Newbie's got a dead 386

From: Russ Blakeman <rhblake_at_bigfoot.com>
Date: Sun Nov 15 15:31:58 1998

Ethan Dicks wrote:

> >
> > Hello all, FNG here.
>
> Where did you pick this term up? I know *exactly* what it means, but I've
> never seen anybody use it who hasn't been to Antarctica. I'm curious to
> learn other contexts this moniker appears in.

I used it all the time in the AF, when we had a bad unit we'd mark it FNG,
otherwise known as F***ing No Good.


>
> > It's got a bad floppy drive, which I have, BUT, it sat around unplugged
> > until the battery went down and the BIOS settings are GONE. I have tried
> > every keyboard combination I can think of at bootup and I can't access the
> > BIOS setup. I am suspicious that this model needs a special setup disk to
> > write to the BIOS directly.
>
> Some do. Old Compaq 386-sx units come to mind. Also... Phoenix BIOS
> does not always announce the keyboard combo to trigger setup. ISTR
> CNTL-ALT-ESC and CNTL-ALT-F10 are two popular non-DEL bits. You can't
> do those at power-up. Boot from a floppy and start whacking keys at the
> DOS prompt.

Ethan, if you have the originators email address I can help him or her more
exactly, as well as send a generic setup program if need be. PS/2 units won't do a
thing without a specific setup disk, and some even back to 8088/8086 such as
Leading Edge machines require a setup disk (of sorts).

Drop it to me direct email and I'll get with the newbie and lend a hand.

Russ
Received on Sun Nov 15 1998 - 15:31:58 GMT