Ok, more messing around today. I stopped by a couple of local computer shops, and one of them gave me a couple of sticks of 64mb, 100mhz SDRAM for free. Can't argue with that. So, I throw it in to see if it's a cache tag issue. No dice, exactly the same frame rate of 32.2. So, mad, I go into the …

Mau, that document is amazing, and it confirms my suspicions. I'm only at about half of the frame rates I should be seeing, and I have no idea what the issue is. There are plenty of helpful suggestions here, though, and once I'm done with this stupid training I have to do at work, I'll get to …

Howdy gents. Been a while since I've been on my old systems, so I decided to bust them out. A while back I built a Super Socket 7 system, but never really got around to messing around with it until recently. It is a K6-2+ 500 (@550), 384mb ram, 40gb hdd, and dual mismatched Voodoo 2's. The …

Huzzah! That seems to work pretty well. Thanks!

I went ahead and got legit IBM ram for it. I made sure the FRU numbers matched, and now I'm running 24mb just fine. It was a little expensive for the simms though (about $10 a simm).

That's one of the programs that tell me it can't work with Windows 95. DIAGNOSE.EXE, CTCM and CTCU all seem to give me a dos version error, even though I'm in DOS mode. CTCM tells me to go into windows to set up the card, but that doesn't do me any good when I want to run in DOS mode.

Hey guys, I'm feeling stupid. I've been fiddling around with an AWE32 (CT3600) I've had lying around forever, but I can't figure out how to get it working in dos mode. I have Windows 95 installed and the card works fine in windows, but all of the dos drivers I've tried say that they don't work with …

Yeah, that's how it goes with old hardware. The guy with the Tandy refunded my money less shipping. Not ideal, but stuff happens. Really, the IBM runs really well for what it is. I don't know if I'll be able to run a HD off of the VLB, but I think with a few extra parts I can have an excellent retro …

Wow, what a disaster. The Tandy is fried, and the IBM 486 I got in the mail was damaged. The plastic rod on the power supply switch snapped off, but I was able to push the switch in (to be on) and have been using a power strip to turn it on and off. Luckily it looks like a standard AT power supply, …

Well, so much for the Tandy. I got it in the mail today, plugged it in and turned it on. It emitted a terrible squealing noise from the modem, and I heard a few faint popping noises too. No video. I quickly shut it off, but started smelling something burning. I decided to give it a few more tries, …

I'm pretty sure the Evergreen is explicitly known to be incompatible with certain models of Valuepoint. Hmmm, I wasn't aware of that. A cursory Google shows that several people have ran the Evergreen with no issues. I got the chip pretty cheap, though, so if there is a problem I can just hock it on …

I just scored two machines off of ebay. They should be coming this week. The first is close to my first computer. It's a Tandy 2500 SX/20. (My old one was an SX/33.) It looks like it has 5 megs of RAM, along with an 85mb hard drive, CDROM, and a network card. The pics were a bit blurry, so I hope …

Is anyone familiar with COAST modules? I'm looking at some old 486 class machines which take CELP SIMMS, but the specs say that they take asynchronous, write-through modules, but the only ones I seem to find are pipeline-burst ones made for socket 7 machines. Are these backwards-compatible? …

I got an STB Voodoo2 from E-Bay a little while ago, and when I got it I noticed a loose barrel capacitor floating around in the package. When I looked closer it looked like there was another cap missing. Upon further testing, though, it seems to do fine. Quake II has some weird palette issue, but …

Thanks for the warm welcome, guys! I thought you all would be the type to enjoy a background story. Yes, I am totally consumed right now. A guy from work gave me one of his 'old' computers. I asked him if he had a 486; it ended up being a Dell PII, and when I cracked it open the CPU was unseated, …

Hi guys. I found this forum a week or so ago, which is weird since I've been on a hardcore retro PC fix for the past few months. I considered myself a retro 'guru', until I came here, that is. You guys are on a whole different level. I feel humbled! Anyways, here's a bit of my computing history. The …