Re: BIOS corrupting itself

Posted on 2022-12-21, 23:47

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just an idea. BIOSes around that time started to store data (ESCD, DMI) inside the flash chip. Maybe the corruption happens because it tries to write something but it fails because of "Unknown flash type". Also (and I might be very wrong here), couldn't this "dual bios" be implemented by using two …

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Re: Video card only displays red? (not defective VGA port) (Colorimage 59-6693-0007 Tseng ET4000AX 1MB)

Posted on 2022-11-01, 23:57

by

by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

L4 and L5 (close to the VGA connector) really seem to be missing 😀

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Re: Help with Octek Fox M 286 (broken chip)

Posted on 2022-10-26, 08:19

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Heh, I'm sure it's easy for you but for me this is some kind of wizardry. Maybe I could have solved it by only focusing on this problem for 5 years straight :D I'm also sure that REDLED's dump is accurate, but it's more of a truth table for the chip, and how to get from that to the needed .JED file …

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Re: What to do about a Socket 462/A motherboard with a broken socket?

Posted on 2022-10-25, 21:50

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

How was the old cooler attached? Using the mounting holes around the socket? If you still have it (and the mounting hardware) is it possible maybe to exchange the fan for a modern/silent one? Also, there are plenty of Socket A coolers that engage all three hooks on both sides. If you don't go for a …

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Re: Another 486 no-POST

Posted on 2022-10-25, 21:44

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Fiddled a little with the oscilloscope around the board today. Noticed that after some resets there was activity on the EPROM data/address lines, all except A2. Traced the signal to a nearby LS245, then to another one, then it split three ways: A2 pin on the CPU, pin 92 on the chipset and some pin …

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Re: Help with Octek Fox M 286 (broken chip)

Posted on 2022-10-25, 18:18

by

by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Having something brought to life after almost 5 years feels great, and that's one of the reasons I love this community 😀 Thanks for your reverse-engineering effort crackintosh.

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Re: Super Socket 7 Lucky Star 5MMVP4 onboard VGA is VERY dim

Posted on 2022-10-23, 09:09

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The image is there, so I guess there's no problem with H and Vsync. You mentioned inductors having high resistance of up to 2kohms when measuring across them, on resistance mode? They're definitely broken, normal DC resistance for those should be around 0.5ohm. I had a motherboard that had a bunch …

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Re: Help with Octek Fox M 286 (broken chip)

Posted on 2022-10-23, 08:41

by

by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's great, thank you guys! I'm away at the moment, but can't wait to burn the code into an ATF and revive my board! @REDLED, I'll have to read into this "Retro Chip Tester Professional", and also I find it interesting that your board lacks the third PAL (the one behind the ISA slots), and one of …

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Re: Sad Voodoo 3

Posted on 2022-10-17, 23:01

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you all for your input. Not particularly proud of how this turned out, but I had to quickly check if the card is at least a bit alive so pentiumspeed 's method was out of the question (mainly because I'm lacking the high-temp epoxy and the experience :D ) 20221018_003801r.jpg At the initial …

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Sad Voodoo 3

Posted on 2022-10-15, 21:57

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got this Voodoo 3 from today's flea market, but when I got home it turned out that the green spots that looked like corrosion were really corrosion :| They even reacted (bubbled) when I bathed the card in vinegar, so who knows, maybe the card was stored together with some leaky 286 boards or …

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Re: Help with Octek Fox M 286 (broken chip)

Posted on 2022-10-14, 10:54

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's great, congrats! Does this mean you finally cracked the code inside 089-001 and you have a working board? If so, can you please share the JED file? Thank you.

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Re: Help with Octek Fox M 286 (broken chip)

Posted on 2022-10-11, 21:23

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi! If you manage to reverse-engineer the chip, please let me know. I haven't given up yet on repairing the board, but I just lack the skills to do it so I'm patiently waiting :) There might be differences between the ref.design and the Octek board regarding these PALs... There's three of them on …

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Re: Missing SMD ASUS A7V400-MX -Help-

Posted on 2022-10-08, 20:47

by

by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here are the boardviews for your board and the SE variant. The diode is a BAT54CW. Good luck fixing your hardware!

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Re: Soltek SL-75FRN2-RL revival attempt

Posted on 2022-10-03, 22:21

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Almost two years have passed, and during this time two new toys have found their way to my home lab: an oscilloscope and a digital microscope. From time to time I like to pull some board from the "dead" box and give it one more try, maybe using the above tools which I hadn't available when first …

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Re: "Real time clock error" on a 286 Motherboard

Posted on 2022-10-03, 21:34

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think you need an oscilloscope for that, or if your multimeter can also measure frequency it could work. But 32.768kHz "clock crystals" are abundant and cheap, you could just replace it.

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Re: "Real time clock error" on a 286 Motherboard

Posted on 2022-10-03, 11:32

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does the clock advance while you're in BIOS setup? If not, the crystal (I'm assuming Y2, 32.768kHz) might be bad. Had this happen at least once. [edited mistake, should be 32.768kHz or 32768Hz]

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Re: Identification of old I/O ISA card

Posted on 2022-09-12, 22:30

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a card (still unidentified & untested) that I thought is identical to yours, but upon a closer look there are some differences. Anyway, here's a pic, you may use these values and check if you get the clocks earlier described by mkarcher . FDC chips do not match between our boards, but I've …

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Re: 3DMark2001 Advanced Pixel Shader test restarting pc?

Posted on 2022-08-19, 22:06

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Happens a lot to me with NF2 motherboards + ATi videocards... Haven't found a fix yet.

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Re: Intel AA-654850-206 Advanced/ML Marl motherboard lost VRM

Posted on 2022-08-19, 19:40

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Of course, but it'll be a few days until I can do that. Just to be sure, you want the full text from the VRM chip?

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Re: Number Nine Imagine 128 Series II problems. Bad memory possibly?

Posted on 2022-08-19, 00:05

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by quicknick

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

W27C512P chips arrived today, but no luck in getting my card to work. I don't know what the correct route is in this particular case (original chip is 512kbit, new BIOS is 256kbit) so I tried all 3 possible combinations (image concatenated to fill the entire chip, or using just the first and then …

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