Re: 386 crashes a lot (restarts) when playing certain games - Help!

Posted on 2015-09-24, 04:40

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Didn't you see my post a few days ago about Cyrix 486DLC and DMA SCSI controllers? It's a serious problem getting these two things to cooperate. Can you provide pictures of your motherboard and SCSI controller?

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Re: 386 crashes a lot (restarts) when playing certain games - Help!

Posted on 2015-09-23, 23:44

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Did you try a regular 386 CPU? Sounds like typical Cyrix cache trouble.

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Re: EISA Graphics / Video Cards

Posted on 2015-09-23, 07:45

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Apparently the interleaving only works when running accelerated video modes (like in Windows) and has no effect on DOS performance.On an 805 that's okay though, because as I understand it 805 DOS performance is already top notch. I'm really not sure how S3 DRAM controllers stack up against Tseng in …

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Re: EISA Graphics / Video Cards

Posted on 2015-09-22, 12:34

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I would read up on the Mach32/Adaptec problem. Since I've never owned the EISA version of the Mach32 I've never been able to test it myself. I really don't see why there is consensus that the ATi is the best card of the lot. As far as I can recall the 928 is actually marginally faster than the …

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Re: EISA Graphics / Video Cards

Posted on 2015-09-22, 10:39

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

You don't need to keep looking for the EISA version of the Mach64, because it doesn't exist. Mach32 was ATi's only EISA product. The Winner 2000 I had on the EISA bus was an okay performer in Windows, but rather shite in DOS in part due to it being a VRAM card. I didn't flip the card over to the ISA …

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Re: EISA Graphics / Video Cards

Posted on 2015-09-21, 22:02

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The Mach32 should be pretty much an equal match for your S3 928 card. Also, I am pretty sure Mach32 EISA doesn't sit well with Adaptec SCSI controllers.

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Hercules Terminator64 DRAM (bad DRAM?)

Posted on 2015-09-21, 11:05

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a Hercules Terminator 64 DRAM with 2MB equipped. It is the VLB version, which makes it kind of an interesting card since it is one of the few Trio64 based VLB cards out there that is not a Diamond product. I've never really had good luck getting it going. Sometimes it boots fine, but when I …

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Re: EISA Graphics / Video Cards

Posted on 2015-09-21, 10:38

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The bottom card is the Elsa Winner 1000. If you think that's cool, you should see the Winner 2000. It's the same thing but twice as long (with twice the memory and a better RAMDAC). I have that exact Compaq Qvision card as well. Haven't gotten around to testing it out. I'm sure it won't be great, …

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Cyrix 486DLC and DMA SCSI

Posted on 2015-09-19, 12:50

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Has anyone actually gotten this combination to work properly? I've tried five different boards, and the results are a mixed bag. It doesn't appear to be completely chipset dependant, because I experienced two very different results with two boards based on the same chipset. Ideally I'd like to use …

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Re: Why no 486 to 386 socket adapter?

Posted on 2015-09-19, 12:18

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It seems that there is one here which has something to plug into the FPU socket: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showthread.php?46993-running-486-on-Inboard-386/page3 That extra plug is actually supposed to go under the i385 cache controller chip (for L1 cache coherency). I'm not sure what …

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Re: Post your 386 Speedsys results here

Posted on 2015-09-18, 10:29

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

These forex results are a lot better than the ones posted earlier. I wonder if they are from the same chipset (the previous poster didn't indicate the model). As far as I know forex had at least three 386 chipsets.

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Re: Why no 486 to 386 socket adapter?

Posted on 2015-09-17, 14:31

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Having the FPU on chip absolutely was not an issue for getting the 486 onto the 386 bus. The Rapidcad was essentially the i486 core with the 8kb cache removed. Internal cache however is a serious problem on the 386 bus, because the original specification did not include an control lines for keeping …

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Re: List of ISA sound card - what do you recommend?

Posted on 2015-09-14, 09:09

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

CT3910 looks kind of interesting...it has a real OPL3. Never used one though, and don't know what the downsides of that card are (noisy, bugged wave table header, PNP (or not). Basically any of the SB cards will offer good compatibility and be relatively trouble free (unless you are using the wave …

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Re: PC Chips M209 286 motherboard, maximum onboard memory...

Posted on 2015-09-14, 02:23

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think the remapping was only useful for those with only 1MB RAM so that they could run Windows in standard mode. I'd much rather have the 384k used as UMB so that I load drivers there and save conventional memory. Good job on the 16MB upgrade. I used to have an M209, but back in those days I …

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Re: Worst video card ever, again

Posted on 2015-09-12, 10:32

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My good friend had a Trident 9000i with 512k. Neither of us thought it was particularly crappy. It did 800x600@256 colours in Windows at a decent speed, and I don't ever recall DOS games having issues. It ran Syndicate Plus at 640x480 fairly well (for the time). Mind you, these opinions are based on …

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Re: Usual RAM sizes back in the 386/486/Pentium years

Posted on 2015-09-10, 09:41

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

80286- typically 1mb (sometimes 2, 3 or 4mb added later as an upgrade) 80386- typically 1 or 2MB (upgraded to 4,5 of 8 later) 80486- typically 4MB (upgraded to 8, 16 or 20mb later) Pentium - typically 8 or 16mb (upgraded to 24, 32 or 40mb later)

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Re: Am486DX2-66@123Mhz!

Posted on 2015-09-09, 04:05

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There are many different kinds of DX2s. Some of them (I'm looking at you AMD) may have slightly weird pinouts which may explain the odd results when playing with the multiplier and cache jumpers. My impression about amd DX2 chips is that all of the 3.3V models should have the 2/3X multiplier. I …

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Re: Am486DX2-66@123Mhz!

Posted on 2015-09-09, 02:08

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are you running on a 60MHz bus? You'd probably be safer using the Am486DX2-66 16BGC as that one is .35micron and is basically the same as the am5x86 except for having a 2x/3x selectable multiplier instead of 3x/4x. I recommend using 3x to put less stress on the motherboard unless you are sure it can …

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Re: Pentium 60 Voodoo selection

Posted on 2015-09-08, 13:17

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Pentium 60 was really a 1993/94 thing. If you really want to be period correct you should put in an S3 864/964, ATi Mach 32/64, Weitek Power 9000 or Tseng ET4000W32P. As far as I can remember, ARK didn't really show up until 1995 (despite the cards having a 94 copyright on the BIOS chips).

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Re: Help with identifying a 286 "PA-5000" motherboard from 1988.

Posted on 2015-09-06, 12:51

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This looks like a pretty well laid out 286 board. I am not totally familiar wit the NEAT chipset, but according to the manual it is designed for 12 and 16MHz. http://www.datasheetarchive.com/dl/Scans-003/Scans-0076925.pdf The 16MHz is also stamped into the ICs, and they are socketted. To me this is …

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