This could be SETI related, or not. Anyway, I hope you guys don't mind me
asking here. I know there are some knowledgable PC hardware people who read
here.

Ok, I've built a strange system from parts. It's an Atrend 6310M mobo. It's
an AT, Slot 1 board. I was quite pleased to get it as I have a lot of AT
stuff (cases, PSUs etc) that I've been loathe to throw away. I welcomed the
chance to use some with this board to build a machine that isn't *too* slow
for most things.

I Googled the board and found a manual in .pdf format. It says that the
board supports up to a PII450Mhz and 128MB SDRAM in each of it's two slots.
Great thinks I, I can make a decent machine out of my AT stuff before I
finally biff it (The back room is half-full of AT stuff, including two boxes
of working PSUs).

So I put it together with one 128MB module, 10/100 3Com NIC (I'm on a LAN
here), 8MB AGP card (S3 but it's adequate for it's purpose), ISA
Soundblaster 16, ISA Rockwell 56k modem and a two-port PCI-USB card. There
are pins on the board for a USB header but I don't have the header and there
are pins for a PS/2 header. I *do* have a header for a PS/2 mouse but it
just has four wires in a row and I've tried fitting it either way to the
pins on the mobo and it doesn't seem to work. I don't have a schematic for
the board or a PS/2 port to work out how to/if I can successfully connect
it.

So, the PCI-USB card is there for a mouse (at the moment). I have a couple
of serial mice but they are horrible to use, I want to make this PC
reasonable to use as I have a person in mind for it, I can give them a
monitor with it (14" unfortunately but it's all I have spare and I'm gonna
give it away).

I installed 98SE and it all went perfectly once I'd downloaded a few drivers
I needed. It works great, is snappy and responsive. But.....

I always run SETI CLI on machines I build (as well as Prime95 and, if Prime
fails, Memtest86) as a torture-test. I give a few older machines away or
build machines for friends at no or nearly no profit so I don't want to be
plagued with 'support' calls any more than I can avoid. (I always make it
clear that I will only respond to hardware problems, unless, if they have a
proggy they want installed, they bring it here for me to install)

Ok, the problem. This machine runs Prime95 for 24 hours no problem. It runs
SETI CLI sweet (around 10 hours per classic WU) but, I have the monitor set
to turn off after 10 minutes, no screen saver. If the machine has completed
a SETI WU and it's got the monitor turned off it locks up. No mouse movement
or pounding of keyboard will wake it. A hard re-set is needed. This has
happened three times and every time the first thing the PC does when it
starts is complete the last 10 seconds of a SETI WU and then connect to get
another one. It's connecting through my LAN at the moment. I'm using
Marcel's Easy SETI CLI, (SETI Spy and SETI Driver) with the 3.03 client.

At any other time I can just move the mouse slightly and the monitor springs
to life, it's only at the conclusion of a SETI WU that this problem occurs
*So far*. Ok, the person I'm gonna give it to isn't going to run SETI but
this could be indicitive of a larger problem. Any Ideas? I was wondering if
it's maybe happening as a consequence of the machine trying to access the
network while the monitor is off? I don't know. The NIC is fine, (3Com) I
pulled it form a machine that it's been functioning in perfectly. In fact,
I'll probably pull the NIC when I part with the machine (although I like to
leave NICs in machines I give away/build for others so I can easilly connect
to me LAN if I need to troubleshoot at any stage).

Any thoughts folks? TIA.
--
~misfit~