Re: More fun and games with VIA's KT133/A chipset

Posted on 2009-12-20, 08:30

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

...would you do another test for me? Go into the BIOS and loosen up the memory timings - set them as low as you can, but enable 4-way interleave. Then set the FSB to at least 150Mhz (or more, if your RAM allows it); then increase the multiplier to 15 (2250Mhz) or even more if CPU allows it, and …

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Re: More fun and games with VIA's KT133/A chipset

Posted on 2009-12-19, 23:29

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I can see their benefits. Using an unlocked mobile barton running at approximately 2.2Ghz @133 fsb can provide impressive performance, but the most important aspect is the ISA slot for that special retro specification. I'm only interested in messing about with old games, so a random crash here and …

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Re: More fun and games with VIA's KT133/A chipset

Posted on 2009-12-19, 20:47

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I wanted to repeat some of these tests, but using an Epox "retro rocket" mobo, rather than the QDI board. Here's what I noticed - BIOS POST screen says: 6x multiplier, 133fsb = 800Mhz. (Exactly the same as the QDI board.) I run cpumsr, and set the multiplier to 18x, which is its maximum setting. …

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Re: More fun and games with VIA's KT133/A chipset

Posted on 2009-12-19, 14:15

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Some more benchies, but this time I need to report some bad news, but with a solution. I decided to run 3DMark2001 second edition. Up to now, I've been using the first edition. I completely maxed out its settings, with 6x AA etc. But the "high detail lobby" test repeatedly fails. To fix this, …

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Re: More fun and games with VIA's KT133/A chipset

Posted on 2009-12-19, 09:25

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A photo of the current set up -

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Re: More fun and games with VIA's KT133/A chipset

Posted on 2009-12-19, 09:09

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have run some more benchies. I have used 2 PSUs. 1 Enermax PSU (475w with a meaty 5v rail) just for the mobo, and 1 Nexus PSU (350w) for the Radeon 9800 Pro card, 1 HDD, 1 DVD, and 2 fans. For the Radeon card, I specifically set its v-sync setting to "always off". 3DMark 99 Max (default settings) …

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Re: Old CD Magazines / Magazine CDs for download

Posted on 2009-12-19, 07:17

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I just spotted this PC games magazine on ebay. The auction title is "PC Gamer Issue 46 + CD [Aug 1997] "3Dfx comes of age" http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt … em=110471248175

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Re: More fun and games with VIA's KT133/A chipset

Posted on 2009-12-18, 23:09

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Holding a torch with fading battery power, a magnifying glass that came out a christmas cracker back in the 1990s, a heavy metal "box cutter" with a fat tip, shakey sweaty hands and bad eyesight isn't the best combination! And after about 5 minutes of dithering, I decided to just push the blade down …

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Re: More fun and games with VIA's KT133/A chipset

Posted on 2009-12-18, 20:16

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

OK, I need to increase the XP-M's multiplier from 13.5x to 18x. To do this, I need to cut the 3rd L6 bridge. I have a minor problem. My XP-M CPU looks a bit like this - http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/TYPE-Athlon%20XP-M.html (please scroll down to the 2nd photo. It's the one with the red plastic …

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Re: More fun and games with VIA's KT133/A chipset

Posted on 2009-12-18, 17:17

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I dug out my KT133A based QDI Kinetiz mobo again. I put the mobile barton XP-M 2400+ rated CPU (code AXMH2400FQQ4C) back in to it. I also reinstalled the LLA driver device using Windows 98 "add hardware wizard", as the LLA download package is missing its help file, and consequently the setup.exe …

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Re: STB S3 Trio64v+ = no POST

Posted on 2009-12-14, 14:24

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks very much for the advice.

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Re: Advice on a 486 Build

Posted on 2009-12-14, 14:14

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's an interesting one in the UK: http://cgi.ebay.com/Old-Motherboard-486DX2-66-processor_W0QQitemZ280435023981QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Motherboards_CPUs?hash=item414b3ae06d I got an email from ebay this morning: Sorry, you didn't win: Old Motherboard 486DX2 66 processor (280435023981) I replied - …

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Re: STB S3 Trio64v+ = no POST

Posted on 2009-12-14, 12:50

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I just tried PCI Latency = 96, but unfortunately that didn't work. BTW, thanks for your suggestions - it was interesting to learn about PCI Latency - do you know if altering the PCI latency value can help reduce or remove "crackles" heard on poor quality PCI sound cards, such as early Creative PCI …

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Re: STB S3 Trio64v+ = no POST

Posted on 2009-12-14, 10:29

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm sorry, my posts weren't that helpful. :depressed: Cheer up! :happyhappy: I dug out the socket 7 board again, and looked for "PCI (2.0 / 2.1) support" inside the BIOS set up area. Unfortunately that option wasn't there. So I dug out a slot 1 board, an Asus P2B. Its BIOS has a PCI 2.1 Enabled/ …

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Re: STB S3 Trio64v+ = no POST

Posted on 2009-12-13, 11:56

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I am testing the "no POST" STB S3 Trio64v+ card in old and slow socket 3 and 7 mobos, which are ideal for any Trio card. I notice in your screen shot, that your BIOS has a copyright date of 1985- 2004 . I guess the PCI latency fix is good for more modern mobos. Please note that my other STB S3 …

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Re: STB S3 Trio64v+ = no POST

Posted on 2009-12-13, 08:31

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I removed the "no POST" STB Trio64v+ card and replaced it with a working STB Trio64v+ card. As seen in the photo below, it's not exactly the same card as in the O.P, but it's probably good enough. This replacement card works OK. I then went in to the AMI BIOS set up area to look for PCI latency …

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Re: Advice on a 486 Build

Posted on 2009-12-12, 20:15

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I use MS-DOS 6.22 from 3 Microsoft 3.5" 1.44MB floppy disks. I bought it cheaply from ebay. I did a quick search on ebay (co uk), and there's lots left. Same too for ebay.com. (BTW, I think there are other DOS versions you can use, eg Free DOS, but currently I only know a bit about MS-DOS 6.22.)

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Re: Advice on a 486 Build

Posted on 2009-12-12, 20:04

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

IMHO, I would just go for "pure" DOS. Leave Windows 95 for a faster pentium based system. I think a lot of PCI based 486 mobos automatically detect the HDD settings, from within the BIOS set up area. If there is no HDD auto detection facility there, then you enter in the values manually - you can …

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Re: Advice on a 486 Build

Posted on 2009-12-12, 19:11

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Regarding the Dallas RTC, is your current RTC soldered directly on to the motherboard, or is it socketed to the motherboard? If it looks like you can pull the Dallas RTC upwards, away from its little socket on the mobo, then you can test your new RTC to see if it works OK, then replace your current …

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Re: STB S3 Trio64v+ = no POST

Posted on 2009-12-12, 13:29

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by retro games 100

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've looked at all the little pins connected to the main S3 chip, and they all appear to be OK - none of them touch each other.

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