Re: Using a turbo button to "switch" CPUs

Posted on 2020-05-14, 01:12

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I can't speak to dual CPU motherboards, but I use the turbo switch to change the FSB speed on my FIC VA-503+ (MVP3). At full speed (100MHz FSB), it is 550 MHz, and with a 66 MHz bus, it runs at 366 MHz. From there, I can use SETMUL to tweak the multiplier and cache settings, meaning that I don't …

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Using a turbo button to "switch" CPUs

Posted on 2020-05-13, 22:36

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had a crazy idea of using the turbo button on an AT case to switch between using different CPUs. I have this Cougar Alaris board and it has a built in CPU (386 class Blue Lightning) and also an additional socket 3 for adding an upgraded CPU (486 class or Pentium Overdrive). I believe you simply …

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Voodoo 5 5500 AGP issues with video output

Posted on 2020-04-26, 04:05

by

by peg

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Hi all, I have a Voodoo 5500 AGP I recently acquired and unfortunately there is lots of noise in the video output. These "wavy rolling lines" are all over the place in the picture and it's very obvious on grey/white backgrounds and quite annoying to look at. I've tested the card on multiple …

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Re: Roland SCB-55 in 2020 - fair price and how to find one?

Posted on 2020-04-19, 23:27

by

by peg

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I've got the Monster midi (4MB), a SCB-55, and SCB-7 and honestly I can barely tell the difference between all 3 of them.

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Re: Roland SCB-55 in 2020 - fair price and how to find one?

Posted on 2020-04-19, 18:44

by

by peg

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Try and find one of the monster sound 4MB midi boards. it sounds essentially the same as the SCB-55 and is like 1/4 the price.

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Re: Segmented (Turbo MHz LED) Display Reproductions

Posted on 2020-04-07, 03:53

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm definitely interested, My thread on the topic: Replacement AT Case turbo display

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Re: Why is Voodoo 3 so popular?

Posted on 2020-03-28, 07:47

by

by peg

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Because it basically does everything you could want, with excellent DOS compatibility, great image quality, and good 3d with glide support. They are also fairly common, although the PCI versions are a bit harder to find . The only real issue beyond the price is that they run pretty hot, so you need …

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Re: Vogons members average motherboard collection size

Posted on 2020-03-28, 07:40

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think I've got around a dozen to 15 motherboards, ranging from 386 to slot 1 and some more "modern stuff" like Asrock 775i65g. I've also got 2 Deathsmiles II Cave PCs, anyone know what those are 🤣?

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Re: Impact of video cards on DOS games

Posted on 2020-03-20, 07:40

by

by peg

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

All I can say is that if you want to play Doom , stay far, far away from any Rendition Verite based cards. It will turn a pentium into a 386.

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Re: Replacement AT Case turbo display

Posted on 2020-03-09, 19:00

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well I would...if I could find a LED display. It's a 3 digit display, with the first digit fixed to "1" on/off and the other 2 digits are settable via the jumpers. Apparently they are impossible to find.

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Re: Replacement AT Case turbo display

Posted on 2020-03-03, 21:46

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The only component on the small PCB besides the LED display is a resistor, and it appears to be fine (although I must say I didn't actually test it with a multimeter). I guess I will test the traces tonight as well. That said, I'm nearly positive that the LED is toast, when I plugged it in wrong, …

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Re: Replacement AT Case turbo display

Posted on 2020-03-03, 19:51

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

might be easy to repair, I once fried it and it was only the 5v trace that burned up. for such a big piece of pcb quiet easy to run jump wire. But depends what fried Unfortunately it's the LED display itself that has "fried", the PCB looks fine to me. The LED display kind of still works, except …

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Replacement AT Case turbo display

Posted on 2020-03-02, 22:10

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I stupidly managed to fry my AT case's turbo/frequency display by plugging the power into the wrong side. Is there any place I can buy a replacement for this small display? It says S-503H on the PCB, and looks like similar not my pic, but it looks identical except for the markings showing what the …

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Re: What is your favorite Vintage ISA/PCI test motherboard ?

Posted on 2020-02-29, 04:22

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The board I use for very basic testing is the FIC VA-503+. I found it because I was looking for something that supported ISA, PCI, AGP, Socket 7, and both FPM/EDO SIMM (72 pin) and DIMM. Finding something that supports both 72 pin SIMMs and AGP is kind of a challenge, as they wasn't a lot of …

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IBM Blue Lightning desolder

Posted on 2020-02-28, 06:36

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Has anyone dared to de-solder the IBM Blue Lighting (like on the Alaris Cougar) from its motherboard and transfer it to a PGA package like the AMD 386 DX uses? I'm not sure if that would even work or if they are physically the same size. The idea is to make it portable so you can place it into …

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Re: M-tech R418W2 memory size issues

Posted on 2020-02-26, 02:17

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I would try that except I do not believe that 8MB 30 pin simms exist, or if they do, they are exceptionally rare. I did try 16MB FPM/Parity simms (4.x16=64MB in a bank) off ebay and they did not work. So I'm still trying more RAM on this thing, I've now successfully booted it with 96MB using 8x4MB …

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Re: M-tech R418W2 memory size issues

Posted on 2020-02-25, 08:02

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I'm still trying more RAM on this thing, I've now successfully booted it with 96MB using 8x4MB 30 pin simms, and 2x32MB 72 pin simms, all of it 60ns, FPM with parity. Oddly, it hangs on the memory test if I don't put the 30 pin RAM in there and just try 2x32=64MB 72 pin simms. I wonder if non- …

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Re: M-tech R418W2 memory size issues

Posted on 2020-02-24, 07:32

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tried some more RAM, still have issues. I tried plugging in 64MB of 30 pin simms and it just shows up as 16MB (1/4 of what it should be). Won't even let me add 72 pin simms under that configuration. I'm now led to believe that the "manual" for this MB is complete BS, and that the true limit for this …

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Re: M-tech R418W2 memory size issues

Posted on 2020-02-20, 04:08

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've yet to be able to get more than 16MB (4MB x 4 simms) out of a 30 pin "bank" and 32MB in a 72 pin slot. Thus I'm led to believe the max capacity of this motherboard is actually 96MB instead of the alleged 256. Also, does anyone know what the max cacheable RAM for this chipset (SIS 496/497) is …

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Re: M-tech R418W2 memory size issues

Posted on 2020-02-19, 04:10

by

by peg

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks for the responses! I have the version with the winbond chip and the award bios. It also says R418-B in the corner of the PCB next to the bottom ISA slot. The sticker on the board just says "R418W2". I'm beginning to wonder if it is really 128 max since I've never been able to get more than …

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