red_avatar wrote:

Read carefully :p

(this image I found online so the specs don't match)

POST STATUS:
Reading & Comprehension: FAIL

red_avatar wrote:

The VGA is on-board (chip) so it's not VLB

Is there any way to rule that out or to confirm that? I have a similar HP Vectra N2 4/66 (486 DX/2 66 CPU with 24 MB RAM). It has an integrated lightning-fast Cirrus Logic GD-5434 graphics controller. I know there are some ISA variants out there but the majority of 5434's I came across were VLB-variants. Additionally I wasn't able to reach the speed of the integrated GPU with an external card on the ISA bus ever again (see this comparison). Could it be that some of HP's Vectra series have an onboard VLB interface for the GPU?

Can't say W95 is slow on my P75 build.

blurks wrote:

red_avatar wrote:

The VGA is on-board (chip) so it's not VLB

Is there any way to rule that out or to confirm that? I have a similar HP Vectra N2 4/66 (486 DX/2 66 CPU with 24 MB RAM). It has an integrated lightning-fast Cirrus Logic GD-5434 graphics controller. I know there are some ISA variants out there but the majority of 5434's I came across were VLB-variants. Additionally I wasn't able to reach the speed of the integrated GPU with an external card on the ISA bus ever again (see this comparison). Could it be that some of HP's Vectra series have an onboard VLB interface for the GPU?

You should test with external 5343 ISA card - like Speedstar64. Otherwise it wouldn't be all impossible for the internal VGA to be connected via VLB. Also test with Speedsys to get the KB/s for the onboard VGA card. If it's above 4MB/s it's most certainly on some other bus then ISA.

kixs wrote:

You should test with external 5343 ISA card - like Speedstar64. Otherwise it wouldn't be all impossible for the internal VGA to be connected via VLB. Also test with Speedsys to get the KB/s for the onboard VGA card. If it's above 4MB/s it's most certainly on some other bus then ISA.

I wish I could but ISA 5434 cards are crazy rare and expensive. Also (my impression) Speedsys only arbitrarily offers information about the data transfer speed of video memory. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Depending on the GPU and the VESA extensions installed. Will have to have another look into the stock system configuration.

Battling with a VIA C7 based Thin Client. It seems to have hardware issues.

Firstly the CPU overheats, which cleaning and applying new thermal paste doesn't cure. Secondly once I've gotten past the heat issue with the addition of a fan, system stability isn't great. DirectX games will freeze or cause BSODs in Windows XP and installing Graphics drivers in Windows 98 leads to a frozen black screen at boot.

I'm guessing failing capacitors are to blame for these issues, so I'm probably going to leave this mini project on the backburner for a while. Though I'm not ruling out bad RAM just yet, which I'm going to test before proceeding any further. As sometimes upon reboot it fails to POST with beep codes relating to the memory.

It uses a regular Mini ITX motherboard, so I'll probably end up replacing the motherboard. I notice a lot of cheap Atom based boards available would fit in this thin client case, whilst others would need some slight modifications for the ports in the back. But then I'd be verging further away from retro and more towards regular low powered emulation system.

kixs wrote:

blurks wrote:

red_avatar wrote:

The VGA is on-board (chip) so it's not VLB

Is there any way to rule that out or to confirm that? I have a similar HP Vectra N2 4/66 (486 DX/2 66 CPU with 24 MB RAM). It has an integrated lightning-fast Cirrus Logic GD-5434 graphics controller. I know there are some ISA variants out there but the majority of 5434's I came across were VLB-variants. Additionally I wasn't able to reach the speed of the integrated GPU with an external card on the ISA bus ever again (see this comparison). Could it be that some of HP's Vectra series have an onboard VLB interface for the GPU?

You should test with external 5343 ISA card - like Speedstar64. Otherwise it wouldn't be all impossible for the internal VGA to be connected via VLB. Also test with Speedsys to get the KB/s for the onboard VGA card. If it's above 4MB/s it's most certainly on some other bus then ISA.

OK, it seems I have confirmation. 22.2 MByte data transfer speed for the onboard GD-5434 graphics adapter. Does that mean data transfer within video memory or data transfer over the bus to the video memory? Looks like onboard VLB, right? That would explain, why no ISA graphics adapter comes even close to the onboard GPU in terms of speed.

This confirms it's not on the ISA bus.

If Speedsys doesn't show transfer results, you can use DrHard sysinfo program.

brostenen wrote:

Watching demo's all day. Technically yesterday. I found a nice collection of OCS demo's from 1987 to 1993.

Don't know if this applies to your setup, but interesting regardless and maybe helpful to you.

http://www.indieretronews.com/2019/02/flashfl … f-free-and.html

liqmat wrote:

brostenen wrote:

Watching demo's all day. Technically yesterday. I found a nice collection of OCS demo's from 1987 to 1993.

Don't know if this applies to your setup, but interesting regardless and maybe helpful to you.

http://www.indieretronews.com/2019/02/flashfl … f-free-and.html

Good to know. But I am running real floppy disks on all of my computers. Except my C64. For that I have an SD2IEC that are cordless and plugs directly onto the back of the machine.

kixs wrote:

For the past week or so I've helped a local bowling center with computers that control the lanes - it's from 1995 and computers are based on 486 VLB boards. They had some problems with the power surges and some components got broken. It's good I have a lot of old stuff 😉 I'll post some photos of custom built wooden cases later 😁

That's something where a video would be really cool to watch.

Murugan wrote:

Can't say W95 is slow on my P75 build.

Well you have to see it from the point of a retro gamer. I don't run Windows 95 just to have Windows 95 (especially since W95 still gives me nightmares) - if I do it, it's to have the benefit of having Windows 95 for running games. Fact is, many devs stuck with DOS for a few years longer so there aren't all that many Windows games that will run well on a Pentium 75. This PC was very expensive at the time (78.000 Belgian franks or almost €2000 in early 1996) yet a year later, it couldn't even run most Windows games at a decent pace because the CPU jumped very quickly from 60-75 to 133-166. For example, Magic the Gathering & Age of Empires will barely run and need 16MB of RAM and both games were released only a year later. Can you imagine forking over the equivalent of €3500 in today's money for a PC that won't even run games released next year? My mate really picked the worst time to buy his PC. Half a year after him, I bought a P166 MMX for €1500 with 32MB of memory.

Decided to turn on another one of my tall AT server towers today for testing and POP!!! Sparks, smoke and mayhem. Luckily no parts were attached to it at the time. Replaced the fuse. Nothing. Took the PSU apart and it looks like maybe a cap or two blew, but also the transformer smells of BBQ if you know what I mean. Kind of sucks as I can't find this model anywhere and it has long power cables for the tall case. Have any of you tried to rebuild a power supply before?

Glad to hear you survived. Surprise bad psu caps are my favorite!

luckybob wrote:

Glad to hear you survived. Surprise bad psu caps are my favorite!

Yeah, I contacted Digikey and we tried to get a matching transformer, but not enough info on the transformer for them. Maybe I'll try Enermax themselves and see if they have any recommendations. Not holding my breath. That transformer smells of electric death.

Then it's likely a mosfet died, and took the transformer with it.

It's going to be easier to just cram a new power supply inside that box than fix the old one.

I've never fixed or repaired a power supply a day in my life and the only way to fix the power supply for me was to buy a new one and an ATX-AT w/ -5VDC adapter to go along with the new ATX PSU or spares I have.

luckybob wrote:

Then it's likely a mosfet died, and took the transformer with it.

It's going to be easier to just cram a new power supply inside that box than fix the old one.

Yeah, of course another one those towers has the proper ATX PSU plate attachment on the back. If only this lot had some extra PSU plates for these cases. I may just sell the case as-is and some modder can screw with it.

Well new power supplies are just 12v supplies with a couple DC/DC buck converters for 3.3 and 5v.

It would be an interesting project to put something new in that giant power supply box.

luckybob wrote:

Well new power supplies are just 12v supplies with a couple DC/DC buck converters for 3.3 and 5v.

It would be an interesting project to put something new in that giant power supply box.

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."

Problem solved: