In reply to a post by DFScale:

really odd that it hung consistently on unpacking just one specific file.

Might have been one chunky subroutine, or specific bit of maths in unpacking a certain section of that file, where the processor had a sustained peak/burst - just enough to trigger a micro-thermal event (without a fan to drop temps) and trigger a reset...

In reply to a post by DFScale:

Well, for odd hardware failures, I had a 486 computer I was loading with OS/2 It worked on my other computers, but it almost consistently failed on this computer, while unpacking one specific file. If I got past that one file, it was fine and the system would run. But for some reason, I needed to redo it several times with the same result, again almost consistently. The mystery was resolved when I opened the case and found the cpu fan had taken itself off the processor and was hanging in free air. Once I had refixed it, there was no more problem. really odd that it hung consistently on unpacking just one specific file.

Nice... reminds me of a 386sx that every file you copied from the 3.5" 1.44 FDD would be randomly corrupt. So from the factory the pre-installed DOS and Win3.0 would randomly crash. The only reliable way to discover the faulty floppy drive or controller was to unzip a file from the floppy to the HDD using DOS based pkunzip as it reliably failed...every time. Same floppy on another PC worked every time.

Took a nightmare with support to get that motherboard replaced; expensive machine back in 1990

My first 'home' PC was an Acer 386SX with 4MB RAM running at a blistering 20 MHz....with a socket upgrade to a 486DX. Oh heady days!!

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

My first 'home' PC was an Acer 386SX with 4MB RAM running at a blistering 20 MHz....with a socket upgrade to a 486DX. Oh heady days!!

Apricot 8086 DOS based machines first, then eventually had use of an Amstrad PC1512 for a while, until parents bought an amstrad portable...great keyboard, useless tiny LCD screen, and an NEC multisync grey scale screen. Dual floppy with 2400bps modem, was amazing. Then upgraded with a 2.5" 20mb HDD from a small outfit in Reading made the machine faster than most companies 286 and 386 machines...!

I built my own PC from parts (when PCWorld was a small shop in south london, not yet owned by Dixons/DSG) and that was a 386sx. Ran that for years. Moved to a Pentium 75 as they were what all the cool kids had at uni, ran cooler and quieter than the 60 or 66...

Ancient history now.

Edited by jchamier (Thu 14-Nov-24 20:53:13)

I started on an Intel SDK80 with hex keypad and then an SDK86 which used 8080 and 8086 respectively ...

I had an Amiga 4000/040 and i loved it to bits, i had the emplant card too and managed to get mac emulation working ..

fun times

Downer was floppies at 1.7mbytes - they ran at half speed with double the data than the old 880Kbytes drive which meant it took 4 times as long to fill a floppy up.

oh and the 68040/25 was a toasty cpu

I was also working with COSMAC - using the RCA CDP1802 the first CMOS CPU. Had a TWIN 8" FDD and that was enormous. The drives had to be calibrated weekly.

Perhaps that file was larger than the others. Decompressing is processor intensive.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Don’t feel bad at all. Just one of these weird things. It’s easy to sometimes just target what you instinctively believe the problem to be rather than apply a logical, step by step diagnosis

Guilty your honour 🙈

Completely dead 2032 button cell battery confirmed by battery tester.

Passed using OC test on digital multimeter. Don't trust O.C voltage in a DMM (without a load).

Sometimes bad news is good news.