Re: SB2AWE EEPROM flasher utility.
Posted on 2022-11-03, 15:10
Great work! AWEFLASH works fine on my CT4500!
Re: Creative PnP EEPROM collection
Posted on 2022-11-03, 15:08
Great work Tronix! I've tried AWEDUMP on my CT4500 and it seems to work fine. This finally gave me the courage to try and use the Dell Flash Utility to fix my CT4500 AWE64 Value. The card is detected properly in Windows 98 but Creative's AWE Control utility shows 0KB of available memory and the card …
Sound Blaster AWE64 CT4500 Synth not working
Posted on 2022-03-22, 13:22
Hi everyone, I've bought this card recently: IMG_20220322_140710.jpg It's an AWE64 (Value?) PnP model. The driver installation went fine, however this card seems to have some issues: - Synthesizer music will not play correctly (only right channel, garbage sound). Tested in Duke3d setup, both in DOS …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2021-07-01, 21:24
Thanks for your insights! I don't recall there being DMA related settings in the BIOS.. I figured the easiest thing to try first was to try another I/O controller and/or another VGA card. And last week I came across a 16 bit ISA I/O controller through a local market place for only €5. This is the …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2021-05-25, 16:55
I'm still trying to figure out what causes the screen corruption during reading from a floppy drive. To me it seems as if the IO controller is writing to the video RAM (if that's even possible..) Here's an example copying all files from a floppy to the CF drive: IMG_20210525_184603.jpg IMG_20210525_ …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2021-05-25, 16:38
evasive wrote on 2021-05-25, 13:17: In the mean time, can you please tell what is printed next to the ISA slot near the edge (that ends in 024A)? Maybe we can keep that as a placeholder identifier until an actual M4xx or M6xx model number crops up. Here's a better picture of that text: Filename IMG …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2021-05-25, 11:51
Can you please dump the BIOS ? :) You can use this little DOS program to copy the BIOS http://cd.textfiles.com/microhaus/mhblackbox3/MEMORY/GETROM.ZIP Sure! I've attached a zip for you. I've backed it up using AMISETUP and the GETROM utility you mentioned. The AMISETUP bacup is larger, 128k instead …
Diamond Viper V330 lost half its memory
Posted on 2020-12-15, 08:01
Hi! A few weeks ago I've bought this card for my Compaq Deskpro 2000 5200: IMG_20201207_204509.jpg IMG_20201207_142612.jpg It was working fine alongside a Diamond Monster 3D PCI 4MB but recently the VGA BIOS only shows 2MB of RAM instead of 4MB: IMG_20201215_085011.jpg In Windows 95 dxdiag detects …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2020-08-28, 15:07
On the screen corruption, this is a shot in the dark but if you have not already, try cleaning the ISA edge contacts of both the video card and i/o card with a pencil eraser. My only suspicion about this is that floppy controllers use i/o ports 3f5, 3f4, and 3f2, while VGA cards use (among others) …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2020-08-27, 07:52
A little update: The CF to IDE adapter works fine, I've used a 4GB CompactFlash card and installed DOS 6.22 :) Overall the computer works okay but there's an issue with reading from floppies. Whenever the system reads from a floppy, the screen gets mangled/corrupted. For example, when I boot from …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2020-08-21, 13:26
What are memory & cache wait state, etc. settings in BIOS? Shouldn't those be faster for 50MHz? Can't find settings related to wait state in BIOS.. I've fixed up a battery solution: IMG_20200820_110534.jpg Attached with some double sided tape to the case: IMG_20200821_144332.jpg I didn't want to …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2020-08-19, 21:01
I ran cachechk and speedsys: IMG_20200819_143800.jpg IMG_20200819_145813.jpg The cache is real! From what I've read online, the fake cache chips didn't appear until '94/'95, this board is from '92/'93. The benchmark results are about right for what you can expect from this system I guess. The HDD …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2020-08-19, 20:56
Possibly the power-on reset circuit failed. The job of the reset circuit is to apply a reset signal until power is stable. If the reset circuit misses that you turned off the supply and does not provide a reset signal, the processor does some strange stuff after power-cycling, but does not do …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2020-08-18, 21:33
Today the video card came in and I got the computer to POST! IMG_20200818_232821.jpg The computer doesn't seem quite stable however. If I plug in the power cord and flip the switch, it posts. But if I power it off, wait 10 seconds and flip the switch again it doesn't post anymore. After leaving the …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2020-08-16, 12:45
I've taken this from a dumpster at work. I work in IT and we put old hardware that returned from customers in there for recycling. So I check it regularly for interesting hardware. This is the first time I've found something this old in there. This is the picture a colleague sent me that triggered …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2020-08-16, 12:42
I've cleaned the tower and the PSU. The PSU's voltages are not great but I guess it should work: 5.1V, -4,2V, 11.3V and -10.8V. The PSU is from 1997 so it's a replacement unit. Is that without any significant load? It looks like 5V is high and all other voltages are low. AT supplies usually have a …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2020-08-16, 11:48
I've cleaned the tower and the PSU. The PSU's voltages are not great but I guess it should work: 5.1V, -4,2V, 11.3V and -10.8V. The PSU is from 1997 so it's a replacement unit. Ready to test: IMG_20200816_121751.jpg IMG_20200816_121818.jpg I've powered it on and... Beep codes! 8 to be precise, which …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2020-08-16, 11:43
I've taken this from a dumpster at work. I work in IT and we put old hardware that returned from customers in there for recycling. So I check it regularly for interesting hardware. This is the first time I've found something this old in there. This is the picture a colleague sent me that triggered …
Re: Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2020-08-15, 14:28
Thanks I thought so too! To be honest I didn't know that there's this much interest in 486's again. But when I saw it laying there with the Turbo button I had to take it home. Unfortunately I have almost no old hardware anymore so no spare ISA video cards. First I want to clean everything up and …
Need help resurrecting a 486 dumpster find
Posted on 2020-08-15, 13:48
Hi everyone! I've just registered here after reading along for a while, it got me kinda excited about old hardware again :) Recently I've found a 486 mid (or mini?) tower in a dumpster. It's from around 1993 and has an Intel 486DX-50 in it with 8x1MB 30-pin SIMs. It has no VLB slots, cache chips are …
Page 1 of 1