Got another 2900xt, this time it is GDDR3 rather than GDDR4, and it shows an identical pattern on screen to the other one. Like, identical to the single pixel. It's uncanny! What could this mean?

Wes1262 wrote on 2025-01-02, 06:41:

Got another 2900xt, this time it is GDDR3 rather than GDDR4, and it shows an identical pattern on screen to the other one. Like, identical to the single pixel. It's uncanny! What could this mean?

It's not time to buy that lottery ticket 😀

Sometimes you luck out, sometimes you don't. I am not even mad 😜 it is how it is.
I am thinking it's my motherboard now. Because the seller had a pic showing that the card is installed in windows with no artifacts.
What are the chances that a problem like this is caused by the motherboard?

Maybe a voltage rail on the PCIe slot is low. Does it happen in every slot?

Happens on both PCIE16x slots yes

vutt wrote on 2025-01-01, 17:22:

Thanks myne. I'll dig into this probably over weekend.
However my card might be defective. VidMem stress test CE 1.21 is showing errors regardless of FSB speed

The idea with the Turbo PLL is to cut the lines on your board that you want to run at another speed.
You need to built a separate PLL board, it looks like pin 7 and 8 are the ones you wan to replace.
Test pin 7 and 8 with your scope.

Yeah, you don't really need to do it that way IMHO.

In my mind, you pull the resistor between GCLKOUT and GCLKIN. Probably a good idea to terminate GCLKOUT somehow.
Then you wire to the other side of GCLKOUT, and for testing purposes, use a pci clock which can be borrowed from a slot nearby.
If it works at 33, then either double a spare pci clock or halve a spare CPU clock. My preference is to halve.
A more permanent solution could be to piggyback a similar clock gen that has a 66mhz output. Though I haven't looked into it.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-01-01, 05:32:

I have a pretty interesting testing process for Windows 9x and DOS stuff, but I won't get into that since everything you have he […]
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I have a pretty interesting testing process for Windows 9x and DOS stuff, but I won't get into that since everything you have here should be much easier to test under XP, like Kahenraz said.

Before doing any testing though, look them over really well for physical damage. Especially gouges in the PCB, on the AGP contacts or across SMD components that could bridge pins. Shorted things are "bad" , and could cause physical damage to the card or other components. Also, I have found that it helps to kind of take a step back and look for bigger marks and scratches. If you see a scratch, follow it and keep looking in the direction of the scratch... you may find more damage in that line, and it could save you a lot of time. Anything with physical damage, just set aside for later... some are worth fixing, some are really not unless you are super dedicated.

For XP testing, I would separate all the cards by vendor and by generation (Geforce 2, Geforce 3, etc.). Make sure you have DirectX 9.0C installed so it will support the newest cards. Find a couple good driver versions in the VOGONS library (nvidia and ATi). If you can find a driver that supports everything you want to test, grab that, but also grab a few that are more correct for older cards. Start off with one vendor (Nvidia...), install one of the older cards and install the newest driver that supports that card. Keep testing cards in order of oldest to newest (with similar cards back-to-back since they will often not even need the drivers to be reinstalled). If any older card doesn't work properly, just set it aside to test later with a more period-correct driver, just in case it's a software issue.

Run Driver Cleaner in between vendor changes just to rule out any complications there.

Also, every time a new device is installed on XP (even if an already installed driver is used) you may notice that the system will still act like it doesn't have hardware acceleration, so you'll want to reboot, even if Windows doesn't say you need to.

Some weird part of me enjoys testing cards, so I do this a lot. 😀

Sounds good. Thanks for the advice!

Bought this LCD monitor Eizo S2133 IPS 1600x1200 which is 4:3 instead of 5:4.

Has been CRT user for all my retro stuff and was quite underwhelmed with the LCD visual.

It will look different on a different VGA card, maybe even a near identical card. It is IMO 100% in the analog output side of the VGA, something to do with filtering or signal strength. Using it through a KVM can also change things. Either the KVM sucks and gives you that whatever card is source, or your KVM is great and "fixes" signal from cards that do it solo.

I bought this ASUS TNT 2 Ultra with aftermarket "TennMax Stealth V3 Fighter" Cooler (this one was intended for Voodoo 3, as the name "V3" implies) and with Shutter Glasses

Went to the first monthly vintage market for the year. As usual it's smaller after Christmas. There were a few appealing things, I picked up more stuff than I recently did. The ones that aren't off topic are some PCMCIA adapters for a good price.

A 10Mbit 3Com with the breakout cable those are often missing from these networking cards. It should be easy to deal with for old laptops. Looks like Dell hosts drivers for it.
The other two are CF-to-PCMCIA and SD-to-PCMCIA adapters. Also seems to be a convenient way to move data until the network is set up.

Grabbed this ASUS SP97-V (https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-sp97-v) for $30 sold as “For parts”. It’s probably one of the fastest socket 7 (non-AGP) boards out there. It performs as well as a T2P4 (maybe even slightly better). It’s north bridge and south bridge are in a single chip for great performance. A great little overclocker too.

After fixing the jumper settings she booted up first time. I then flashed it to a patched BIOS to support AMD K6-2+/3+. Used the “secret” voltage jumper settings for 2.0v. Chucked a K6-2+ 500 in it and it worked! Not bad for a board that was only supposed to support a 233 MMX.

Thanks to Necroware for exposing this motherboard. Highly recommend watching his video https://youtu.be/zaOXLErWcPc

zuldan wrote on 2025-01-06, 10:39:

Grabbed this ASUS SP97-V (https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-sp97-v) for $30 sold as “For parts”. It’s probably one of […]
Show full quote

Grabbed this ASUS SP97-V (https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-sp97-v) for $30 sold as “For parts”. It’s probably one of the fastest socket 7 (non-AGP) boards out there. It performs as well as a T2P4 (maybe even slightly better). It’s north bridge and south bridge is in a single chip for great performance. A great little overclocker too.

After fixing the jumper settings she booted up first time. I then flashed it to a patched BIOS to support AMD K6-2+/3+. Used the “secret” voltage jumper settings for 2.0v. Chucked a K6-2+ 500 in it and it worked! Not bad for a board that was only supposed to support a 233 MMX.

Thanks to Necroware for exposing this motherboard. Highly recommend watching his video https://youtu.be/zaOXLErWcPc

Interesting! That board looks super familiar... I think I may have one of those squirreled away somewhere.

amontre wrote on 2025-01-04, 13:56:

Bought this LCD monitor Eizo S2133 IPS 1600x1200 which is 4:3 instead of 5:4.

Has been CRT user for all my retro stuff and was quite underwhelmed with the LCD visual.

@amontre Cool! Have you run the 70HZ.EXE tool on it yet, to verify if this model actually supports 70Hz video without frame-skipping?

If you haven't already, please do, and share the results for this monitor in the topic please.

Thank you! 🙏🏽

Bought this Sparkle SP5200T 16MiB Vanta card for the SS-7 build. Setting the MTRR0/1 to write-combine unfortunately cause the system to freeze.

Bought a cheap Sony Vaio laptop - PCG-F809k, aka PCG-9316 aka whatever other model number Sony thought up for it!

P3-850, 128mb, 15" 1400x1050 LCD, ATI Mobility M1, Yamaha YMF-744, CDROM, floppy. Could make a nice late DOS/Win98 gaming device.

It was sold as not powering on, and without PSU, so is a bit of a risk. Worth a shot at the price though - it looks clean and not badly cared for, so I'll keep my fingers crossed..

megatron-uk wrote on 2025-01-06, 18:31:

Bought a cheap Sony Vaio laptop - PCG-F809k, aka PCG-9316 aka whatever other model number Sony thought up for it!

P3-850, 128mb, 15" 1400x1050 LCD, ATI Mobility M1, Yamaha YMF-744, CDROM, floppy. Could make a nice late DOS/Win98 gaming device.

It was sold as not powering on, and without PSU, so is a bit of a risk. Worth a shot at the price though - it looks clean and not badly cared for, so I'll keep my fingers crossed..

These laptops are prone to catastrophic battery leakage. Inspect it immediately when you get it.

If you own a Sony VAIO PCG-Fxxx series laptop, inspect it for corrosion as soon as possible!

If it's not powering on, the power board that lives underneath the touchpad may have been damaged by a leaking NiMH CMOS battery.

miroMEDIA View-PC/TV

zuldan wrote on 2025-01-06, 10:39:

Grabbed this ASUS SP97-V (https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-sp97-v) for $30 sold as “For parts”. It’s probably one of […]
Show full quote

Grabbed this ASUS SP97-V (https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-sp97-v) for $30 sold as “For parts”. It’s probably one of the fastest socket 7 (non-AGP) boards out there. It performs as well as a T2P4 (maybe even slightly better). It’s north bridge and south bridge are in a single chip for great performance. A great little overclocker too.

After fixing the jumper settings she booted up first time. I then flashed it to a patched BIOS to support AMD K6-2+/3+. Used the “secret” voltage jumper settings for 2.0v. Chucked a K6-2+ 500 in it and it worked! Not bad for a board that was only supposed to support a 233 MMX.

Thanks to Necroware for exposing this motherboard. Highly recommend watching his video https://youtu.be/zaOXLErWcPc

Interesting blurb on the retroweb page about that board, it reads:
Known issues:
Inadequate Power Delivery
This motherboard may have insufficient power delivery, which can lead to unstable or unsafe operation. In extreme cases, this may result in hardware damage, spontaneous combustion, or other electrical failures.

That is a bit concerning to me, but good luck!