Re: Old laptop with a long battery life competition

Posted on 2022-04-18, 17:08

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I just tested a battery life of a recently acquired Compaq Armada 1540D, for that purpose I ran Quake demos in loop with sound on under DOS (laptop was set to battery drain mode). I repeated the test twice and result was basically the same, with only a few seconds difference - 1 hour and 52 minutes. …

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Re: What is a 3D accelerator?

Posted on 2022-04-10, 22:10

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Avoid getting S3 Virge for 3D acceleration at all costs, grab a Rage Pro Turbo if you don't have any other choice, that card should run all DX5 games glitch free with the latest drivers and at much better performance.

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Re: Competition! Win a 3DFX Voodoo3 Graphics Card. ----#Quake3toTheMax----

Posted on 2022-04-10, 21:56

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The rules of this competition doesn't make much sense to me. Hardware side: You are clearly advocanting for an authentic, late 90's gaming environment, but contradict yourselves by allowing the use of motherboards with DDR RAM capable MCHs(!). It's also not clear to me why GeForce 2 line of cards ( …

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Re: DataExpert 8049 Multiplier hell

Posted on 2022-03-24, 15:23

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Am5x86 has only one pin that is responsible for multiplier selection, called CLKMUL. It's directly connected to one of the CPU type selection jumper headers, stick a pin into a right hole at CPU socket and beep out all the jumpers you find suspicious with a DMM 😉 datasheet see pg. 8, R-17

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Re: GD5422 BIOS weirdness

Posted on 2022-01-12, 00:46

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

It's not easy to swap A0 with A14 around just by a mistake either, perhaps they simply didn't want 3rd party to tamper with the BIOS contents and today's post just proves that such tactic was somewhat successful, no? 😁

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Re: GD5422 BIOS weirdness

Posted on 2022-01-12, 00:03

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Plasma wrote on 2022-01-11, 22:13: It looks like the EPROM socket address pins are not wired correctly. Possibly A0 and A14 are swapped. Try putting all the even bytes first, then all the odd bytes. This has to be it, every odd byte would be read starting from 4000H address in the ROM, which makes …

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Re: GD5422 BIOS weirdness

Posted on 2022-01-11, 21:42

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The original BIOS image shows that the bytes are only EVEN. Maybe the first half of the BIOS image is composed of just EVEN bytes and the other half from ODD bytes?

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Re: Acer Acros Model 4309 (P433D)

Posted on 2022-01-08, 15:23

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The best way to pull the processor out of the LIF socket is to use a special fork-like lever, I don't have such a tool and just use a flat head screwdriver, wrapped in painters tape to prevent dents on socket's ridges. I've always wondered which computer manufacturer used such 486 CPU heatsinks as …

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Re: Help with Octek Fox M 286 (broken chip)

Posted on 2022-01-06, 10:34

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

From Darn, this brings back memories ... The chip labeled 089-001 seems to be common between our boards, but the similarities end here. The Fox M is also equipped with 090-103 and 090-110 , whereas your board has a 090-101 and a mysterious/optional one right next to the battery (board works fine …

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Re: Need help getting a BIOS image for 486 Asaki motherboard

Posted on 2022-01-05, 01:42

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Try dumping BIOS using "DUMPAT" program, it will generate a 1 meg file with the BIOS image at the bottom. Filename dumpat.zip File size 8.99 KiB Downloads 38 downloads

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Re: why vlb motherboards are so finicky

Posted on 2021-12-31, 16:41

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nemo1985 wrote on 2021-12-29, 17:22: PC Chips M912 rev 1.4 (I still didn't understand if it is with fake cache or not). I had a similarly configured PC Chips motherboard. Bank 0 contains real (at least functional) SRAM ICs, bank 1 is filled with empty DIP28 shells, but they are made from high …

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Re: SiS or UMC Motherboard for 486?

Posted on 2021-12-26, 17:05

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, its main issue is omitted chipset options in BIOS, though, official BIOS could be fixed with a "Modbin" BIOS editor.

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Re: SiS or UMC Motherboard for 486?

Posted on 2021-12-26, 15:51

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A stock 4SAW2 motherboard will most definitely lose, in terms of performance, to more known motherboard manufacturers which used the same chipset. This motherboard has a few questionable chipset features/BIOS option implementations, but the main drawback for it is a badly implemented L2 cache policy …

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Re: How to implement bus transceivers on 486 bus (SIS85C471)

Posted on 2021-11-07, 00:46

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In your schematic A[2:23] lines are connected to buffers correctly but at IC6 output you assigned names wrong, starting from IC5 pin 11 and up, pin names should be LA[17:23], then you take another buffer and connect 3 least significant LA lines (17-19) to create 3 most significant SA lines, at least …

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Re: How to implement bus transceivers on 486 bus (SIS85C471)

Posted on 2021-11-06, 23:30

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't get access to google drive links, could you attach images directly to the post?

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Re: How to implement bus transceivers on 486 bus (SIS85C471)

Posted on 2021-11-06, 21:07

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just checked sis 471 datasheet, rasz_pl is right, in case you are going to implement a bus mastering device, eg. SCSI or ethernet controller into your SBC, then you should make the address bus buffer bidirectional, othervise it can be left unidirectional. Thank you, that makes sense now. However, …

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Re: Perplexed by pentium 3 and slockets

Posted on 2021-11-06, 18:35

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Slotket A is not fit for the FC-PGA CPU support modification, it's lacks all of the V_CMOS pull up resistors for the CMOS signal group (A20M#, FLUSH#, IGNNE#, INIT#, LINT0/INTR, LINT1/NMI, PREQ#, SLP#, SMI#, STPCLK# etc.) and most likely doesn't even have a trace which connects all of the VTT pins. …

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Re: Voodoo Banshee PCI -- can't change resolution above 640x480

Posted on 2021-11-06, 16:24

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Try to reinstall DirectX?

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Re: What system to Voodoo3 2000?

Posted on 2021-11-06, 16:21

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I have the option to build the SS7 platform on Ali Alladin V and K6-2 500 or s.370 on VIA Apollo Pro133/Intel 440BX/LX and Pentium III 800-1000. What will be more suitable for games until about cca 2000 in 1024x768 and W98SE? You will see this statement, that both AGP and PCI versions of Voodoo3 …

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Re: Perplexed by pentium 3 and slockets

Posted on 2021-11-06, 15:18

by

by SSTV2

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Post high ress pictures of bare slotkets from both sides, electric FC-PGA CPU design flaws should be apparent.

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