Hard to tell. Try cleaning the contacts on the VLB board - I use pencil eraser. Does it have any jumpers? Also try putting it in all different VLB slots.

Upoad a hires picture and someone can spot a problem.

Thanks kixs. I did the clean the card contacts with an tried all three slots. The card itself only had a jumper for IRQ enable/disable and two for selecting memory size, but those were never populated with pins. The back has some DIP switches to control refresh rates, but not change with those. I'll snag some pictures of each.

Photo of the Orchid is attached...hopefully. Getting one of the motherboard isn't as easy to get 😉

nightfallvt wrote:

Photo of the Orchid is attached...hopefully. Getting one of the motherboard isn't as easy to get 😉

Look like the traces right above the IRQ9 jumper are damaged, or is it just how it looks in the picture?

Yeah, that's just poor lighting on those traces. Everything looks physically fine on the board. Hopefully I can source another card, locally this time, to see how the motherboard handles it.

Thanks everyone. Something's wrong with the Orchid board or the combination I guess. I was able to source a Mach32 VLB locally and it works perfectly. Ah well 😉

Glad to hear you found a replacement, but I do hope you get that card working. Maybe you can revive the project if you acquire another mobo.

Man. Ha! I know you are done, but I still have questions - did you try reseating the BIOS on the card. Also - what processor are you using with the board?

I have run into a problem where some motherboards and video cards just plain don't play nice together, this might be something similar.

In particular, I've yet to see a Micronics VLB 486 board that would POST with a Cirrus Logic GD5429 graphics card in it, even though a GD5428 with the BIOS chip from the 5429 card works! I also have two 486 PCI boards with the same UMC chipset, one of which works fine with a Matrox G450 PCI, but the other won't even POST with it plugged in. I wonder if this is something similar?

I pulled and reseated everything that was socketed. The processor is an Intel DX2/66 and it's now humming happily next to my main PC. I hope it was just a quirky VLB-MB combination as jade_angel's seen. I had an Orchid card in my 286 as a kid so the logo brings back fond memories of that machine. I plan on revisiting the card again, but am going to shift over to my Kaypro 2 for a bit 😉

jade_angel wrote:

I have run into a problem where some motherboards and video cards just plain don't play nice together

Usually when this happens it is the DRAM latency on the graphics card in combination with the motherboard FSB that is the problem. It can be the same with installed DRAM on the motherboard... if it's not fast enough, computers will not boot. This is also why some VLB card will not boot the system above 33MHz.

Either keep the FSB 33MHz or under... or just get faster DRAM! 😀

Not that I am saying this is the issue on this occasion, it may or may not be something else.

nightfallvt wrote:

, but only get the 8 beep video post error.

8 beeps is usually memory issue... but looking at your card I see 60ns which should be fine.

The only two things obvious from your picture are.... 4 DRAM IC's are soldered to the board and came with it since manufacture... could something be wrong with any of those IC's?

Also, next to the RAM there is real estate for 1MB/2MB jumper settings... neither of these are selected... I would have thought if you have only 1MB that you would need a jumper over this setting? Then a required change to 2MB jumper setting once you fully populate the card with DRAM?

I could be wrong but this is the most obvious thing that jumps out (no pun intended). There would be no harm to try and crate an electronic bridge between the 1MB jumper contacts... worth a shot maybe.

386_junkie wrote:

Also, next to the RAM there is real estate for 1MB/2MB jumper settings... neither of these are selected... I would have thought if you have only 1MB that you would need a jumper over this setting? Then a required change to 2MB jumper setting once you fully populate the card with DRAM?

I noticed the jumper but it appears the header was just not populated when the board was manufactured. I have the original manual and it shows the jumper and how to move the jumper block for each memory config. Perhaps the change just didn't get reflected in the manual. In any case, there is a trace connecting the two pads for 1MB on the backside of the PCB.

Replacing the soldered-in RAM with sockets and new ICs is probably the next thing I'll try when I need a diversion.