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First post, by Dusko

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Hello All!
After several headaches, long hours and days, I'm coming here to see if someone has run into this issue before and can help me with it:

I recently got a FIC 486-vip-io with the purpose of having a 486 dx2 66MHz with a 2 or 4 megs PCI video card. I already have a nice SOYO vlb setup with 1mb video card, very happy with that but wanted to have a second one with better video performance, this is the set up:

Motherboard: FIC 486-vip-io
CPU: Intel 486 DX2 66MHz
Ram: 16MB
Cache: 256 Kb
HDD: Compact Flash (IDE adapter) with 512 mb
PCI video options (I have):
- 2mb Diamond Stealth64 2001 series S3 Trio64V+ (from 1995)
-4mb Diamond Stealth 3d 2000 series S3 Virge (from 1996)

The system works great with a ISA video card (Diamond Speedstar pro), the only thing that is not working is the HDD led jumper (j4) . The tower HDD led is good, It works with my vlb controller card from the other set up and the same Compact Flash adapter. This is another thing that really annoys me!.

Now, the real problem is when I switch the video card for a PCI card, I get no image, it doesn't even give me an error, I can tell the computer turns on and boots to DOS, I know this because of the floppies boot sequence and the HDD led activity of the CF IDE adapter.

I hope the mobo is good but not sure what to do with this BIOS settings:

Slot (1) using IRQ: ?? I tried 10 but nothing
PCI clock: ? goes from 0 to 255 I think
INT A Using IRQ: ??? also tried 10
IRQ MODE: ?? Transparent ? there was also Converse and something else, no idea.
CPU to PCI WRITE BUFFER: ?
PCI Master WRITE BUFFER: ?
PCI Master PRE-FETCH BUFFER: ?

There is no auto config for any of that. Is any particular IRQ these video cards use? and then, which IRQ for INT a,b, etc. I guess these also represent the PCI slots 1 -4 ? So I'm supposed to set two IRQs?, one for the slot and one for this ABC bulls@#$? Another thing is that the mobo's manual (pdf download) says it's a PCI 2.0 specification, I wonder if the video cards I'm testing are 2.1? I couldn't find any info on them, PCI 2.1 specification was released in 1995, so maybe one of the cards is no good for this set up (if not both), anyway, I still need help to figure out this BIOS settings if anyone knows.
I also set the "pull down if PCI is inserted" jumpers as the manual specifies, the only IRQ I didn't do that was the 5 which will be used for the Sound Blaster.
The copy of the manual gets cut short at the beginning of the BIOS section!, so no more help there. It really is a pain in the a$$ to switch video cards back an forth to try all the combinations!

If anyone bothers to read this is greatly appreciated!

Thank You,
Dusko

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Reply 1 of 19, by douglar

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I have an FIC 486-VIP ( no io ). It gets finicky with PCI boards after 1997, but it works fine with the Matrox Mystique and the S3 Trio that i have. At first I didn’t think it liked my PCI et4000 board, produced a ton of artifacts & unstable, but it turns out that the edge connector needed cleaned.

I tried some newer cards like a Radeon 9250 and Geforce MX4000 and I get the same issue that you have. No errors, but no pictures. Those cards work in my Gateway Aries 420ex board.

Which Bios do you have? I have December 1993.

Reply 2 of 19, by Horun

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Dusko wrote on 2020-02-17, 01:13:

- 2mb Diamond Stealth64 2001 series S3 Trio64V+ (from 1995)
-4mb Diamond Stealth 3d 2000 series S3 Virge (from 1996)

S3 Trio64V+ should work, use one as a test card in all sorts of PCI capable motherboards including 486, but do not have a FIC 486-vip-io. The S3 Virge might be pci spec 2.1 so might not work on your board but would expect the multi beep of the speaker to tell me a video error. Do you have a speaker hooked up ?
added: Most Video cards like IRQ 11 or seem to auto be set there. Will look up some old Award BIOS manuals and see if I can find some info on the early Award 4.5 bios settings...

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 3 of 19, by Dusko

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douglar wrote on 2020-02-17, 03:01:

I have an FIC 486-VIP ( no io ). It gets finicky with PCI boards after 1997, but it works fine with the Matrox Mystique and the S3 Trio that i have. At first I didn’t think it liked my PCI et4000 board, produced a ton of artifacts & unstable, but it turns out that the edge connector needed cleaned.

I tried some newer cards like a Radeon 9250 and Geforce MX4000 and I get the same issue that you have. No errors, but no pictures. Those cards work in my Gateway Aries 420ex board.

Which Bios do you have? I have December 1993.

Good to know, I may need to get an older video card, maybe 94'. The BIOS it's 4.5G and below that says 4.26GN2 (have you seen something like that?) See the picture I posted. If you have a chance: do you know what year are the ones that worked for you? Do you have those same settings in the BIOS, how did you configure them?

Thank You,
Dusko

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Last edited by Dusko on 2020-02-17, 05:36. Edited 1 time in total.

https://www.youtube.com/@myoldpc9458

Reply 4 of 19, by Dusko

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Horun wrote on 2020-02-17, 03:54:

S3 Trio64V+ should work, use one as a test card in all sorts of PCI capable motherboards including 486, but do not have a FIC 486-vip-io. The S3 Virge might be pci spec 2.1 so might not work on your board but would expect the multi beep of the speaker to tell me a video error. Do you have a speaker hooked up ?
added: Most Video cards like IRQ 11 or seem to auto be set there. Will look up some old Award BIOS manuals and see if I can find some info on the early Award 4.5 bios settings...

The S3 Trio64V+ works, I tested it, also the PC speaker is connected and beeps when I use the ISA video card. I didn't try IRQ 11 but I have no idea what to do with the rest of those settings. I guess nothing will happen until I get it right since nothing seems to be auto. Anyway I think IRQ 11 was one of the options, I'll try it. Very much appreciated if you can find out about some of the other settings.

Thank You,
Dusko

https://www.youtube.com/@myoldpc9458

Reply 6 of 19, by Dusko

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Baoran wrote on 2020-02-17, 06:16:

I am at this moment testing this exact motherboard and it is working fine with virge/GX with bios defaults.
Bios is 4.26GN1

Jezz! so you didn't assign IRQ's and INT's ? you left them all N/A? it's driving me crazy!. I just found out that my Stealth64 2001 series seems to be PCI 2.0 which is good news but still nothing...

https://www.youtube.com/@myoldpc9458

Reply 7 of 19, by Baoran

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Dusko wrote on 2020-02-17, 06:29:
Baoran wrote on 2020-02-17, 06:16:

I am at this moment testing this exact motherboard and it is working fine with virge/GX with bios defaults.
Bios is 4.26GN1

Jezz! so you didn't assign IRQ's and INT's ? you left them all N/A? it's driving me crazy!. I just found out that my Stealth64 2001 series seems to be PCI 2.0 which is good news but still nothing...

Yeah. I did "Load bios defaults" yesterday and I have not touched any of the pci settings since that.

Reply 8 of 19, by Dusko

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Baoran wrote on 2020-02-17, 06:43:

Yeah. I did "Load bios defaults" yesterday and I have not touched any of the pci settings since that.

I did that yesterday and again just now, also played around with the IRQ stuff. What if the whole PCI section of the board is fried? I'm going to try a pci sound card and see what happens, not long ago I tested the video card in a Pentium 100 and was working.
How do you have the IRQ pull up/down jumpers set up?:
J1, J2, J34, J35, J36 for IRQ's 14, 11, 5, 9 and 10 respectively, (3 pins jumpers, it's either short 1-2 or 2-3)

also, J33 short for color display correct?

https://www.youtube.com/@myoldpc9458

Reply 9 of 19, by Baoran

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Dusko wrote on 2020-02-17, 07:28:
I did that yesterday and again just now, also played around with the IRQ stuff. What if the whole PCI section of the board is fr […]
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Baoran wrote on 2020-02-17, 06:43:

Yeah. I did "Load bios defaults" yesterday and I have not touched any of the pci settings since that.

I did that yesterday and again just now, also played around with the IRQ stuff. What if the whole PCI section of the board is fried? I'm going to try a pci sound card and see what happens, not long ago I tested the video card in a Pentium 100 and was working.
How do you have the IRQ pull up/down jumpers set up?:
J1, J2, J34, J35, J36 for IRQ's 14, 11, 5, 9 and 10 respectively, (3 pins jumpers, it's either short 1-2 or 2-3)

also, J33 short for color display correct?

Here is a picture of my motherboard. I have not touched the jumpers so they are exactly the same as in the picture.
Re: Socket 3 motherboard with floppy drive problem.

I hope you can see the jumpers because the picture is bit dark.

Reply 10 of 19, by Dusko

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Baoran wrote on 2020-02-17, 07:33:

Here is a picture of my motherboard. I have not touched the jumpers so they are exactly the same as in the picture.
Re: Socket 3 motherboard with floppy drive problem.

I hope you can see the jumpers because the picture is bit dark.

I compared it with mine and changed a few jumpers (except for CPU stuff) but that didn't help. Can't test if the PCI slots are fried since my other non video cards are for Pentiums so I guess I'll go shopping for another video card and see what happens. I still have faith in this mobo, it looks like new, not a scratch.

Question, have you connected a HDD led to jumper 4 (J4)? mine doesn't work, don't know if it's because I'm using an IDE Compact Flash adapter but the led works with the controller card from my other mobo. what are you using for a Hard Drive?
I wonder if the IDE specs varied back then...

Thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/@myoldpc9458

Reply 12 of 19, by Baoran

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I have not put my motherboard to a case yet and just have been testing it outside of a case, so I have not tested any of the leds.
I did check few bit newer video cards though. Both voodoo 3 2000 and Ati rage II+ do work in dos at least with my motherboard. Only video card that hasn't worked with the motherboard so far was TNT2 M64 card

Reply 13 of 19, by douglar

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Dusko wrote on 2020-02-17, 04:35:

Good to know, I may need to get an older video card, maybe 94'. The BIOS it's 4.5G and below that says 4.26GN2 (have you seen something like that?) See the picture I posted. If you have a chance: do you know what year are the ones that worked for you? Do you have those same settings in the BIOS, how did you configure them?

I don't think manually tweaking the BIOS settings is going to help that much with correctly working PnP video cards.
I think the root cause is that the VT82C505 just wasn't 100% PCI compliant. A bios upgrade might help.

I see some 1997 Bios files for FIC-VIP-IO here: http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/ftp.f … board/bios/486/ and a flash tool. Maybe you can try upgrading the bios to see if that helps.

I have a FIC-VIP (no io) motherboard with 4.15G BIOS, which is dated December, 1993. Looks like I need a n external programmer to upgrade my bios. There's not much info on the 486 VIP (no IO) . Stason calls in a Leo-486-VIP

The layouts look pretty different--
https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/F/F … 486-VIP-IO.html
https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/F/F … EO-486-VIP.html

Seems like there are a lot of boards that us the same BIOS string (VT82C505-2A4L4000-00) :
486-PAK-2
486-PVT
486-PVT-IO
486-VIP-IO
486-VIP-IO2

What do you think the chances are that a 486-VIP-IO bios will work on a 486-VIP ?

Reply 14 of 19, by Baoran

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douglar wrote on 2020-02-17, 13:33:
I don't think manually tweaking the BIOS settings is going to help that much with correctly working PnP video cards. I think the […]
Show full quote
Dusko wrote on 2020-02-17, 04:35:

Good to know, I may need to get an older video card, maybe 94'. The BIOS it's 4.5G and below that says 4.26GN2 (have you seen something like that?) See the picture I posted. If you have a chance: do you know what year are the ones that worked for you? Do you have those same settings in the BIOS, how did you configure them?

I don't think manually tweaking the BIOS settings is going to help that much with correctly working PnP video cards.
I think the root cause is that the VT82C505 just wasn't 100% PCI compliant. A bios upgrade might help.

I see some 1997 Bios files for FIC-VIP-IO here: http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/ftp.f … board/bios/486/ and a flash tool. Maybe you can try upgrading the bios to see if that helps.

I have a FIC-VIP (no io) motherboard with 4.15G BIOS, which is dated December, 1993. Looks like I need a n external programmer to upgrade my bios. There's not much info on the 486 VIP (no IO) . Stason calls in a Leo-486-VIP

The layouts look pretty different--
https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/F/F … 486-VIP-IO.html
https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/F/F … EO-486-VIP.html

Seems like there are a lot of boards that us the same BIOS string (VT82C505-2A4L4000-00) :
486-PAK-2
486-PVT
486-PVT-IO
486-VIP-IO
486-VIP-IO2

What do you think the chances are that a 486-VIP-IO bios will work on a 486-VIP ?

I think it is unlikely it will work because of all the on board I/O settings that are in 486-VIP-IO bios when 486-VIP doesn't have those on board I/O connectors.

Reply 15 of 19, by Dusko

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douglar wrote on 2020-02-17, 13:33:
I don't think manually tweaking the BIOS settings is going to help that much with correctly working PnP video cards. I think the […]
Show full quote

I don't think manually tweaking the BIOS settings is going to help that much with correctly working PnP video cards.
I think the root cause is that the VT82C505 just wasn't 100% PCI compliant. A bios upgrade might help.

I see some 1997 Bios files for FIC-VIP-IO here: http://cwcyrix.duckdns.org/ftp-archives/ftp.f … board/bios/486/ and a flash tool. Maybe you can try upgrading the bios to see if that helps.

I have a FIC-VIP (no io) motherboard with 4.15G BIOS, which is dated December, 1993. Looks like I need a n external programmer to upgrade my bios. There's not much info on the 486 VIP (no IO) . Stason calls in a Leo-486-VIP

The layouts look pretty different--
https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/F/F … 486-VIP-IO.html
https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/F/F … EO-486-VIP.html

Seems like there are a lot of boards that us the same BIOS string (VT82C505-2A4L4000-00) :
486-PAK-2
486-PVT
486-PVT-IO
486-VIP-IO
486-VIP-IO2

What do you think the chances are that a 486-VIP-IO bios will work on a 486-VIP ?

Thank You, I downloaded the new firmware and ended up buying one of those EEPROM programers (wanted to get one for a while), an UV eraser and a couple of chips . This may help but will not surprise me if it doesn't. Also got a Diamond stealth 64 from 1994 (EBay), so I'll keep you guys posted when I get all this.
I never switched BIOS chips between mobos, they are all different, maybe if they share the same chipsets but still. I did that with two ISA video cards because the one I was using had an older version and it ended up being slower on the benchmark so I put it back.

https://www.youtube.com/@myoldpc9458

Reply 17 of 19, by Dusko

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Got it working!, installed the new Diamond stealth 64 that I got from ebay and it works, don't know at what point my other 2 cards got bad, maybe got a component loose after switching them too many times, I'll inspect the circuit and try to fix them whenever I have the time latter on... anyway they're not as expensive as an ISA card. Two things that still don't work are the HDD led jumpers (J4 / J13), I want to find out what the problem is because everything else works.
Flashed the new BIOS too!! (4.27GN2A), thanks for the link! very happy with the EEprom programmer too, love playing around with it, that helped me fix a Biostar 8433uud-a that wasn't working no matter what I trowed at it, for some reason the BIOS was corrupted, installed a new chip with a new BIOS version and now works wonderfully. Inspected the old BIOS and it had some blank spaces (that can be normal) but in this case it had some letters and numbers here and there that just looked odd. Now all my mobos work! did have some very dark times dealing with them!!

https://www.youtube.com/@myoldpc9458

Reply 19 of 19, by Dusko

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The problem was that the PCI video cards were bad, I didn't have to do anything to the BIOS once I installed the new good card, actually, I tested it before updating the BIOS and it was good, I only updated the BIOS just because there is a newer version and now have the tools to do it.

https://www.youtube.com/@myoldpc9458