Just got this for a steal, and although the SiS 85C407/85C471 chipset, I don't see any other notable markings other than a manufactures date of 09/94 on one of the VLB slots.
Trying to figure out what processors this supports and get an idea of the jumper configs.
Hi Artex,
your mobo looks very generic. Booting it up and typing down the BIOS string on the very bottom of the 1st. POST screen would help to identify any vendor.
You can use this mobo with any 5V CPU because there is no voltage regulator. However, there are aftermarket voltage sockets available for 5V board. Those voltage sockets convert the voltage from 5V down to 3.x V and make the later 3V CPUs (DX4-100 f.e) available.
Beside this, the SiS 471 chipset is a very fast one. Among the fastest available for VLB cards. I like it very much.
Cheers,
Fabian
www.AmoRetro.de Visit my huge hardware gallery with many historic items from 16MHz 286 to 1000MHz Slot A. Includes more than 80 soundcards and a growing Wavetable Recording section with more than 300 recordings.
Looks like it might be this one. It's not a 100% match, but it's pretty damn close, and TH99 does sometimes have errors.
wrote:Hi Artex, […]
Hi Artex,
your mobo looks very generic. Booting it up and typing down the BIOS string on the very bottom of the 1st. POST screen would help to identify any vendor.
You can use this mobo with any 5V CPU because there is no voltage regulator. However, there are aftermarket voltage sockets available for 5V board. Those voltage sockets convert the voltage from 5V down to 3.x V and make the later 3V CPUs (DX4-100 f.e) available.
Beside this, the SiS 471 chipset is a very fast one. Among the fastest available for VLB cards. I like it very much.
Cheers,
Fabian
Interesting - I don't have any VLB or ISA video cards around to fire it up yet. Do people generally get VLB boards for I/O - like serial ports for a mouse, etc?
wrote:Looks like it might be this one. It's not a 100% match, but it's pretty damn close, and TH99 does sometimes have errors.
THis looks like it has an OPTI chipset though - not SiS.
wrote:wrote:Looks like it might be this one. It's not a 100% match, but it's pretty damn close, and TH99 does sometimes have errors.
This looks like it has an OPTI chipset though - not SiS.
That may be an error, or the jumper settings may be the same for both chipsets. Trial and error may have to be used.
VLB is primarily for video, but was also can be used for IDE and SCSI interfaces and even a few network cards. IDE VLB had a reputation for iffy stability, something users did not want with a hard drive. ISA is fine for ethernet cards and there is no speed advantage for serial, parallel, game or floppy interfaces.
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Thats a socket 3 so that means 3.3V cpus can be used? As long as you find the jumper to switch the voltage.
Hmm... coin battery & 72 pin ram slots, looks like an interesting VLB board.
wrote:Thats a socket 3 so that means 3.3V cpus can be used? As long as you find the jumper to switch the voltage.
Hmm... coin battery & 72 pin ram slots, looks like an interesting VLB board.
Did you overread my post?
However, the "Socket 3" marking is indeed misleading because "Socket 3" implies the ability of supporting 3V CPUs which is _not_ the case here. It's just a mechanically compatible "Socket 3", violating the specification like many many mobos did back then.
www.AmoRetro.de Visit my huge hardware gallery with many historic items from 16MHz 286 to 1000MHz Slot A. Includes more than 80 soundcards and a growing Wavetable Recording section with more than 300 recordings.
@Fabian - still enjoying the parts I bought from you! Can you recommend some good VLB video cards and I/o cards?
So, for this to support a DX4, would I need one of those PowerLeap kits that has the voltage regulation built in? Or perhaps one of these to get the board running a 5x86?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/221203845251?ssPageNa … 984.m1438.l2649
Thats great to hear, Artex 😀
Well yes, I can. There are several good video cards for the VLB:
ET4000/W32i or W32p cards for example - very fast, very popular. Or S3 cards.. 805i, 928, Vision-series, Trio-series, all _great_ and compatible. I have a lot a VLB cards.
If you plan to use Windows, I would recommend S3 cards over TsengLabs.
There is also CirrusLogic, everything from CL-GD5428 upwards also does the job, but not as fast or brilliant in quality as S3 or Tseng.
I also have many different controllers. Apart from the "normal" Super Multi I/O cards (HDD, HDD, COM1, COM2, LPT, GAME) there are also super things like cache controller that come with dedicated caching logic and memory for the harddisk. Very fast and also very reliable.
Regarding the PowerLeap adaptor - yes, you can use it and put any 3.xV CPU in it and turn the board into a very fast 486 system.
The Kingston kit does the same but includes the CPU. You simply jumper the board for a DX2-66 and plug the kit into the socket - you're done. The BIOS will show something like DX2-100 or so but don't worry, the thing runs at 133MHz.
Cheers,
Fabian
www.AmoRetro.de Visit my huge hardware gallery with many historic items from 16MHz 286 to 1000MHz Slot A. Includes more than 80 soundcards and a growing Wavetable Recording section with more than 300 recordings.
I would try and go for the ET4000 in VLB in some kind. I don't own one myself, but I put output signal quality very highly as I connect top quality LCD screens. The higher quality your monitor the more important signal quality becomes. I own the ISA version of the ET4000 and it has very good output quality, colors are bright and it is generally a very goodlooking card (badmofo here on Vogons state the same). So if this is also true for the VLB version than I would go for that.
Here I have to ask you to almost avoid the S3. Might just be my card (Number Nine S3 Vision 864) that have some issues when it comes to signal quality. The Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 is a bit better. My S3 card can also run at the VLB bus at 40mhz, while my Cirrus Logic fails. Just incase it is important if you want to do some overclocking, or run the DX-40.
I cannot disagree more. I have first hand experience with a least 50+ VLB cards and have noticed that:
- The output quality was one of the weaknesses of the Tseng cards because the all depend on an external RAMDAC; So many (OEM and budget orientated vendors built their cards around cheap and crappy RAMDACs. There are very few cards that came with decent 130Mhz/135MHz RAMDACs (Hercules did this f.e.).
- Many S3 cards also depend on external RAMDACs but were usually sold at a higher price tag and came with better RAMDACS. There are great great S3 cards available vom SPEA/ V7 (Mirage P64 series) or Number Nine or Diamond Multimedia.
www.AmoRetro.de Visit my huge hardware gallery with many historic items from 16MHz 286 to 1000MHz Slot A. Includes more than 80 soundcards and a growing Wavetable Recording section with more than 300 recordings.
Well, I'm only comparing to what I see from the cards I have (The ET4000AX ISA I own is from Oak and it is pretty good). Maybe some of them are starting to show signs of age (closing in on 20 years), while others are almost chugging along like they were new. It is hard to compare without having several of the same card and/or could test when they were brand new.
I'm just saying that generally S3 cards are pretty bad on signal quality. The only S3 card I have which performes above other S3 cards when it comes to color representation, brightness, sharpness, and contrast is my STB S3 Virge VX 8MB, which was a highend business card when it came out in 96. Set a S3 card side by side with a Matrox and the difference is noticable!
We're talking about VLB here, right? You compare an ISA Tseng with PCI S3 cards ? Well..90% or more of the _PCI_ cards from 1996 to 1998/9 with an S3 chip have a Trio64/V+/V2 or ViRGE chipset. All these cards were ultra-low-cost cards. The 10% left was good quality with a different price tag.
You simply cannot compare these card with the high quality VLB cards I am talking about. It is a totally different story.
www.AmoRetro.de Visit my huge hardware gallery with many historic items from 16MHz 286 to 1000MHz Slot A. Includes more than 80 soundcards and a growing Wavetable Recording section with more than 300 recordings.
For the multi I/O cards, would you stick with VLB or move to the ISA slots for that. Something like this?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?View … vectorid=229466
I would for sure use a VLB controller. They are very unproblematic. Most have one 32-Bit IDE interface which gives your system a nice performance boost over a 16-Bit ISA interface.
www.AmoRetro.de Visit my huge hardware gallery with many historic items from 16MHz 286 to 1000MHz Slot A. Includes more than 80 soundcards and a growing Wavetable Recording section with more than 300 recordings.
I did say S3 cards generally and I stand by that statement, even my Number Nine GXE64 VLB card have bad signal output. There are exceptions ofc.
This VLB stuff is tough (and expensive!) to track down!
wrote:I did say S3 cards generally and I stand by that statement, even my Number Nine GXE64 VLB card have bad signal output. There are exceptions ofc.
That still doesn't make it true 😉
www.AmoRetro.de Visit my huge hardware gallery with many historic items from 16MHz 286 to 1000MHz Slot A. Includes more than 80 soundcards and a growing Wavetable Recording section with more than 300 recordings.
wrote:That still doesn't make it true 😉
Maybe if you just own the very high end cards which almost haven't been used. If you own any other cards my statement is true since this is what I have experienced first hand.
This gives me an idea to possibly make videos with my VGA capture card and show how signal output quality makes a difference in what you see on a side by side comparison. S3 against Matrox....
