Re: Additional ram recognized but not usable

Posted on 2024-03-11, 03:16

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I’ve got a gateway system with a Jabil Tabor motherboard. https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/intel-mp440bx-mount-prospect The manual says that it accepts 128MB dimms 384 max. I tried it with 256MB dimms and it worked up t0 768 total with the newest BIOS. I tried larger 512MB sticks but it only …

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Re: I/O errors while installing win XP

Posted on 2024-03-10, 21:54

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Switching the RAM is a good idea, but running MemTest86+ to verify would be even better. Agreed. That error suggests to me that the disk controller is having trouble doing UDMA. I bet if you run memtest86+ overnight, I suspect that it will find an issue before if finishes 10 passes. Once you can …

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

Posted on 2024-03-10, 01:03

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I replaced 13 capacitors on this board Photo Mar 09 2024, 6 58 17 PM.jpg Tried to power it up and got a high speed fan, no beeps, no post codes, no nothing. I stared at it for 10 minutes and started to think about what components I wanted to salvage before sending it to e-waste I saw that that I …

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Re: SSDs not working in any MW-DMA mode

Posted on 2024-03-10, 00:55

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm trying to get Sata SSDs working in MWDMA modes. I've tried 8 different sata SSDs, from various manufacturers in combinations with different old and modern PCs that all support MWDMA modes. I've tested this in Linux, DOS, Win9x, WinXP and Win10. Forcing any MWDMA mode causes a freeze / crash. …

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Re: Patched together a 286-20MHz. What should be the expected performance?

Posted on 2024-03-09, 14:52

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Turns out people really liked their legacy software. Maybe the 286 protected mode was a necessary step in the learning process to understand what needed to go into the 386. And maybe the first few 286 chips were just to slow to really benefit from prememptive multitasking anyway. If your …

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Re: Can you think of a more powerful single slot XP card

Posted on 2024-03-09, 14:43

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

What about the Quadro K2200? Same specs as the 750Ti but just a bit slower stock RAM clocks. There are modified XP drivers available for it. It is also single slot. And to top it off, it is readily available and pretty cheap. The K2200 seems like the sweet spot for Price/Performance/Power …

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Re: Patched together a 286-20MHz. What should be the expected performance?

Posted on 2024-03-08, 19:47

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Just an update... I gave away the 286 board (but I kept the IIT 287, since it was missing from my collection) . I got a smaller board based on the Headland HT12A chipset and... what a difference! This board allows me to choose between 0 and 1 wait states. With 1 wait states performance is more or …

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Re: New 386: Help me understand and make use of my RAM

Posted on 2024-03-07, 21:25

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Fiddling around with the motherboard and removing it from the case, I did manage to pierce the skin of my left index finger, resulting in some blood on the PCB and some traces: ... Am I good or should I be worried about this? The joke between me & my friends back in the days when there was only …

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Re: VOGONS Driver Library

Posted on 2024-03-07, 02:05

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's the Innoventions SIMCHECK II latest firmware 1.55 (official firmware file, as well as ROM dumps), along with an unzip-and-run version of the comms software for Win95 and up (because its installer doesn't work on 64-bit Windows, but the app itself does). I wasn't sure where to put this. It's …

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Re: VOGONS Driver Library

Posted on 2024-03-07, 01:50

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't know how helpful this is but I have a CD from 1994 called "MPC Wizard 3.0" full of multimedia drivers and utilities. I have no idea where I got it from and have never used it. I did a search and it's been mentioned a few times in these forums; have all the drivers been added to the database …

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Re: VOGONS Driver Library

Posted on 2024-03-06, 22:56

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Fresh off a 28 year old floppy disk, I posted this today: VIA VT83C461/VT82C496G IDE Drivers v4.02 for VLB / PCI https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=2162 I'll see if I can catch up on other recent files tonight

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Re: New 386: Help me understand and make use of my RAM

Posted on 2024-03-06, 17:20

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well yah try them alone either way as then we rule out flaky modules maybe. Though I am not sure the second board given is any better match, since there should be more of those jumpers showing in your first pic. Wider photo of the board would help others have a go at IDing it correctly. Hard to do …

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Re: Performance of IDE DOM partly worse than spin HDD

Posted on 2024-03-06, 12:32

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Conclusion: after reinstalling a lot I will switch back to my modern hdd. There is really little to non performance improvements because of the very low DOM/CF access times on a 386sx. Installations take same time as the cpu is bottlenecking expanding files etc. Furthermore having no noise at all …

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Re: Rarest CPUs?

Posted on 2024-03-06, 01:31

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In 93 and 94 maybe, many more P60 selling... but then I wonder if they had a glut of P66 and they got sold off cheap enough for a lot of people with 60 to spring for a 66 in 95 or so, putting a lot of P60s on shelves, and then again when the Socket 4 overdrive came out. Because I think the …

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Re: Performance of IDE DOM partly worse than spin HDD

Posted on 2024-03-05, 17:53

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I tested the same with a ide2cf adapter and the results are more or less the same as with the DOM. Maybe both don’t support that multi sector transfer You are using the exact same XtIde Universal BIOS build, yes? Maybe you can get XUB to tell you what it is seeing. https://www.xtideuniversalbios. …

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Re: Poll. How did you handle AGP to PCI Express stepover?

Posted on 2024-03-05, 13:28

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I had an Socket A Athlon 1700+ with an AGP Radeon 9800 pro on an Nforce2 platform to start off 2004. I upgraded the CPU to a Barton 2500+ in March and overclocked FSB to 400MHz. I wanted to keep the NForce 2 platform because the copper spidf out fit with my setup in a way that I loved, but wasn't …

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Re: Reading a Transcend 44-Pin IDE Flash Module

Posted on 2024-03-05, 12:51

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sure, but in both cases it entirely depends on the usage. I have two WD Black which is configured as Linux RAID zero that according to SMART been on for about 10 years. I'm glad your drives are holding up. My mirrored drives have only been on for 8 years. Yes, they are magnetic because that was the …

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Re: Reading a Transcend 44-Pin IDE Flash Module

Posted on 2024-03-05, 03:25

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Unlike mechanical hard drives, SSDs have a lifespan. I'm pretty sure mechanical drives also have a lifespan. Yes, but that wasn't my point. For SSDs, there's a limit to the write and erase cycles. Get a 15 year old SSD that had a desktop/consumer usage pattern and check out the remaining flash …

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Re: Performance of IDE DOM partly worse than spin HDD

Posted on 2024-03-04, 22:15

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Marco wrote on 2024-03-04, 21:59: Ah thanks also Congrats on a top ISA IDE benchmark score. Post your 386 Speedsys results here

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Re: Performance of IDE DOM partly worse than spin HDD

Posted on 2024-03-04, 21:58

by

by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What is indeee much faster is the speedsys “linear verify speed”: 172000kbyte/s DOM vs 52000kbyte/s HDD. Whatever this number means as it is far beyond isa capabilities. The verify command doesn't push data over the bus. It just reads the storage internally and reports "Success" or "Fail". It's …

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