The VX1 shakes are back

["\"Thursday\" AKA dr. john" <thursday allidaho com>]

Well the last 2 days I had the VX1 shakes again, even at the reduced,
1280x1024 resolution.  

It happened again today.  So I spent a couple hours goofin around with
the computer running, then rebooted RedHat, and hey! no problems with
the video card!

Also today, i noticed the date clock had reset itself to the 2050 year
default setting ...  and I had some hot-off-the-net firmware on a floppy
that I thought might help.  

This was a FAT-formatted floppy, my plan was to use the Alpha Bios to
install, mainly because I'd been having zero luck with any other
floppies, like off my PC Unix box, or downloads from my system at work.  

Besides the date being wrong, the Alpha Bios couldn't see/read the FAT
floppy.  Add it up:

1)	To install RedHat, I had to run the computer 24 hours straight before
i could boot/install from floppies

2)	All the problems reading CDs, and having to change CDrom drives to
install RedHat from the CD no. 1

3)	The date is all goosey.  I put in a new battery, within a few days
the date slips again.

4)	(Maybe) The video card works sometimes, sometimes it doesn't.  There
is no obvious pattern, but if tyhe computer has run a couple hours, it
seems more likely to hook up the card on boot.

5)	The Firmware is rock steady through all this, no corrupted screens,
no reverting to previous versions, no hang-ups.

6)	There are messages all over this list and the Tru64 Unix managers
list about VX1 problems, about problems installing RedHat from CDroms,
and from people who can't get an installation going from floppies.

So, Watson, what do you deduce?



I ask:  how likely is it that a Cdrom drive, a floppy dirve, and a new
battery would ALL go south at the same time?  How likely is it that 2
different OSes would have similar problems with hardware?

My own thought is that there is something rotten at or upstream of the
controller for the floppy drive, for the IDE drive, and for the clock. 
Further, I would suggest that this is a problem specific to the PWS
series ...  maybe to a certain run of motherboards or backplanes. The
question is, how does this affect the connection with the Video Card on
the PCI bus?  Or is it completely separate?

Elementary, NOT! 

jn