Re: Building a 486 PC - how much does motherboard really matter for my plans?

Posted on 2021-06-02, 19:48

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Damn, prices aren't slowing down are they, if I didn't already have enough junk to keep me busy years, I'd have to take up a cheaper hobby, like racing vintage Ferraris. I think you're going to have to hit up the car boot sales me old son. Also look out for ham radio flea markets, boot sales etc. …

---

Re: 486 Multimedia dream build ( 1993/94 ).

Posted on 2021-06-02, 18:17

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I used to like the Corel WordPerfect office suite 7, in theory, it's in the archives somewhere, archives meaning an anonymous brown box in amongst the other anonymous brown boxes.

---

Re: Bought a box of stuff

Posted on 2021-06-02, 18:04

by

by BitWrangler

in Milliways

in Milliways

I think eurocrypt was for smartcard satellite card decoding, i.e. pirating satellite TV without paying. edit: and yay, a fast Virge, it was almost as fast as a slow SiS 😉

---

Re: Help (re)building a 486

Posted on 2021-06-02, 17:52

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Might get a DX4 100 to run at DX2 100 on a board that's normally solid at 50. However, all of those apart from upgrade versions which may have multi nailed down, are 3.3V not 5V

---

Re: Yet another Abit de-Teapofied (almost)

Posted on 2021-06-02, 17:48

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

And this KR7A might not be an exception. Because I'm having issues. Thing is, its been absolutely rock solid in all my installing, gaming and bench marking. But Memtest86 and Memtest86+ both throw tons of errors when doing the "Block Move" tests. But ONLY when using a T-Bred CPU... with a Palomino …

---

Re: Help (re)building a 486

Posted on 2021-06-02, 17:00

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Can get confusing on some early 486 boards and 386 boards where they used a double speed oscillator to halve down for the frequency, i.e. 80Mhz for 40, 66Mhz for 33, 50Mhz for 25.

---

Re: Hilariously overspec RAM on an Nvidia TNT2 M64 Vanta16...

Posted on 2021-06-02, 16:07

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Yes, as the frequency goes up, things have to be designed more like transmission lines and the capacitance between traces becomes significant to the signal quality. Also quality and exact placement of other components will have an effect. There's a lot of guessing when it comes to RAM speed grades, …

---

Re: The worst motherboards you have had to work with

Posted on 2021-06-02, 14:16

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The EDO doesn't hold it's output, the motherboard holds the EDO output. The only time that could happen in a non EDO board is if the manufacturer halfassed some EDO forward compatibility and never got around to updating the BIOS to handle it.

---

Re: What are builds you want to make someday?

Posted on 2021-06-02, 12:46

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

The only LX mobo I have can't even OC a PII 266 :lol: - it's a Zida LX98-AT, and the only BIOS I could even find that is AWARD comes from a Epox that uses DIP-switches to manage the clock, while the Zida does it from the BIOS. That might be the 266, very few of them would hit 300, which is the …

---

Re: The worst motherboards you have had to work with

Posted on 2021-06-02, 12:12

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It only does that if the chipset holds a line longer, if it doesn't support the full features of EDO, which is FPM with a bolt on, it doesn't do that and the EDO doesn't do that. The whole PC-100 thing was just to emphasise how newer tech can be higher density than older tech and is a much more …

---

Re: Flying Dutchmen, White Whales, the ghost HW that eludes you, lost & found.

Posted on 2021-06-02, 01:05

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Mounted another expedition to hunt out the M571, this jungle was relatively devoid of interesting wildlife, only scored an external SCSI box, a parallel printer server/LAN adapter, and the first wild AT supply turned up.... and it's the one that got nuked with a can of black tarry bitumen rubber …

---

Re: BRAND NEW KDS 19 inch monitor MAJOR problems

Posted on 2021-06-01, 22:34

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Hmmmmm, first wild ass guess is that the PSU sections are putting out lower than spec voltages, but you could be hunting iffy caps all through it. Here be the holy scrolls of monitor fiddling... https://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_monfaq.html

---

Re: Non-obvious DX version requirements in graphics drivers

Posted on 2021-06-01, 20:56

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Heh, one caught me out the other day, Atari collection, free on a cereal box version, says needs DX6.1 to run, and I thought machine had 5 on, so I go what the heck, install DX then... and it put freaking 9.0 on it, gah, think that was because the distro CD was noughties even if the originals …

---

Re: I have a 486SX to play some games and I'm lost about drivers and other things

Posted on 2021-06-01, 20:51

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In '96 or so when SX25s were practically free and you could buy a DX33 for $5, me and a buddy or two would get SX25s and try to see how long it would take to kill them. Well they ran flaky without cooling at 50, but we had them looping doom demos for days at 40Mhz, no heatsink, got hot enough to be …

---

Re: Hilariously overspec RAM on an Nvidia TNT2 M64 Vanta16...

Posted on 2021-06-01, 19:52

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I looked in on some other cards while I was nearby their shelf, two more M64s, not Vantas though, they had 7ns on, and even a Radeon 7500 only had 5.5ns.

---

Re: The worst motherboards you have had to work with

Posted on 2021-06-01, 16:41

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

How many chips on the 8MB EDO though?

---

Re: The worst motherboards you have had to work with

Posted on 2021-06-01, 15:59

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I am skeptical of the "doesn't work with EDO" I think it's like "Doesn't work with PC-100" ... it's just that higher density DRAM more common on the newer standard and it's those the board doesn't support.

---

Re: What are builds you want to make someday?

Posted on 2021-06-01, 15:45

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Unless you're going cryogenic, you can push those celerons on an LX or EX board with FSBs up to 83 Mhz.. Those mendocino cores were well known to top out near 600Mhz. They start getting difficult around 560-570 for me. A bit more core voltage can straighten them out, but only buys another 20 or so. …

---

Re: Help (re)building a 486

Posted on 2021-06-01, 14:19

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

3. It can be wired and configured both ways. If you want it the other way then you will have to shift your turbo button connector to the left or right by one pin on the motherboard, then change the turbo display's segment jumpers around until it shows you what you want. It's going to be frustrating …

---

Re: I have a 486SX to play some games and I'm lost about drivers and other things

Posted on 2021-06-01, 14:12

by

by BitWrangler

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

We forget a lot to mention the difference the implementation can make of various graphics chipsets. Some boards are horribly slow, even when the chipset is well thought of, for instance I didn't like the ET4000 for years, because I must have had a sucktastic one back in the day. Some implementations …

---