After chatting with the creator of the system, it may be a "me" problem. I got EDO rather than FPM 😒 Still, the solder looks all over the place <g>

No, that's not bad soldering, that's a scratch or possibly a crack in the PCB. This damage might be caused while shipping the item. I don't see any obvious bad traces on the photo, but a scratch that deep might cause electrical malfunction.

If your board is a 486 board, it is likely that it requires FPM, and "no boot" with EDO is a possible symptom. In that case, you should be able to try the each of the modules without the other one. The latest 486 boards (1996+) and most Pentium boards do support EDO DRAM, so for Pentium systems, I wouldn't expect EDO RAM to be a problem. What chipset does your board use?

mkarcher wrote on 2023-03-01, 17:14:

No, that's not bad soldering, that's a scratch or possibly a crack in the PCB. This damage might be caused while shipping the item. I don't see any obvious bad traces on the photo, but a scratch that deep might cause electrical malfunction.

If your board is a 486 board, it is likely that it requires FPM, and "no boot" with EDO is a possible symptom. In that case, you should be able to try the each of the modules without the other one. The latest 486 boards (1996+) and most Pentium boards do support EDO DRAM, so for Pentium systems, I wouldn't expect EDO RAM to be a problem. What chipset does your board use?

The manual does say it supports EDO on the screen shot below. It also states the chipset.

Odd thing is, I did try one and switched them both for testing. Same black screen with solid red HDD light.

xbit wrote on 2023-03-01, 17:38:

The manual does say it supports EDO on the screen shot below. It also states the chipset.

That's a tricky one. The Sis496 north bridge only supports EDO RAM in the latest silicon revision. See Re: ASUS PVI-486SP3 problems with L2 (external) cache - You need to look at the letters after 496 on the main chip on your board to find the chipset revision.

mkarcher wrote on 2023-03-01, 18:01:

xbit wrote on 2023-03-01, 17:38:

The manual does say it supports EDO on the screen shot below. It also states the chipset.

That's a tricky one. The Sis496 north bridge only supports EDO RAM in the latest silicon revision. See Re: ASUS PVI-486SP3 problems with L2 (external) cache - You need to look at the letters after 496 on the main chip on your board to find the chipset revision.

Super helpful, thank you for that link. I'm also having the exact same L2 cache issue. Troubleshooting : i think i figured it out (omg)

xbit wrote on 2023-03-01, 19:43:

Super helpful, thank you for that link. I'm also having the exact same L2 cache issue. Troubleshooting : i think i figured it out (omg)

This thread is about a board not booting at all, not just crashes with L2 enabled. Nevertheless, the root cause might be the same. The picture you showed is the B4 revision (letter code NV). That one is not meant to be used with EDO RAM. If your board with L2 issues has currently EDO RAM installed, try replacing the RAM with FPM RAM.

Thank you so much for the help. Learning tons like its the 1990s all over again.