Reply 20 of 21, by soggi
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kyroxx wrote on 2024-09-27, 11:20:Oh nice, yeah, that's much better for the longlivity of the card, I guess. Not sure if I dare to do that kind of a modification atm. I was into building my computers on my own back then, also custom setups with coolers etc. but that talent didn't age well 😁 I'm feeling a bit rusty with this tbh. don't wanna damage the precious card right away... making it worse with good intentions 😉
Voodoo GPUs are really robust, they can get really hot while working w/o a problem - if they fail because they got too hot, they won't burn. My Voodoo3 2000's cooler fall of and the computer crashed, but after a restart worked again (until the next crash). I brought the card back to Karstadt and got my money back (209,- DM)...then some time later I "shot" the V3 3000 on ebay and after installing the mentioned Sandwich cooling I could get it from 166/166 to 200/200 (over 200 MHz the RAM didn't work correctly anymore). The advantage of the standard AGP Voo3 2000/3000 is that they have no SMD parts on the backside (the 3500 has!) so you can use a self-adhesive (non-conductive) thermal pad to glue a cooler on it. Unfortunately I sold this card a couple years later...and even later I got some new Voodoos... 😉
kyroxx wrote on 2024-09-27, 11:20:Another thing I noticed is, that the floppy disk drive has a constant light. I remember that this means no good. I checked how it is connected and it looked fine at first glance.
Usually this is a sign that the cable is connected upside down. Doesn't the connectors have a notch? So it could be possible to confuse it.
kyroxx wrote on 2024-09-27, 11:20:As the memory check counts through all memory just fine, I guess I can rule out RAM as the issue? Also VGA works. I already removed the NIC and the CD-ROM + CD Burner.
I've seen failures through the last three decades which where caused by things you never expected to do so. Computer technology is full of oddities! In conclusion deactivate/put off everything which is not necessary to evaluate the issue.
kyroxx wrote on 2024-09-27, 11:20:my plan for now is to simply detach the flatband cable so that the board isn't connected but leave the power cord connected. I cannot remember if that practice was "fine" or problematic though.
Exactly what I would recommend in such a case.
kyroxx wrote on 2024-09-27, 11:20:Yes, time flies.. it's so sad to see people go... RIP... I still remember vividly when I walked into one of those PC shops in the mid 90s, buying my first own EDO-RAM... I think it was 16MB or so and I saved for that for over a year... back in the day I remember that the world was really different. The calmness, the peace of mind, and the patience we had in contrast to today's world in general is mindblowing. It has been a slower world. The social networks were real, not virtual and fake. I had the experience that especially people in the IT field were a very nice and a truly special kind of community connected by common interests but also by specific values - hacker values if you will. Every kid with sparkling light in their eyes was welcome to experiment and learn, hang out in those shops, etc... just because those shops were ran by truly passionate old school enthusiasts...
Maybe it's just me and my subjective view/feelings on things or I'm being extremely nostalgic these days, but I really, really miss those old days somehow. It feels like values have been stolen... it just feels so very different these days or maybe I'm part of the wrong bubbles. There are still people like you, and people on here who keep the old spirit alive. People who live and act by the old values, ...and that's fantastic! But time goes on and soon we'll feel old too.. xD Idk.. it's already 2 years ago when my old boss passed away... he was one of the guys who would code in assembly language like a wizard. He taught me programming and I was very, very fortunate to have met him when he was in his best years of his career... we met in an IRC chat where I helped fixing a linux device driver for someone by rewriting parts in C... I was 17 years old and basically poor, jobless and without any chances to find a trainee position... he managed to convince his boss to hire me as a trainee because he saw true passion in me.. without him I would probably have become a car mechanic or so.. as some sort of last resort.. well... idk, I don't want to go too deep into this, but philosophically speaking, the only time we have control over is probably the here and now. It's amazing to have places like this forum where "our past" is still alive 😀) One day it will pass too, but today we can still enjoy this -- and our nostalgia 😀
The 90s ... in some way they were great, I was a child and teen (after being a little child in the GDR in the 80s) - the iron curtain vanished and there was great music (to be honest I was born a decade too late [at least], the 80s were much better...I always loved 80s music, no matter if Punk/Wave/Pop/Rock [only electronic/Techno/Happy Hardcore set some landmarks in the 90s] and I love 80s films - but one decade earlier in GDR i would have run into serious problems, the way I know myself, I guess) ...
... but I also remember the wars and massacres in the Balkans, the second Gulf War, the Rwandan genocide or what happened in Lichtenhagen, Solingen and Hoyerswerda ... especially the latter have parallels to what happens these days, unfortunately - I saw, heard and felt them myself, the enemies of humanity (no matter where they come from, the death squad) ... this makes me so sad. I think humans glorify the past and often forget about the bad things. The 90s weren't as peaceful as we might remember, that's a western sight of western things at it's best.
But I think I know what you mean. I also felt better back then, I didn't already know that the world is such a bad place, or more precisely humans are often ***holes, I still had some hope - today I know mankind hasn't learned anything especially out of the 20th century, I often say to myself and loved ones "I hate people", exceptions prove the rule. I also have the feeling that WWW was different in the late 90s to early 00s when it was more technical/nerdy and you were part of a minority which was able to use this relatively new technology while you felt you were part of a large community, somehow. So I created my website f.e. to recreate such a bubble which is kind of correct (in contrast to the "wrong bubble" you mentioned) for all who liked the old days as far as that is concerned.
The first computer (in this case a arcade cabinet) I had my hands on was a POLY-PLAY in 1989/90 followed by some telegame, 386/486!? and 1992 my own C64 (still here, but defective)...then Amiga 500 (neighbor), a friend's family's PC (386) and 1998 our family PC (AMD K6-2 333) where the V3 2000 found it's place. Those where really fast developing years. Now I write this post on a IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T60 which is nearly 20 years old... 🤣
BTW It's always a pleasure to me to read personal stories from the past, I really like that...and I also like we meet here and share "the old spirit", our thoughts about those days and our hobbies...and before I forget: my first RAM stick I bought on my own was a 64 MB PC100 SDRAM in ~2000 when it was relatively cheap - RAM prices were extremely varying those days (after dropping from high prices in the years before).
kyroxx wrote on 2024-09-27, 11:20:Yeah I have bought one recently for the purpose to remove those dust. I think I've been quite successful with this. I see if I can take some photos and videos as promised. But first I'll try to rule out the simple solutions.
At home I have two blow-out guns but no compressor...someday I will buy one of these silent compressors from Implotex, Weldinger or an equivalent brand. There are also some other useful pneumatic tools to connect.
kyroxx wrote on 2024-09-27, 11:20:Ah, perfect! I didn't have the BIOS flash tool yet. BIOS and Drivers still seem to be available via the Gigabyte website, interestingly: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-7IX/s … pport-dl-driver
UniFlash 1.4x should be the most trouble-free flash tool, maybe 2.00 too. I had a look at the drivers provided by Gigabyte - those are older drivers, I recommend to use the latest drivers from by drivers page.
kyroxx wrote on 2024-09-28, 13:13:Update: Removed all unnecessary cards, IDE cables etc. With only VGA, CPU, RAM on the board, the result remains the same: […]
Update: Removed all unnecessary cards, IDE cables etc.
With only VGA, CPU, RAM on the board, the result remains the same:Alarm:
https://youtube.com/shorts/N4RxedN0Sq4?feature=shareFurthermore all FAN alarms are disabled in BIOS (I did load failsafe defaults).
With the new PS/2 only keyboard, BIOS responds to keyboard input, so I could check for the PC Health status as well...
Screenshot:
https://ibb.co/fxt3FKPNow I'm a bit out of ideas. Is the FAN speed maybe too low? Temp. seems to be fine?
I'm going to check the jumper positions again, but other than that I can't see any fault. Also the capacitors look fine. There's no "blooming" on any of them.
The RAM checks/counts through just fine as well.
OK, I heard the beeping (really sounds like a siren)...this is weird, I'm also puzzled somehow. BTW you can upload pictures here directly, that's more practical to everyone. ~5000 RPM isn't too low and Fail Alarm is disabled at all. Bulging caps wouldn't be recognized by the "siren-logic", there must be some other reason...
kyroxx wrote on 2024-09-28, 13:35:Could "Lüfter hat keine Rotationsabfrage" also ring the alarm in case the alarm is clearly disabled? I mean, of course the system FAN is reporting 0 because there is none connected 😁
I don't think so, but you can always try and connect another fan to the "system FAN" connector.
kyroxx wrote on 2024-09-28, 14:20:...I'm thinking about risking to get the FDD attached and flash the BIOS in case the BIOS is corrupted somehow?
I wouldn't risk to flash from floppy these days (or wouldn't have the last two decades), just boot from a Win9x CD into console and then flash from HDD (or a burned CD).
kyroxx wrote on 2024-09-28, 17:25:Today I've got a chance to replace the CMOS battery. Turns out the alarm was ringing because the VBAT was reporting < 2V. Comparing the voltage readings in PC Health page of the BIOS clearly tells.
With the new CMOS battery, the alarm is gone - which is really cool.
Nice, great find! Can't remember a board was alarming because VBAT has dropped...
kyroxx wrote on 2024-09-28, 17:25:However, no matter how often I clear the CMOS, the CMOS checksum error persists with every boot. I double-checked my CMOS clearing procedure
by setting a date, restarting, making sure the date was still set. I then turned the PC off, disconnected from power, pressed the power button for 15 seconds, removed the CMOS battery, shorted the JP3 Clear CMOS jumper as by the manual. It's a bit odd that for this motherboard, the jumper position for CMOS clear is 1-2. I remember that the typical CMOS reset position was 2-3, but well... I then waited for 20 seconds, installed the CMOS battery again, connected the power cord, turned on the computer and verified that the date in CMOS was reset to 1999 - which was the case. So to my understanding, the CMOS would have been correctly reset. However, after completing POST and checking the RAM and IDE devices, the message on "CMOS checksum error" would still be printed.The system runs stable though.. I'm not sure if flashing the BIOS is a good idea and safe if it's unclear if the CMOS chip isn't defect.
kyroxx wrote on 2024-09-28, 17:53:Hmm, thinking about it, the BIOS EEPROM could be faulty or the connectors might be simply dirty. For now it might be okay to let the system run even with the EEPROM of the BIOS failing. I'll use contact spray to further clean the parts and rule out EEPROM pin connection failure.. but until then I'll probably just use the system as-is.
I'd give it a try then and flash the latest BIOS F4a, hopefully the error will be fixed. I would take Uniflash 1.47 and the BIOS image (renamed to "bios.bin"), put them to a FAT32 formatted C:\ and boot from a Win9x CD to Console (as said above) and than flash the BIOS - did that so many times and it always worked. If there's an error (unlikely), there are ways to get you a new EEPROM/Flash.
kind regards
soggi
Vintage BIOSes, firmware, drivers, tools, manuals and (3dfx) game patches -> soggi's BIOS & Firmware Page
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