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ISA CL-GD5429 lines issue

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First post, by soviet conscript

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I recently picked this generic-looking ISA CL-GD5429 card off eBay since Ive read its one of the faster ISA cards. Unfortunitly when it arrived, I discovered it had some issues when displaying. In POST and in DOS itself, it looks fine but in games and Windows I get these lines through the image. My guess is its memory related but before I attempt a return I wanted to see if there's a possible fix since it's an uncommon card. I can't find this particular card anywhere, could it been a modern reproduction?

Reply 1 of 4, by jmarsh

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There's a fair bet it's RAM related given the top RAM chip is physically misaligned...

(and yes, that board absolutely looks like a knock-off / 5429 was typically used on VLB boards.)

Reply 2 of 4, by jakethompson1

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The date codes on the RAM are also two years newer than the 5429.

I believe the main advantage of the 5429 over the other 542x is memory-mapped i/o. This requires a linear framebuffer which with ISA cards, must be in the bottom 16MB of RAM so it isn't that useful. Windows 95 has a separate driver for memory-mapped Cirrus, but I don't know whether it would be used for an ISA card due to that limitation.

Reply 3 of 4, by Babasha

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i think you need to resolder or change RAM chips and look at the main chips maybe some legs are bet or needs resoldering too

Need help? Begin with photo and model of your hardware 😉

Reply 4 of 4, by MikeSG

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There's lots of 5429's in ISA. Though I believe this board is recently made in China.

Could also try impoving the caps in the bottom-left. Good cards usually have a 10uF tantalum, and on each memory chip two or threee 0.1uf caps.

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