Messing with a P133 now

[budbd]

Got tired of working on the 486, so now I am working with a P133 that donated most fo the parts that went into the 486 anyway.

Got it cheap last week cause it would lock show a strange "memory error" when a cd was inserted, but now with the 1.9 gig hard drive formatted and windows 98 reinstalled, my win 98, and the hard drive transferred back to it, it seems to work just fine.
The machine sports a 33.6 bps modem, 64 mb of 4x16 mb simm memory of some type(two other slots for some kind of 168 pin memory), a 6x cd drive, and supposedly a P133 processor that is definitely an AMD. The system spec won't tell me what speed it is.

Stupid thing keeps on having a "cmos error" due to bad battery, and I can't see a battery on the motherboard anywhere. The keyboard has a battery I replaced, seems for a numeric keypad calculating feature, but that didn't fix the problem on startup that doesn't seem to do much except cause me to need to type the f1 key to continue with load up.

Other than that, the machine probably hasn't run better in years. Too bad I can't get on the internete with it, it since it would make a backup machine for internet or a loaner machine. Oh well, P133 is likely too slow to get internete now, just liek my old 333mhz will likely be shut off the internet as a back up machine in the next year by my ISP.

[ROYP123]

Some of those older boards that run the AMD 133 have a battery that is built onto the MOB. They are usually rectanguler. Also, one of those I saw last week had a small battery spot welded to the MOB. I had to take it to Radio Shack and special order a replacement. You still should be able to get onto the internet and surf, you just will have to reset the BIOS parameters each time you turn it on.

[Cricket]

Do you see a black rectangular module that says DALLAS REAL TIME on it? If you do, that's the battery. It's soldered to the motherboard but you can get replacements.

Or it could be a barrel battery. Looks like a big capacitor lying on it's side with wires soldered to both ends. I think you can get replacements for these too.

:) Cricket

[budbd]

Okay, now I am savvy to that battery, and yes I saw a rectangular something or another.

Are you saying I need to reset the bios somehow in order to get onto the net? I was gonna call up msn service and ask their opinion as to how I can use my service with the P133, or I could use AOL if able, cause I have some months of free service left that came with my new Dell.

[ROYP123]

No, you don't need to reset the BIOS to get on the net.- but you do need the battery to retain the BIOS settings, or you will have to put in the info each time you boot. For the net, the speed is fast enough, and the memory is big enough, but the problem will be to find an older version of the AOL software to run with your low specs. You can not get a disk anymore less than version 8 or 9 from AOL. I had a problem a few months ago when someone deleted their ver 4 of AOL and tried to install 9 ( ha ha ) with 32 meg of ram and 133 mhz. After calling AOL, they suggested finding someone that had a disk of ver 4 or 5. Perhaps what comes with Win 98 will suffice- if not Win 95 will have AOL loaded. Maybe MSN will handle 64 meg of ram and 133. I don't know. LOL

[budbd]

I am typing this with the P133 right now. I talked to msn, and they guided me through the setup for a manual connection using explorer. I can also download MSN version 7 which is good for Pentiuum 90 and above. CORRECTION: ACTUALLY, WHEN I TOOK THE LINK THE TECHS GAVE ME FOR MSN VER 7, IT JUST SHOWS THE LATEST VERSION OF MS INTERNET EXPLORER, SO MAYBE WHAT THEY WERE GETTING AT WAS THE LATEST VERSION OF INTERNET EXPLORER, MAYBE IT IS VERSION 7 OF IE. I MIGHT LOOK FOR A SPARE COPY OF MSN 7 IF I STILL HAVE IT, BUT MAYBE IT JUST WON'T WORK, AND BESIDES, IE 6 IS WORKING FOR ME RIGHT NOW, AND LIKELY IE 7 WOULD WORK AS WELL FOR A MANUAL CONNECTION.

As for the bios, I haven't reset any bios, I believe it is running on defaults right now, and all I do is tttype the f1 key to continue to load windows.

Actuually, if it aint too late, I had better download some free anti virus software.

Makes me really wonder if I could have done this with the 486 I was messing with, bet I could have.

[ROYP123]

Since you don't need to reset the HDD info in the BIOS after each reboot, it makes we wonder if that old Dallas built in battery may just be charging. Hope so. Otherwise, it would lose the settings when the set was turned off.