Re: 486s seem to be a bit thin on the ground these days!

Posted on 2008-08-24, 14:09

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sure, AT motherboards will fit into ATX cases and can use ATX power supplies without any problem. You just need the correct back panel and a ATX-AT converter cable with power switch. It's really the way to go since many of the old 486 cases look like ass now.

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Re: Best/Fastest ISA GFX Card?

Posted on 2008-08-22, 09:21

by

by Anonymous Coward

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

Yeah, those cards are based on the S3 96x/86x family, which is pretty similar to Mach64 in terms of performance.

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Re: Best/Fastest ISA GFX Card?

Posted on 2008-08-22, 01:45

by

by Anonymous Coward

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

Well, according to that list the card with ET4000W32i chip on an ISA card isn't nearly as fast as I though it would be. It seems you're best off with your Mach64. However, that list only shows the results for the VLB version of mach64, not ISA. Personally I find the list to be a little useless …

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Re: Allround system (updated)

Posted on 2008-08-22, 00:47

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Do you have a picture of this chip? I've never seen one like that before. The only thing I see on my 5x86 chips are the indicators for 55 or 85 degree tolerance. Also, this page talks about the WT/WB modes of the 5x86: http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/amd5x86.htm

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Re: Best/Fastest ISA GFX Card?

Posted on 2008-08-21, 15:23

by

by Anonymous Coward

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

For ISA, eh? Unfortunately you can't have an ISA card that is fast and both DOS and Windows it seems. DOS likes DRAM, and Windows likes VRAM. But, I am assuming you are asking about mostly about speed under DOS games. I have heard that the Mach64 DRAM card is pretty quick. I've only used the VRAM …

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Re: Nominations for the best all-rounder graphics card for a 486

Posted on 2008-08-21, 12:05

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Shit, that's a big picture. Anyway, that Hercules card is great. I have a slightly updated version (The Dynamite Power) and it's fast as hell. Just make sure you full those empty slots with memory to take advantage of the interleaving.

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Re: Allround system (updated)

Posted on 2008-08-21, 11:52

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I think you're confusing the am5x86 and the am486. I do recall that the am486 was sold as either writeback or writethough and could not be changed, but I do remember reading (and it is my experience) that all am5x86 chips are set as WT by default (to be compatible with older motherboards) and can be …

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Re: Allround system (updated)

Posted on 2008-08-21, 08:37

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Maybe you just had a fake 5x86 or something. It's pretty strange that it wouldn't work in 4x mode.

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Re: Slow video performance

Posted on 2008-08-13, 10:36

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are you sure it's fake cache? Maybe you just have a bad chip or something.

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Re: Slow video performance

Posted on 2008-08-13, 07:26

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I always thought the ECS boards were pretty high quality boards back in the 486 days. The UM8810P-AIO has a pretty good reputation as one of the better PCI 486 boards. It's possible that the fake cache chips on your board were put on by the retailer. PCChips on the other hand was/is a horrible …

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Re: Slow video performance

Posted on 2008-08-12, 15:31

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ah, was that link you provided not to your own personal collection?

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Re: Slow video performance

Posted on 2008-08-12, 13:53

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Amigaz, I was taking a look at your photo gallery and I noticed that the board you are using is an Asus 486SP3G with intel Saturn chipset. The board I was using which exhibited the same problems was an Asus 486AP4, which is based on a very similar intel chipset. Also of important note, the boards …

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Re: ATi WinBoost, WinCharger, WinTurbo questions

Posted on 2008-08-12, 03:44

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've made slight progress. It seems an ATi Winturbo is a non-upgradable VRAM version of a Graphics Pro Turbo.

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Re: My very own Socket 4 mobo....

Posted on 2008-08-12, 03:41

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nice, I like it. I've never seen a 430LX board before. I've been running a POD133 in my socket4 motherboard for a while because it's too hard to find a P66 without the fdiv at a decent price. BTW: "Dude. You're gettin' a Dell!"

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Re: Slow video performance

Posted on 2008-08-12, 03:38

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I doubt the problem is the Cyrix 5x86. That's a good chip. It's probably just a crappy implementation of PCI on your motherboard. I've had PCI 486 boards like this too.

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ATi WinBoost, WinCharger, WinTurbo questions

Posted on 2008-08-09, 12:23

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have been doing some reading on all the ATi cards based on the Mach64 chipset, and these three particular cards give me a big headache. I can't quite figure out what the difference is between them, and I find it really hard to get exact specifications on them. Are there any ATi guys in here that …

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Re: Info & Thoughts about this Video Card?

Posted on 2008-08-07, 01:38

by

by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Lots of early Pentium motherboards had VLB slots (just take a look on TH99). There were even ISA only Pentium boards. Most of the VLB Pentiums are probably scrapped by now, but they certainly exist and they work just as well as VLB on a 486. I've tested several cards on my VLB Pentium, including …

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Re: very odd cmos checksum error

Posted on 2008-08-03, 00:12

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I would start with a philips head screwdriver if you are dealing with a non proprietary PC casing. Then I'd take a photo of the insides so that we can try to figure out where the battery is located and what type it is. Hopefully there aren't too many cables cluttering things up inside since it …

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Re: very odd cmos checksum error

Posted on 2008-08-02, 10:04

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by Anonymous Coward

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'd definitely replace the battery. Eventually when they get old they'll spill battery acid all over the PCB which can render the system inoperative. The barrel style batteries are most prone to this problem, but I believe it can also happen to the "watch" batteries as well. I personally have never …

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Re: Datafab-parallel-port-compact-flash-reader

Posted on 2008-07-07, 04:58

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by Anonymous Coward

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

Get an ECP/EPP parallel port card for your XT and the parallel port compatibility problem is solved. Drivers are an entirely different matter. I hope it works well.

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