Re: Best and worst sound cards you have ever owned?

Posted on Today, 13:48

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

For the worst? Easily C-Media 8738 cards and onboard sound chips. In addition to lousy VxD drivers and broken proper legacy DOS support, they usually sound terrible due to poor board implementation. The Rockwell Riptide may follow hot on the 8738's heels (FM synthesizer is completely out of tune!) …

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Re: Savage 4 won’t work

Posted on 2025-01-10, 13:49

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

What version of DirectX are you using? I generally avoid using anything lower than 8.

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Re: Cyrix appreciation thread

Posted on 2024-11-08, 01:58

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just slapped a Cyrix 486DX-40 into a rather generic (DataExpert) OPTi '495 (the OG version) based motherboard, clocked at 33MHz. It works. Not exactly putting up stunning numbers, but that isn't the point of the build it's in (it's a Qbasic code benchmarking rig, among other low end stuff). I do …

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Re: Acer M1419 chipset documentation

Posted on 2024-11-01, 15:20

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you for finding that snippet about the write back/thru bit! I'd like to try punching that into CTCHIP to see if I can get these ALi M1419 386DX boards to stop using broken write back. 😅

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Re: "Bioteq" chipset

Posted on 2024-10-21, 13:25

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Anonymous Coward wrote on 2024-10-21, 04:03: I’d have to check again, but I was pretty sure the AMIBIOS I was using on my board had “FTD” in the BIOS version string. On my Biostar boards, it always said BIOTEQ in the version string - again, to be as obnoxious as possible. 🙃

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Re: "Bioteq" chipset

Posted on 2024-10-21, 13:24

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Random pic of a Bioteq board in my stash. Don't recall running it in the past, and it's about 7 or 8 down the list of 486 stuff to play with. I might drag it out again to see if a 486SLC will go on that 386sx footprint, if one of the 486slc boards coming in turns out to be unfixable. Looks like a …

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Re: "Bioteq" chipset

Posted on 2024-10-19, 18:37

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think the confusion here is stemming from how Biostar relabels their chipsets. FTDI may very well have made an '82C3480', but if they did, it's likely quite unrelated to the actual chip that Biostar just so happened to relabel an '82C3480'. Motherboard makers can be really obnoxious like this …

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Re: "Bioteq" chipset

Posted on 2024-10-18, 15:33

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've verified it, the BIOTEQ 82C3480 is really an ALi M1419. I took a BIOS for the 82C3480 and ran it on my M1419-based 386DX board, and it boots and runs with it.

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Re: Pentium on a 386 motherboard ( sort of)

Posted on 2024-09-16, 23:47

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Edit : I see that I made a comment on just this thing back in 2021. My, how time flies... I've since learned some unpleasant news regarding OPTi's '495SLC and '495XLC chipsets... The OPTi '495XLC is what's holding this back, unfortunately. Despite it being a 'write back' cache chipset, it …

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Re: Memtest86+ old versions

Posted on 2024-09-13, 18:10

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

However if V4.1 fails to work (as it does on my Packard Bell 486), then 2.11 is still your best bet for 386 and 486 systems.

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Re: 386/486 PC with Alaris Cougar 486BL MoBo

Posted on 2024-09-13, 15:51

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I unfortunately no longer have this card, I sold it years ago. I wish I could answer your questions 🙁

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Re: MK1869 : new soundcard based on ESS 1869 and ES690 chips

Posted on 2024-09-04, 00:58

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

@keropi You can try dropping a DPAK LF50 in place of the 78M05, and see if that runs any cooler. If memory serves it has the same pinout. One benefit of the LF50 is it only needs a minimum 2.2uF for stability, but the 10uF that's already there should be OK as is for a test.

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Re: MK1869 : new soundcard based on ESS 1869 and ES690 chips

Posted on 2024-09-03, 01:23

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I've wanted to see someone do this. I thought these chips were let down by cheap PCB designs for a long time. Some suggestions: - Maybe move those smd electrolytic caps about 1cm away from the 78M05? I'd like to keep hot stuff away from passives whenever possible, to prevent the operational …

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Re: MK1869 : new soundcard based on ESS 1869 and ES690 chips

Posted on 2024-09-02, 19:56

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Nice work so far, I'm liking what I'm seeing. Some suggestions: - Maybe move those smd electrolytic caps about 1cm away from the 78M05? I'd like to keep hot stuff away from passives whenever possible, to prevent the operational characteristics from changing too much when the board heats up. - If the …

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Re: Creative ISA Sound Card Floating Op-Amps Running Log/List

Posted on 2024-06-30, 16:40

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Well, it's been a long time since I've updated this post, but here's four floating sections of op-amp on a CT2800.

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Re: "Bioteq" chipset

Posted on 2024-02-05, 15:16

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

On my board, J01 has to be vacant or absolutely nothing works in the VLB slots at all. I tried messing with the other nearby jumpers too, no luck. I'll have to secure a solder pump in order to efficiently desolder these VLB slots.

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Re: "Bioteq" chipset

Posted on 2024-02-05, 02:19

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I tried the ATROM bios from that, but it still gives me the same symptoms as all the other BIOSes I've tried: on the two VLB VGA cards this board wants to work with, I get characters that "drop" or are not properly updated when the screen scrolls. Fuddling with the jumpers on the cards has no effect …

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Re: "Bioteq" chipset

Posted on 2024-02-04, 13:51

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not yet, unfortunately. After replacing the chipset, I'm now inclined to believe that there might be some problem with the way the slots were added. Later, I'll look into desoldering and resoldering the slots to clear up any solder-blob related shorts.

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Re: "Bioteq" chipset

Posted on 2024-02-03, 23:26

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Apologies in advance for reviving this now rather ancient post, but I'm actually inclined to believe the Bioteq 82C4380 is actually a relabeled Acer Labs / ALi chipset, not an FTDI. I did a chip swap on a broken MB1433-AEA-V board to try to fix non-functional VLB slots, and while I removed it I saw …

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Re: UM481/UM491 "Always Dirty" modification HOWTO

Posted on 2023-12-03, 23:20

by

by Eep386

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ok, this isn't a UMC chipset but - I figured out how to add dirty tag to an OPTi 82C495SX. ~ALT goes to pin 87, while ~ALTWE goes to pin 104. Figured this out using a multimeter and an all-ISA board that had the same chipset but had a dirty TAG socket. After the modification, my Shuttle HOT-409 with …

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