I don't know about not too common. I've seen lots of them on ebay over the years. I have the very similar Kelvin 64. As far as I can tell the only difference is that mine has a 5434 instead of 5430. The PCBs otherwise look almost identical (at least to the eye). Not sure if the BIOS would work on the EZ. Probably not.

Cirrus cards have everything integrated, no external PLL or anything that the video BIOS must know about so there shouldn't be any problems using different BIOSes. Original BIOS doesn't seem to be corrupt, As far as the Diamond BIOS goes, you'll need to trim off the 32KB of FF's if you are gonna try to use it if you intend to put it on a 27C256 type EPROM which is what the card expects anyway.

It didn't look corrupt to me either =\. Maybe the card itself is just shot. It's in perfect condition with no signs of damage or even dust, barely even looks used, usually there are scratches around the isa traces from being inserted and removed on used cards. Another possibility is maybe my board just doesn't want to post with the 5430, but I have no other working VLB system to test.

Guess I'll try a fresh chip with the original bios and the diamond bios (i'll cut it to 32k).. from there I guess it's time to hunt down yet another VLB card X_X

@anonymous all I mean is not common enough for anybody to have posted a bios for it, the ones I see on ebay have newer bios versions which I would like to have. I'm not sure a bios for a 5434 would be fruitful, as far as I understand the 5430 is a modified 5429 (which is a modified 5428) and 5434 is based on a later chip. I could be wrong, haven't done my homework there.

It could have a bad crystal, they are mechanical devices that are actually fairly fragile and I have had many occasions where a crystal is broken. 14.318180MHz crystals are found everywhere, it should be a fairly easy thing to try.

Tiido wrote:

It could have a bad crystal, they are mechanical devices that are actually fairly fragile and I have had many occasions where a crystal is broken. 14.318180MHz crystals are found everywhere, it should be a fairly easy thing to try.

Hey good idea tiido, It's got an ECLIPTEK EC1100, it doesn't seem damaged at all but it's just a dip-4 (i think, 4 legs but not square) so I can swap that easily. Memory on it is soldered to the pads on the surface, no sockets, so that would be annoying to swap.. was originally thinking about bumping it to 2MB when I first got it but ..eh..

The only imperfection I can find on the board is this LM334Z, the legs are a bit bent from something weighing on them in storage. Not sure how easy those are to break. Legs aren't shorting

edit: maybe a pic would help. (I know the bios is out)

Notice have the "Kelvin 64 EZ" is a sticker, and not silkscreen? That's a good indication that it shares the same PCB as the Kelvin 64.

It sure is the same Anonymous, compared it to a pic of the 64. So you're thinking it may be worth just throwing a kelvin 64 bios on it?

I really need to get my own programmer, will do it after the next pay day.