HP Pavilion PC a6142n Fastest CPU

[NonSequitur777]

@CraigInAlex,

Thank you for following up -in my opinion, that is part of the satisfaction of upgrading a legacy PC!

If you are dealing with an eBay Seller, a sizable number of them offer some kind of return guarantee, such as:

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[CraigInAlex]

The RAM came in today, 12 days earlier than expected from China.  I ordered 4x 2GB and 4x 4GB, Kingston brand new.  I tested the 4x 4GB first.  With all 4 installed, the screen will show all 16GB are installed on a 2nd text line, but it won't go beyond that and F10 will not let me into the BIOS.  All 4x 2GB work fine, and 2x 4GB in slots 1 & 2 or in 3 & 4 will boot with 8GB total, but no combination of 4 sticks will work except 4x 2GB.

I tried for 2x 2GB and 2x 4GB for 12GB total, but no slot configurations would accept 12GB.  Also, the 4GB sticks get Hot fast, but I cannot get into BIOS to make Voltage and such adjustments.  Unless maybe doing with only 2x 4GB at a time might allow it.  Thoughts on that, please?

Windows XP Pro 32 Bit will not accept the Radio Shack ProbeScope, which was released for Windows 3.x & 95, so I got an old Win98 PC from a friend to try it.  The HDD was bad, so I installed Win98SE on an old IDE 250GB HDD I have, and the built-in Serial port worked with the ProbeScope without further configuration needed.

I had bought a StarTech PEX1S553LP, PCIe X1, Serial Port card for this computer, but WinXP would not accept the ProbeScope, so I returned it and bought a StarTech PCI2S1P, PCI, 2 Serial Ports & 1 Parallel Port to try.  WinXP and the ProbeScope did not work with that, either, so I blanked the IDE HDD from the other PC, mounted it in this PC  and am installing 98SE on it with it connected to a Promise Ultra100, PCI, dual IDE port card that is installed.  This dual IDE card was needed to make this Bench Test PC do everything the old one did, as I had a 4x SATA Port PCI card in that one and an upgraded PSU.  The Win98SE partition is ~12GB.

If the ProbeScope works in this PC and Win98SE configuration, I'll install Win10 in the remaining HDD space, which will be around 220GB formatted, for a dual boot system, because Win98 will not boot from a SATA drive, even though it will install.  Win98SE may not have all the drivers, but the new Serial Port has drivers to install for Win9x up to 2000/XP/2003, and as long as the screen works at an acceptable resolution for the ProbeScope program, that will be fine.  Making the ProbeScope work was the whole point of the PC transition project.  More later.

[NonSequitur777]

@CraigInAlex,

I would definitely go with the 4 x 2GB RAM.

The max RAM your desktop can handle is 8GB, spread out over all four RAM slots, apparently.

The heat you described using the 4GB RAM sticks is not conducive for sustained and optimal RAM performance.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[CraigInAlex]

I would like to know why Win95 and Win98SE will not boot on this computer.  Win95 was installed on the SATA drive that came with the PC and Win98SE was installed on an IDE drive with the SATA drive with the SATA cable disconnected.  After installing Win98SE twice today, after deleting the volume, when it goes to boot for the first time, I get this:

Insufficient memory to initialize Windows.

Quit one or more memory-resident programs or remove unnecessary utilities from your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, and restart.

Press any key to continue...

Upon pressing any key or not pressing one at all after a timeout, the PC shuts down.  Upon reboot, it offers the Safe Mode option (and others), which does the same thing.  The Win98SE disc worked perfectly to install Win98SE on the older Win98 PC.  On the 2nd installation this evening, I did no special configuration of options like I usually do, and still it will not boot.  This is with the new 8GB installed today, but it did this with Win95 and I think Win98SE also on the SATA drive before that.

I need Win98SE to make the Probe Scope work.  I'd have the same issue with Win95, should I install it on the IDE drive.  Thanks

[NonSequitur777]

@CraigInAlex,

Btw, doesn't W98/W98SE require a FAT16 or FAT32-formatted drive?

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[CraigInAlex]

It asked if I wanted to use Large Drive support, I think it was, and I said Yes.  I connected it to my Win10 PC with a USB converter and Properties says it's FAT32.  Do you know what Folders CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT are in?  I could edit them with the HDD connected to my Win10 PC this way.

[NonSequitur777]

@CraigInAlex,

Unfortunately, your particular issues now go beyond my comfort zone, so to speak.

Perhaps @TheOldMan, @old_geekster or @Paul_Tikkanen could assist here.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[CraigInAlex]

These are the only folders and files on the drive

[CraigInAlex]

Is there anyone you could tag to help me here?

[NonSequitur777]

@CraigInAlex,

Yea, I just did -see my previous post.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777