The PC 330 and the PC 350 share the same motherboard. I understand the PC 350 has some issues using/detecting HDDs and CF that are in excess of 8gb so you may want to avoid that 32gb card. The startech cf adapter is a good one. I've also heard that the PC 350 is somewhat picky with the type of cf card you are using, where some brands will work and some won't. Another user here uses a 4gb verbatim brand card with their PC 350 so that may be something to look for if you want to get something that might be more compatible than other options.

I actually just bought a PC 350 myself and will be working on installing a CF adapter and setting up the system soon.

Which kind of PentiumMMX you have installed? This computer does not support dual voltage (even if i think before you cook a PentiumMMX at 3,3 v you can gone...). Second: 99% the bios allow only 8GB limit size.

dukeofurl wrote on 2024-04-29, 18:29:

I understand the PC 350 has some issues using/detecting HDDs and CF that are in excess of 8gb so you may want to avoid that 32gb card.

Thanks for your reply! I went with SanDisk ExtremePro 32 GB and it works OK as it seems. Startech adapter is presenting it to the system as non-removable drive (so no need for "industrial CF drive"), and the latest bios for PC 330 sees it's whole space.

There's some weird behaviour in the Windows itself, and i'm still trying to pin down the issue - sometimes i get the "windows performed an illegal operation" during some basic stuff.

The only scenario that repeats 100% of times is with Fallout 1 (ver 1.1) - whenever i get hit by an enemy, the game crashes with the error "application performed an illegal operation and must be closed". I've tried several versions of Windows and different install disks of fallout, the issue persists.

The only thing i can suspect is the drive, but idk. Maybe it's something else

AlessandroB wrote on 2024-05-03, 20:10:

Which kind of PentiumMMX you have installed? This computer does not support dual voltage (even if i think before you cook a PentiumMMX at 3,3 v you can gone...). Second: 99% the bios allow only 8GB limit size.

i have a 200Mhz MMX Pentium, and somehow it works. I see that my mobo have no VRM module near the CPU socket (there's just unused 2x15 solder points), and i even found this project, but i really can't understand if i need it - the system boots and works.

You can use a split rail mmx CPU in a non-split rail motherboard your just over volting the CPU. It'll work you just need to make sure you have good cooling. I'd recommend a good heatsink and fan since the CPU is being over volted.

the info i find from different people is contradictory (

this is a post from one of vogon's threads

5u3 wrote on 2008-10-17, 01:17:

Just to clear up the Socket 7 confusion: […]
Show full quote

Just to clear up the Socket 7 confusion:

Socket 5 was the one that didn't support split-voltage for MMX CPUs.
Socket 7 always works with MMX processors (at least in theory, apparently there are some crap mainboards without the split-voltage feature).
Super Socket 7 is exactly the same, only with FSB clocks up to 100 MHz and lower voltages for the CPU.

Glad to see you had success with the compact flash. I guess you could always try a fresh install of windows and drivers to see if it helps your periodic issues.

I have Windows 98 on my PC 350 and it runs pretty well.

On the topic of mmx CPU without split voltage running at 3.3v... I am currently doing that with my socket 5 gateway 2000 motherboard, which is not designed for that CPU at all... But it's been holding up ok this past 6 months or so. It is true that later versions of the PC 350 (and prob the 330) officially supported a pentium mmx, but those later versions come with extra components to split the voltage, whereas on my PC 350 motherboard, that area is blank and seemingly only 3.3/3.3 voltage is supplied to the CPU. The socket still says Socket 7 though, I guess it's one of the "crap" socket 7 boards the quote refers to. If I guessed, it would probably work anyway, overvolted like my gateway 2000 board.

Re soundcards popular choices are:
Yamah YMF
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/audician-32-plus.html

ESS
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ess-audiodrive-es1868.html

While I still like Creative cards I have to admit they are overpriced and you have to be careful as a lot are buggy if attaching external midi devices.

My wife is very much against screen time, but I've managed to seek our kids on from time to time and they do enjoy the cartoon-ish looks of old dos games, LGR's Edutainment series give a few ideas on educational games that may help sell the idea to the other half 😉

If you can't find an Audician 32 Plus or ESS Audiodrive like chinny22 suggested, I'd recommend that you grab a PicoGUS. I have one and it's got Intelligent Mode MIDI support as well as Sound Blaster 2.0 and GUS emulation. I use one in conjunction with my AWE 64 and it works pretty well with careful allocation of resources, so using one on its own should be a piece of cake! If you're in the US or Canada, Joe's Computer Museum has a few in stock right now; Europeans would be better served by Serdaco.

Hey everyone! Thank you guys for the soundcard suggestions! i've fiddled with some cheap half-dead OPTi card without success and decided to go with OII. Here's the update on my build as well as some issues i have atm

first of all, the looks:

so the hardware updates are (unfortunately, i can't update the original post):

• the most major one is, of course, the Orpheus II - i managed to buy one from the final batch. Very grateful to Leo for his responsiveness and kindness!
  new speakers - iLoud Micro Monitors (i know, they're not retro, but i just love the looks of them, especially with those white manfrotto tripods)
  Mt32-Mccake from Serdaco for WT MT-32 emulation
  nice slot loading CD-ROM - Pioneer DR-502S (made in Japan, made my first retrobrite process with it)
  CF to IDE adapter - StarTech 35BAYCF2IDE
  CF card #1 SanDisk Extreme Pro 32 GB for Windows 98 SE
  CF card #2 Transcend Industrial 8GB for DOS 6.22

Thought that OII gonna solve all my problems but of course it was not the case - I went into the rabbit hole of trying to befriend the OII with the cursed OEM nature of IBM PC.

long story short, by using the intel ICU utility I've managed to setup the OII in DOS 6.22 installation - at least the suggested by Leo Jazz Jackrabbit game works fine with GUS sound. I haven't been able to test other games though - except Tyrian, which didn't work with GUS ("couldn't initialize Gravis Ultrasound" in setup), but maybe I have the broken copy of the game.

the W98SE environment is much more problematic and took many hours of my life, and I still can't get it work properly. Through Intel ICU utility I've managed to appoint proper IRQ/DMAs to CS and GUS parts of the card, but I still observe many problems - whining sound from speakers, clicking sound when changing volume, and GUS part seem to not work in dos games running from windows - dos window just hangs when I try to select the GUS (for example, in Tomb Raider 3dfx voodoo demo).

anyway, taking into account many other suspicious and sometimes random issues, I suspect that something is wrong with the PC itself, and not exactly with it's connection with OII. Allow me to describe some of them.

1. Device conflict error in ICU
first of all, i sometimes get "Active Device conflict" in intel ICU, for example when i boot the PC from previously disconnected power:

after the restart i usually don't have this issue (but sometimes i do, hence the randomness i mentioned earlier)

anyway, in both cases W98 shows no conflict, but the behavior of sound is still problematic, as i already said.

2. whining sound from speakers and clicking sound whenever i change the volume, here's the demonstration. in some very rare cases, without any changes to the configuration, the clicking sound disappears, only to return after some short time or reboot.

3. CD-ROM behavior
I have this very weird issue with my CD-ROM that I cant google. Whenever i boot into DOS and check the contents of inserted disk (by DIR command or from NC), i get gibberish letters in most of the filenames, so i cant run or copy anything from the Disk:

That is not the case when i boot DOS 7 from Windows side:

Interestingly, the problem is not with the filenames only, but goes further - for example, the GSCDROM.SYS driver shows the CD-ROM model when executed, and the gibberish letters display even there:

4. Sometimes, windows boots with the deep blue desktop with Windows 98 logo in upper right corner of the screen - what's the nature of this issue?

5. I had some problems with program crashes with "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down" error, one of which i manage recreate every time - In Fallout 1, whenever i start the game and being successfully hit by an enemy, the game crashes. I tried different installations of both windows and fallout, and the problem persist.

having described some of the symptoms i have, i have several suspicions about the causes of them
1. faulty capacitors on motherboard? what are the symptoms of faulty caps and can they cause something like i have?
2. faulty capacitors on PSU?
3. MMX processor without the VRM module installed? Maybe i should build myself the module by scorp?
4. faulty memory? i ran the MemTest and the memory is OK
5. faulty cache module?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

bogus characters on devices and files could mean some address conflict - if for example you have a mpu at port300 and you are using a xtide-cf interface again set in port300 you get completely bogus device name and listing if it happens to boot
tyrian needs "ultramid -c" to be ran prior to launching the game else gus support will not work , I believe this is stated in the help file of the game
I am not sure what could be wrong with the system, if you also had issues with other soundcards it might indicate some deeper problem... :\