Re: Voodoo 2 tests?

Posted on 2014-10-09, 04:13

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you haven't already, try Prime95 torture test, mprime (text version of the same thing), or memtest86. mprime and memtest86 are on the "ultimate boot CD", memtest86 can be put on a floppy. Prime95 is a Windows program and I'm guessing there's no Win16 version. If the game didn't work with your AGP …

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Re: Extremely slow VIA Nehemiah CPU

Posted on 2014-10-08, 04:01

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Most people here attempt system slowdown/downclock for Game compatibility, not for power saving. There are quite a few games that start to malfunction when ran on a 200 to 1400MHz system, some have issues with speeds below that. True, that makes sense. For some reason I wasn't thinking about the …

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Re: Extremely slow VIA Nehemiah CPU

Posted on 2014-10-07, 01:38

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sure a C3 Nehemiah has to be rated half its MHz when compared to a P-III Coppermine. Still, at 1200MHz for example it runs Quake in 640x480 at 71 FPS. Considering it is multiplier adjustable on the fly, it is like an AMD K6+ but able to plug in a i440BX motherboard. An interesing option for retro …

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Re: Asus P2B-DS or Gigabyte GA-6VXD7

Posted on 2014-10-05, 15:58

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Since neither of these boards officially support Tualatin, it's very unlikely that the unknown CPUs would be that type. They're almost surely Coppermines. If that's the case then they add little monetary value. I have a GA-6VXD7 put together right now, and I had a single CPU P2B-F a few years ago. I …

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Re: What to do with a 56.6k modem card?

Posted on 2014-10-05, 15:00

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Speaking of Collections, has no-one kept their external modems? I do miss those. In the day, the old slower modem always had a decent trade value, so none survived here. I still have my old USR 56k serial modem. I used to think it would be good to have in an emergency, but since I don't have a …

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Re: my socket7 cpu benchmark results

Posted on 2014-10-03, 15:23

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

i tried the 5.32 driver(last version in 5 series anyway), but the result is abysmal. cpu is k6-2+550, just compare with my previous results: 3dmark2000: 1420pts 3dmark01: 590pts winquake: 48fps quake2: 70fps quake3: 6.1fps now i wonder if you still have the rig and can post a screenshot of k6-3-450 …

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Re: My vote for best DOS video card

Posted on 2014-10-02, 00:38

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Weren't Diamond a manufacture of actual boards? I always found them to have rather good quality and they usually used S3 chips. I've had problems with multiple (I think I had 3 or 4) Diamond S3 Trio64 and Virge PCI cards when connected to an LCD monitor. The monitor would keep blinking, like it …

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Re: Don't laugh... Anyone have any love for Packard Bell?

Posted on 2014-10-02, 00:10

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

And since we're talking about Packard Bells, can anyone tell me to which model(s) this Master CD, Multimedia CD and set of floppies belong to? I got them in 2001 at a swap meet along with other PC software and manuals inside a couple of boxes. Can't find much info on them online. I don't know …

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Re: Don't laugh... Anyone have any love for Packard Bell?

Posted on 2014-10-01, 14:06

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's an Intel NV430VX. I found the same motherboard in a Packard Bell a few years ago. It's the only Packard Bell I've ever had, I didn't see anything at all wrong with it. Seemed like a high quality machine, actually. I'm comparing photos, and I see that yours has more ICs installed on the …

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Re: 30 pin IDC connector, not IDE, Floppy, COM or LPT

Posted on 2014-09-27, 13:20

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I can't blame the PC manufacturers for using a ribbon cable for their front panel connections. It's a big improvement really. The standard ATX way of connecting those things is pretty ridiculous, and I bet it causes some end-user problems when something gets unplugged. What I do hate though, is when …

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Re: my socket7 cpu benchmark results

Posted on 2014-09-25, 04:35

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The K6-3+ 550MHz 3DMark2000 score of 2220 is lower than I expected. I used to get about 3000 on an MVP3, K6-3 450MHz, Geforce2MX. Unless my memory is off by 1000pts, but I don't think it is. The differences I see are that my system back then was Win98SE, yours is Win2k SP4. I was also using an older …

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Re: Socket 462 PC long-term stability

Posted on 2014-09-23, 11:53

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Do your voltages look good in the BIOS? The readings aren't always accurate, but still, check that. If you have any rails sagging, that could be the cause of the resets. Gigabyte boards in that time period usually have questionable caps. I think OST are pretty common on those. According to an old …

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Re: GA486AM is password protected!

Posted on 2014-09-22, 14:58

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by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The reason removing the chip didn't reset it is because that chip isn't just the battery, it also contains the NVRAM which has all the settings in it. Disconnecting that whole assembly from the board didn't keep the NVRAM from being powered, you just moved it into your hand. :) What HighTreason …

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Re: PC been locking up recently sometimes

Posted on 2014-09-22, 14:32

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If this system can boot CDs, try using the "ultimate boot CD" (.iso available online) and test mprime and/or memtest86 or other such stability testing utilities. This can help narrow down the problem to a smaller set of possible causes, and it's probably quicker and more repeatable than testing in a …

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Re: ISA-486 of Temptation

Posted on 2014-09-22, 13:57

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I once had a slot-1 board that refused to start, for reasons unknown. Maybe it was the power good signal, I really don't know. I believe that PSU worked with other boards though. I forced it to run by jumpering the green wire to ground (if I remember the color correctly). It worked for a few short …

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Re: ISA VGA output crap on LCD?

Posted on 2014-09-19, 11:47

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Our "Reveal" brand CL-5426 ISA card looked like that when brand new, on the CRT we had back then. I assume it was a worse card than most, but apparently cards with horrible signal quality were out there. I think LCDs can make this type of problem more visible though. I noticed this on a minimalist …

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Re: GA-6WMMC7 opinions request

Posted on 2014-09-19, 11:28

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This board should have very low power consumption, especially with a low end Coppermine equipped and using the onboard video and no unnecessary expansion cards. If you have some suitable task that needs to run for long hours, this would be an efficient board to do it with. As far as gaming, I guess …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2014-09-19, 06:37

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tried the "oven trick" desperation move on a video card a few days ago. I don't think I got it hot enough. It's back working, but other people's track record on this is that it probably won't stay fixed for long. It was a fun experiment, anyway. Got some 512MB PC133 modules in from eBay, only the …

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Re: Which PIII?

Posted on 2014-09-18, 15:04

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't know if there's a cost difference involved, but the TUV4X would definitely be my preference. I'd love to have a 694T motherboard. You can build an awesome P3 with that, and you can always scale it down to the Coppermine level if you want. The other board isn't nearly as interesting. It's a 2 …

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Re: A long time coming, yet another V2 setup

Posted on 2014-09-18, 02:40

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Interesting case. Whatever it takes to get the expansion cards right side up, I'm all in favor of it.

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