Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on Today, 04:34

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by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

FIC 4386-VIO Had this motherboard for some time. It came with 486 socket only and solder pads for 386 CPU. Today slapped on it a 40MHz rated AMD 386DX from dead motherboard. Took a moment to figure-out the jumper settings until it lit on 386 hardware path. Ultimateretro and stason contain incomplete …

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PCB printer

Posted on Yesterday, 07:30

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by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Somebody sent me this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u4izLA-SCo Still very far from fire and forget solution, but still useful for certain things.

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-05-21, 19:27

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by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Thank you for the photo. Didn't know about this motherboard until now. Online search reveals nothing, including one of my previous posts where i misspelled the PB4 to PM4. Sorry. Looks like an assembly with potential. Up to 1Mb L2 cache. Voltage regulator for 3.45/4/5V. Clock generator goes to 83MHz …

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Re: motherboard refuses to enter BIOS

Posted on 2022-05-21, 07:32

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by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, there are later production runs. Their chips markings look real fancy.

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Re: motherboard refuses to enter BIOS

Posted on 2022-05-21, 06:57

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by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Actually i have some other (late) Symphony Haydn boards where the 82C461 stays cool and ok. The early (wide PCB) assemblies are flaky.

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-05-21, 06:53

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by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Hey barry07. I think there is some misunderstanding. I only have 2 versions of Abit's PCI/IDE Socket 3 motherboard. Never heard of PM4. Can you post a photo of it ? Linked the the Abit PB4 jumper settings in my previous post. All versions before 1.5 cannot go past 160MHz - some circuitry is missing. …

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Re: motherboard refuses to enter BIOS

Posted on 2022-05-21, 06:45

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by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ouch. Is this the death of Symphony Haydn season or what ? Saying this because 3 weeks ago another Symphony board went silent on me. It was a weak mobo so i didn't feel anything but the one in question here actually works with BL3 IODATA module which is very rare. Will check those traces tomorrow. …

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Re: motherboard refuses to enter BIOS

Posted on 2022-05-21, 00:20

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by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

yes, i plug in the empty socket a dallas module. added the socket a while ago sine the original module was surface mounted. you have a good point about the 2 corroded traces. i didnt check them since the no bios issue surfaced. thanks for the reminder.

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Re: motherboard refuses to enter BIOS

Posted on 2022-05-20, 23:25

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by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here is a pic that i think is good enough. The board is in pretty good condition. Inspected traces - everything checks out. It feels like component(s) are starting to act.

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-05-20, 07:53

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Diamond stealth dram does not show issues here but i dont run winquake, only q1. Same applies to virges pci. But if you see issues with winquake then they will show here as well. Dont have ATI cards so cannot comment on them. SiS are the better chipset overal compared to UMC, in my opinion. They are …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-05-20, 06:32

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

@barry07 Do you mean the jumper settings of the Abit PB4 motherboard or the datasheet of the chipset ? The first is available here: https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/A/ABIT-COMPUTER-CORPORATION-486-PB4-REV-1-2.html The second is here: https://datasheetspdf.com/datasheet/M1487.html Hope this …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-05-19, 05:50

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by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Looked at the inventory here - 2 VIP boards with UM8881: Octek Hippo 12 VIP - looks like i tested it with 32Mb EDO RAM only since 256Kb L2 cache in two banks is faster than 512Kb single bank. Left a note that 128Mb RAM works well, but perf is lower because of the limited cached address space. …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-05-19, 03:29

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by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Ok. With Cirrus Logic VLB cards i see the same problems as you shown above when sound is on - tried with 5426 5428 and 5434. So weird. Tried also with GD-5480 PCI and few S3 Virge versions - all came clean. Finally. I confirm that Quake 1 freaks out on this board when 64Mb RAM is present. Regardless …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-05-18, 20:20

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by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

This is some massive visual degradation. Nope - nothing like that. But will try with GD-5428 tonight. Same BIOS.

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Re: motherboard refuses to enter BIOS

Posted on 2022-05-18, 15:10

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tried to trigger this behavior with changing ram, etc. No reaction.

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-05-18, 06:19

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Tested 32, 64, 128Mb RAM - there is no performance difference with 1Mb L2 cache. If use the 256Kb L2 cache module and L2 cache is in: - WB mode - then more than 32Mb RAM results in worsened performance. - WT mode - then more than 64Mb RAM results in worsened performance. M919 prefers L2 WB mode. …

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motherboard refuses to enter BIOS

Posted on 2022-05-16, 17:29

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by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Didn't find anything relevant online. Asking here. 386 motherboard suddenly started refusing to enter into the BIOS screen. Pauses after counting memory but before displaying the resources table. Keyboard is alive - pressing CTRL ALD DEL soft-resets. Holding onto a key produces keyboard buffer full …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-05-16, 08:01

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Will test the quakes with sound tomorrow. During gameplay with sound i didn't observe any color related issues, but if the artefacts are subtle i may have missed them. I don't have ATI cards, but will check with GD-5428 and 5434 tomorrow. With 1Mb L2 cache didn't notice perf difference between 32 …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-05-16, 05:31

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Didnt notice any stability difference between S3 Trio64 vlb, MGA pci. Any particular graphics card giving you trouble ? Tried 128mb ram - works well, but selected modules are needed for tightest bios timings. I test with period correct-ish software so it is not like i can load that much ram for good …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2022-05-15, 22:42

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by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I have a specific 50mm heatsink requirement. Thanks for the notes tho - they helped me narrow the search a lot. --- @Feipoa Tested the 1024Kb L2 cache module for Pc-Chips M919. Quite a surprise there. Details here but in general - with bigger L2 cache buffer M919 becomes the best performer at 180MHz …

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