ok i found this computer on the side of my road so i brout it home and all i done to it is put two hard drives in it and put my ram in it cause it did not have either of them in it but when i start it up it says diak boot failure insert system disk and press enter but i dont have the system disk ok here is what i got its got a amd-k6 cpu the base memory is 640k and the cache memory is 512 i have tried to enter the system bios but it ask for a password and i dont know it or i dont know how to get around it any help would be nice thanks
Heh. you have no Operating System on it. AMD K6 is a Windows 98 computer. Clearing the password is easy remove the flat silver battery and start the computer with out the battery in it. turn it off then place the battery back in. PW Cleared.
CMOS CLR jumper.. lower left corner of the board, just below the battery, and usually red. AQbout 30 seconds will do it.. It's not a great idea to power up these old AMD boards without the battery in.. they have a habit of attempting to reflash the bios. That machine will run linux well, as long as you avoid the bloatware distros.
ok i just wanted to say thanks and that takeing battery out did not work dxr88 and varnull are you talking about the jumper right below where you put your video cards on the bottom left hand corner because that jumper is black i just want to make sure im in the right place any other help would be great thanks
You also have to have the power cable disconnected from the power supply when you take the battery out.
You can try the steps listed on this website. http://www.dewassoc.com/support/bios/bios_password.htm By the way, what brand of computer is this? If it's a custom built computer, what is the motherboard brand and model?
it is a ctx computer but i tried what it said to do on that link and it did not work but i also got a stock compaq borad i am trying to put togthere just to use to get online with can i use a intel cpu in it and if so how do i boot it up
In all honesty, there's a reason why this computer was sitting on the side of the road. If the steps from the link I provided didn't work, then it's not worth messing with. I donate computers a lot newer than this all the time. By the way, the Intel processor won't work in the AMD motherboard. It may work in your Compaq motherboard, but it needs to be compatible. It's possible that you can swap motherboards, but you need to make sure that everything is compatible (RAM, Power Supply, Video - although it's probably using on-board video, as well as any expansion slots that may be used, such as network card, sound card, modem, etc...). Assuming that all of this is compatible and does work, then you're going to have a hard time finding drivers for everything that will support an OS greater than Windows 98.
ok on my ctx computer i got in to the cmos setup now but i still dont know how to boot this computer up without the floppy disk but i do not have a floppy disk so can you please help me
What operating system are you going to install? If you're installing Linux, then you simply need a bootable CD. If you're installing Windows XP, then you only need a bootable CD. If you're installing Windows 98, then you can create a bootable CD by following these instructions. This will only perform what the windows 98 bootable floopy disc would perform; you'll still need a Windows 98 CD to install the operating system.
So it sort of boots.. now error 40 no floppy drive? or just no boot media? If second option change the boot device priority in the bios. BTW.. it's a waste of time trying to use XP on a machine like that.. that's why somebody has dumped it (no l2 cache if you want to be technical) It will boot from CD just fine, if it has a working cd drive. Try puppylinux http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_id=1 which will let you test everything else on it.. I remember my K6 well.. back in 98 it was state of the art. (p2 300/333 type of thing as regards speed) It's a perfectly usable pc for browsing and basics so long as you forget M$ operating systems. Oh.. and happy experimenting.. you will learn lots and lots from getting this old heap working.. just don't spend any more than pennies on it, because that is all it is worth hint:: some of these old boards supported overclocking by up to 20%.. look for a number printed on the mobo somewhere and google it.. the clock settings were often by jumpers.
ok the compaq motherborad i have got has got a intel cpu in it and i put a hard drive in it and some ram and i dont get anything onscreen its just like you never turned it on what could cause that
Older Compaq motherboards used a proprietary connector for their power supplies. Most likely you'll have to use a Compaq power supply, or mod the pin-out on your existing power supply. I wouldn't recommend it, but I know others have done it in the past (you can read about it here).
i have got the power suplly for the compaq and the tower when i got it all it had was the mother borad and power suplly and thats it and i put this intel cpu in it and now it dont work
I thought we were on a K6 here.. compaq.. just bin it.. If it's p2 era and lost it's hdd it's useless.. they had a bios/system partition on the drive, and the files and install techniques are long gone... I have 2 of the deskpro p2 series.. they are good for propping up the cluster racks, that's about all. How do you even know the cpu you put in is right for the board?.. try power on with nothing at all in, not even the cpu.. .. it should screech or lots of beeps..
ok on this piace of junk k6 i got it to run all up until it said missing operating system ok all i am trying to do is get ywo computers up and running good enough for my two cousins two play around on
tell your cousins its called sharing. the situation you have presented is a scrap process. in witch case you may have to scrap the intel machine as nothing happens. at least with the K-6 you get a post. in any case clearing the bios has set the boot priority back to defualt. when an if installing 98' i recommend setting the devices to boot in the following order. 1. Floppy 2. CD-ROM 3. HDD and if by any chance you have 98se lying around you do not need the boot floppy. Hope this helps. BTW keep the parts from the scrap computer handy as you may need them.
