Re: Micronics' Local Bus

Posted on Today, 00:57

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes. The PSU taking a second or two before shutting down made me think of capacitance issue. A more careful visual inspection didn't check out - pins connectivity was off. Took a while to narrow down what this VLB-like bus may be.

---

Re: Micronics' Local Bus

Posted on Yesterday, 05:38

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Found this thread while looking for information related to the topic discussed here. I believe the card in question is MSI MS-3401. Initially i thought it is a rare VLB card based on S3 911 which is a pre-VLB silicon, but my presumption was incorrect.

---

Re: My super fast highend 486 build!

Posted on 2024-10-13, 17:28

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

It may be difficult to invoke appreciation about this particular motherboard from others who played with it, but you certainly achieved very interesting results with it. Its handling of L2 cache is on the same level of weird as the M919 issues you mentioned, but apparently you were able to work it …

---

Re: Help identify an old CGI demo

Posted on 2024-10-13, 16:00

by

by pshipkov

in Milliways

in Milliways

It is included as an example scene in 3d studio r3 and r4. You can render it from there any way you want.

---

Re: Old hardware giveaway thread.

Posted on 2024-10-08, 07:13

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

i think you are in EU, no ? shipping price may be salty for such an item, but if that does not stop you - PM me.

---

Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2024-10-07, 07:25

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Expected something like that - spec for products that were never made. Obviously haven’t seen any processors like that.

---

Re: Old hardware giveaway thread.

Posted on 2024-10-07, 02:15

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

if somebody wants it.

---

Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2024-09-30, 17:31

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

It is impossible to say what the circumstances on the ground and within the ecosystem were at the time the adapter was made, so maybe designers had information about chip designs that never actually materialized, or simply exposed the multiplier which is a byproduct of the adapter's design.

---

Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2024-09-30, 15:49

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Intel 486dx4 has only 2x and 3x multipliers controlled by r17 pin and thats it. Internally these are the only two options possible. You can not influence that from outside. The pin state can be low or high. 2x or 3x.

---

Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2024-09-26, 23:45

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Looks great. Didn't think i will see Intel 486DX4-100 running stably at 150MHz. What is the local storage ? Did you consider using an extension IDE card like Promise Ultra-100/133, or other maybe SCSI one ? I am not 100% about the EDO RAM issues with this board. How confident you are about not being …

---

Re: Help with identifying this Evergreen REV to 486 chip

Posted on 2024-09-25, 06:21

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This is a promising looking 386dx upgrade to IBM BL3. The BL3 cpu has 16kb level 1 cache and 2x/3x clock multiplier. Can tick at 100+ mhz.

---

Re: UMC8881/8886 Datasheet

Posted on 2024-09-20, 20:18

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Impressive indeed.

---

Re: VLB video card indeterministic behavior

Posted on 2024-09-13, 08:23

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

First time seeing this kind of stuff myself.

---

Re: VLB video card indeterministic behavior

Posted on 2024-09-12, 20:33

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Was about to reply "already tried all that" but went one more time over the BIOS settings and it does look like i didn't check video shadowing before. Or i probably did, but in combination with other stuff which masked the solution. So, disabling VIDEO SHADOWING only fixes the problem. Glad i double …

---

Re: List of VLB IDE Controllers

Posted on 2024-09-12, 19:40

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes. PDC20630 based controller. A cheaper, BIOS-less design compared to EIDE2300Plus. Similar to P2630VL-1, but even more compact layout. Nothing to see there in my opinion. They come and go from time to time on ebay for cheap.

---

Re: VLB video card indeterministic behavior

Posted on 2024-09-12, 17:56

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The fact that the screen corruption is randomly different between resets, but consistent within a session hints at some logic issue, but not physical problem. I touched, pressed, and slightly bent things around - if this affects appearance on screen that is a good indication of loose connections. …

---

VLB video card indeterministic behavior

Posted on 2024-09-12, 17:09

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Diamond Stealth Pro VL video card is giving me some troubles. On few different motherboards it exhibits a range of issues that puzzle me. Everything looks good until the memory count completes and the table-screen is about to appear. Without particular pattern: monitor goes out of sync black screen …

---

Re: The Olivetti M280 (A pretty Bad Ass 286!)

Posted on 2024-09-11, 19:06

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Ah, one of those sellers. Sorry about that. At the same time such cards go for about $100. But you don't need that exact model/chipset/brand really. Pick another (non-Diamond) ET4000AX based card - it will do exactly the same for half the price. Or go with Trident 8900C/CL - again - half the price …

---

Re: The Olivetti M280 (A pretty Bad Ass 286!)

Posted on 2024-09-11, 17:10

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

The VGA part will be fine. Not sure if that will apply to the MPEG chipset, but that will be so out of scope for 286 machine anyway. The Diamond SpeedSTAR card will be the better fit if you ask me.

---

Re: The Olivetti M280 (A pretty Bad Ass 286!)

Posted on 2024-09-11, 14:38

by

by pshipkov

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

This card will be ok. Bios version can newer, also the ramdac can be swapped with 24bit one, but these probably wont make much difference for where the overall assembly is.

---