Re: Help with flashing a S3 Virge GX PCI card BIOS

Posted on 2020-07-17, 04:17

by

by darry

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Programming an EEPROM or Flash chip is easy nowadays. All you need is a TL866 or similar cheap programmer (G540 etc), a blank EPROM / One Time Programmable ROM (EPROM without window) / Flash Chip. If you are unsure, get a cheap UV eraser box from China and use traditional UV erasable EPROMs (27c512 …

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Re: Orpheus Soundcard: a new DOS soundcard with SPDIF/OPL3/MPU support

Posted on 2020-07-17, 04:09

by

by darry

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

PCI version would be good too not much out there these days especially daughter board support. A PCI version would need to be based on a completely different design and different controller chip. For DOS compatibility, which is one this project's design goals, PCI is sub-optimal . For waveblaster …

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Re: Windows XP Broken EDID/Scaling, Forcing Resolutions?

Posted on 2020-07-17, 03:55

by

by darry

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

One way around driver EDID issues is using an EDID emulator with a custom EDID . That's the solution I amusing for my retro machine. If I don't use a custom EDID on my Acer VW257 1920x1200 monitor, I don't even get a picture when running an FX 5900 under Windows 98 SE . All the custom EDID does in …

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Re: Is the Adaptec AHA-2940UW a good choice for DOS/Win9x SCSI?

Posted on 2020-07-17, 02:59

by

by darry

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For slot1 and later definitely, and likely for socket 7/super socket 7 aswell, using a bus-mastering PCI SATA controller or even a decent IDE one with an IDE to SATA adapter makes the most sense, IMHO (like a Promise or Silicon Image SIL3114) : a) drive size issue are gone with LBA48 support b) …

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Re: CT6960 DVI Port not working

Posted on 2020-07-16, 22:14

by

by darry

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

According to this ftp://ftp.iks-jena.de/mitarb/lutz/unix/asus-v … ia/BkNVBIOS.pdf BIOS versions prior to 2.10.04.02.00 do not initialize the DVI TMDS at boot . "Add code during bootup to initialize SI 154/164 via I2C port when booting to DFP."

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Re: CT6960 DVI Port not working

Posted on 2020-07-16, 21:45

by

by darry

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Isn't there an Nvidia video BIOS options that controls whether video is mirrored on both ports on boot ?

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Re: Help with flashing a S3 Virge GX PCI card BIOS

Posted on 2020-07-16, 21:41

by

by darry

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Programming an EEPROM or Flash chip is easy nowadays. All you need is a TL866 or similar cheap programmer (G540 etc), a blank EPROM / One Time Programmable ROM (EPROM without window) / Flash Chip. If you are unsure, get a cheap UV eraser box from China and use traditional UV erasable EPROMs (27c512 …

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Re: What music are you listening to?

Posted on 2020-07-16, 21:34

by

by darry

in Milliways

in Milliways

Wolfus wrote on 2020-07-16, 21:20: Right now - Conan the Barbarian soundtrack. Try the Red Sonja soundtrack too, if you haven't already .

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Re: Good SCSI controller for 386 ?

Posted on 2020-07-16, 21:07

by

by darry

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you have more than 16MB of memory I'd recommend one of the AHA-152x or 153x instead. The 1542 is an awesome adapter, but its best feature of using bus mastered DMA bites you in the ass if you have more memory than the ISA bus can address. You are then forced to use double buffering which kills …

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Re: Collecting rants

Posted on 2020-07-16, 13:15

by

by darry

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This happened today: I bought 4 ISA cards in the morning and wrote the seller how I wanted them shipped. 6 hours later I get a response: "What 4 cards are you talking about?" The mail title included my name, the auction number and "4x ISA cards". The seller also directly wrote from the auction page …

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Re: Good SCSI controller for 386 ?

Posted on 2020-07-16, 13:07

by

by darry

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What is a good 50-pin SCSI controller for a 386/486 computer ? This will be for a SCSI CDROM and maybe hard drive. I don’t need SCSI floppy. Adaptec AHA-1542 springs to mind, if you intend to use it in an ISA slot . If using a PCI 486, an Adaptec AHA-2930 or AHA-2940 is an option. VLB SCSI cards …

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Re: 72 pin SIMM brand recommendations or just get whatever (486 build)?

Posted on 2020-07-16, 06:46

by

by darry

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ebay for me IMO. I wouldn't bother getting picky with brands. Of course you'l have the trust worthy ones from manufactures like Kingston, and maybe those are a bit better on the Q/A. But you'd be waiting ages just for the right set to come up. Honestly, as long as the ram comes in pairs, doesn't …

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Re: 72 pin SIMM brand recommendations or just get whatever (486 build)?

Posted on 2020-07-16, 06:40

by

by darry

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In general, 486-era systems were far less choosy regarding RAM brand/model than has been the case the past 15-20 years, which is why brands are less commonly mentioned. RAM density and structure was very relevant. 486 memory controllers (outside of obscure server designs) were 32b, so you minimum …

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Re: What's the dumbest retro mistake you've made?

Posted on 2020-07-16, 06:00

by

by darry

in Milliways

in Milliways

Getting into this hobby in the first place. When I started my goal was to build my childhood computer. A year later I have 2 rooms full of computers and parts and no end in sight. I sympathize, I truly do . I have only one room in that situation, but the installed retro stuff (along with the modern …

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Re: Help with flashing a S3 Virge GX PCI card BIOS

Posted on 2020-07-15, 20:16

by

by darry

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

So, I got a Venus DGX4 REV 2.0 S3 ViRGE GX On Board (86c385) PCI 4MB card for one of my old machines and I'm thinking about flashing its BIOS with a file i found online but I'm not sure about how to do it. My cards bios says "S3 VIRGE 375/385 vedio BIOS. Version 2.01.13D" and the one I found says " …

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Re: 10 year cpu challenge

Posted on 2020-07-15, 17:34

by

by darry

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

And I never did get that AC'97 sound working in MS-DOS even though it claimed to have Sound Blaster emulation built-in. There was a thread about this recently; somebody figured out how to make it work. Where is that thread? Please "feed me that gold treasure". I have a few virtual machines with …

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Re: Intel SE440BX-2 / Issues

Posted on 2020-07-15, 17:17

by

by darry

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hey Doogie, really nice setup ! For the SATA Pci Card I actually can't update the Bios as it's not recognized by the Silicon Image flashing tool. I tested 2 different drivers, same results and always showing the attached drive as MS-DOS Compatibility Mode. Also tested on different PCI port, same …

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Re: Sound much louder on PC front panel

Posted on 2020-07-15, 13:12

by

by darry

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I could be wrong, but I was alway under the impression that the tasking thing only changed the max gain on the Realtek integrated amplifier . Here we are talking about an external headphone amplifier chip. I don't see how that could be switched by the Realtek app .

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Re: Bought this (Modern) hardware today

Posted on 2020-07-15, 03:00

by

by darry

in Milliways

in Milliways

I'm not a fan of hw RAID controllers. If they fail, you're hunting for a replacement so you can salvage your array. Software redundancy with today's CPUs is extremely fast and more resilient. They have gotten much better. Most of the latest controllers i've gotten my dirty dick beaters on, can read …

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Re: Bought this (Modern) hardware today

Posted on 2020-07-14, 23:25

by

by darry

in Milliways

in Milliways

6) has built in raid controller ( raid levels 0-4 ) with 4 drives. I'm not a fan of hw RAID controllers. If they fail, you're hunting for a replacement so you can salvage your array. Software redundancy with today's CPUs is extremely fast and more resilient. I agree wholeheartedly . Outside of some …

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