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MS-DOS PCI SATA Controller - Weird issue

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Reply 60 of 81, by Mau1wurf1977

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carlostex wrote:

What ATX case/model are we talking about?

I ordered this one: http://www.gigabyte.com.au/products/product-p … spx?pid=2360#kf

The config I will go for will likely be:

CD-Rom
IDE HDD tray
IDE-CF card reader
Dual 2.5" Sata tray
3.5" Floppy
USB Floppy Emulator

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Reply 61 of 81, by carlostex

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Stiletto wrote:

Can you guys delete your bad not-working BIOSes then? 😀

I just deleted all the leftovers that were still around.

Reply 62 of 81, by carlostex

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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Nice case.

BTW, i've received my IWill XA100Plus today, and made the change from the DFI. Updated and modded my BIOS to support K6+ CPU's and the ACPI. Everything seems to be fine and looks like this board is slightly more stable than the DFI. The DFI has much more advanced voltage selection though. The lowest voltage i can select for the K6-III+ is 2.1V. It seems it can support 2.0V, i looked that on the web, but the board does not indicate a setting for 2.0V. Nevertheless, 2.1V is still quite tolerable by the CPU, i experimented 120MHz x 5, and the system was rock solid, so it looks like as far as overclocking this board seems a little more stable than the DFI.

About the case and config, we seem to have totally different approaches. As i don't see the need for HDD and SD or CF adapter trays, my machine will have a totally different approach, as i want the flexibility of tackling old floppy media and immediately image it on the floppy emulator.

My current setup:

USB Floppy Emulator; - 5.25 bay
3.5 floppy drive; - 5.25 bay
5.25 floppy drive; - 5.25 bay
DVD-ROM; - 5.25 bay
ZIP250 ATAPI internal drive; - 3.5 bay
SD to SATA adapter; - internal 3.5 bay

That case would give me the possibility to have an additional 3.5 bay, where i could fit the SD to SATA adapter and a second 2.5inch HDD on a 3.5 tray. My plan is to tackle both DOS and Windows 98 with this machine!

Reply 63 of 81, by Stiletto

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carlostex wrote:
Stiletto wrote:

Can you guys delete your bad not-working BIOSes then? 😀

I just deleted all the leftovers that were still around.

Thanks! 😀

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 64 of 81, by Mau1wurf1977

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carlostex wrote:

That case would give me the possibility to have an additional 3.5 bay, where i could fit the SD to SATA adapter and a second 2.5inch HDD on a 3.5 tray. My plan is to tackle both DOS and Windows 98 with this machine!

Yea I just want my machine to be finished 😀

And then focus on collecting all the DOS games and having them all ready to go. Most of them via GOG.com as this has been working really well. I did guides on YT showing how to burn the various types of installations. The hardest ones are mixed more images with audio tracks as OGG or MP3 files but once you know the process it's easy. Many games are full installation CDs, but not all of them. A nice little hobby that keeps me busy 😀

And in the meantime I will just keep my eye on for other SS7 boards as they will become rare and are the last hurrah for playing DOS Games (apart form DOSBox of course).

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Reply 65 of 81, by senrew

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I've begun tackling the windows games after running through all of the DOS games I have from GOG. I have to say, it's an adventure running through different configs to get them working.

Halcyon: PC Chips M525, P100, 64MB, Millenium 1, Voodoo1, AWE64, DVD, Win95B

Reply 66 of 81, by Mau1wurf1977

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Early Windows stuff must have been a nightmare 😀

A shame because there are good games like Blade Runner for example which many people will simply never experience 🙁

I mucked around with Windows 98 on a BX440 system and it just wasn't for me. I felt that whenever you changed hardware or software it was best to start from an early HDD image.

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Reply 67 of 81, by carlostex

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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

And then focus on collecting all the DOS games and having them all ready to go. Most of them via GOG.com as this has been working really well.

That's one thing i won't do. Surely GOG is a way of getting old games legally but it's just not my cup of tea. When i was a kid there was only about 20 games that i played constantly, and these titles i will get a full boxed copy.

Cheap? Not really, actually very expensive. But nothing beats it.

I just received yesterday a full boxed Dune II. Came with 3.5 and 5.25 disks. I've already imaged the 3.5 disks to the USB Floppy Emulator.

Reply 68 of 81, by Mau1wurf1977

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Just an update on this issue!

For those new to the thread, the issue is than when you use a PCI SATA controller, games that probe IRQ2 for a MPU401 interface, like Gateway, will crash.

I'm re-visiting this project and currently out of all my SS7 boards, ONLY Gigbayte boards have ACPI hard-wired to IRQ 9 and therefore a MPU401 on IRQ2 will cause issues.

The boards I have test so far and work fine are:

AOpen AX-59 Pro (ACPI can be disabled in BIOS)
Iwill AX100 (ACPI can be disabled in BIOS)
DFI K6XV3+/66 (ACPI can be disabled in BIOS but also works with ACPI enabled when in PnP options IRQ 9 set to ISA and PCI slot that holds PCI SATA card is set to IRQ 3 or 4 with COM ports disabled)
ASUS SP97-XV (SIS chipset, No option but also no conflict. Maybe doesn't have ACPI?)

Board I tested that DO NOT WORK are:

Gigabyte GA-5AX
Gigabyte 586ATX

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Reply 70 of 81, by Mau1wurf1977

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vetz wrote:

Would you be willing to put this board up for benchmark testing in my Socket 5/7 chipset comparison with P90 and P100?

I can use a P200 and set it to 66 x 1.5 = 100 MHz?

GPU would be a PCI S3 and some SDRAM. BIOS defaults? Or anything particular? What benchmarks?

EDIT: Found the link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57506833/ … enchmark_v3.PNG

Ok I'll see how I go. I'll update your thread so this one doesn't get derailed 😀

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Reply 71 of 81, by 5u3

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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:
I'm re-visiting this project and currently out of all my SS7 boards, ONLY Gigbayte boards have ACPI hard-wired to IRQ 9 and ther […]
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I'm re-visiting this project and currently out of all my SS7 boards, ONLY Gigbayte boards have ACPI hard-wired to IRQ 9 and therefore a MPU401 on IRQ2 will cause issues.
[...]
Board I tested that DO NOT WORK are:

Gigabyte GA-5AX
Gigabyte 586ATX

I had a similar problem with my Abit KTA7, the ACPI function was set to "Enabled" by default and the setting was hidden in BIOS. It was however possible to "unhide" the setting by modifying the BIOS with the MODBIN tool and flashing the modified version. Maybe a similar approach would be possible with those Gigabyte boards?

Reply 72 of 81, by Mau1wurf1977

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We tried this a few pages ago 😀 It ignored the settings of the "unhidden" option 🙁

Out of the boards I think I will go with the DFI. Firstly I have two of them and secondly it's got a really nice layout and seems to be very late (coloured PS/2 ports, IDE 66 connectors).

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Reply 73 of 81, by 5u3

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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

We tried this a few pages ago 😀 It ignored the settings of the "unhidden" option 🙁

Oops. 😊
What a shame, it would have been a nice board otherwise.

Reply 75 of 81, by 5u3

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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

When using a CF card through the onboard IDE ports it is still a good board.

True, but there are even more issues with ACPI enabled: If you use Win9x, you can't assign resources manually any more, plus it forces PCI devices to share interrupts, which is better avoided for best performance.
On a typical retro PC featuring 2-3 sound cards running DOS+Win9x, ACPI is a total nightmare...

Reply 76 of 81, by Mau1wurf1977

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Oh I see. My lack of Windows knowledge shows here 😁

Funny enough I have Slot 1 motherboards from AOpen and they allow disabling ACPI. Shame that Gigabyte forces you to use it.

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Reply 77 of 81, by carlostex

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5u3 wrote:

Oops. 😊
What a shame, it would have been a nice board otherwise.

So far based on my personal experience, best SS7 motherboards for Retro experience are the IWill XA100 Plus and DFI K6XV3+/66. Both have a very interesting feature, they allow to change FSB setting via BIOS.

Reply 78 of 81, by Mau1wurf1977

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I knew the Iwill has this, but not the DFI. Will check it out tomorrow.

Ran into an issue with the floppy controller. ! floppy works, but not two. Which is weird.

But otherwise it's working great. Gateway works without any issues and it has DRAM timing settings (Slow, Medium, Fast and Turbo) and CL 2 or CL 3. This lets you fine tune things and achieve a 3dbench of between 8 and 12 on a Pentium MMX which is perfect 386 simulation 😀

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Reply 79 of 81, by carlostex

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Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I knew the Iwill has this, but not the DFI. Will check it out tomorrow.

Ran into an issue with the floppy controller. ! floppy works, but not two. Which is weird.

But otherwise it's working great. Gateway works without any issues and it has DRAM timing settings (Slow, Medium, Fast and Turbo) and CL 2 or CL 3. This lets you fine tune things and achieve a 3dbench of between 8 and 12 on a Pentium MMX which is perfect 386 simulation 😀

I modded DFI BIOS so it has too!