IBM NetVista 6833-45U

[IPNixon]

I found one of these in a computer recycling bin today. It's got no RAM, and no HD.

It uses RIMMs, though, none of which I have. I might buy 2x128MB on eBay, but I'm not sure. I have to look and see what money I have, and whether or not it's worth it to buy the RAM.

But when I plug it in, it makes a series of beeps:

x.......x x x.......x x x.......x

...which I'm assuming is due to the RAM. But I dunno.

I'll keep y'all posted.

 

[paws]

No RAM = no boot... Beeps are a PC's only way of communicating. No keyboard - beep beep beep. No graphics card - beep beep beep. No RAM - beep beep beep. Faulty somethingorother connected to IDE port - beep beep beep. Major motherboard death - beep beep beep. They're very much like babies in that respect, only without the cute...

 

[coius]

my guess is that because it has no RAM in it (nor onboard) it's going to beep like that. Essentially what happens is that the only thing it can excecute is the small around of RAM on the board designed to load a few instructions from the ROM for post. After that, that's it. No other RAM.

So yeah, you are going to need Memory. Btw, if I were you, i would just go get another board. It's not worth the RIMM. You can get a fairly decent board that uses something like PC-2100/2700/3200 and is MUCH cheaper to max out the ram on THAT board, than to spend a lot of money on a board that is so obsolete. I would then suggest trying to sell the RAMBUS board on eBay. Someone is going to be stupid enough to buy it

I am guessing your CPU is a 400Mhz FSB. I recently got a board from right between the transition from RAMBUS to DDR Ram, and they used PC-133 instead so they had something to tie them over should RAMBUS lose the lawsuit (which they did) and would end up going bankrupt.

I would suggest NOT getting the PC-133 one. It does hinder the performance, but you also gotta remember that not all 400Mhz FSB Intel P4's will work on every 400Mhz Board. In fact, a CPU that I put into the PC-133 board won't work any higher than 1.8Ghz, because that's the fastest the board supports. Even though the CPU is 2.6Ghz @ 400Mhz FSB, it won't go higher than 1.8Ghz, even though the board sees the actual CPUID.

I kinda found that out the hard way. But I got a Pentium 4 w/ HT and a matching board, so I am pretty happy

 

[IPNixon]

I know how the POSTs work, thanks for the info.

I just bought 2 128MB sticks for $23 (with shipping), so we'll see how that turns out.

 

[benjgvps]

x.......x x x.......x x x.......x

...which I'm assuming is due to the RAM. But I dunno.

I'll keep y'all posted.

If it loops, than it is the RAM. Nice pun!

 

[IPNixon]

My RIMMs and CRIMMs came today. The machine is now happily chugging along on XP.

Specs (for now):

1.4GHz PIV

13GB HD

256MB RAM

32MB VRAM

I'm gonna keep my eyes out for cheap(ish) RIMMs, and I'm prolly gonna drop the 80GB HD in here from the iMac G4, after replacing that one with a 160GB.

Before I can do that, though, I need to get some HD mount brackets. Whoever threw this thing out took the HD, and the mounting brackets with it. Right now, the HD is sitting in the floppy drive's bay.

But woo! A free working PIV machine