May 24, 1995
The computer case I mentioned in my last newsletter is now filled with an 80 MHz AMD 486DX2 motherboard. It has 32 Mbytes of RAM, 256K cache, a Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM VLB video board with 2 MB RAM, and an enhanced VLB IDE/IO controller.
This system went together in January and made possible a three station network in our house. Irene (my wife) now has my 486DX-33 with 16 MB RAM, and our daughter Alexis has the 386DX-20 with 4 MB RAM. More details on these items in separate headings below.
Not only does the network work with the 3-Com cards, but we now have three computers tied together. Two computers are in our office, and the third is in Alexis’ bedroom. All are connected via RG58 coaxial cable running through the attic of the house.
As before, I am running Windows NT 3.5 on my computer, and the other two computers have Windows for Workgroups installed. Although it may seem superfluous to have a network in the home, it allows me to use my 4 mm DAT to do backups on all stations. It also allows for easy sharing of data without using the floppy sneaker net.
With the network in place, I have been able to try out various network protocols. It is better to experiment at home than to possibly break a network in the workplace. My job reputation could be adversely affected by the latter.
Having run out of room on my Seagate ST11200N (Gigabyte SCSI), it was time to add more storage. I considered the new Seagate Barracuda 2.1 GB, but is still was a bit over $1,100. Although this was close to what I had to pay for my 1 GB drive, I wanted to keep expenses down. The new high capacity IDE drives seemed to be the answer. In the gigabyte capacity range, they were about $150 cheaper than SCSI.
One of my vendors sent me a flyer advertising an 850 MB IDE for only $255. This was close enough to a gig for my needs, and the price was right! On calling them, I found that these were some older designs with slower rotational speed. However, I negotiated a Conner 850 MB drive for $259. It has a rotational speed of 5,400 RPM and access time of around 12 ms (same as my ST11200N). It is hard to really compare specs since they all lie in their advertising!
In the end, I now have a good working system and I understand how the different configuration parameters work. However, I lost 9 days use of my computer before the new IDE and the old SCSI coexisted peacefully. The story unfolds in the following sections.
Installation seemed straightforward, mount the drive in the case and connect it to the IDE controller. Right! The first problem was that the mounting screw spacing on the hard disk did not match those of a floppy drive. As a result, the drive would not “just mount” in the cabinet. I ended up having to make a special mounting plate out of some thin aluminum stock. This also required some low profile mounting screws which I had to make from by grinding the tops of some standard screws.
Next step is make the IDE connection and we are off. Off onto another adventure that is. I knew that the standard IDE was designed for a maximum size of 528 megabytes. Since my drive was larger, I knew something needed to be different. I did assume that the enhanced IDE would take care of the size problem. Don’t assume!
The Award BIOS in my motherboard has three settings for an IDE drive: normal, LBA, and large. The manual that came with the board only says that there are three settings -- no explanation of which to use! A call to the vendor tech support finally got me a fax of a page from another manual. This explained that normal is for drives under 528 MB, LBA is for larger drives that support LBA, and large is for large drives that don’t support LBA. Now why didn’t I think of that.
The Conner drive came with an EZ-Drive disk. This is apparently a software driver which handles large IDE hard drives. The IDE problem stems from IDE’s limitation of 1024 as the maximum number of cylinders that a drive may have. To handle larger drives, the extra cylinders need to be mapped into virtual extra heads. The 1,276 cylinders and 15 heads of the Conner would be mapped into 638 cylinders and 30 heads. Seems simple enough, but...
Installing the EZ-Drive software and setting the BIOS for normal made the drive work fine under MS-DOS, but NT did not like it at all. Setting BIOS for normal without EZ-Drive worked fine for NT, but MS-DOS did not like looking at the drive. I finally had to perform a low level format using an old AMI utility program. I set the utility for the true number of heads and cylinders. Then the BIOS was set for LBA drive type, and then NT would install properly and MS-DOS would still recognize DOS partitions on the drive. Nice thing about NT is that it does not care about the BIOS setting.
I mentioned in the preceding section that I installed NT on the new hard disk. This was not the original intent. I just wanted to add some capacity to my system.
When I installed the IDE drive and set the BIOS to see it, my SCSI controller refused to be the boot device. Instructions for my Adaptec SCSI controller show how to set jumpers to make it the boot device, but no matter how I configured it, it would always defer to the IDE controller. After many hours of trying every permutation of settings, I found the solution.
The SCSI would boot if the IDE controller was set as secondary. Not all controllers have that feature, but mine did. The only problem was that the secondary setting would work only through the ISA and not the VLB bus. You can’t have your speed and SCSI booting too!
Some ballpark test of access speed showed that the IDE drive was at least as fast as the SCSI. This may be due to the SCSI controller being on the ISA bus. Based on this, I decided to make set the IDE as the boot device and keep my SCSI drive for data storage.
Although I use NT almost exclusively, I still wanted to play with dual boot capability. I still own OS/2 2.1 which did not work out for me due to lack of video drivers. OS/2 does have a very nice boot loader which I wanted to use. To install the boot loader requires going through the process of the OS/2 installation. Since I was going to go through at least part of the long procedure, I decided to try OS/2 once again.
My copy of OS/2 is on CD-ROM, but it still requires starting from floppy disks. This must be one of the slowest procedures known to the PC world. An NT install seems to run a bit faster, but either one takes on the order of 25 to 45 minutes to complete. This slow process is one of the main reasons that my computer was down for 9 days before I got it right!
I want you to know that I did try to install OS/2. I even tried it several times before I gave up. It simply did not want to install on my new IDE drive. Since ironing out the various installation bugs on the IDE drive, I have not tried again to install OS/2. I gave up early on since OS/2 is not high on my priority list. I did get the boot loader to work for me though, and that was my original goal.
The nice thing about the OS/2 boot loader is that it does not force a pre-assigned drive designation. Under the NT multiple boot arrangement, the boot drive is always drive C: and the boot process simply gets diverted to another drive or directory for completion. I wanted to use NTFS (NT File System) for my NT partition, but Windows 95 does not support it(???). So to keep NT and Windows 95 as drive C: after boot, I needed to use the OS/2 boot loader. Nice product.
The "final" beta of Windows 95 arrived and I first installed it in a 100 megabyte partition of my new IDE drive. With the OS/2 boot loader set to allow a boot to NT or Windows 95, I could experiment as I needed to.
Installation went sort of well. The install locked up after trying to detect my network card. There was a warning at the beginning of the test that said the system may hang. If it hangs, you need to turn the computer off and let it restart.
On restarting, the install process detects where the failure occurred, and will not perform the test of that hardware again. Upon completion, the system did not have the proper configuration for my network card, The software said that the IRQ was at 3 when the card was actually using IRQ 15. Configuring the settings manually fixed the problem and I was off and running Windows 95.
With my new computer, I got a Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM VLB video card. On my 17 inch monitor, I found that under NT I liked the display set to 1152 x 864. It puts more on the screen than 1024 x 768, but is not so small as 1280 x 1024. More on this later, but problems came up with Windows 95. The system first came up at standard VGA mode.
In checking the video settings under Win95, I found that the S3 chipset was detected and the video driver was set to it. There was no driver specific to the Diamond board. Win95 configuration includes not only the video card, but also takes settings for the monitor. The monitor setting was set to a standard VGA. I tried to install the Diamond Windows drivers, but on restart the system crashed. Had to go back to VGA and then continue with the setup.
Selecting the monitor setup, I found Sony listed as a manufacturer, but only older models were included. There was no setting for my Sony 17se. I had to choose from the Super VGA settings available. The only choices available were 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, and 1280 x 1024. The 1152 x 864 that I came to like was not included. I selected the 1024 x 768 and got a preview of it. Ugh! The line spacing was terrible -- a sort of fuzzy image that no-one could love. Now wanting to go lower, I chose 1280 x 1024. The fuzzies went away, but now I need glasses!
By adjusting font sizes and the like, I have come to terms in operating my Win95 installation. Since this is only a test bed on my system, I won't worry too much about the display. I just needed to check out its operation and prepare to install the system on Irene's computer.
I don't mean the Microsoft Network which comes with Windows 95. The MS Network may be a good thing, but it is a toll call for me and I have not been motivated enough to try it out just yet. What I am talking here is my local, 3 station network at home.
My new computer is running NT, and the two other computers (my wife's and daughter's) are now running Windows 95. I did have some question about putting Win95 on Alexis' (my daughter) computer since it is a 20MHz 386DX with only 4MB of RAM. She likes it! The system boots just fine and runs about the same speed as did Windows for Workgroups.
The new interface for Win95 gets various reviews here. I don't see it as being that great. Some features are nice, like single click operations in expanding trees in the Explorer (FileManager replacement). Otherwise, it often is clumsy in navigating through layers of menus. I prefer the DeZktop (shareware) replacement to ProgMan on my NT system. Alexis, however, likes the new interface. Irene can take it or leave it, preferring to leave it. She thinks it is silly to be making a change without any improvements, and she does not see the new operation as any improvement.
Although you don't have to use ProgMan under Win95, you can if you want to. However, the new ProgMan has some quirky behavior patterns. If you select a group and then close it, the focus goes to some other group unrelated by location of logic to the one you were working with! Irene thought it was weird and irritating and I could not provide any argument for it.
While the network works fine, some programs running under Windows 95 don't do so well. I tried to install a Macromedia demo of Freehand. Install seemed to go fine, but running it caused a GPF, only now the GPFs are hidden behind a box that first tells you that "an error has occurred" in your application. If you select to get more info, it tells you that the error is a GPF and the normal info of program and memory segment causing it.
The GPF does not mean you have to reboot the computer. So far, I have found that Win95 continues to be stable after a GPF. Hijaak Pro is another program which causes GPFs, but it has been doing this for me for as long as I have owned it. I don't trust Hijaak, but it does perform many graphics conversions, so I keep it around.
You can exit the GUI shell in Win95 and go to a familiar "DOS" prompt. The VER command reports that you are running Windows 95 version 4. If you use Norton or some other program to query the DOS, you will get a report that it is DOS version 7. Interesting.
After having problems with a Logitech Sound board with Windows NT, I had installed a Microsoft Sound System in my computer. All was fine till I got the new 486DX80 computer and Windows 95.
I had found earlier, that setting my ISA bus speed to 1/3 clock speed (giving about 13 MHz) makes my SCSI hard disk respond much faster. Under NT all works well with this setting. I/O card works fine, the SCSI works great, and the MS Sound System sounds fine.
Enter Windows 95. It recognized the Sound System, but instead of beautiful sound, I got screech! After poking around the system, I tried changing the bus speed. When the speed was set to 8MHz (old IBM AT) the sound started working just fine. Must have to do with how the sound driver handles its timing -- it is not just a hardware problem since the card works fine under NT.
As I mentioned earlier, I now have a Diamond Stealth 64 VLB card with 2 megabytes DRAM. I chose DRAM instead of VRAM because it was a VLB which is only a filler till I get my Pentium with PCI.
Based on good reviews, I first was going to buy an ATI Graphics expression. However, there was much demand for the board, prices were high and availability was low. I found a good deal on an OEM packaged Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM which had performance ratings almost as good as the ATI.
Although the new video card is an improvement over my Diamond SpeedStar, the change was not as dramatic as I expected. The screen still takes a second or so to redraw. It is definitely not instantaneous. There is much more flexibility in display, however, and I do like the new 1152 x 864 resolution mode. It gives me more room on the desktop without making everything so small as it is in the 1280 x 1024 mode.
At 1152 x 864 mode I can have up to 64k colors. This seemed to be a good idea. I noted that the speed penalty was small -- it took only a few seconds longer to boot and video operations did not seem perceptibly slower. However, I did run into a problem. Seems that some programs out there have trouble with too many colors. I first ran into this with the CompuServe CD-ROM. It reported that there could be trouble since it detected that there were more than 256 colors. There was trouble!
A couple of other programs also ran into trouble. I don't know why this is, but I ended up going back to a 256 color mode. Since most programs I use don't make use of the 64k capability, it did not seem a good choice to break some programs for the marginal extra benefit.
As I previously stated, I am now running an 80 MHz AMD 486DX2. This is not because I have anything against Intel. In fact, my work experience at Intel last Summer was very favorable. However, I needed to get the computer in January, and the price decline on Pentiums was just starting.
The way I figured it, I could buy the DX2-80 in January and a Pentium computer in 6 months and spend about the same as for a Pentium in January. By waiting, I would get two computers out of it. Look for more "new computer" news soon.
My new computer was assembled from parts, as is usual for my computer purchases. The case from Wetex was rather expensive at $85, but I liked its design and features. A Magitronic motherboard was purchased from Liuski, two 16 megabyte SIMMs came from JDR, and the rest was salvaged from miscellaneous parts I had on other computers around the house.
When I first put it all together, it seemed to be fast. I did note that for some reason the BIOS reported the board speed as 66 MHz. This seemed peculiar, but I attributed it to the BIOS not recognizing the unusual 80 MHz speed.
A while later, I ordered several computers from Liuski for friends and my brother-in-law. These were complete systems based on the same motherboard as was in my own computer. I noted that the new computers displayed a speed of 80 MHz when they booted. Investigating my own motherboard, I discovered that there was a jumper setting which was wrong. I WAS running at only 66 MHz! One minor jumper move and I gained a 21% improvement in processor speed. Wow!
Since I had two SIMM for my RAM, I decided to test what relative effect the CPU speed and the RAM size had on NT operation. I installed only one SIMM for 16 megs of RAM to start with.
With 16 meg RAM, my NT system would take about 5 minutes to complete the boot process. Increasing the RAM to 32 megs dropped the boot time to 3 minutes 40 seconds.
Norton's SI program reports that the non-turbo mode runs at about 30 MHz (tested with DOS). After some adjustments in the NT system, I got it to boot in 2:30 with 32 meg RAM and 80 MHz. At 30 MHz and the same RAM the boot time increased to 4:45. I lost my notes on the boot times with 16 meg RAM and 30 MHz, but the slowdown seems proportional to the speed reduction. The RAM increase dropped the boot time by 27%.
Some other benchmarks showed that the VERY slow load on Hijaak Browser improved from 2 minutes with 16 meg RAM to only 30 seconds with 32 megs! Seems that the graphics programs really make use of the extra RAM that is available. I wonder what will happen if I put in 64 megs. The only thing that is stopping me is $$$.
Another program which improved with the new computer is my most used word processor. WinWord 6 used to take about a minute to load on the old computer. Now with 32 meg RAM and 80 MHz it only took 30 seconds to load. Half the time is nice, but 12 seconds to load is still better! And a reload (start it a second time) of only 4 seconds is great.
The 12 second and 4 second figures are what my new NT version of WinWord takes to load. Microsoft has a great "cross grade" deal. For only $17.95 plus shipping (about $5) and tax you can get the NT version of MS Office on CD-ROM if you already own the Windows version. No books come with this deal, but I never refer to the old manuals anyway.
NT office only has 32 bit versions of WinWord and Excel, but it is nice to have faster operation and long file names for my favorite word processor.
Arcada Software had an advertisement I could not pass up. The offer was for a free evaluation copy of their NT backup software. Although the NT backup program works fairly well, there are a number of missing features such as partial deletion of backup sets and an indicator of room left on the tape.
I got the full working demo (limited to 30 days) and installed it. The look and feel of the program is very much like the standard NT version, but it does have the new Win95 style interface and several nice features are added. Backup Exec can save backup information into catalogs for later recall. That way, you can check to see what backup tape a particular file is on without going through each tape as would be required with the standard NT software.
Another nice feature of Exec is a network connect button. If you want to include a network drive you just press the button and select the drive. The standard NT backup requires that you connect to the network drive through File Manager first. There is also a software data compression option. I am not sure if this is a benefit since my DAT has hardware compression.
Backup Exec still does not include the partial volume deletions and tape rename functions I would have liked. However, I decided that the software might be nice to have. I called to check on the price of the product. A list price of $295 and street price of $189 put me back to the evaluation phase! The software is not that nice.
I asked the nice lady at Arcada how such a high price was to be justified. After all, it acts as an upgrade to the product that comes with NT. Besides, I paid only $99 for my copy of NT 3.5 as it was. She explained their reasoning. Since a DAT drive represents an investment of over $1,000, the cost of the software is relatively small. I get it. If you buy a Lexus automobile, you should be willing to pay $100 for an air freshener to hang from your rear view mirror!
More to write about, but if I don't stop now this issue may never get done. Look for the rest of the story coming up soon -- I hope.