Re: packard bell question

Posted on 2015-02-25, 04:09

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Agreed - on the Pentium MMX chips, the 1.5x multiplier is interpreted as 3.5x. You can't actually set a 1.5x multiplier on the MMX because it's meaning was redefined. This should work the same on all the MMXs, even if it's not supposed to be a 233. AMD has the same remapping on some of their chips, …

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Re: What Super Socket 7 mobo's are available that are ATX?

Posted on 2015-02-21, 02:05

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tyan S1598 I had an S1590 back then, I assume the S1598 is similar, but ATX. I had some frustrations with the 1590 but I mostly blame that on the MVP3 chipset. Except for one thing - the onboard USB had to be enabled for AGP to work. I think that's Tyan's fault, and if it were unavoidable, then at …

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Re: Remember the 16550 UART (and the modem era)?

Posted on 2015-02-18, 15:52

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Our first modem was a 14.4K Zoom modem. It was an internal ISA card, so the motherboard's serial ports weren't involved. There was something weird and cheap about how it worked, I think it didn't have hardware based error correction or something like that. A friend complained that whenever I …

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Re: Turbo switch functionality on high end 486 & early Pentium 1 systems

Posted on 2015-02-17, 15:37

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A long, long time ago, I had an ultra cheap PC Chips manufactured 486 board with an Intel 486DX2-66 in it. The board had VLB. I remember being curious about this, and experimented with the turbo switch in a simple game, where the speed change could be easily timed. The speed with turbo turned off …

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Re: Hello! And Help for a SS7 system

Posted on 2015-02-14, 02:36

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't know about ALI, but the VIA MVP3's AGP is troublesome. Certainly not as good as the Intel 440BX. Stuff that works on the BX might still give lots of trouble on a VIA. I had artifacting in 3DMark01 with a 7600GS on a VIA 694X chipset (Universal AGP slot). It might have been the same thing j^ …

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Re: Where the heck did this 9800 XT come from?

Posted on 2015-02-13, 09:13

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As far as the bridge situation goes, I guess the question becomes why the 3rd party PCI bridge chip manufacturer(s) didn't also come up with an AGP version of those chips. Was this the result of a significant complication compared to PCI , or just because for whatever reason, the card manufacturers …

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Re: Where the heck did this 9800 XT come from?

Posted on 2015-02-13, 09:09

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

OS might've been a factor - I know my Symmetric card will not work properly in XP, it just produces a solid green screen instead. But for booting into the BIOS or if you have an older OS loaded it works correctly. No idea why someone would say nForce 2 can't work with PCI video though... :confused: …

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Re: Asus P5A don't boot [Update test card!]

Posted on 2015-02-12, 13:43

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I am testing the pci bus. I try to change the supply but I am sure they are good ones. I don't see anything strange on the motherboard I still think this board is not broken.. :( It's certainly showing signs of life, since the POST process does get somewhere before it hangs up. It's not just …

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Re: Did anyone seen BGA technology on DDR1 ramchips?

Posted on 2015-02-12, 01:21

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've seen a few, and have a couple right now. 1 is a 512MB DDR333 Registered ECC CL2.5 module, made by Hynix and rebranded by HP The other is a 1GB DDR333 Registered ECC CL2.5, made by Samsung. In the past I had a few more of these, but sold them. I remember testing them on an AMD760 board. The 2GB …

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Re: Where the heck did this 9800 XT come from?

Posted on 2015-02-11, 16:58

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It might actually be a new production card out of China. There's been a flood of new production video cards in the last few years based on obsolete video chips like Rage 128, Radeon 7000 or Radeon 9200. Maybe now 9800XT prices have fallen to the point where someone thinks it worthwhile to start …

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Re: Where the heck did this 9800 XT come from?

Posted on 2015-02-11, 16:35

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't know what you mean by nForce 2 not "implementing support for PCI video cards" - back in the day I had an MX 4000 PCI in my AN7 (nForce 2 Ultra 400) and it worked just fine alongside my FX 5900 (and later 6800) for triple-monitor support. Seriously? Well that's a surprise. A few years ago I …

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Re: Where the heck did this 9800 XT come from?

Posted on 2015-02-11, 04:11

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Oh, I'm well aware of the bridge chips. I'm sure they're the reason my 7800GS refuses to work properly with VIA based boards. Had not heard about issues with VIA based boards, but it isn't surprising - I've read about problems with the ATi cards and some MBs, so it makes sense the nVidia solution …

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Re: Crusty Desktop AT Pentium

Posted on 2015-02-10, 14:26

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by shamino

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I never liked high speed CDROM drives. They lag when they need to spin up for every access, and they shake and make noise for no good reason. The way they run annoys me, it's like revving up a dragster to go across a parking lot. 4X-6X drives were perfect IMO. Smoother and more immediately …

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Re: Where the heck did this 9800 XT come from?

Posted on 2015-02-09, 03:15

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If there's companies that have the time to make new 9800XT cards from whatever leftover chips are floating around, then I wish one of them would hook up a newer nVidia chip to an AGP bridge. Can't figure out why there's no market for that, but there is for several iterations of newer bridged PCI …

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Re: Asus P5A don't boot [Update test card!]

Posted on 2015-02-03, 09:15

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are you testing a PCI or an ISA slot? I'm not sure if all these slots necessarily have 3.3v on them, so it might not be a real fault. If you have any other known working boards that are handy, you could try using the same POST card on one of those and see if it lights up any differently. If you have …

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Re: Who's still using XP?

Posted on 2015-02-02, 09:47

by

by shamino

in Windows

in Windows

On modern hardware it most definitely does NOT run faster and smoother, Windows 8 and 7 boot faster, lock up less (both temporarily and permanently) and are better optimised for multi-core CPUs. XP probably has the edge when it comes to older hardware but certainly not on anything new. None of the …

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Re: Asus P5A don't boot

Posted on 2015-01-31, 06:12

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Since you got it to beep, that at least means the CPU is running and executing code from the BIOS chip. It doesn't rule out glitchiness in that process however. Is it possible that the output from that video card isn't getting along with your monitor? I had an old video card that didn't work …

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Re: Who's still using XP?

Posted on 2015-01-30, 09:44

by

by shamino

in Windows

in Windows

so Linux is in the lead right now If you're specifically talking about your very own list of preferred OS' for a desktop computer, I'll give it as much, but I have yet to come across a reputable OS market share study that leads in any direction other than Windows continuing to withhold the record …

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Re: Who's still using XP?

Posted on 2015-01-30, 03:14

by

by shamino

in Windows

in Windows

Despite my dislike of newer Windows versions, if Windows 7 was still available, I might adopt it if I needed to. But I don't need it yet, and it's already been pulled from the market, so Linux is in the lead right now. The fact that Microsoft discontinued 7 is something that amazes me from a …

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Re: Socket 462 PC long-term stability

Posted on 2015-01-29, 15:52

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

On both Nforce 2 boards I've had (Leadtek K7NCR18D and Asus A7N8X-E), memory has always been the biggest factor in system stability. Despite being rated for DDR 400, you couldn't count on the memory controller being stable running, for example, 4 sticks. It also depends heavily on memory type. G. …

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