are you sure that fcc is right

fcc search brings up no results
http://www.fcc.gov/oet/ea/fccid/

edit:

Part # / Description: ID2-W83757S / 16BIT IDE with Floppy Drive controller plus I/O

Manufacturer: PTI

That's really not a lot to go on. Got a picture of the thing?

The FCC ID is registered to Winbond, but on a lot of those generic Taiwanese/Chinese controller cards, the actual manufacturer didn't have their own FCC ID number, so they just used the one for the chipset... so there's really no telling who made it just by that.

is it on this page W83757F
http://web.natur.cuni.cz/~kuda/howtos/winbond.html

DTK multi I/O cards usually have model names starting with "PTI".

I think this is probably your card:

http://www.elhvb.com/iocard/pti227b.txt

Here is the picture.

I just realised that data transfer could become a problem. I don't want to shuffle 3.5 or 5.25 inch disks. I need to install an optical drive. Would it accept a dvd drive?

Is there a cheap way to use flashcards or other solid state memory devices as HDD?

Yes, it's definetly the PTI 227B. I have the same card:

http://www.rainbow-software.org/manuals/pti-227b.html

any idea why the fcc search turned up nothing ?

Thanks a lot! Do you know how to disable the game port?

Can you use a dvd drive wih that controller?

At least according to the documentation, it doesn't seem to be possible to disable the gameport on this particular card...which is odd, since the winbond chip should definitely support it.

I would guess that a DVD drive would infact work with this controller, but probably only configured as a master.

I managed to get a DVD+RW 16x by LG to work as slave. I tried a philips too, but it would not work as slave. I would like to use a writer, so that I can make images. The DOS driver (win98 boot disk) recognizes the drive but spits out a PCI error message. I can still acccess DVDs. I need to look into that.

I am currently trying do decide on how I want to set up the machine in the long run.
I have to choose between 5.25 floppy drive or optical drive. I guess I don't really have a choice, do I?

I will have to decide which graphics card I shall use. Fortunately, it came with an ET4000AX, and I do have a VLB with an S3 (?) on the way.

As far as sound is concerned, I have a SB16, a SB32 AWE, a SB16 Vibra (02 chip), a maestro 32/96 or an ESS688/opl3 card as appropriate choices. I don't know about the pnp cards compatibility. Both the ESS688 and the SB16 are jumpers only, so they should work for sure.

The OS is yet another issue. Currently there is DOS 6.2 and win 3.11 installed. I would have DOS 6.2 or 6.22 available. And of course, Win98SE's DOS 7 would be a choice too.

Which brings up the next issue: HDD space. I have just above 200 MB. I could need some advise regarding Ontrack. I have a 2.6GB HDD here, which I would prefer to use.

What _exactly_ does the turbo switch do? I tried some DOS benchmark program, and deturbo will roughly quarter the score. Since it is a 0.04 GHz CPU, I could also run it at 0.033 GHz or at 0.025 GHz. 😀 The selection only involves 2 jumpers, so I can lead those to external switches in the back. I wonder if I should glue a passive cooler onto the CPU.

A 40MHz CPU should be able to get by without a heatsink.

The turbo switch on these old systems is usually meant to make the system more compatible with an 8MHz AT. Usually this is done by adding wait states rather than by reducing the actual clock speed.

Update:
I used a different optical driver (teac iirc), and it gives no PCI error any more.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

A 40MHz CPU should be able to get by without a heatsink.

Yes, it didn't have one. However, this thing does get really hot. Touching hurts. I still have some pentium-size coolers without fan. The one I have in mind is dark, so it fits optically to the style of the "interieur". 😉

In the past, I used thermal paste and a drop of instant/crazy glue to fix coolers to Voodoo2s or such. Spread the paste in the center, used crazy glue in the corners.

Since this kind of CPU gets rare, I would prefer to do the attachment reversible. Has anyone a good solution for this? I have two ideas, but haven tried yet:
i) use double sided tape. Does it get loose, when it gets hot?
ii) use hot glue at the corners. Should not melt at operating temperatures and can be removed without a trace.

The turbo switch on these old systems is usually meant to make the system more compatible with an 8MHz AT. Usually this is done by adding wait states rather than by reducing the actual clock speed.

I've run some diagnosis software, which reports 40 MHz regardless of turbo setting. Benchmarks cave in by a factor of 4.

I still need a solution to attach a 2 GB HDD.

ux-3 wrote:

Update: ..... […]
Show full quote

Update:
.....

Since this kind of CPU gets rare, I would prefer to do the attachment reversible. Has anyone a good solution for this? I have two ideas, but haven tried yet:
i) use double sided tape. Does it get loose, when it gets hot?
ii) use hot glue at the corners. Should not melt at operating temperatures and can be removed without a trace.

The turbo switch on these old systems is usually meant to make the system more compatible with an 8MHz AT. Usually this is done by adding wait states rather than by reducing the actual clock speed.

I've run some diagnosis software, which reports 40 MHz regardless of turbo setting. Benchmarks cave in by a factor of 4.

I still need a solution to attach a 2 GB HDD.

Theres a third option which I prefer to use if the socket has those little tabs on the side.

pic:

You'd need a metal clip for it though, but it's fully reversable 😀

Edit: Option 4 would be to use a standard hsf which attaches directly to the cpu, but imo those are kinda loud

Edit2: close up of what it would look like:

Funny! Rest asured that my socket has no such tabs on the side.

Then you'd need something like this:

http://www.pcloft.com/cpucoforin48.html

Another option could be to simply aim a large faster fan directly at the cpu (without heatsink) but that wouldn't be my preferred option.
Still it should work as any 486 produced very little heat, even compared to a pentium 😉

Considering that the BIOS does not support LBA and limits at 504 MB with CHS, do you really need more than that in a 486 system?

You might think of a configuration with 2 HDDs on the Multi-I/O Controller, giving you about 1 GB in combination. You might even plug CF cards.
Add a ATAPI drive on another CD-ROM Controller card configured as secondary IDE.
With such a configuration you can go with MS-DOS 6.x , FAT16.
Fiddling around with the - in comparison to the 486 system - new MS-DOS 7.1 from Win98SE, that is crippled and the Ontrack Disk Manager might give rise to unexpected problems.

As for the Soundcards a common SB16 + GUS combination would be quite nice as for tracked music the SB16 steals a lot of CPU power.

A decent VLB graphics card with ET4000W32p , CL GDxxxx or S3 chip will be sufficient as local bus card.

Since this kind of CPU gets rare, I would prefer to do the attachment reversible. Has anyone a good solution for this?

What about just going out and buying some thermal tape? That's really the best solution, as the stuff is designed specifically to give a good hold, but to still be removable if necessary.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

What about just going out and buying some thermal tape? That's really the best solution, as the stuff is designed specifically to give a good hold, but to still be removable if necessary.

Never heard of it. But I agree, it sounds good. I shall try that.

elianda wrote:

Considering that the BIOS does not support LBA and limits at 504 MB with CHS, do you really need more than that in a 486 system?

I've asked myself the same question. Given that this is a rather early 486, the games I will put on it will be small and usually of floppy disk origin. I am fairly confident, that 504 MB will do. The reason I want to change HDD is no only the timid size of 200 MB but the tremendous decibel/megabyte ratio the drive puts out.

You might think of a configuration with 2 HDDs on the Multi-I/O Controller, giving you about 1 GB in combination.

I considered it briefly, but that will only get louder...

You might even plug CF cards.

Is that possible in a DOS/ISA environment? I would be tempted, it makes data transfer much easier! 🤑

...and the Ontrack Disk Manager might give rise to unexpected problems.

Like "8MB ram are insufficient for the Western Digital DOS installation disk"? I can't believe it.

I think I found two viable alternatives: My 2.5GB WD drive can be used up to 504 MB without any manager. It is less noisy and already here. No fuzz. I also have a seagate 6 GB drive, for which the disk manager software loads.

I'll intend to go the 504MB route. Should I ever fill the thing up, there is the option to expand. Unless the CF cards kick in.

Edit:
I just remembered: I have a bios update for that thing that breaks the 504MB barrier. All I would need is a suitable chip and someone who can flash that bios onto it. 🙄

But in the meantime, I have to make a more basic decision - how to partition the 504 MB. If I only make one partition, the cluster size is going to be 8k. Given the structure of the older games, I may waste (lots of) space that way. So using two 252MB partitions brings 4k clusters. But it will introduce a second drive letter and move the CD drive to E:

Now I remember that there were a few titles that required D: as the CD rom. Also there were some titles which checked for available space and produced an error (probably overflow), when hitting a large HDD.

How would you partition the hard disk?

Edit2: Another oddity crossed my way. The 2.5GB HDD will only boot if I copy the 200MB HDD with Ghost. If I go the regular route (fdisk, format d: /s, xcopy c: d: /e), the files are all visible, but it won't boot. I get this ROIM BASIC error. Why could that be?

When the 2.5GB HDD works, 32-bit access in win 3.11 has to be disabled. I can live with that.

CF cards have IDE interfaces inside. They're nifty that way. You just need an adapter to plug a cable in.

Notes
- Most don't support DMA modes, only PIO. So you might want to look for DMA.
- write performance can be horrible (think floppy-esque). Spend more on one with a good write rating.