On Thu, 19 Jul 2001 08:44:13 -0500 "Jim Crumley" <crumley at belka.space.umn.edu> wrote: > So here's a situation for the hardware doctors in the house. > > My Pentium 200 MMX at home seems to be dying. The first warning was > that I got an error message about a possible IO conflict on 2F8 > (IRQ 3?) while boot, First thing that comes to mind, especially in light of the machine's age, is a bad CMOS battery. If the battery failed, the machine would tend to reset the CMOS parameters to default - which would in turn enable both serial ports and create the IO conflict you are seeing. The settings could also simply have been corrupted by a marginal battery, with some parameters such that the system doesn't want to boot (RAM wait states, etc). Test the CMOS battery with a voltmeter - it should be 3 volts or so. If not, replace it, reset the CMOS to the 'most compatible' defaults, and see how things go. -.bill.layer.- -.those who are talking don't know, and those who know aren't talking.- -.frogtown.- -.minnesota.- -.u.s.a.-