Setting up a VAXstation

Wait a second. Last time I checked, this was classiccmp. Not 'How-to-easter-egg-modern-PCs' or 'Computer-jobseekers' or... But classiccmp. It is ridiculous to assume that becasue something may well be the right solution in one case that it has to be right solution in all cases. That's secondary to the fact that how the heck you can claim to have cured a fault that you've not diagnosed is totally beyond me. OK, you swap parts and it seems to work so you think it's OK. It doesn't mean it is. In a previous job we actally ordered a sevice enigneer out of the building for trying tricks like that (the fact that I'd already traced the fault and knew what _should_ have been done is another matter...) It's darn hard to 'swap it out' if you haven't a hope of finding another even remotely-similart machine, let alone one you know to be working. For at least one part of a family of machines I repair, it's very unlikely that _any_ of the original parts are still useable. You have to be able to make replacements (the part in question is a rubber driver roller that decays with time). To me a stable system is one that uyou know works. If there's a fualt, you have to know what it is to be know you've fixed it. As I said, this is classiccmp. Nursing old kit is exactly what we do here. Again, how on earth cna you know what the fault is if you can't diagnose it. You mentioned swapping a DIMM. How can you know if an intermittant memory problem is a fault in the DIMM or in the memory controller on the motherboard? PGC = Professional Graphics Controller. An IBM board set (3 boards fitting into 2 adjacent ISA slots (there's a memory PCB sandwiched between them) that form an intellegent-ish graphics card with an 8088 to control it (!). I have the techref, I'd love to play with the boards. -tony