Might be failing caps, but have you tried the simple stuff, like replacing the VGA cable, cleaning the VGA connectors, etc?

Erik765 wrote:

Hi there, […]
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Hi there,

I just picked up a CLGD5428 VLB card to replace my ISA GD5429.

So far the performance is great, but I seem to have some strange vertical lines on the display.

Also in Win3.1 640x480, I get pretty bad flickering/artifacts randomly 🙁

It's a little hard to tell from the pictures, but it's really visible on the screen itself. This didn't happen at all on my ISA card.

It seems to be the worst on red colors.

Would these be a cause of bad caps? Time to re-cap it?

Any suggestions/ideas?

Thanks.

Mine is actually doing the exact same thing in 720x400 70hz mode, however in 640x400 its fine.

If it is capacitors, what rev you have, on Google images there's some with tantalum, some with surface mounts, some with electrolytic some with all three, it can be recapped but it's no easy task :\

I don't have a problem at all with re-capping. I've done way more intense soldering jobs than that, so not worried about it.

Looks like this board has 100% through-hole electrolytic, so that'll make it even easier.

I did reflow all of the capacitors, and cleaned all my VLB sockets, and the VGA port on the card itself, but still the same result 🙁

Tried a different VGA cable, but same result.

Weird other thing to note, it only does this in certain apps. For example- Norton Commander looks completely fine. And the red screen you see in DOS after exiting an apogee game, like Commander Keen. But as soon as the game loads, the lines show up. My monitor reports the same specs whichever is running too.

I don't know of a way to adjust the resolution on DOS games.

There aren't any drivers or anything for DOS that I could try are there? (I know, dumb question).

Win3.1 looks like crap in 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768, plus the screen flickering.

I do have my sound card directly below it. Do you think that could be causing any interference of any kind?

Also, while not VLB, I don't have this issue at all with my GD5429 ISA card that this one is replacing. Or on my Voodoo 3 in my other box hooked up to this same monitor 🙁

I could return the card I suppose, but they're hard enough to come by as it as and I'm sure I'd lose my shot at returning it if I re-capped it too 🙁

Here's a pic of the card for reference, if needed:

Thanks again in advance for any tips

zakurowrath wrote:

Mine is actually doing the exact same thing in 720x400 70hz mode, however in 640x400 its fine.

If it is capacitors, what rev you have, on Google images there's some with tantalum, some with surface mounts, some with electrolytic some with all three, it can be recapped but it's no easy task :\

Or the display is a TFT and is told to sample a 720 wide format at 640 pixels or 640 wide format at 720 pixels.

Please check if your TFT has a setting to change between 720 and 640 pixel formats for the 400-line mode and push auto-adjust.

Erik765 wrote:

I don't have a problem at all with re-capping. I've done way more intense soldering jobs than that, so not worried about it. […]
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I don't have a problem at all with re-capping. I've done way more intense soldering jobs than that, so not worried about it.

Looks like this board has 100% through-hole electrolytic, so that'll make it even easier.

I did reflow all of the capacitors, and cleaned all my VLB sockets, and the VGA port on the card itself, but still the same result 🙁

Tried a different VGA cable, but same result.

Weird other thing to note, it only does this in certain apps. For example- Norton Commander looks completely fine. And the red screen you see in DOS after exiting an apogee game, like Commander Keen. But as soon as the game loads, the lines show up. My monitor reports the same specs whichever is running too.

I don't know of a way to adjust the resolution on DOS games.

There aren't any drivers or anything for DOS that I could try are there? (I know, dumb question).

Win3.1 looks like crap in 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768, plus the screen flickering.

I do have my sound card directly below it. Do you think that could be causing any interference of any kind?

Also, while not VLB, I don't have this issue at all with my GD5429 ISA card that this one is replacing. Or on my Voodoo 3 in my other box hooked up to this same monitor 🙁

I could return the card I suppose, but they're hard enough to come by as it as and I'm sure I'd lose my shot at returning it if I re-capped it too 🙁

Here's a pic of the card for reference, if needed:

Thanks again in advance for any tips

As I can see, there's a broken cap, just near that U22 chip (the 74F245PC near the main video chip). Try replacing it and see if it fixes the issue.

Thanks for the suggestion, PcBytes. I did spot this and re-soldered it. In fact I re-flowed all the pads for all the capacitors. Same result though and no change. I went ahead and just returned the card and replaced it with a now-working one. Which I've then since replaced again with a different card altogether, ha!

My build has definitely been evolving as I run across better parts at prices I can't argue with. I'm doing a blog post on it and will have it ready for the final viewing soon 😉

Thanks again to everyone for the help and suggestions.

I have lots of ISA-Video Cards here and only a view have a sharp clean image on TFT.
Mostly Diamond Cards have a good picture quality.

The only VLB card that I have had, wich makes a nice image without lines on a TFT monitor. Is an S3-805 VLB card.
The splashscreen when I turn on the computer, say that the card is a "V7-Mirage Spea/Video7" or something like that.

All the more reason to use CRTs. After I switched I can never go back to LCD/TFT or anything but a CRT.

Yes, they're large, but there's no comparison for this era of computing, in my opinion.

As promised, I just finished my blog post on this build.

I'm pretty happy with it overall!

Enjoy, and thanks again for the help!

http://eriksplace.com/retro/the-epilogue-of-m … 6-dx2-66-build/

Erik765 wrote:

All the more reason to use CRTs. After I switched I can never go back to LCD/TFT or anything but a CRT.

Yes, they're large, but there's no comparison for this era of computing, in my opinion.

It depends a bit on the TFT monitor, IMHO. Some TFT's will take whatever resolution is thrown at them and display it decently (also, try the factory reset option in the OSD-menu if available - may fix certain resolutions being displayed incorrectly), others...not so much.

The problem with CRT's is that in time either they start to flicker badly or the contrast gets worse and worse. Repair is difficult and dangerous due to the CRT itself.