Re: I've been looking for a reasonably priced TUSL2-C for a long time.

Posted on 2012-12-22, 04:37

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'll see what I can find out about the i815 boards frying IDE drives. Remember when these boards came out almost nobody was running them because they had all moved on to P4 and Athlon, so there isn't nearly as much information available as say with the BX generation. I wouldn't blow off my warning …

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Re: I've been looking for a reasonably priced TUSL2-C for a long time.

Posted on 2012-12-20, 07:04

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had a TUSLC-C which I used for six years on my primary box. I seem to recall lousy integrated audio, which made me upgrade to an SB Live 5.1. The main issue with the board (as in all i815 boards) was the 512mb SDRAM limitation. Somehow I managed to get by with only 512mb for those painful six …

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Re: What's harder to find: 72-pin SIMMs, or 168-pin DIMMs?

Posted on 2012-12-19, 13:47

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

No comment on that. I have never seen a K6-2 @ 400MHz running with SIMMs. I think a lot of boards in the K6-2 era were DIMM only, so it would have been a rare combination anyway. It would still be interesting to see an SDRAM/EDO comparison on such a system though.

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Re: What's harder to find: 72-pin SIMMs, or 168-pin DIMMs?

Posted on 2012-12-19, 11:04

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah. I didn't mean to imply that PC100 SDRAM wasn't faster than 66MHz EDO. I didn't realise some were unaware of the existence of 66MHz SDRAM.

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Re: The World's Fastest 486

Posted on 2012-12-19, 01:21

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If history is anything to go by, then getting a MediaGX working in a socket3 board is probably not going to work unless Cyrix intentionally designed it to do so. If you recall the intel 80186 (another highly integrated chip for its time), there were some changes made to the integrated components …

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Re: What's harder to find: 72-pin SIMMs, or 168-pin DIMMs?

Posted on 2012-12-19, 01:11

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't think the "10%" performance hit is really as important as the marketing propaganda suggests. I believe the 10% hit only affects memory performance, not the overall system performance (which might increase by 1 or 2% at best). Has anyone on VOGONS actually tested SIMM vs SDRAM in various …

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Re: The World's Fastest 486

Posted on 2012-12-18, 01:32

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are there any systems that use MediaGX chips which can bypass all integrated features? Is that even possible according to the datasheets?

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Re: Anyone use a 430TX motherboard at 75 or 83 MHz FSB?

Posted on 2012-12-16, 02:49

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

QDI Titanium T1B+: This old board can use 83MHz FSB and is quite stable at that frequency. It accepts 256MB DIMMs too. I have one of these things in my pile of boards. I got it from a good friend who bought it new. I seem to recall a few issues. Speedeasy was a pain in the ass to work with (it …

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Re: Hardware you wish you'd never bought.

Posted on 2012-12-15, 03:09

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by Anonymous Coward

in Milliways

in Milliways

I had one of those Hauppauge WinTV PCI cards, and I rather liked it. I think I bought it in 1999 for about $100, which was a good deal at the time and well supported by software I used for ripping VHS tapes. Way better than the ATi version at least.

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Re: Hardware you wish you'd never bought.

Posted on 2012-12-12, 14:32

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by Anonymous Coward

in Milliways

in Milliways

Another lemon I recall buying was the 1st version of the Powerleap PL-iP3/T Tualatin Slotket adapter. It made my BX board somewhat unstable and I ended up sticking it in a drawer and buying a new motherboard instead. Supposedly the issue was addressed in the 2nd version.

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Re: Hardware you wish you'd never bought.

Posted on 2012-12-12, 03:33

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by Anonymous Coward

in Milliways

in Milliways

I always suspected that the internal fan got plugged up with dust and stopped spinning, causing the drive to cook itself. Never really took the time to fully investigate.

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Re: A new 486 build - Need some guidance!

Posted on 2012-12-12, 03:18

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This topic has come up before, and I still recommend VLB for a more authentic 486 experience. I've personally had way more problems with 486 and PCI than I ever had with VLB. 5V 486 VLB boards just work for the most part. I don't think the cards are that difficult to find either (though choices are …

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Re: Hardware you wish you'd never bought.

Posted on 2012-12-12, 03:01

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Milliways

in Milliways

There was also my '98 Sony 2x CD writer. It probably made more coasters than anything else. Burning on Win98 via ATAPI and not having buffer underrun protection was insanity. I went with a Yamaha 6x4x16 SCSI burner. I really liked that drive, but sadly it died after only a few years of use. It's …

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Re: Hardware you wish you'd never bought.

Posted on 2012-12-11, 14:55

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Milliways

in Milliways

To be fair the slow FPU (compared to Pentium) wasn't a big deal at the time of purchase. It really ran way too hot though. this was fixed with a die shrink six months later. This is the price I pay for being an early adopter.

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Re: Hardware you wish you'd never bought.

Posted on 2012-12-11, 09:59

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Milliways

in Milliways

SCSI was pretty awesome if you could afford it. But you had to be careful, because some SCSI drives were really IDE drives with SCSI interfaces. Back then I wouldn't have bothered with $C$I HDDS, but it would have been totally worth it for CD-ROM drives. A Future Domain non-DMA SCSI card could be …

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Re: Hardware you wish you'd never bought.

Posted on 2012-12-11, 02:22

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Milliways

in Milliways

I almost forgot about Zip drives. I bought one of those piles of garbage too. I bought a "Zip Plus" which was a hybrid parallel port / SCSI drive and it was actually much less reliable than the regular models. I'm glad I didn't get a Kenwood 52X drive. I was really interested in those for a time. …

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Re: Hardware you wish you'd never bought.

Posted on 2012-12-10, 06:48

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Milliways

in Milliways

-Sound Blaster CT2230, Sony CDU-33A 2X CD-ROM "value" package. At the time I didn't find the SB16 was much better than the SB 2.0 I already had, and the spring loading proprietary Sony drive was a slow pile of shit. It was their first attempt at creating an affordable CD-ROM drive for the masses. I …

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Re: Anyone know something about this 486 motherboard?

Posted on 2012-12-08, 10:15

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Be careful with the AMD 486DX4 chips. Some of them are writeback only, some of them are write through only, and I think the last ones made supported both (basically being a relabled 5x86). The chips that only work in writeback mode probably won't work in your board even with a VRM. Intel DX4s are …

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Re: Am486 DX4-100V16BGC Multiplier - 2/3x or 3/4x?

Posted on 2012-12-03, 00:59

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I can only find mention of a utility to control WT/WB cache. As far as I can remember all 3V 486DX2 chips (except overdrive) could be configured as 2X/3X. Probably because they were just badge engineered DX4s. Though I am curious about the am486DX2 16BGC, because in theory it should have been a …

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Re: Am486 DX4-100V16BGC Multiplier - 2/3x or 3/4x?

Posted on 2012-12-02, 11:49

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There is a DX2 66 16BGC of some sort. I recommend that one if you want to try 2x66. It should be the 2X 3X multiplier version you are looking for. Basically the very last DX2, DX4 and DX5 chips were all the same chip.

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