Re: iWill V1.2 slocket voltage settings

Posted on 2025-06-13, 10:33

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You could use a multimeter to measure the voltage without a CPU installed. Then you can experiment with the jumpers without any danger. Vcore *might* be found at the unpopulated capacitor location EC5. It could also be found on the back side at the terminals of the other caps, or on the motherboard …

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Re: Are early levels better than later levels in games?

Posted on 2025-05-30, 11:47

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

Shareware Tyrian was loads of fun. I loved the system of gradually accumulating power ups for your ship. But as you reach the end of Shareware, it feels like the game has run it's course. I haven't actually played the Registered levels, but I've seen them on video. It looked to me like the powerup …

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Re: Help Request: Max CPU upgrade on Biostar M6TBA Ver. 1.4

Posted on 2025-05-23, 08:33

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I know the voltage question about the LX1664CD has already been resolved, but for what it's worth: Don't trust the specs you see on 3rd party sites like digikey. They have errors all the time. AI is worse. In this case, the stated max of 2.8V is clearly bad data, because Intel's spec dictates VRMs …

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Re: redbook cd track audio test, is descent 2 the only tool to test this ?

Posted on 2025-05-15, 23:26

by

by shamino

in DOS

in DOS

To test the setup you can use any audio player software that supports playing CDs. Usually CDs that combine data+redbook put the music on track 2 and later. Try a standard music CD, those should work too. I've never programmed CD stuff but I doubt any driver is even needed for this. The music tracks …

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Re: Retro PC died

Posted on 2025-05-12, 22:13

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For better clarity, I have marked the ones I tested in the image below. The ones in red measured 0.8V. Within the blue circle one measured 1.5V and the other 10V. I then proceeded to measure the other ICs in the same order above ( left of cpu socket) and they all measured similar values (1.5V and …

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Re: Retro PC died

Posted on 2025-05-11, 09:44

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If those are constant speed fan connectors, no PWM or voltage based control of the fan speed, then it's not good for the fan speed to be fluctuating. That would mean the +12V supply is fluctuating. As suggested above, by probing the mosfets that feed Vcore, or the inductors, you can probably find …

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Re: I'm wondering if I should use Riva TNT2 as it is or change it to GeForce 256 altogether.

Posted on 2025-05-09, 23:02

by

by shamino

in Windows

in Windows

I don't know about the compatibility issue you're getting, but in case it has anything to do with drivers, there are much older drivers that would work on the Geforce2 MX and TNT2 cards. I used to run 5.32 on an MX with Win98SE back then. The Geforce 256 is expensive to get nowadays, so if you don't …

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Re: Radeon HD2600XT AGP, any driver version for XP 32 that's stable?

Posted on 2025-05-08, 11:38

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

~10 years ago I ran a Visiontek HD2600XT AGP for about 2 years on a P4 HT running WinXP32 and had no trouble with it. I didn't play games heavily with it but I did test it out enough to say it was stable. The explanation I've read for the driver issues is that ATI didn't want these GPUs to be used …

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Re: What was logic behind Radeon VE WITH SDR memory?

Posted on 2025-05-03, 00:27

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

DDR has greater setup/latency penalties than regular SDRAM. DDR doesn't fully double the performance but doubling the bus width does. "citation required". Comparing DDR and SDR at the same clock frequency , the setup/latency penalties are expected to be identical. In the case of the GeForce 2MX, we …

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Re: Intel VS440FX 64MB 72-Pin SIMM question

Posted on 2025-04-06, 04:20

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

After running the computer for more than a few hours the computer has become unstable. I am reverting back to the 32MB 72-Pin EDO SIMMs I was using. Too bad, but it was just too good to be true. Maybe the RAM chips were really meant for 3.3V and were overheating with 5V? Does this board have any …

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Re: TV Card / Graphics card, AIW or separate?

Posted on 2025-04-06, 04:05

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Long ago I remember reading about an independent driver somebody made for some Brooktree chips used on many TV tuner cards. It was supposed to be better than the original drivers many BT based cards came with. I think this was probably the project: https://btwincap.sourceforge.net/ If you see a card …

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Re: 3d modelling Win 3.1?

Posted on 2025-04-03, 22:39

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are you willing to use NT 3.x instead? It shares the UI of Windows 3.x. That might open more possibilities, I would imagine most serious CAD applications for Windows were targeting NT. More seriouser applications probably just ran on UNIX back then.

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Re: Pentium II 233 or 266?

Posted on 2025-04-03, 22:28

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

300MHz definitely seems to be one of the rarer P2 speeds. That was the fastest Klamath. Klamath 233 and 266 show up a lot more often. I didn't know there was ever a 266MHz Deschutes, that's probably rare also. A few years ago I had 2 identical Dell Dimension cases, one was for a 300MHz and one for a …

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Re: What was logic behind Radeon VE WITH SDR memory?

Posted on 2025-04-03, 10:22

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

In this case, Geforces 2 MX DDR were 64-bit, while Geforces 2 MX SDR were 128-bit (in memory bus), so bandwidth after transition to SDR remained the same. On paper, yes. But in reality, the SDR implementation is still slightly faster from what I've seen/read. Of course, a lot depends on the …

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Re: What was logic behind Radeon VE WITH SDR memory?

Posted on 2025-04-01, 22:53

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

If ATI was already mass producing Radeon chips, then it makes sense they'd want to find a lower end product they could use the same chips with. But more interesting, ... Ati Rage 128 pro 128-bit (memory) - will it be faster in 3D? Will it be more expensive to make? Or about the same? That's the most …

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Re: 286-12 doesn't bottleneck fast VGA

Posted on 2025-04-01, 22:25

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

There's always a "bottleneck" somewhere, but there's nothing wrong with leapfrogging one limitation with another. Your WD90C00 was obviously holding the system back, so upgrading the card was still a benefit.

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Re: Pentium-S 100 MHz - Generic Mystery PC

Posted on 2025-03-30, 11:47

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

4) Also, according to the board's page on The Retro Web, this motherboard supposedly has a PS/2 Mouse input, and while there are a couple of breakout cables from the motherboard that go to the I/O slots in the back (Parallel, Serial, etc), the PS/2 looking port seems a bit funky looking compared to …

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Re: GIGABYTE GA-6BXE, or Abit BF6?

Posted on 2025-03-27, 21:25

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A 550MHz CPU is most likely a Katmai. Do all ABit BF6 boards support Coppermine voltages? If not, then do you have a picture showing the voltage regulator IC (usually about 20-28 pins near the MOSFETs and caps next to the CPU slot)?

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Re: nVidia Geforce 4 Mx400 causing ridiculously slow performance on Asus Motherboard

Posted on 2025-03-27, 08:37

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

but most importantly the CPU is slowed down to an absolute crawl. It takes nearly 10 seconds to check ram at boot up , which usually is instantaneous with my old ATI Rage Pro 128, CPU based applications or playing a FLAC in Winamp is slowed, and really any task related to CPU processing is slowed …

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Re: Diamond Viper V330 PCI 8MB (Riva 128ZX) Tantalum Cap Replacement

Posted on 2025-03-26, 23:26

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Tantalums really just hate being left idle for a long time. If they get routine use then they'll probably last forever. But now that these devices have graduated to a sleepy lifestyle, we do see how angry they can be about waking up again. True, with a multimeter my Viper 330 PCI measures 5 volts …

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