What does the beep code for one short, three long mean? I can't find that, usually it's one long and a few short.

Can you try increasing the bus speed to say 40MHz? I can't see any jumpers on the VLB card, but my cards all have jumpers for <=33 MHz or > 33MHz. If the jumper is set wrong the system will post but the display is garbled due to incorrect video memory refresh timing.

What happens if you install the VLB card at the same time as the ISA one? With video BIOS problems I have seen this correctly initialise the "broken" card, although typically you don't see much beyond a blinking cursor on either card.

Get your board supported well at all points underneath, like at the edge of a table or something so there's room for the backplate bracket drop. Then really mash it in, alllll the way down, bury it in the VLB connector right to the PCB.

Oh BTW what monitor are you using, I've seen weird issues with monitor compatibility, AND one that is not an old wives tale concerning monitor cable static... miracle cure when it happens.... lick your thumb a little, rub it off until it's merely damp, not glistening wet, then mash it over the end of the VGA cable, contacting all pins, couple of seconds should do it, then retry.

I'm certain the VLB contacts are going in the board, I'm building it externally on table top + cardboard as usual. No problems with my VLB controller card in any slot I try it with (again, I also tried starting it without the controller card). I tried cleaning the contacts as well.

Monitor is a Sony 3:4 LCD, it's quite modern, goes up to 1600x1200. Either way, I get the same beep code whether the monitor is connected or not.

crappy old Trident TVGA8900D works fine with the monitor.. just has an undesirable output.

Can you show us how you have the board configured? That is a stock photo of some sort in your first post (missingcord.com)

If it never works with the VLB card, are you swapping the ISA to try to configure BIOS settings & then replacing with the VLB? (Dumb question, but - you aren't adding the VLB and running both video cards at the same time are you?)

I'm building it externally on table top + cardboard as usual.

Since you are building it out of the case, did you jumper J6 (Turbo switch) or leave it open?

CkRtech wrote:

Can you show us how you have the board configured? That is a stock photo of some sort in your first post (missingcord.com) […]
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Can you show us how you have the board configured? That is a stock photo of some sort in your first post (missingcord.com)

If it never works with the VLB card, are you swapping the ISA to try to configure BIOS settings & then replacing with the VLB? (Dumb question, but - you aren't adding the VLB and running both video cards at the same time are you?)

I'm building it externally on table top + cardboard as usual.

Since you are building it out of the case, did you jumper J6 (Turbo switch) or leave it open?

Hang on I'll get you a picture, I don't think it's a stock photo, it's from the seller and it was jumpered as pictured afaik, just used it because it was hi-res.

Yes I've been messing with the bios using my ISA trident card, I do remove that card when going back to the Orchid card.

I didn't think to short J6, I'll try that now and report back.

Thanks for the replies!

Sorry if photo spam, I can't get one big sharp photo with my camera phone. I've tried to take pictures of anything that may be relevant. I'm totally out of ideas here 😵

Couple more... it only allowed 5 to my post.. This should cover about everything

no change from shorting turbo sw

QUESTION: Also, I have an AM5x86 133 in my stash here too. Not sure how I should jumper for it.. If I leave it as is (486DX2) I get DX4 100. Ram won't survive at 40x3, i'll have to try a different kit or loosen it up. Any changes to JP11 to indicate a DX4 causes no post. Any ideas on that? If memory serves I would jumper for an AMD Enhanced 486DX4 but that's not listed on the jumper website, odd for a board like this from 1995 I'd think.

I'm assuming this board can do 3.3 or 3.45V since it supports DX4s? looks like a voltage regulator to the left of the cpu to me

Swapped to my own kit of FPM just incase, nada 😒

So have you done a CMOS reset with the VLB in or not?

Also do you have a mono/color jumper? in case this board cares more than the ISA

BitWrangler wrote:

So have you done a CMOS reset with the VLB in or not?

Also do you have a mono/color jumper? in case this board cares more than the ISA

Didn't think to reset CMOS since it came with a dead cmos batt, just did though no luck 🙁.. JP4 is actually 3 pins on this board, that website has it listed as either open or close to clear cmos, seems like 1-2 are normal and 2-3 reset cmos.

No video related jumpers that I can find on either the motherboard or the video card. Every jumper on the board seems to be listed on the stason.org link I posted above.

Malvineous wrote:

What does the beep code for one short, three long mean? I can't find that, usually it's one long and a few short.

Can you try increasing the bus speed to say 40MHz? I can't see any jumpers on the VLB card, but my cards all have jumpers for <=33 MHz or > 33MHz. If the jumper is set wrong the system will post but the display is garbled due to incorrect video memory refresh timing.

What happens if you install the VLB card at the same time as the ISA one? With video BIOS problems I have seen this correctly initialise the "broken" card, although typically you don't see much beyond a blinking cursor on either card.

Totally didn't see your response.. sorry.

I haven't actually found the post codes for this board yet, I'm just assuming it's video since that's the code I get when I use the video card. I found a few other posts saying 1 long 3 short is video on award bioses.
Re: Need help with VLB/486 Motherboard -- this thread seems to verify that.

There are no jumpers at all on the video card, nothing even labeled for bus on it. I did try running the board at 25, 33, 40, and 50mhz, no luck. Same if i close the <33mhz or >33mhz jumper on the motherboard.

I just tested both cards at the same time for the heck of it, system seems to post, but no display from either card. Not sure if that means anything useful.

Got any resistors around? can eliminate monitor incompatibility, if you do this and it "seems to POST"
http://www.geeks3d.com/public/jegx/200912/vga … onic_schema.jpg

Anything from 50 to 100 ohms will do in a pinch.

Thinking back to that again because of behaviour when you stick the ISA in with it.

BitWrangler wrote:

Got any resistors around? can eliminate monitor incompatibility, if you do this and it "seems to POST" http://www.geeks3d.com/pu […]
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Got any resistors around? can eliminate monitor incompatibility, if you do this and it "seems to POST"
http://www.geeks3d.com/public/jegx/200912/vga … onic_schema.jpg

Anything from 50 to 100 ohms will do in a pinch.

Thinking back to that again because of behaviour when you stick the ISA in with it.

Would that explain why it still throws the same error (1 long 3 short) even if no monitor is plugged in at all? The other card posts with or without the monitor as well.

Hmm.. Only resistors I have on hand are a bunch of 10k and 20k I got to make a few covox speech things. Nothing that low here at the house. Guessing that's way too much 😎 ?

You say the system seems to POST with both cards in. If you only have the VLB card in, it gives you the beep codes, but does it then go on to boot? Maybe you can put "echo <ctrl+g><ctrl+g>" in your autoexec.bat so that it beeps twice once it's booting, then put the VLB card in and listen for the two beeps.

If this works, and it boots with the VLB, it means those beeps indicate "no monitor connected" so the card probably works fine, it just can't detect the monitor. If it doesn't boot, and the system locks up after the beep code, then it's likely a different problem.

Have you also tried booting the board with *no* video cards present? You should get a "no video card detected" beep in that case, so it would be interesting to find out whether that's the same or different to the beep code you get with the VLB card connected. If it's the same, it could mean the VLB card's VGA BIOS chip is defective.

Lastly, I'd recommend ordering a POST card so you can see what the BIOS is doing - they are quite helpful for problems like this. Have a look on eBay for "isa diagnostic" and you will see a bunch for only a few dollars shipped.

I'm thinking along lines of some SNAFU with this...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_Data_Channel

It might support DDC1 which also usually supports the prior ID pin method... however later models of monitor, several years later, may not have included support for the relatively little used DDC1. Thus it's trying to negotiate with monitor and all monitor hears is baby talk gabble, but because there's something digital happening monitor doesn't fall back to non-DDC mode either.

It looks like one could fake it out with a jumper wire from Pin 11 to ground (Pin 5)

Malvineous:
with any error beeps at POST the computer won't boot.

I'd say the card is broken.

The VLB card's BIOS chip is socketed, right? Maybe try re-seating it?

Malvineous wrote:

You say the system seems to POST with both cards in. If you only have the VLB card in, it gives you the beep codes, but does it […]
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You say the system seems to POST with both cards in. If you only have the VLB card in, it gives you the beep codes, but does it then go on to boot? Maybe you can put "echo <ctrl+g><ctrl+g>" in your autoexec.bat so that it beeps twice once it's booting, then put the VLB card in and listen for the two beeps.

If this works, and it boots with the VLB, it means those beeps indicate "no monitor connected" so the card probably works fine, it just can't detect the monitor. If it doesn't boot, and the system locks up after the beep code, then it's likely a different problem.

Have you also tried booting the board with *no* video cards present? You should get a "no video card detected" beep in that case, so it would be interesting to find out whether that's the same or different to the beep code you get with the VLB card connected. If it's the same, it could mean the VLB card's VGA BIOS chip is defective.

Lastly, I'd recommend ordering a POST card so you can see what the BIOS is doing - they are quite helpful for problems like this. Have a look on eBay for "isa diagnostic" and you will see a bunch for only a few dollars shipped.

Very intersting posts.. let me dig in.

1. With NO video card present, I get 1 long beep and 3 quick beeps. With the Orchid card I get 1 long beep and three "medium" beeps.. so now we're seeing three different beep lengths, or maybe it's trying to say the same thing. I'm not sure.

2. echo<ctrl+g><ctrl+g> didn't work but I made a little beep batch file that plays a series of recognizable beeps and added it to autoexec.bat.
You are right, with the orchid card installed, after the error beep if I wait, I get a single post beep, followed by my batch singing (the first time i had to hit enter, so I believe a warning/error was displayed in post).

For the post card, I would get one but I may be able to get a replacement or refund for this, which probably involves sending it back to the seller. So I may not have time to get that far.

SW-SSG wrote:

The VLB card's BIOS chip is socketed, right? Maybe try re-seating it?

I tried this yesterday, I also cleaned all contacts on the bios chip. Unfortunately I don't have the bios file or an EEPROM burner on hand to replace it. I'm getting the feeling that's where the issue is.

RE: Monitor

http://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/archive/microni … ls/kel64&ez.pdf

Found the manual for the card online, it has the pinout shown, pic below

update: With the bios removed, I get one long and 3 quick beeps, same as if no card is installed.

I don't know if you have tried this little procedure....

Just for the sake of it. First press the card as deep as it can go, in the Vesa slot.
Power on and see if it works. If not, powwr off and wiggle a half millimeter up and try again.

A lot of VGA cards are quite standard, so if you can find one with a socketed BIOS ROM then you can always try putting that "foreign" ROM chip into the VLB card's socket. This means you'll boot the VLB card using the BIOS from a different vendor, which may or may not work, depending on whether the BIOS does any manufacturer-specific tricks. I'd be willing to bet that it would work most of the time.

It may not solve your problem however. From your description of the differing beep lengths, what I think is happening is this. With no card detected, the system BIOS can't find the video ROM so does the 1L/3S beep code. With the VLB card installed, the system BIOS runs the video BIOS, which can't then detect the monitor (or has some other problem) and the *video BIOS* produces the 1L/3M beep code.

So from this I would guess that the BIOS ROM is probably OK, and the VLB card's POST routine is detecting some problem, likely "monitor not connected". Given that plugging in even a broken monitor normally stops that particular error beep, I suspect something wrong with the VGA connector on the VLB card.

It could of course be something else (bad RAM etc.) but in my own experience cards from that era typically give you some sort of a corrupted display even if there are major problems.

I will also add that although some LCD monitors are not compatible with VGA cards and won't display a picture reliably, the presence of those monitors is still always detected so the fact that you get a beep code means it's unlikely to be a compatibility problem with the monitor (assuming the VGA cable is not broken/loose or anything.) If it was a compatibility problem you would get no beep codes, and then no picture.