Re: VL/i-486sv2gx4 Bios flash problem

Posted on 2017-06-01, 15:59

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a non X4 version of that board (rev 1.8 ) and if I remember correctly it came with a UV-erasable EPROM, not a flash one. So it was not possible to flash the ROM with a tool like AWDFLASH. I had to use an EPROM programmer on a blank 27C512 chip.

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Re: Let's recap an AT power supply

Posted on 2017-05-28, 16:22

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Excellent job. I usually follow a similar approach when replacing capacitors, the little sheet of paper with the "map" and all that. Good tip about the fan grill! I have a question though: when you are browsing for replacement caps, how do you determine when to use Low ESR vs General Purpose? For …

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Re: Anyone find early 2.5 shooters had more charm than early 3D shooters?

Posted on 2017-05-24, 17:12

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by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

I remember when Wolf3D came out, we played it a lot on a friend's 386 (I didn't have a computer at that time). I was hooked. Then, shortly after we bought our first PC, Doom came out and I got the 2-disk shareware version from a friend at school... even though performance was not great on my 486SX …

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Re: my 486 gaming and multimedia machine

Posted on 2017-05-23, 23:35

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Nice! That case looks really clean! 486 + TV Tuner is really interesting! By the way, how hot does the 5x86 get with passive cooling? I thought a fan was kind of necessary for those...

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Re: Music Quest MPU clone cards, anyone interested in them?

Posted on 2017-05-18, 15:50

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Count me in for one of those! I already bought one from you but have another machine that would greatly benefit from it 😁

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Re: 486 cpu and cooling.

Posted on 2017-05-15, 17:40

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The retail overdrive DX2-66 came only with a small heatsink and no fan, and even the overdrive DX4-100 also used heatsink only, although a larger one. Maybe Intel chose more heat-tolerant chips for the overdrives, but they seem to be fine without a fan.

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Re: Are all Slot 1 P3 coolers the same?

Posted on 2017-05-08, 14:50

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

According to Wikipedia, the P3-450 (Katmai) has a TDP of 25.3W, while the P3-700 (Coppermine) has a TDP of 18.3W. So you would be perfectly OK by using the cooler of the P3-450 on the P3-700, assuming it is removable.

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Re: Bored of vintage computing?

Posted on 2017-05-06, 17:43

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by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

In my case, vintage computing is not about collecting or hoarding stuff I won't ever use. I use what I have, get what I need and keep a few spares just in case, I was never interested in getting rare hardware to have it in display somewhere. This keeps me from becoming overwhelmed and tired of these …

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Re: Problem with my ISA I/O card

Posted on 2017-05-05, 19:37

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a couple of Biostar 486 motherboards that fail to boot when they have no CMOS battery. Even though they appear to be remembering the FDD settings correctly, they get stuck while booting with the light on like it's happening to you, or in some cases it fails POST with "FDC controller error". …

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Re: Modern technology and lifestyle

Posted on 2017-05-04, 03:51

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by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

Modern technology has definitely improved certain things, fast Internet access and HD TVs among other things are great. I do have a modern smartphone, but barely use any apps other than the basic phone/mail/WhatsApp... I just think all this mobile app craze has filled the world with lots of useless …

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Re: Why is my 1MB ISA GPU slower than my 512KB ISA GPU?

Posted on 2017-05-03, 00:31

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Don't know about the performance, but that Tseng card has 512KB of RAM. Each chip is 256K x 4 bit = 128KB, so with the 4 chips you have 512KB. Also, it seems to have sockets to expand the RAM to 1MB.

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Re: 486 Motherboard Identification

Posted on 2017-05-02, 22:05

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

According to this site, the manufacturer is: 8005 AVT Industrial Ltd. http://www.avt.com.hk/ Not very helpful, so your best bet is trying to find your board in TH99: http://www.uncreativelabs.de/th99/m/m486_i1.htm http://www.uncreativelabs.de/th99/m/m486_i2.htm

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2017-05-02, 05:09

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

this board is so clone of clone As kithylin said, this was a very common thing in that era. Most of us probably used these nameless clones at some point. i have no clue of what U24 is, why they included jumpers for 3.3v and then they note that you need a regulator>? U24 is the component right above …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2017-05-01, 20:07

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The vast majority of 486 motherboards produced during this era were either made by chinese clone companies or random taiwanese companies no one's ever heard of before and there is no "branded" models for any of em and you probably won't find documentation for most of em. That's just the nature of …

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Re: Acer/AOpen VI15G - DX4 compatible model?

Posted on 2017-04-30, 01:24

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, you can see in the photo that it has a voltage regulator, so that revision supports the DX4 and other 3 volt processors. The jumper settings for those were on the AOpen site, though I don't have the link at hand right now (mbarron.net only has the 5V CPU settings). EDIT: found the link ftp:// …

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Re: Can you still write general purpose assembly programs on modern OSes?

Posted on 2017-04-26, 19:52

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by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

Yes, you can. Although on any OS with at least minimal security your program still needs to use system calls for executing privileged instructions in kernel space. This means that the executable file will not be a plain binary like a DOS .COM file but instead will have a header, relocation metadata …

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Re: Question about games for MS-DOS

Posted on 2017-04-26, 19:05

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by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

I don't know how much info you can get from the executable binary unless you're searching for something really specific, but in addition to Microsoft C other popular C compilers of the time were Borland Turbo C or Watcom C, so you may also find references to those in other executables, depending on …

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Re: Let's restore my 486 motherboard - AOpen Vi11

Posted on 2017-04-26, 02:26

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You know, now that you mention this, I experienced a similar issue: a few years ago I got a crappy Unichip-based VLB motherboard with a leaking battery. The corrosion wasn't too bad so I cleaned it and it POSTed right away, installed DOS and a few other tools without issue. Then, when I fired up …

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Re: Wobbly motherboards in AT cases

Posted on 2017-04-26, 02:00

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I recall having that problem with one of those tiny 486 PCI motherboards I had during the mid 90s. The mounting holes in the board only matched with one brass standoff in the case, while the rest had to use those plastic standoffs. The motherboard on its own did not stay in place when the case was …

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Re: Let's restore my 486 motherboard - AOpen Vi11

Posted on 2017-04-24, 03:34

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Secondly - I am sad to report that I am experiencing freezing/graphical glitches/reboots in Wolfenstein 3-D (like 15 seconds) of game play unless I disable external cache. It is my original cache from 1993! Reseating the chips made no difference. Played a level and a half with no cache, and it …

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