Re: Motherboard Recap - Questions Before buying - How are you choosing replacements?

Posted on 2023-07-05, 22:05

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

1) I did not care at all about these 3 things, im not sure if i should: "Ripple Current @ Low Frequency" , "Ripple Current @ High Frequency" , "Impedance" should i choose something specific in there for motherboard use? This depends on what capacitors you are replacing. If it's a general purpose …

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Re: Asus P/I-P55T2P4 does not work and throws memory errors

Posted on 2023-07-05, 21:34

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

One of my ASUS boards would have a really erratic behavior until I modified the Dallas chip to use a coin cell. It seems that when the battery is low it refuses to save the CMOS settings, leaving things in an inconsistent state. So yeah, definitely try a fresh Dallas chip (or mod the current one), …

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Re: MSI MS-4144 ver2.1 AWARD or AMI Bios? Neither seem to be correct.

Posted on 2023-07-05, 21:19

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The AMI BIOSes probably have the same problem, it's just that those usually don't even display anything if the BIOS checksum is wrong. So yeah, either the dumps are not correct or there was a problem with the flash. EDIT: MODBIN doesn't complain when trying to open the AWARD files, so I'd say …

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Re: Help a guy out with AT case cable placement on the motherboard

Posted on 2023-07-03, 16:03

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I edited my post above with more details, hopefully you can make it work with that.

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Re: Help a guy out with AT case cable placement on the motherboard

Posted on 2023-07-03, 15:34

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So, I've got What on earth is that one 2-pin black/red cable that comes from the PSU? I couldn't find any references to it. Careful with that one. It’s a 5V connector that does NOT connect to the motherboard at all, it is used to power the MHz display on the front of the case. You need to plug it …

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Re: AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born

Posted on 2023-07-03, 13:49

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by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

It’s not entitlement. They certainly have the right to try and lock me out. If they succeed, good on them. I just don’t consider YT content valuable enough to sit through annoying ads or paying a subscription. Meaning I won’t go out of my way to watch it if I have no way to access it for free. On …

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Re: Any hope of fixing an NEC 2x SCSI CD-ROM that won't read?

Posted on 2023-07-02, 01:43

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

SMD electrolytics are known to fail in many of these early CD-ROM drives. In your case they look fine, but maybe it's worth it to pull out a couple to test them, maybe they've dried out. If the drive was not frequently used, I wouldn't expect the laser diode to have failed, but you never know. I …

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Re: The ECS Local Bus - Overview and Benchmarks on a 486DX-50 system

Posted on 2023-07-01, 18:09

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Updated the thread with benchmarks and comparison to ISA graphics cards! I hope you include BUSCLK overclocking for the ISA card. Unfortunately overclocking the bus makes my EISA controller freak out, so I had to stick to 8.33 MHz. Later on I may try with a regular ISA controller if I get it to work …

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Re: adding activity LED to an internal ST-225 drive

Posted on 2023-07-01, 15:16

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don’t have an LED header on the MFM controller of my XT clone either. So I desoldered the onboard LED of my ST-251 and replaced it with a 2-pin header that I can connect to the front panel of the case.

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Re: Jamicon KM-S4-1 / Rectron RT-4S3 Bios update

Posted on 2023-07-01, 01:01

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You cannot flash that chip directly from the motherboard. It needs to be erased with UV light (that's why the little window on the chip is covered with a label) and then flashed on a programmer. So the best option would be to flash a new chip if you have a programmer or have someone do it for you, …

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Re: AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born

Posted on 2023-06-30, 07:53

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by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

Well, maybe we're about to have another "Dot Com Bubble" someday? It can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned. A term I read the other day was spot on I think: all of this began with the "APPification" of the Internet. Everything is concentrated on a few platforms/apps that have new …

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Re: 386 motherboard with Tseng labs isa cards issue.

Posted on 2023-06-29, 03:21

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That is a known issue with ET4000AX cards, you simply cannot use hidden refresh with them end of story There is nothing wrong with the memory on his motherboard, that's just how those video cards behave Curious, is this something specific to the ISA versions of these cards or certain games? The …

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Re: 386 motherboard with Tseng labs isa cards issue.

Posted on 2023-06-29, 00:12

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Can you test with only bank 0 filled? And then swap with the other 4 SIMMs and try again. My reasoning is that maybe one group of SIMMs you have there doesn't support hidden refresh (even though all the FPM chips I've seen do support it).

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Re: Less popular Youtube channels

Posted on 2023-06-28, 05:23

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not sure if >30K subscribers counts as "small", but I've been watching the Day of the Tentacle documentary on https://www.youtube.com/@onaretrotip and I have to say it's fantastic. I especially liked the segment about iMuse and all the challenges of creating the soundtrack. And it was great being …

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Re: The ECS Local Bus - Overview and Benchmarks on a 486DX-50 system

Posted on 2023-06-26, 04:42

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

*** System Speed Test Ver 4.78 *** SL-486E - SPEEDSYS v4.78.jpg Results in SPEEDSYS are as expected for a DX-50, with the board providing good main memory performance. More interestingly, VESA memory speed is rated at 9694KB/s, which puts the ECS local bus card at around the same level of your …

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The ECS Local Bus - Overview and Benchmarks on a 486DX-50 system

Posted on 2023-06-26, 04:42

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The pre-VLB/PCI 486 era is of great interest to me, in particular the attempts of several manufacturers to overcome ISA bus limitations by introducing their own proprietary local bus implementations, none of which seems to have been successful as shortly after VLB became the de-facto standard until …

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Re: 80486 BIOS image collection

Posted on 2023-06-24, 08:14

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

#147 Manufacturer/Identifier: ECS SL-486E Chipset: SiS 85C406/85C411/85C431 BIOS/Version: AMI 486 EISA BIOS 12/12/91 (SL486E V1.0 06-10-92) BIOS String: 40-0000-001131-00101111-121291-SIS-EISA SL-486E.jpg NOTE: the bottom slot is NOT VESA Local Bus, it's a proprietary ECS Local Bus that uses the …

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Re: ECS Local Bus VGA card artifacting

Posted on 2023-06-20, 02:30

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The last couple of days I've been able to resume the attempt of mapping the ELB pinout. I've been able to identify: All data lines (D0-D31) All address lines (A2-A31), A20-A23 on the ET4000 chip are grounded and no A24-A31 Byte enable signals (BE0*-BE3*) RDY* M/IO* ADS* D/C* W/R* +5V, GND, NC @ …

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Re: Best ISA Sound Cards to Pair with Dream Blaster X2 GS ?

Posted on 2023-06-19, 21:36

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

The way you ask the same generic questions over and over again suggest that you don't read or remember anything, so a list ain't going to help you. Give it a few years, right now it remembers around 10-20 messages before losing track of the conversation, but at the pace AI tech is advancing it will …

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Re: serial mouse not detected on a 386 motherboard

Posted on 2023-06-19, 21:19

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I provided a link to the loopback specs earlier in the thread. CheckIt can do a more limited test of the COM/LPT ports without the loopback but you have to respond 'N' when it asks if you have the loopback connected before running the test.

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