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PB 640 Troubleshooting Page

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Table of Contents
PB640 BIOS Ver 1.00.04/.05 Missing Time Out Feature		PB640 and Spiderman Cartoon Maker
Parallel Port Resource Conflict On PB640		PB640 Not Supporting Advertised Display Mode
PB640/PB660 Motherboard Requires Special Power Supply For Fan		PB640 Not Generating Errors With Hard Drive Failure
ISA Bus Speed Jumper Setting		Video Difficulties When PCI Burst Mode Is Enabled
One Or Both Of Dual Drives Not Recognized On Post		Platinum Series Systems Contain PB640 Motherboards
No Sound On 842758102 Systems		166mhz CPU Gets Divided Overflow Error With CDR-581
PB640 BIOS V1.0 Issues		"Invalid Boot Media Device" Error Message
System Recognizes 166mhz Processor As 150mhz
Back to PB 640 Page

PB640 BIOS Ver 1.00.04/.05 Missing Time Out Feature

Hard drive not recognized on boot up.

PB640 BIOS versions 1.00.04 and 1.00.05 do not have a time out feature. The time out feature allows time for the hard drive to power up.

Note: This will be corrected in the next BIOS update.

PB640 and Spiderman Cartoon Maker

Users with a PB640 motherboard, BPCS# 181368, may experience the system hanging when running ZDIAG version 1.12P in the VGA test portion or when running Spiderman Cartoon Maker.

The cause of this issue is unknown at this time.

1. System locking up when running MS Works and WordPad.

Parallel Port Resource Conflict On PB640

An exclamation point may appear on the ECP Printer Port in Device Manager.

The cause of this issue is a conflict in DMA channels.

Change the soundcard DMA to "00" (zero, zero).

PB640 Not Supporting Advertised Display Mode

A sales flyer some end-users may have obtained for the PB640 may advertise a supported resolution of 800x600x16 million colors.

Contact assigned supervisor or Tech Help if escalation is needed.

CL-GD5430 and CL-GD5440 video chip sets do not support 800x600x16.7 million colors, regardless of adding additional memory.

However the PB570/580/590/620/630/650 and PB600 motherboards support to 133MHz, if the customer has a PB640 motherboard and 150MHz or faster CPU the replacement motherboard will run the CPU or any upgraded CPU's no faster than 133MHz.

PB640/PB660 Motherboard Requires Special Power Supply For Fan

When a PB640/PB660 motherboard is used in a system that did not originally come with one, the CPU cooling does not work.

The PB640/PB660 motherboard requires a special power cable from the power supply to be connected to the motherboard. The power is redirected to the front of the motherboard where there is a connector for the CPU cooling fan. If the computer did not come with one of these special power supplies, there is no way to get power to the fan.

If it is necessary to put a PB640/PB660 motherboard in a system that did not originally come with one, the power supply must be replaced with one that has the CPU fan cable.

PB640 Not Generating Errors With Hard Drive Failure

The cause of this issue is unknown at this time.

ISA Bus Speed Jumper Setting

ISA bus speed jumper settings.

The ISA bus speed jumper must be set depending on the Pentium chip being installed on the motherboard. The ISA bus speed has no default, but, the ISA bus speed is only certified for 7.5-9.0 MHz operation. Jumper J4K1 is the PB640 motherboard ISA clock speed override jumper. For 75 MHz Pentium the 1-2 connection is jumped, and on the 100 MHz Pentium the 2-3 connection should be jumped. Please, DO NOT connect the 1-2 jumper on the 100 MHz, since this situation will lead to motherboard damage, and the Super IO chip PC87306 which is located off the ISA bus may also be damaged resulting in I/O device failure.

Video Difficulties When PCI Burst Mode Is Enabled

Some of these components exhibit functional problems when PCI Burst mode is enabled.

Assure the end user that while performance gains can be obtained for graphically intensive applications like CAD packages, Intel continues to recommend a default setting of Disable for PCI Burst mode.

The Cirrus 5430 and 5434 hold times did not meet PCI Burst specifications.

Note: Intel understands some add-in video cards will enable PCI Burst mode, in which case enabling PCI Burst mode is appropriate.

One Or Both Of Dual Drives Not Recognized On Post

The system does not recognize the slave drive when certain hard drives are set as Master (the ST-51080 is one example).

The issue is related to the HDD pre-delay. On the PB660 BIOS 1.00.01 and PB640 1.00.02, the pre-delay is "disabled." While not necessarily a compatibility issue, the BIOS does not "retry" HDD detection after failure.

At the present time it will be necessary to use only one drive, or set them up on separate controllers. The new PB660 BIOS and PB640 BIOS will not require a HDD pre-delay setting and will "retry" as long as necessary. Look for future updates to this issue.

Platinum Series Systems Contain PB640 Motherboards

No Sound On 842758102 Systems

No sound on 842785102 systems

Some systems of this type may have the wrong sound card driver selected in Windows 95. To determine if this is the case, right click on my computer, left click on properties from the menu. Within device manager click on the Sound Video and Game Controllers icon. The sound card listed should be PB Sound Card.

An alternative resolution would be to Remove the old driver and then add the PB Sound Card. This can be done by selecting the incorrect driver from within 'Device Manager' and double clicking it. Then click the 'Remove' button. After the device is removed select 'Add New Hardware' from the 'Control Panel'. Then click the 'Next' button, select 'No' and then click 'Next'. Select 'Other Devices' and click 'Next'. Scroll down through the 'Manufacturers:' list until you find Packard Bell. Click on Packard Bell then on Packard Bell Sound Card from the 'Models:' list. Click on 'Next', then on 'Finish'.

Note: Manually removing and then adding the proper sound card driver is necessary because auto-detection will result in the wrong driver being installed.

166mhz CPU Gets Divided Overflow Error With CDR-581

Users may experience a DIVIDE OVERFLOW error when using the Panasonic CDR-581 CD ROM.

The CD ROM's buffer cannot keep up with a microprocessor above 130MHz on this motherboard.

Install driver CR_ATAPI version 5.17v.

PB640 BIOS V1.0 Issues

Note: To correct the issue, set both Primary and Secondary drives to User-defined, and boot the system. The drives should then be detected. After this, the drives can then be re-set to Auto-Configure and be Auto-detectable.

The cause of these issues is an outdated BIOS.

Upgrade to the latest BIOS for any of these issues on the PB640.

"Invalid Boot Media Device" Error Message

When the hard drive settings are set to User Defined in CMOS the system will report "Invalid Boot Media Device". However, the Auto Detect works fine.

This is a BIOS issue.

This issue will be fixed in the next BIOS update.

System Recognizes 166mhz Processor As 150mhz

On boot up the user may see the system recognizing the CPU as 150Mhz instead of 166Mhz.

This is due to a the BIOS being limited to 150Mhz as highest speed it can report; the system does support 166Mhz.

This will be changed in the next BIOS.