On  5 Oct 98 at 16:41, VNITHIAN wrote:

>   I have a 486 - Intel PC system. When I turn the system on, I get
> the following error " No-timer tick interrupt". This problem is
> intermittent.

  One of the basic PC components is a "timer chip".  It has several
"pulse" outputs, and the frequency of each is programmable.  [One of
the outputs goes to the speaker built into the PC case, and this
provides the "beep" sound and a very crude musical capability.]
  The most important output from this chip is connected to IRQ 0, and
set to pulse every 55 milliseconds -- about 18.2 times/second.  [I
may be rusty, but I believe that's awfully close to 64K ticks/hour.]
  The code that handles IRQ 0 updates the OS's idea of what time it
is, which is used to time-stamp files and so on.  It's kind of
critical that this code get called in a timely fashion.

  The ROM POST (Power-On Self-Test code must program the timer ship
to generate this signal.  It then probably goes into a loop that will
last for 60 ms or so, unless it's interrupted -- which a temporary
handler for IRQ 0 will do.  If the loop runs to completion, the pulse
signal back from the timer chip never arrived.
  That's my best guess at what this message is trying to report, and
it probably means that the timer chip is dying.  This isn't a common
component to fail, and I'm not sure that it's replaceable.  Your best
bet may be to see if you can contact the manufacturer of the board
about a replacement, but odds are good that they'll just recommend
you replace the motherboard with a modern one -- which means
replacing your CPU, and probably your RAM and video card.
  You may be able to locate a used or surplus 486 board that will
work with your existing components, if your budget is really tight.

David G

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