Nice. Can you disable the onboard video and use an add-in card instead?

pictures please!!! sounds awsome.

I have installed the Pentium 133mhz CPU and it is now using a 4mb S3 Virge DX instead of the crap onboard 1mb Cirrus chip, i have installed a Maxi Sound 64 Dynamic 3D ISA card (ESS 1868F) with Dream wavetable (the Aztech sound/modem card was terrible).

Funny thing is windows 95 still detects the onboard Cirrus video chip although the S3 card is working fine? I do not see any jumpers to disable onboard video and i read somewhere that the PB640 boards automatically disables onboard video when a PCI video card is being used..... so why does the old Cirrus still show up in device manager??

I would like to show some pics of the system but this site does not allow me to upload them from my PC.

That's really interesting. You've checked for an onboard jumper - have you also checked the BIOS setup area? Try putting the PCI graphics card in all the slots. It's possible that the mobo expects the graphics card to be inserted in to a specific slot number, in order for it to disable the onboard video.

I have the S3 graphics card in PCI slot 1 and an Orchid Righteous Voodoo 1 in PCI slot 2 (the board has only got 2 PCI slots and 3 ISA slots - using a riser board). I have checked the bios and cannot see anything to do with the onboard video...and there are no video jumpers on the board 😖

Do older video cards have an IRQ assigned to them? I can't quite remember and i know new cards need an IRQ assigned to them. Neither my Cirrus or S3 card have an IRQ.

As far as i know by doing a bit of research, the motherboard in this Packard Bell system is a "Thousand Oaks PB640".

Well i swapped PCI slots and that did not make a difference... i can plug the monitor into the S3 and it will work fine but if i plug it back into the Cirrus all i get is beeps and a blank screen (with the S3 still plugged in). So i assume the Cirrus video is actually disabled but somehow windows still knows it's there!

The beeps come from the S3 card because it doesn't detect a monitor.( I think only S3 cards do this 😀 )

PowerPie5000 wrote:

Just recently got myself an immaculate Packard Bell Executive 9005-D 😀

Not sure if I should be happy for you or not. 😉

valnar wrote:

PowerPie5000 wrote:

Just recently got myself an immaculate Packard Bell Executive 9005-D 😀

Not sure if I should be happy for you or not. 😉

I got it for £4! It is complete and looks almost new - apart from the slight yellowing on the old CD drive. Anyway it is retro enough for me and it may have been a slightly crap system back in the day but these days it does not matter 😁

Also i can upgrade and add/change hardware in this system just like any other... i've had no problems changing the CPU, Sound card and hard drive.... the S3 Virge works perfectly but the old onboard Cirrus chip is still being detected by Windows? This is not a real problem anyway 😀

PowerPie5000 wrote:

Orchid Righteous Voodoo 1 in PCI slot 2

Click Click boom! I run a Orchid card too with the infamous clicking when it's activated. Great way to know exactly what 3d card is running in your system when you fire a game up.

Nice setup, maybe overclock that P75 or drop the P133 in.