Cloudschatze wrote:

dionb wrote:

...the early SB16s just ooze noise.

Guess you overlooked the information and initial sample-set of measurements I'd provided in the "12-bit Sound Blaster 16" thread.

The anti-Creative bias is real, folks.

Steps to reproduce:

- take an early SB16 (mine: CT1750MCD)
- take a similar period quality card (mine: PAS16)

Install both, set mic and line-in to mute and volume to normal mid-rage level on both cards. Listen to digital audio and/or FM playback.

I'm no audiophile and have great difficulty hearing pitch issues, but I can definitely hear noise and artifacts, and I hear noise clearly on my CT1750MCD and can't hear any on the PAS16. That's no bias, that's noise. In fact I considered the PAS16 quite an anticlimax when I first heard it, not actually making any different sounds to SB16 - but regardless, it makes the same sounds with less noise. Now, I can't judge your cards or your hearing, but please don't try to undermine credibility of anyone who claims to hear anything that disagrees with your own preconceptions. Maybe you just have an excellent CT1740...

dionb wrote:

Wow, some haul! Were the rest of the things (P2B-D!) stupidly cheap or did you really pay megabucks for that keyboard? Looks nice enough though - Alps White switches by any chance?

One dilemma though: Voodoo3, Gf3 or Matrox Parhelia?

In terms of compatibilty and drivers the Gf3 is the obvious choice, Voodoo3 does GLide, but Parhelia is quirky and actually outperforms the Gf3...

well I did pay a good amount for the keyboard (think all the three in-wins combined), at least to my standards for a single piece of hardware, it's green alps, I honestly can't say if that's the same our original keyboard had, since I didn't really care that much about keyswitches back then ^^, and this particular model did come with different switches apparently, I do very much like the fat enter and the very angular case though.
the systems were all pretty cheap around ~20€ each... and make that double for shipping 😵 but I really can't complain with what was inside of them... and also not to forget the cases, which were the primary reason I picked those, apart from the AT system which I picked primarily for the travan drive.

as for your question... voodoo 2 SLI in addition to GF3? ^^

MMaximus wrote:

Are all you P3B-F boards working? I'm fiddling with a PC I got in a lot that had a P3B-F in it, but it won't post. It powers on, onboard LED switches on, but no beeps, no video. Caps all look fine so not sure what the problem is at this stage. Would be a shame to recycle it if it can be saved somehow.

the seller had pictures of all of them posting, so I assume they work... maybe the bios is dead?

MMaximus wrote:

imi wrote:

what about the A500s […]
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what about the A500s

hardware24_05.jpg

a P3B-F... aaaand another P3B-F nice 😁

...

Nice haul!

Are all you P3B-F boards working? I'm fiddling with a PC I got in a lot that had a P3B-F in it, but it won't post. It powers on, onboard LED switches on, but no beeps, no video. Caps all look fine so not sure what the problem is at this stage. Would be a shame to recycle it if it can be saved somehow.

I have a P2B-F and not POSTing either. I'm planning on looking at the solder points, clean the CPU and RAM sockets, and the AGP, PCI, and ISA slots. Caps are good as well and I don't have any spare PC speakers as they are either glued, tossed out, or installed in my other computer that's in storage at the moment. Remove the IDE LED jumper as sometimes, that can cause the system to not boot.

Also, there's a blank, jumperless CMOS clearing on the board labeled CLRTC. Turn the system off, disconnect the power (or turn the PSU switch off), place a flat tip screwdriver on the two solder pads to short them (plastic handle screwdriver is better), release, turn the PSU and the system on, and see what happens. I'll report back later on and see if that fixes my issue.

imi wrote:

[...]

well I did pay a good amount for the keyboard (think all the three in-wins combined), at least to my standards for a single piece of hardware, it's green alps, I honestly can't say if that's the same our original keyboard had, since I didn't really care that much about keyswitches back then ^^, and this particular model did come with different switches apparently, I do very much like the fat enter and the very angular case though.

Green Alps? Supposedly the best linear switch ever made... I'm more of a clicky person (love Model F and Kailh Box Blue, Like Alps White and Model M and sort of like old MX Blue) or failing that tactile, but a good keyboard is a good keyboard, and looks like you got one 😀

[...]

as for your question... voodoo 2 SLI in addition to GF3? ^^

Uhuh, wanna swap 2x V2-12 for my 1x V3-3000? 😜

I used to have two, first paired with an ATi Rage Pro, then a Matrox G450, finally with a Gf2MX, before I sort of gave up on Voodoo, back in the day when you could pick them up for EUR 10 or so each. Then again, back then I also had a V5-5500 PCI, two NV1s, oh, and some Indys and a NeXTstation... all offloaded for almost nothing when I moved from house in small town with cellar and garden shed to tiny appartment in big city 🙁

Edit:
Parhelia's not an option regardless - no Win9x support at all... I have a G400Max somewhere though, EMBM FTW 😜

dionb wrote:

Uhuh, wanna swap 2x V2-12 for my 1x V3-3000? 😜

nuh-uh ^^
sorry 😁

I sold my Voodoo 2 8MB and G200 like 20 years ago trying to recoup the costs for the TNT2 utlra I fortunately still have to this day.
I have since recovered both of them to rebuild my 1998 system though, have all of it here now with the case, just need to build it.

I never had another voodoo card after that until like a month ago ^^

dionb wrote:

Now, I can't judge your cards or your hearing, but please don't try to undermine credibility of anyone who claims to hear anything that disagrees with your own preconceptions.

Not trying to put this all on you; the blanket generalizations and otherwise factless comparisons are just getting really, really old.

Just received this guy today, going to cut my teeth networking with Linux. 4 port gigabit ethernet. The motherboard I'm using is a Tyan S2707, Socket 478 533Mhz bus with 133Mhz PCI-X, so a bit of an odd one. Just waiting on my 4GB of ECC DDR266 to come in the mail.

I have a pcix quad port 1000gb GT in my C2SBX, Its pretty good card, becasue it can offload a lot from the cpu.

I spotted this ESI / Audiotrak Maya 44USB audio thing at a thrift shop. I've been after a compact multichannel interface for DJing and this seemed to fit the bill: 4 inputs, 4 outputs, and a separate headphone jack for cueing (and even optical S/PDIF bodged through the headphone jack, always nice to have.)

I'm out of mobile data for the month so I couldn't look it up in the store, but it was only five bucks so I grabbed it. When I got home I was surprised to find full ASIO drivers for Windows 98 all the way up to Windows 8.1 64-bit (& presumably Win10 too as it's class compliant.) It also supposedly works in Mac OS9 but the software on the website starts at OS/X, although it might just plug in and work. I didn't need to install anything on my Macbook running 10.9 for basic audio functionality, but there's a control panel to be had there. Haven't tried Linux yet, but it's natively supported by ALSA so I'd expect it to work fine.

That's an impressive level of software support in my opinion! Pretty pleased for five bucks. I'm mostly just posting this in case one of you are looking for an interface to mess around with on both retro PCs and modern ones; seems like a good option.

There was also a bare Abit BH6 (with a broken DIMM slot) lying on the shelf of electronics with a $10 sticker on it. This was a legendary overclocking board back in the '90s lan party days, and I even have a Celeron 300A that could go with it, but it was pretty tatty & I have more slot 1 stuff than I'm ever gonna use so I left it for someone else.

Nice, I use an M-Audio Delta 1010 (uses a PCI interface and rack unit connected with a DB-25 cable). It works with pretty much everything too. I'm using it with an Athlon X4 and Debian 10. It has 8 pairs of balanced 1/4" inputs, SPDIF, and MIDI. You probably won't find one for 5 bucks though.

Of all the things that could have happened, finding something I was looking for on eBay that I was able to pick up locally was not what I expected.

Yeah. the Voodoo 3 3000 I have been looking to find was here all along.

And here's a shot of the processor, because I thought I should swap in some new paste.

Actually, you may want to replace the whole cooler with something that has active cooling. The passive cooling solution does not do as good a job as most people are comfortable with. Here's what I did on my 5.5ns one:

appiah4 wrote:

Actually, you may want to replace the whole cooler with something that has active cooling. The passive cooling solution does no […]
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Actually, you may want to replace the whole cooler with something that has active cooling. The passive cooling solution does not do as good a job as most people are comfortable with. Here's what I did on my 5.5ns one:

I was planning on using case fans for that purpose, but thank you for the advice. I'll be looking in to better cooling once everything has settled in to a case.

some new stuff arrived - they were used as a combo back in the day 😀

A combo you say ? I have a CT1740 and this Korg wavetable, can you tell me more about this ? 😁

what is there to tell? the original owner had the korg db on the sb16 and connected some keyboard synths with the midi cable to make music that's it 🤣

nice ^^

I have yet to get a single wavetable board, they always end up so expensive... meanwhile I keep amassing external midi modules ^^

imi wrote:

nice ^^

I have yet to get a single wavetable board, they always end up so expensive... meanwhile I keep amassing external midi modules ^^

If you want a good and affordable daughterboard then Dreamblaster S2 is currently on a 12,50% discount on Serdashop, and it's an absolute steal for the money.

from a usability standpoint I might get one of those at some point yeah, but I meant from a collectors point of view ^^

appiah4 wrote:

Actually, you may want to replace the whole cooler with something that has active cooling. The passive cooling solution does no […]
Show full quote

Actually, you may want to replace the whole cooler with something that has active cooling. The passive cooling solution does not do as good a job as most people are comfortable with. Here's what I did on my 5.5ns one:

Hey I like your cooler (I think it´s pretty cool 😜), where did you get it, how are the temps?
Thanks