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COMPUTER BITS BY DARREN YATES Upgrading an AT computer to a 40MHz 386DX motherboard If you're still battling away on an old 286, now is the perfect time to upgrade your machine. Motherboards and hard disc drives have never been cheaper & we'll show you how to put it all together. While 286 machines seemed more than fast enough a few: years ago, they are not much good at running a lot of the newer software, particularly anything that is Windows based. And the standard 40-megabyte hard disc that's been supplied as standard for many years is no longer large enough for many applications. With this in mind, we decided to look at the proposition of upgrading one of our 286 machines to a 386 processor, together with a bigger hard disc. How much could be kept and how much would have to be replaced? The existing machine was in a minitower case and this could be kept along with its 200 watt power supply. The original VGA monitor and video card were also OK and could be kept in service. The existing 5.25-inch 1.2Mb and 3.5-inch 1.44Mb drives were OK as . well. From there on though, it was a matter of out with the old and in with the new. When we surveyed the market, we found that Rod Irving Electronics.had quite a good selection of 386 and 486 motherboards at very competitive prices. So, for this exercise, we chose their 40MHz 386DX motherboard with 128Kb of cache memory. It was priced at $425 plus extra for main memory. Depending on what memory you have on your old motherboard, you may be able to salvage it and use it on 28 SILICON CHIP the new one. We took the new broom approach and went for all new memory (we may want to use the AT board and its memory to upgrade an even older XT ~achine). This 386 motherboard only has room for 1Mb of DIP RAM, but it can handle at least 8Mb of SIPP packages and you can pick these up for about $70-$80 per megabyte. We fitted 4Mb which should be adequate for our current needs. IDE hard drive The next step was to choose a new hard disc drive. You can go two ways. If you're on a really tight budget you can jump to an 85Mb drive fora minimum cost. If your old 40Mb drive was crammed to the eyebrows, 85Mb will seem luxurious. Rod Irving Electronics currently has an 85Mb IDE drive for only $419. On the other hand, for just a few hundred dollars more, you can get a 200Mb drive and thereby get a lot more megabytes per buck. If you think you might need it and can stretch the budget a little more, you would be wise to go for the biggest hard disc drive you can afford. Because our old 40Mb drive wasn't an IDE type, we also needed a new IDE (Integrated Disc Electronics) card. These are quite cheap and you can pick up one which will handle an IDE drive and two floppy discs for around the $35 mark from Rod Irving Electronics. As a bonus, it also provides two serial ports (one 9-pin and one 25-pin), a parallel printer port and a games port. If your present AT machine has only one serial port, getting this IDE card with two ports is a very worthwhile bonus. You will be able to connect a mouse to one port and use the other for a modem or fax card. That pretty well takes care of the hardware but there are a few pitfalls to watch out for. Compatibility The most important thing when choosing a new motherboard/hard disc combination is to make sure they are compatible. The new motherboard should have the new hard disc drive's parameters listed in its BIOS setup program. If you're buying the i;notherboard and drive from the same source, such as Rod Irving Electronics, these details should be taken care of automatically but it is wise to check. If you are buying parts from different sources, check to see if you can get some type of return guarantee if compatibility proves to be a problem. Make sure that you're going to have enough time to do the job - don't start it at 10pm and expect to get it going in 10 minutes. If all goes well, you can expect the job to take at least a couple of hours from start to finish. If you run into problems, it can take a good deal longer. Removing the old board The first step in the conversion is to make sure all the power is disconnected so you don't end up blowing The parts used in the upgrade were a 40MHz 386DX motherboard (left), an 85Mb IDE hard disc drive & an IDE controller card. The latter also handles the two floppy disc drives & includes two serial ports, a parallel printer port & a games port. The parts all came from Rod Irving Electronics. either yourself or the motherboard up. After all, your old 286 board still works and you could use it in something else later on. Disconnect your monitor, printer cables and keyboard as well - you won't be needing them for a while. The only tool you'll need is a Pozidriv No.2 screwdriver - these are similar to a Philips type but they are a much better fit into the heads of Asiansourced crosshead screws. Hence, you. are less likely to strip the heads of the screws if you find a screw that's a bit tight. It's a good idea to write down the colour of each connecting lead and its function as you unplug it. Most motherboards have screen printed labellipg next to each connector to designate its function. You should be able to identify which of your plug-in cards are which. If you have an old MFM hard disc drive c;:ard, you won't need that any more if you've bought an IDE type drive. However, you may still need the cables that connect to your floppy drives. Label each cable so that you know which drive it belongs to. After removing the cards, disconnect the two power connectors from the motherboard, noting which socket they fitted into and their orientation. By now, you should have nothing connected to your old 286 motherboard. However, depending on whether you have a desktop case or a towerstyle case, you may find that you have to remove the disc drives before you can remove the motherboard from the case. In this case, note down the cables which fit into the back of the drives and then remove them. You should be able to remove the screws with a Pozidrive screwdriver and the floppy disc drives should then slide out. Be gentle with the hard disc drive - it should be handled with care to prevent damage. You should now be able to locate the mounting screws for the motherboard. Remove these and you should find that the motherboard moves freely. Our old 286 motherboard had screws as well as plastic fasteners to the side of the tower case. To remove it, we had to first remove the screws and then slide it in a certain direction before lifting it out of the case. Once it's out of the case, place the old motherboard in a non-static plastic bag and pack it away safely. Installing the 386 board Chances are that the holes in the new motherboard and the mounting points in the case will not all line up. Try and get as many to match up as possible. The new motherboard must sit as close to the back of the case as possible, otherwise the metal brackets on the plug-in cards won't line up with the mounting rail. Once the motherboard is in place and screwed down, you can connect the two power plugs to the board. These plugs are polarised and should be labelled and there will be labelling on the motherboard itself to indicate how they are connected. Installing the hard disc Before you install the new hard disc drive, you should find somewhere on it a reference to the number of cylinders (or "CYL" for short), the number of heads, and the number of sectors per track (or" SPT"). Write these numbers down now as they'll be needed during setup time. When it comes to actually installing the drive, you'll find that the mounting holes will match up somewhere along the slot in the 3.5-inch bracket. Your new IDE drive card should come with cables as well. The one for the hard disc drive comes with two header-style sockets. One socket plugs onto the back of the hard disc drive , while the other plugs directly onto a matching connector on the card. Next, you can fit the 4-pin power plug to the other socket at the rear of the drive. You can also reconnect the cables to your floppy disc drives as well. Before you go too much further, this will probably be the best time to reconnect the power and turbo LEDs, the loudspeaker and any remaining leads to the motherboard. Keep the cables neat by lacing them together using plastic cable ties. Note that the lead from the hard disc drive indicator LED plugs into the IDE card. It should sit on the two outer pins towards the edge of the DECEMBER 1992 29 you'll only have the IDE controller and video cards plugged in. If you have any other cards (eg, a fax card), make sure you plug these in as well. Check that you have all the cables back in place and in the right order. Don't worry about the connecting leads to the indicator LEDs for the time being, If they're not right, they won't do any damage or stop the motherboard from running initially. When you're happy that everything is OK, reconnect the power and monitor cables to the case but don't put the lid back ori or reconnect the keyboard just yet. Powering up Access to the standard CMOS setup is obtained by pressing DEL while the computer is booting up & then choosing the appropriate .option. You then enter in the date & time, the hard disc type, the floppy disc details, & the type of video card used. · Now apply power - you should see the on-board power indicator LEP light up. You should• now hear the · familiar click, click, click from tbe loudspeaker as the motherbqard checks the on-board memory. When it's finished, you should end up -With the ;s ystem configuration displayed on the screen (it will be incorrect at this stage); together with a mes·sage about the cache memory if you·r motherboard ltas any. · If the power LED or the turbo LED on the front panel fails to turn on, you. have connected it the wrong around. To correct the problem, switch: the computer off, and reverse the plug connection to the motherboard. ~ay B10S check We changed the system boot-up sequence in the advanced CMOS setup but, as a general rule, you can just use the default settings. board. If that lead uses red and white wires, the red wire should go to the outer pin. If you can't identify the polarities of the leads from the LEDs, connect them to the motherboard anyway. If need be, they can be corrected later. Now install the video and IDE cards into suitable slots on the motherboard 30 SILICON CHIP (it doesn't matter which ones you use , as each card has its own address to ensure it receives the correct information). The sockets for the serial ports can now be attached to the back of the computer and the cables plugged into the matching connectors on the IDE card. If you have just a basic system, then Now that you have the new motherboard up and running, you need to check the internal BIDS settings to make sure that they are correct for your system. The way to do this is by switching your computer off and then on again. While it does its initial memory check, you will get a screen message telling you to press the DEL key to access the CMOS setup. While that message is on, press the DEL key, then select the Standard CMOS Setup option. You will then see a screen that's similar to one of the accompanying photos, depending on the BIOS program that's on your particular motherboard. When you go through the BIOS, you need to make sure that it has the correct drives listed. Usually, this will be a 5.25-inch 1.2Mb floppy designated as drive "A", and either a 720Kb or 1.44Mb 3.5-inch floppy as drive "B". You can change these settings by using the PGE UP and PGE DWN keys • . ~ FLUKE AND PHILIPS - THE GLOBAL ALLIANCE IN TEST & MEASUREMENT IP • •. • FLUKE® • • • J ♦ ♦ • 7 0 • •• . •. ♦ ♦ e • PHILIPS ♦ S E R I E S I I We've improved on a winner If you've waited for the next generation digital muhimeter technology, you've made the right choice. Now there is the new Fluke 70 Series II. We've made the world's most popular OMM's even better. At the top of the line, the new Fluke 79 and 29 blend high-performance features capacitance, frequency, a fast 63-segment bar graph, Lo-Ohms range, Smoot/Jing~, faster ranges - and affordability. 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NEW ZEALAND: Control Tech, David Reid, Sinus Enterprises, Dick Srntth Electonics PHILIPS • This lets you type in the specifications for your particular drive. Make sure that you specify the hard disc as the C: drive. Once you've done that, exit the setup and the machine should continue to boot up. Hard disc formatting This view shows the upgraded computer, with the 386 motherboard, IDE controller card & 85Mb hard disc drive in position. Make sure that all cables are plugged in correctly & that the supply connections are correct. but the BIOS will tell you what to do anyway. The next thing is to check which type of hard disc drive you have. Each type of hard disc drive has different parameters depending on its make and capacity. Most BIOS programs have a selection of disc types. Each hard disc type will have three important parameters: (1) the number of cylinders; (2) the number of heads; (3) the number of sectors per track. You now have to match the figures you wrote down earlier to one of the disc types on the list. If you can't find it, you should be able to find the option which says "USER DEFINED". ltS'-DOS Uersion 5.88 Fixed Disk Set«p Progra ■ CC)Copyright "icrosoft Corp. 1983 - 1991 0131 a,tlon Cirrent fixed disk drive: 1 Clloose oae or the following: 1. Create. DOS partition or LQfical DOS )rive Set acth.ie. partition 3. Delete partitfo11 or Logical DOS Drive 4. Display partition infor■ation z. Enter choice: lll Press Esc to exit FDISK 0 This screen appears when you type FDISK during the setting up procedure. By choosing one of the options, you can then partition the hard disc drive as required. Most users will choose to have only a single partition. 32 SILICON CHIP The next thing to do is to format the hard disc. If you are using a new IDE drive, don't do a low-level format. Instead, you should use the DOS utility FDISK. If you don't already have FDISK on a bootable disc , you can use the first disc from your DOS 4.01 or DOS '5 package. If you have DOS 5, insert.the first disc into the drive and then press the RESET button on your computer. It will now boot up from the A: drive and the DOS disc. After a short time, the DOS Install Setup program will appear on rthe screen. Press the F3 key to get out ;mf the program and return to the 'A> prompt. Now type FDISK and press <return>. Once FDISK has loaded in, you'll be presented with various options on partitioning the disc. Most u_sers will simply choose to have a single partition that m_atches the full capacity of the disc. When that option runs toJts · completion, you should see the hard disc LED flash on a couple of times. The hard disc is now ready to be formatted. With your DOS 5 disc still in, you can restart the computer and run through the DOS installation program. As it goes through, you'll get to a point where the setup program says it can't copy DOS to the hard disc 'because it hasn't been formatted. Select the option which says '.'format partition" and press return. This will automatically format the hard disc and then load on the rest of DOS 5 onto the disc. Once it has "finished, you should be able to remove the floppy disc, and reboot the machine from the hard disc to the DOS Shell. You can then load in all your normal i;oftware and enjoy the speed and convenience of a 386-based computer. Note: the prices quoted in this article were current during November 1992. You should check current prices with Rod Irving Electronics before making your purchase decisions. The upgrade described in this article had an all-up cost of about $1000. SC ·