VL/I-486SV2GX4 Rev 1.8 and Fujitsu 5.2GB HardDrive (MPA3052AT)

Posted on 2008-09-10, 08:31

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've received the Winbond ISA-16-bit Multi-I/O controller card to use with this motherboard. I'm not sure if the hard disk is not being recognized or I have to set the settings in CMOS correctly. I know the Cylinders, Heads and Sectors but no idea of the Precomp and Landzone attributes. There's IDE …

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Re: 486 Motherboard

Posted on 2008-09-05, 10:35

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You got an ECS UM4980 motherboard??!! Nope, I was referring to YOUR system. I think I've seen your Phoenix bios screens in of the threads. :happy: The Asus board's you got are great...have in mind though that the GX4 board is rev 1.8 which means there are no BIOS updates for it...only for rev 2.x …

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Re: 486 Motherboard

Posted on 2008-09-04, 17:09

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sigh...I'm still not good at posting pictures...dunno why the pictures are repeated above..

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Re: 486 Motherboard

Posted on 2008-09-04, 17:07

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I just got two 486 motherboards, bought via eBay : 1) 486 Motherboard MP4-P4U885P3 V2.0 PCI UM8881F with a AMD DX4 120MHz, http://www.vogons.org/files/mp4-p4u885p3.jpg The above picture is not the exact ditto version of my motherboard, but pretty close. and 2) VL/I-486SV2GX4 Rev 1.8 486 Motherboard …

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Re: Baby AT cases or alternatives

Posted on 2008-08-30, 04:50

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's sort of hard to get a non-AT case to recommend to you unless you are able to examine the case in-person. Some ATX casing have multiple pin-holes with etched markings denoting the respective motherboards' specification. Like my P4's 1.7 GHz system's casing, it has the said markings. But these …

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Re: Smartdrv.exe Alternatives

Posted on 2008-08-29, 18:24

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Daft question, are you using DOS=HIGH in your config.sys? So far, since Dos 5, I've used the Dos=High, Umb in my configs all the time. One thing good* (*-for old timers anyway) about dos games is that : The game BEGINS even BEFORE you install the game. There were so many machines, video cards and …

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Re: Smartdrv.exe Alternatives

Posted on 2008-08-27, 15:44

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have noticed that one of the biggest benefits of Smartdrv (probably any cache) is that it will do write behind caching. So the DOS prompt will come back before the disk is done doing its thing. This is a serious boost for DOS cuz it almost makes it feel like it's multitasking. Come to think of …

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

Posted on 2008-08-24, 14:07

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think you can put the 486 board in SOME new cases. My mid range pc case has multiple etched markers for few different board layouts. I think you have to "strafe" the board to align the ISA slots to the case's slot fins. This may just leave the AT keyboard connector in the I/O opening in the case. …

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

Posted on 2008-08-24, 13:57

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I forgot to mention : I also bought a Turtle Beach Montego II with the Yamaha DB60XG daughter card. I'll attach the daughter card to my AWE32 or use the turtlebeach on my pci based 486. So that should take care of GM and XG formats. Yes, an AT power supply should be available. I'll post my …

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

Posted on 2008-08-24, 13:55

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I forgot to mention : I also bought a Turtle Beach Montego II with the Yamaha DB60XG daughter card. So that should take care of GM and XG formats. Yes, an AT power supply should be available. I'll post my motherboards' pictures and the installed setup pictures soon. It's good to see so many …

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Re: Nice Phoenix BIOS feature but how do I master it...

Posted on 2008-08-24, 01:44

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hmmm....this is quite difficult. Try using another motherboard with turbo pins with your casing...see if it works. Or else, there might be some problems in the AT clocks configuration. Try disabling shadow ram. And hopefully someone who knows about this problem well, will join in and enlighten us. : …

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

Posted on 2008-08-23, 18:17

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's something to whet your 486 boxes appetite : http://search.stores.ebay.com.my/RecycledGood … 6088994QQsofpZ0

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Re: Smartdrv.exe Alternatives

Posted on 2008-08-23, 17:26

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

hyperdisk (hyperdkx.exe) is a good alternative. it is part of the abandonware "speedkit", last version was v4.78. there is a 2003 release of smartdrv.exe v5.10 from ibm pcdos v7.10 in their freeware bootdisk. you can also use the newer DMA enabler in uide.sys and other variants but these do not …

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Re: Nice Phoenix BIOS feature but how do I master it...

Posted on 2008-08-23, 17:23

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Looks like there is something wrong with the shorting of the jumpers/pins. It's registering to the bios as always at Full Speed. Before you got the cache to work, was the Turbo button working? Some things to try : 1) Try resetting the BIOS, 2) Remove and Re-insert the Turbo connector pins, 3) Check …

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

Posted on 2008-08-23, 17:09

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I just bought 2 486 motherboards from eBay. (Yet to arrive - should be home by next week). I prefer to build my own setup, since it's cheaper and you also get to know if something goes wrong while using it. These come with one i486DX2-66 in one motherboard and one i486DX4-100 in another motherboard …

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Re: Smartdrv.exe Alternatives

Posted on 2008-08-22, 17:28

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Right now I'm using my Pentium 133 (P54C) system with 40MB EDO RAM + 5GB Fujitsu Hardrive partitioned to 2+2+1GB. I've always noticed quite a substantial changes in speed when using smartdrv. Especially when reloading a game, during gameplay and during file management. Very noticable when deleting a …

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Smartdrv.exe Alternatives

Posted on 2008-08-22, 16:13

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I remember a similar Dos disk caching utility in Norton Utilities. Are there any other similar disk cache utilities available? Smartdrv seems to be the most compatible with dos games so far but does take quite a lot of memory. UMBPCI and QEMM configs take care of this base memory problem, but under …

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Re: Guillemot Home Studio 64

Posted on 2008-08-22, 06:56

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Know what? This is a lesser known sound card, being over-shadowed by the ever-over-hyped-like-it-or-don't-but-have-to-join-it Creative Labs' cards. If you ask me, it's a very good card. I don't have a personal experience with it, but heard from others it is so. Sigh....too many potential good cards …

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

Posted on 2008-08-21, 15:48

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Woops! Sorry,...forgot to resize it.... Wow! the ET4000 seems to be a favourite here. Ok, just one more question : What is the exact name of the memory chips that I should be getting for this card? Like, under what name should I search at eBay? Thanks!

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

Posted on 2008-08-21, 11:56

by

by Malik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks for the links, Amigaz! I think my Tseng card is a 1MB card. I'm waiting for my 486 motherboard to arrive. I've attached some pics. I think I'll stick to ET4000/w32p as you have mentioned! 😀

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