Carlos S. M. wrote:

This is also true on the Inspiron 9100 and the 1st gen XPS which even used the same motherboard

Rawrl wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

A fair bet for a wifi card is the Intel one that every other laptop used to have from around 2004-2008. I can't remember the model number. 4300 sounds right. Most OEM's offered those as factory installed options hence forth they are widely supported.

Yeah, Dell either used an Intel 2100/2200/2915 or a Broadcom 43xx-based card for most Mini-PCI systems. I was specifically thinking of Thinkpads, which check the card's sub-vendor PCI-ID against the BIOS list (HP are notorious for this as well). I don't know if Dell does it, but after screwing around with the problem on IBMs, I've just always made sure to use cards with a Dell P/N on them.

They're slightly different. The XPS has gigabit ethernet. One reason I was worried about it working or not because finding the right replacement mobo would be difficult.

From what I remember and what i've seen, the intel cards weren't used on p4 class machines. They were usually paired with the pentium m notebooks as part of the centrino branding. Dell offered a broadcom card for the i9100/XPS and that's what i've seen in the p4 laptops i've worked on.

Also, for anybody restoring the OS on one of these you're better off getting drivers from the i9100 section of dells site. The XPS page is way off. You'll have to get the ethernet drivers from the latitude d800 page.

nforce4max wrote:

orinoko wrote:

@TheAbandonwareGuy, my Dell Inspiron 9300 from 2005 uses an Intel 2200 mini PCI card. From memory, the 2100 and 2200 cards were also quite popular.

Also, as for the whole white list thing. My Dell only supports the Nvidia 6800Go card. There were updated BIOS images available to support the newer card from the XPS line, so I can only presume there might be some hacked up BIOS out there for xplus93

I actually have everything needed to convert Inspiron 9300s into XPS Gen 2s, most of it is software but once the bios update is done you will need to have the 9 cell battery installed as well use a 130w charger at the minimum. Running a 6800 Go Ultra in one system and a 7800 GTX Go in another. Also got a fan control utility as the gpu cooling in these systems isn't the greatest though I wish that modern laptops had the cpu temps these older Dells have. I've booted laptops like this and had cpu temps in the 20s 🤣.

You may want to consider putting in a quadro FX 3500. That's what I put in my M1710. I think the 3600 will work as well. They have a bit better build quality so they shouldn't burn out like the geforce cards did. Plus they're slightly cheaper and say "don't panic"

xplus93 wrote:

nforce4max wrote:

orinoko wrote:

@TheAbandonwareGuy, my Dell Inspiron 9300 from 2005 uses an Intel 2200 mini PCI card. From memory, the 2100 and 2200 cards were also quite popular.

Also, as for the whole white list thing. My Dell only supports the Nvidia 6800Go card. There were updated BIOS images available to support the newer card from the XPS line, so I can only presume there might be some hacked up BIOS out there for xplus93

I actually have everything needed to convert Inspiron 9300s into XPS Gen 2s, most of it is software but once the bios update is done you will need to have the 9 cell battery installed as well use a 130w charger at the minimum. Running a 6800 Go Ultra in one system and a 7800 GTX Go in another. Also got a fan control utility as the gpu cooling in these systems isn't the greatest though I wish that modern laptops had the cpu temps these older Dells have. I've booted laptops like this and had cpu temps in the 20s 🤣.

You may want to consider putting in a quadro FX 3500. That's what I put in my M1710. I think the 3600 will work as well. They have a bit better build quality so they shouldn't burn out like the geforce cards did. Plus they're slightly cheaper and say "don't panic"

That will not work for the 9300/xps gen 2 as the G71 era cards are not physically compatible. Just look at the difference between the G71 era cards and everything that came before that was compatible with the older Dells. The problem is the pcb of the card and the cooler at one corner is blocked in the older machines.

For those wanting a xps m1710 class machine but doesn't want to pay out the rear end for one consider the Precision M6300. I also got two M1730s 😎

Both 256 cards and the V2 arrived

I also received two discs:

Eidos Demos Volume 5 (3DFX Logo on bottom)
Radeon 3D Games Pack.

Are either of these significant enough for me to do an archive upload?

Also, is it possible to use a 2nd monitor for a Voodoo2 card in the absence of an acceptable pass through cable? I already have 2 displays set up at my workbench and I figure I can just connect my GF256 to the LCD and my Voodoo2 to the CRT.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Also, is it possible to use a 2nd monitor for a Voodoo2 card in the absence of an acceptable pass through cable?

Yep. Voodoo 2 have its own DAC and 2d card is not required for games.

Just tested the Voodoo2... DAMN IT

It does something like that in both of those demos. Thief Demo and Formula1 Racing specifically.

It looks like somethings wrong. I think I have seen something like this before on the forums but I don't remember where and I don't remember what they said the cause was. Is this a known software issue, a known hardware issue, or have I noob'd something? 3DFX experts of vogons I'm kind of counting on your decades of wisdom.

Isn't that due to bad RAM ?

If only somebody could make somekind of '"memtest" for 3Dfx cards in order to identify the culprit chip

Deksor wrote:

Isn't that due to bad RAM ?

If only somebody could make somekind of '"memtest" for 3Dfx cards in order to identify the culprit chip

Can be ram or a tmu. I seen drivers do things similar to this too.

It looks more like a TMU issue than Memory to me..

Alright. I'll try it with TMU #2 disabled later and if that fails with older drivers. I'm running the latest for 9x from this page: http://www.falconfly.de/voodoo2.htm the Jan 27 2000 drivers. I'm hoping it's drivers as without the TMU #2 it will basically act as a double speed V1.

Here are some pictures of the V2 Incase someone here wants to take a look for damage. http://imgur.com/a/cfae4

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Just tested the Voodoo2... DAMN IT […]
Show full quote

Just tested the Voodoo2... DAMN IT

<snip>
It does something like that in both of those demos. Thief Demo and Formula1 Racing specifically.

It looks like somethings wrong. I think I have seen something like this before on the forums but I don't remember where and I don't remember what they said the cause was. Is this a known software issue, a known hardware issue, or have I noob'd something? 3DFX experts of vogons I'm kind of counting on your decades of wisdom.

Sadly... I'll be the one to confirm this for you. Back in the day when Voodoo2's were sold new and still under 3dFX warranty, I actually had this happen to me. What it ended up being was I had accidentally touched the second voodoo2 card against the neighboring card when removing it, damaging something on it. Once removing the "SLI Slave" card, the primary one worked fine. I ended up having it covered under warranty and sending it back and got a replacement one. Installed it and then SLI resumed working normally and everything was golden. After then I was -extremely- careful removing the voodoo cards.. and even so far as to drape a bit of thin plastic over both sides of it over the length of it when removing it so it didn't touch anything.

I think your voodoo2 may be damaged some how. 😠 😒 😵

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

Alright. I'll try it with TMU #2 disabled later and if that fails with older drivers. I'm running the latest for 9x from this page: http://www.falconfly.de/voodoo2.htm the Jan 27 2000 drivers. I'm hoping it's drivers as without the TMU #2 it will basically act as a double speed V1.

Here are some pictures of the V2 Incase someone here wants to take a look for damage. http://imgur.com/a/cfae4

By chance is there any fan nearby to help with the cooling? 3DFX cards that hot a lot of hours can sometimes show their age and do funny things, inspect all the pens on both TMUs as well the frame buffer. If all else check for missing or chipped ceramics on both sides of the card, I wonder if anyone here even has checked the electrolytics on these cards are still in range.

I hope that geforce isn't being run fanless.

It seems to work with the second TMU disabled. I'll try tomorrow with the TMU enabled and texture mapping disabled to see if it's the TMU itself or the attached memory.

I got an STB V2-1000, and the 3.xx drivers do not work for me. The 2.11 drivers (Creative) work fine.

CM-64 arrived today in working order and joined my SC-88 (non-pro) and MT-32 (old). I think I'm covered on MIDI for DOS games now.

I also tested for the clicking bug and it doesn't seem to be affected. I'm not sure if that's a CM-32L-only problem or not.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

I'll try tomorrow with the TMU enabled and texture mapping disabled to see if it's the TMU itself or the attached memory.

Try to downclock it.

dexvx wrote:

I got an STB V2-1000, and the 3.xx drivers do not work for me. The 2.11 drivers (Creative) work fine.

That's good information. I'll definitely try that. I just need to figure out how to completely remove the 3DFX drivers to install the older ones. I tried a similar downgrade earlier and it kept trying to auto reinstall, asking for a disk, and giving rundll errors and not detecting the Voodoo in game with the older drivers installed.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

I'll try tomorrow with the TMU enabled and texture mapping disabled to see if it's the TMU itself or the attached memory.

Try to downclock it.

This. Also, I found that some drivers overclock the V2 with a few MHz. That has given me issues in the past.

Edit: that was with the FastVoodoo drivers: Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Bought an NEC keyboard and a brand new in Box Windows 95/98 keyboard that's also AT and somewhat clicky as well (complete with palm wrest). Set me back around $55 at Re-PC.

The NEC keyboard is interesting, has a feel somewhere between a Chicony or Northgate with Alps Keyswitches, but a bit quieter and has a slight bit of Model "F" feel to it as well. I think this is my new favorite of the now 4 clicky keyboards I own.

Swapping that Athlon iix4 HP Pavillion to a friend for $50 and a pair of old Apple imac mini laptops. Yay projects!!!