Re: How important is a PCI graphics card in a 486?

Posted on 2020-07-30, 11:08

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

(...) But a card like a Matrox Millennium PCI with WRAM on a late 486 would be something I hope to see build sometime to see how well that card should help the cpu working in a "heavy" o.s. like Win95. My PCI 486 has one. It is working like a champion in dos and Windows 3.11 now. The Intel Ninja …

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Re: Best isa gpu?

Posted on 2020-07-30, 10:07

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In my opinion, the words "GUI" and "ISA" can only exist in a sentence when choosing between them. For usability I'd go for at least VLB or PCI (or something EISA? Opti bus? Never used them). On the other hand, the best ISA cards with GUI support I used are the S3 928 and cirrus 542x. So about the …

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Re: Is there any way to use all the space on a hard drive larger than 2gb on MS-DOS 6.22?

Posted on 2020-07-29, 22:08

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Large hard drives and DOS: DOS 7.x is the way to go. I believe PC DOS 7 and up do support fat32 as well, and are dedicated DOS, not linked to win 9x. Not tested myself but these should be able to install windows 3.1x without hassle. To get a good DOS 7.x install I did this: - boot any pc of VM with …

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Re: The VOGONS Experience

Posted on 2020-07-28, 21:18

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sounds a little bit different from my... Lets say the story of a friend. :P But there's are quite a few similarities. A long time ago my father have me his first computer: an IBM model 30. I liked it. Played with it a lot. Still got it. From there he kept me feeding new stuff that got obsolete at …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-07-28, 18:20

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This Soyo Super Socket 7 board which looks like new: Should be a nice board! What CPU did you get with it? Well, the CPU is from another movie... a Pentium-S 100 Mhz. (And I had a K6-2+ 550Mhz (with 128K on chip cache) I gave it for free....) Meanwhile I tested the board - everything works fine... …

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Re: Recommendations need it (Win98 build)

Posted on 2020-07-27, 20:42

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The Athlon will certainly be overpowered for win 98 gaming. That's a good thing, as it will run everything you'll throw at it. At least if you can find the needed drivers for the chipset. Pair that with a high end AGP card like the ATI 9800 (or 9600/9700) and you'll be ok. Otherwise I'd stick with …

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Re: PSU voltage low but in spec?

Posted on 2020-07-26, 23:13

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I could look if there are some pods present if the voltages will drop to much with more load. Just hooking upa few more hard disks will do the trick :) About the ripple: I don't have anything pointing that way as I didn't notice any instability. It ran fine through the tests. Also I don't have the …

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Re: PSU voltage low but in spec?

Posted on 2020-07-26, 22:30

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Voltage on my multimeter varied between 11.69 and 11.73 volts. The lower voltage was when something happened, ie when system post was going on, when switching from 2D to 3D with 3Dmark. But recovered soon. I'll test again some time and attach some extra drivers to see what happens.

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

Posted on 2020-07-26, 21:08

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tested a bunch of PSU units to see if they still work... 6 ATX units working 1 ATX unit broken (suspect it already) 2 AT units working 3 AT units broken (2 suspected, one surprise). 1 Tulip PC Compact 2 unit working 1 weird form factor AT compatible unit working 1 PS/2 model 30 8086 PSU working …

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PSU voltage low but in spec?

Posted on 2020-07-26, 19:51

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today I took some time to test my spare power supplies that I didn't test in the past three years. Just a basic check with this hardware: - motherboard Asus Medion 2001 - Celly 733 - 128MB pc100 (was on top of the stack) - TNT2 N - Some random hard disk (Excelstor) Among the 6 tested PSU units was …

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Re: Your favorite retro socket/platform

Posted on 2020-07-25, 22:50

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

1) Socket 1/2/3 486 for sure. You just gotta love VLB and it's quirks. 2) super 7. Taking the underdog from AMD to bully Intel slot 1 is fun! 3) dip40 8088 / V20 turbo XT. Just to overcome and stretch the limitations is pure satisfaction. 4) any 286/386, just fun to work with :) 5) socket 370. …

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Re: IBM 5150, correct period considerations and more

Posted on 2020-07-25, 14:28

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

With the ems i mean expanded memory, on another ISA adapter card to upgrade memory above 640kB. There are lots of internet pages that describe it better than I can, for example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanded_memory#EMS There are ISA adapter cards that allow a 286 or 386 CPU to work on pc …

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Re: IBM 5150, correct period considerations and more

Posted on 2020-07-25, 09:42

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

To stay period correct these mods seem legit more or less. CGA was the original upgrade from MDA, so possible indeed. For correctness a Hercules card would be more logical as these became available not long after the pc XT (still period correct on a 5150 if you kept it for years). The VGA Wonder 16 …

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Re: Were CD-ROMs common on 386 computers?

Posted on 2020-07-24, 19:44

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In 1994 we got a 386DX25 system, bought from my uncle for a reasonably low price. It had a double speed CDROM drive. The kind that would get it's caddy out with motor and reading head and had to open a lid after. It sure was not too common but my uncle was into gimmicks that would cost quite some …

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Re: is an i486 dx4 always SL enhanced?

Posted on 2020-07-23, 12:30

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's may explain it 😀

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Re: CTMOUSE won't detect PS/2 mouse

Posted on 2020-07-21, 22:02

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Could you try to remove all non vital components like the network adapter and see if that helps? I guess it can be an IRQ conflict between the network adapter and the ps/2. Does a serial mouse work? That could be a second option... But no fancy light down under then...

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Re: The Ultimate Hardware 2019 project- a new, modern TH99

Posted on 2020-07-21, 14:55

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

computerguy08 wrote on 2020-07-21, 13:18: (...) The release will be very soon, so no need to wait for too long. I always love great announcements 😁

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is an i486 dx4 always SL enhanced?

Posted on 2020-07-21, 14:53

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This question is regarding my Bakbeest. https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=74636 A few weeks ago I bought an Intel DX4 (SK051, wt cache) CPU to replace the DX2 on my 486. Easy swap, as my board (Intel Ninja) only required to change the voltage from 5 to 3.3v. Now the old DX2 was SL enhanced …

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Re: post up pics of your "computing area"

Posted on 2020-07-20, 19:57

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I consider that a lack of space, it's irritating when you want to find a specific part and it takes an hour just to get to the box that contains it. My boards are mostly stored in huge boxes so it's a pain sometimes but I don't have the space to store them separately. That is true. Luckily I have …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-07-20, 16:59

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by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bought this Compaq Prolinea 4/50S for 66€ including shipping. I don't know if I overpaid, but I have wanted a 486 or 386 desktop system with ISA slots for some time. It has integrated Tseng ET4000/W32i graphics, which I suppose is decent for DOS games. Hard drive is missing, hard drive mounting …

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