need help from great old ones - embedded windows NT

[Rob_NNCC]

First off, thank you for reading this!
I got called from a marine electronics shop to look at a Navistar 961X boat gps/navigation system. They would not work on it and as it turns out, it is a pc running NT. The system is pretty old, but would cost thousands to replace. It is a LT430TX Intel Motherboard, a 200MHZ P1, 32 MB ram, and a 3200 MB seagate harddrive. The system had some issues with posting, cleared up due to corrosion on the contacts of the ISA GPS card.

The issue I need help with is: NT. NT came out when I was in elementary school, and I am not even sure what version this is running. The system will not fully boot up. It loads the wall paper for the login screen then reboots. I have checked the generous amount of RAM , it passed Memtest. I have checked the HDD, not corrupted. I have removed all the cards in the system and replaced the graphics card with a known working PCI ATI RAGE.

The boot splashscreen is replaced with loading... so I can not easily tell what version of NT, and I don't know what to check on the HDD manually. I did try to use autoruns to remove startup, it did not recognize the hives. Also, F8 did nothing for safemode. I read that some versions of NT do not have safemode.

The system bios battery also failed and reset the CMOS settings. I would like to know if that would make any difference as I don't think NT is a PnP OS, and if I need to reserve any IRQs or DMAs. (all the cards currently in the system are PnP, so the bios should handle that, but if they got changed from what they where before, would that mess NT up? (Again, legacy stuff that I have not had to work with in decades, stuff that I learned in elementary school...)


If anyone is willing to throw some NT advise at me it would be greatly appreciated!

 

[frederick]

If it just suddenly reboots....check the psu. This thing was on a boat, boats mean water, water means moisture. If you found corrosion on piece of hardware, there can be more somewhere else on the system. Do a thorough look through. Take a multimeter to that psu or if you have a psu tester, use that. Clone the hdd, so uou have a backup. If this system is that old, it has done and paid for itself by now, a replacement of parts could be needed.

 

[mr m]

You're correct. NT 3.51 and 4.0 didn't have a safe mode option. The best you could do was start it in VGA mode. You're almost right about it not being PnP capable. By default it wasn't but you could enable PnP for certain devices on the bus.

Since you cleaned up some corrosion on the video card you have to figure it migrated to the mobo's connector as well. Who knows where else that corrosion resides on a 15-20 year old PC living in salt water.

I just don't recall the files to look for to determine the OS version on a non bootable machine.

Maybe try to put the NT HDD in an old working test rig. It will go crazy trying to find drivers and USB ports might make NT have fits but maybe it will help in troubleshooting. It might pay to install it as a slave drive and see if you can run the GPS appl.

This system sounds too old to waste time on. Good luck

 

[JustInspired]

Have you looked at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc750073.aspx
And
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/150497

There are still tons of archived info online about diagnosing and fixing NT.

MAKE SURE YOU IMAGE THE DRIVE FIRST

 

[NYJimbo]

Anybody ever use the boot disks from this site ?

http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/nt.html

http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/iso.html

I have no use for them but I remember seeing it a while back and just forgot it until now.

 

[oldtech]

Just wondering what it is about this challenge that makes you want to solve it. You are dealing with 20 yr old hardware and software and whatever you learn is not likely to be applicable in the future or enhance your skill set. I don't think this venture is going to compensate you adequately for the time, trouble and aggravation.

There comes a point where everyone has to upgrade and I'd say this client is well past that point.

 

[frederick]

I agree with oldtech. There are times when you have to consider the replace < repair costs. But at times, I like a good challenge, but not at the ezpense of the client

 

[Martyn]

Brings back memories. I think the version was in the boot.ini file. Have a look at this link.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc750073.aspx

 

[OfficeTechs]

have you removed all non essential components to see if it will boot? It is possible you have an IRQ conflict there if the BIOS has been reset.

I remember having to diagnose IRQ's when adding cards like sound blaster cards and Gravis ultrasounds (who remembers them?) They used to like to share IRQ7 which is/was commonly used by LPT1:, most of the time they would happily share the IRQ but sometimes you would have to assign another to get the machine to boot.

 

[B Trevathan]

The boot splashscreen is replaced with loading... so I can not easily tell what version of NT

Isn't that caused by the BIOS setting "Quick Boot" or "Fast Boot" being turned on, where when that settings is turned off it shows the RAM count and does a basic hardware test?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Ahh NT 4? Heh. The good old days.

Of course we're only guessing here. Age of equipment could be an issue...like mentioned above, the marine environment...high humidity. I'd try removing all peripherals, reseating all peripherals. Check for budging caps. Try a diff power supply.

We also used to use LKGC back in the NT4 days...(Last Known Good Configuration). And yeah....back then sometimes it would work..esp if the issue was driver related.

 

[Rob_NNCC]

Thanks guys for all the feedback. I am running it off of a different PSU as the one in the case is for 12V input. I am working on fixing it because it will cost north of 6k to replace it. (Screen, GPS unit, install costs, custom cabinetry for the unit, wiring ...) I agree, if this was a home user PC that was used for more than one specific thing...

The loading... is not the quickboot of the bios because it says (and I am sorry for forgetting this part) Navistar 961x loading... and the screen turns from white on black to white on blue text mode, to the green desktop.

YeOldStone, I am not getting anything for f8 on bootup.
I did, however have a moment of "I am being an idiot" about boot.ini, it is Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00 , and I set up a vga mode option in ini so I should have that to go on now. (Thanks Martyn!)


I will return and report on the very helpful ideas you all have given me.

Thanks again!.
Rob

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

YeOldStone, I am not getting anything for f8 on bootup.
I did, however have a moment of "I am being an idiot" abob

Been a long time since I've had to jam to that options, I don't think it was an F8 hit to evoke it, just watching early on during bootup...pretty sure it paused for a few seconds to give you an option for VGA mode or LKCG.

 

[oldtech]

I would also add to my other comment that the thought of a seagoing vessel relying on questionable 20 yr old navigation hardware concerns me. Remember peoples lives are potentially at risk here - 6k and up seems cheap to me for that peace of mind.

 

[Altster]

I would also add to my other comment that the thought of a seagoing vessel relying on questionable 20 yr old navigation hardware concerns me. Remember peoples lives are potentially at risk here - 6k and up seems cheap to me for that peace of mind.

This could be what the "Carnival Cruise Lines" are using at the moment.

 

[oldtech]

This could be what the "Carnival Cruise Lines" are using at the moment.

/filler
/filleroo

 

[Vicenarian]

This could be what the "Carnival Cruise Lines" are using at the moment.

Comment of the Day

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[carrcomp]

This could be what the "Carnival Cruise Lines" are using at the moment.

Wow.........................