880G-E45 with AMD Phenom II X6 for well over a year now.
 
Here is a link to the MSI page => http://www.msi.com/product/mb/880GE45.html#hero-overview

The board has built-in VGA, which SNAP seems to support

Some details pertinent to the PCI/slot discussion:
• 1 PCI Express x16 slot with x16 operation (PCI Express Bus SPEC V2.0 compliant)
• 3 PCI EXpress x1 slots
• 2 PCI slots, support 3.3V/ 5V PCI bus Interface

I use a 3Com NIC card, so no experience with the on-board NIC...but sound is fine otherwise.

Marc

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Re: Motherboard woes
« Reply #10 on: November 12, 2014, 04:50:58 pm »
I went to Frys' and spent 2 hours going over the motherboards they had and have narrowed my choices down to 5. 3 from MSI and 2 from Gigabyte.
The MSI model numbers are A88x-g43 runs a AMD pross. and uses realtech chip sets as both lan and sound. 84. USD
                                                     Z87-G41 PC Mate runs Intel pross. and uses the same chip set as the above board listed above. 109 USD
                                                     Z97-Gaming 3 runs Intel pross. a realteck sound and an off brand lan chip set. 139. USD
The Gigabyte boards model numbers are GA-Z97X-UD5H runs Intel pross. real tech sound chips and a lan chip I never heard of.
                                                                            GA-Z97X-SL1  Same specs as above.
If I choose the Gigabyte board I may have to get a generic lan card in case the on board chip set doesn't work.
I called customer service for both companies and I was not impressed with MSI.  Finally was told to push the F11 key on boot up to get legacy support.  Rep for Gigabyte said I should be able to change the settings in the Bios. Neither of them would would commit to whether I could get Legacy mode. Both of course have a UEFI Bios.
When I go back to Fry's I'm going to talk with the techs there (Maybe I'll luck out and find one that runs Linux)and see if they know.
I'm going back this Friday to purchase 1 of the above, but would like some feedback from you all.  If I choose one and it does not work I will go to  Linux until  there is a new release of OS/2 that supports UEFI.


Marc

Olafur Gunnlaugsson

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Re: Motherboard woes
« Reply #11 on: November 12, 2014, 08:00:09 pm »
I went to Frys' and spent 2 hours going over the motherboards they had and have narrowed my choices down to 5. 3 from MSI and 2 from Gigabyte.
The MSI model numbers are A88x-g43 runs a AMD pross. and uses realtech chip sets as both lan and sound. 84. USD
                                                     Z87-G41 PC Mate runs Intel pross. and uses the same chip set as the above board listed above. 109 USD
                                                     Z97-Gaming 3 runs Intel pross. a realteck sound and an off brand lan chip set. 139. USD
The Gigabyte boards model numbers are GA-Z97X-UD5H runs Intel pross. real tech sound chips and a lan chip I never heard of.
                                                                            GA-Z97X-SL1  Same specs as above.
If I choose the Gigabyte board I may have to get a generic lan card in case the on board chip set doesn't work.
I called customer service for both companies and I was not impressed with MSI.  Finally was told to push the F11 key on boot up to get legacy support.  Rep for Gigabyte said I should be able to change the settings in the Bios. Neither of them would would commit to whether I could get Legacy mode. Both of course have a UEFI Bios.
When I go back to Fry's I'm going to talk with the techs there (Maybe I'll luck out and find one that runs Linux)and see if they know.
I'm going back this Friday to purchase 1 of the above, but would like some feedback from you all.  If I choose one and it does not work I will go to  Linux until  there is a new release of OS/2 that supports UEFI.


Marc
The networking chip on the Z97-Gaming 3 is an Atheros chip, Qualcomm bought out the company and has been renaming the products with "gamer syntax", you should not worry about EFI, all boards I have seen come with a BIOS emulator, you might need to switch that on in the BIOS but most appear to have that automatic.

That AMD A88X board looks qewl, but who needs 8 SATA ports on a budget motherboard?

Andi B.

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Re: Motherboard woes
« Reply #12 on: December 23, 2014, 03:23:36 pm »
Ok, I bought the ASUS H87-PRO. Surprisingly eCS2.2beta installs without problems. Of course after disabling 'Secure Boot' in BIOS.

- All four cores of the i5-4690 are running. Or more precisely sleeping most of the time :-)
- Graphic works with Panorama. Have to try SNAP again. Installation with SNAP failed.
- LAN works with Multimac Realtek driver
- AirBoot was installed on the first HD which is a 2TB WD black. eCS is on the second HD a 250GB Samsung SSD.
- Can't get IBM Boot Manager to work even when removing the 2TB disk.
- 3175 GB from the 8GB are detected by eCS
- Reactor (why the hell do they choose such a silly name for a CPU?) widget shows less then 30°C - seems to work. This never worked on my current system.
- There is hardly any noise from the 350W Enermax Triathlor in the Enermax StaRay enclosure. But didn't any stress test till now

More to come...

Marc

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Re: Motherboard woes
« Reply #13 on: December 24, 2014, 03:55:15 pm »
I settled on the MS! Board.  Set the Bios to Legacy+EFUI (no secure boot option available). and tried to boot OS/2.  Got as far as the recovery screen, pushed F5 and moments later got the dreaded black screen.  Tried booting ECD 1.2 and 2.1 from the cd drive and got trapped out while loading the files in to ram.  I haven't had any time to play with it but my first thought is that I may have a bad memory stick.  I usually use Corsair brand but Frys was out of stock and had to use Viking which I never heard of.  I bought an extra hard drive and installed Windows 7 so I'd have a computer. (M/S always sends me a GA release of their software. They must think I'm a IT pro). After the first of the year I'll play tinker with it some more. Sure do miss OS/2.  Windoze is a pain, makes me appreciate OS/2 more.

Roderick Klein

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Re: Motherboard woes
« Reply #14 on: December 25, 2014, 02:34:46 pm »
I settled on the MS! Board.  Set the Bios to Legacy+EFUI (no secure boot option available). and tried to boot OS/2.  Got as far as the recovery screen, pushed F5 and moments later got the dreaded black screen.  Tried booting ECD 1.2 and 2.1 from the cd drive and got trapped out while loading the files in to ram.  I haven't had any time to play with it but my first thought is that I may have a bad memory stick.  I usually use Corsair brand but Frys was out of stock and had to use Viking which I never heard of.  I bought an extra hard drive and installed Windows 7 so I'd have a computer. (M/S always sends me a GA release of their software. They must think I'm a IT pro). After the first of the year I'll play tinker with it some more. Sure do miss OS/2.  Windoze is a pain, makes me appreciate OS/2 more.

When you provide a posting you realy need to provide more information if you want any assistance. Its not a garentee for a resolution but it helps to increase your changes.
Based on what you write my guess if that your system is crashing because the driver screen01.sys is making a call into the OEMHLP driver thats in the OS2LDR.
In turn the OS2LDR makes a call to the BIOS.... And a lot of modern BIOS'es do not support this call.

Do not worry more device drivers make this call into the OEMHLP function that causes a TRAP. Thsi defect can be fixed by

Installing your eCS 2.1 on an older machine and get the latest ACPI from Arca Noae. Then install that on the system and transfer the the disc to your new system.
I would forget trying to load even eCS 1.2 as the danis506.add is very old (heck that eCS version is 10 years old).

Also the OS2AHCI driver included in eCS 2.1 is pretty old and has bugs...

Roderick Klein