#Upgrade Problems
18 messages in this thread
A few things experienced upgrading from a 486DX2 to a Pentium 90:
3DS3 will give the error message "xmsg_rd: 6 error loading message
33.9 from compiled message file" The fix? Deturbo when installing
3DS3–the question: will I have any other difficulties due to the
speed of the CPU (I didn't get a Pentium to run the cpu at 1/2
speed)? The other difficulty is in getting the Viper PCI card to
operate from the Vesa compatible drivers supplied with 3DS3; I get
another error message. I have searched the Diamond documentation; I
can't even be sure that the 3DS3 supplied driver "Viper P9000" is the
correct one for this video board. (Diamond did supply a driver for
3DS2-it doesn't do much for me with 3DS3)–Has anyone out there run
into this before? I do not want to "settle for" the Diamond 'vprmode
vesa' command; I want at least what I used to be able to get with my
simple Tseng ET4000–fair color, reasonable number of resolution
selections. With "vprmode vesa", I am getting mediocre results from
a card that promises more. It's late, I'm getting frustrated. (if
you'd ever done a motherboard replacement with a P90, you'd
understand) Please help! Desperate!
I have no clue what could have caused the weird error message you got but I can
say it's got nothing to do with the Pentium. More likely, it's something else
going weird with your system. Regarding the Viper PCI, I've been using one for
almost a year now with no problems whatsoever. The very first Vibrant driver
had a problem with it (the one included in the 3D Studio 3 box) but Vibrant got
a new driver for it right after and everything works just fine. By the way,
this is not a VESA driver. The Vibrant driver "talks" directly with the P9000
hardware making the most use out of it.
The fact that when you "deturbo" your systems the stuff runs ok suggests you
got some component that doesn't run well at high speed. The most obvious thing
is memory. Either dynamic (RAM) or static (cache). What brand is this P90 any
way? There are a ton of folks here running P90's with no problems.
Where did you get the new Vibrant driver for the Viper PCI card? I apparantly
have the original "buggy" driver that came with 3DS3.
Vibrant upgrades are available here on the forum libraries.
I run a P5/90 and have never had a problem with 3DS. I know many others who
run 3DS flawlessly on the 90's, too. Gus's suggestion that it could be another
component such as memory makes a lot of sense to me. Also, some clone
motherboards are more flaky than others.
John Tissavary | LUNA cie, inc
I don't have trouble running 3DS3 on a P5/90; I just had trouble installing it.
(after elliminating the possiblility of a bad installation diskette once the
back-up diskette gave me the same exact error message, and re-checking the
hardware lock installation, I went to de-turbo mede to install the software–it
worked. Now my only problem is with the PCI graphics card driver, and I hope to
have that corrected tonight. Thanks
I'm glad 3DS works on your machine. If you download the latest vibrant in-line
driver update from this forum, I'm sure your card will work great.
John Tissavary | LUNA cie, inc
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! I upgraded with the new Vibrant driver and
was finally able to get back on track.
Hi Cheryl,
<< latest drivers.. >>
File Info for VIB105.ZIP
Section: Autodesk 3D Studio Contributor: 76702,531 Size: 294395
Submitted: 10/7/94 Type: Binary Accesses: 238
Title: Updated Vibrant Inline Driver 3D Studio R3 v1.0.5
Keys: AUTODESK 3D STUDIO VIBRANT GRAPHICS DRIVERS VIB3DS.VLM VIBRANT.RES
Update to the Vibrant Graphics drivers which shipped with Autodesk 3D Studio
R3. Specifically, this consist of vib3ds.vlm and
vibrant.res. Numerous changes.
Caution: This software has not been tested by Autodesk. Use at your own risk.
Autodesk disclaims any responsibility for supporting users running 3DS R3 with
this new set of drivers.
Note: The 1.0.4 version of this product is NOT supported by Vibrant Graphics.
We are only supporting users of version 1.0.5.
[download time at 2400 baud: 18 min]
The new Vibrant driver works great! Especially when compared to the drivers
that the manufacturer of the graphics card supplied–absolutely worthless.
Thanks for informing me of the new Vibrant driver–it saved my sanity. 🙂
ah yes THAT problem. i had that problem awhile ago… let see what was that. oh
yes it was a bios defect in the motherboard it was one of the very first
pentiums out. it was a conflict between pharlap and the motherboard. it also
happened with photo styler disks and anything else that wanted uppermemory for
install. i also solved it by deturboing it. but then a week later a bigger more
frustrating problem emerged. any time the system swaped to the hard disk it
blew up with a memory protection fault in 3ds. this was fixed by replacing the
bios with an award bios and getting rid of the ami bios. after that the disks
would install ok with turbo on and would page correctly. since then i think ami
has fixed the problem , since i have bought 2 more pentium 90 \'s(intel boards
with ami and neptune chipset) since then and have not had that problem.
sherwood animations
I have an Intel board with an AMI bios….. How difficult is it to replace the
bios? (this is a flash bios). Is AMI on CompuServe?
Cheryl Hoff
Cheryl,
>> I have an Intel board with an AMI bios
I apparently missed the first part of this question; which AMI bios on which
Intel board are you trying to update?
John
John,
My motherboard is the Intel Plato P54C-PCI. It uses an AMI bios with a Neptune
chipset, bios revision code 1.00.001.af1. (My current system is a P5\90
with a Viper PCI graphics card, 64MB ram, 256kb cache,
WDC 420MB, WDC 340MB, Micropolis 1010MB hard drives, NEC 3x CD-ROM.
There are some really flaky things going on with my current system; my previous
system was a 486DX266, 256kb cache, 48MB ram, Tseng et4000 graphics card,
c:drive=Seagate 210MB, d:drive=Western Digital 340MB, e:drive=Micropolis
1010MB, F:drive=NEC 3x CD-Rom–this system worked flawlessly; If not for a
desire to go above 64MB RAM, I would not have upgraded the motherboard.
My first problem occurred first after the Pentium motherboard was installed–it
refused to boot off the the Seagate 210MB drive (this drive had been compressed
with Dos6.2 doublespace). Not wanting to risk any more compression failures,
and because the system refused to recognize this drive, I replaced the c:drive
with a 420MB Western Digital drive, and the system finally booted. In my
efforts to save some of the data on the seagate drive I moved files to the
1010MB drive; I succeeded for a few files, not for most. Some of the files on
the 1010 drive became corrupted, requiring re-formatting and reinstallation of
3DS3. It was at that point that I discovered that 3DS3 wouldn't load without
going to de-turbo. Now I have another weird problem–some of my project files
on d:drive are giving me an "invalid file format" error message. I am able to
load other project files from d:drive, but I cannot save them to the E:drive
(1010MB)–they appear to be saved, but when I try to reload them, they won't
load. PCTools reports these save files to be "0" in file size. These projects
will save to d:drive. Any new project files created will save successfully to
the E:drive. I just don't get it. I have been working so hard at this that I
don't know if I am missing something simple or if my system is out to lunch.
Thanks
Cheryl,
>> bios revision code 1.00.001.af1
Well, I just looked on the Intel BBS, and see a flash upgrade for your bios
that moves it to 1.00.08.AF1. I'm not sure if you can go all the way from .01
to.08, but you could give it a try. The Intel BBS is at 916-356-3600, and the
filename is 10008AF1.EXE. Run this file in an empty directory, and you'll
probably find a text file that explains the update procedure.
Good luck,
John
John,
>> bios revision code 1.00.001.af1
I will try this–at this point, I am willing to try just about anything.
Thanks
Cheryl
Sherwood,
>> since i have bought 2 more pentium 90 \'s(intel boards with ami and neptune
chipset) <<
which is the better/faster chipset. I remember people having a preference
around here.
I tried the OPTI chipset version and didn't like it. It used a flavor of PCI
that the Vibrant drivers didn't deal with very well. Also, it seems the Intel
Neptune chipset boards perform a bit better. The OPTI was designed for
multi-processor applications.
John Tissavary | LUNA cie, inc
John,
>> it seems the Intel Neptune chipset boards perform a bit better <<
cool. I've asked for a system with the Neptune chipset.