Re: Alaris Cougar II - keyboard not recognized

Posted on 2023-01-17, 08:00

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does the keyboard controller from the board that doesn't recognize the keyboard work on the other one? If so, that would discard the chip being blown. Also, I assume you have checked for continuity across the fuse over the keyboard connector?

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2023-01-14, 22:24

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Hmm. JP20 1-2 means multiplier 4 for the Am5x86. Leaving it open gives multiplier 3. Your motherboard is rev 2.0, so JP20 serves another purpose since jumper settings are different than 1.x. So the best way to find the jumper is trying to figure out with a multimeter which pin of the JP16-22 jumper …

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2023-01-14, 18:27

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

So I think when S4 is not connected (from the CPU to the board, best done with an in-between-socket?) Vcc should be 5 volts. There is a jumper on VL/I motherboard that connects the VOLDET pin to the input of a 7407 whose output is in turn connected to a mosfet gate. This does the switching between …

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Re: Is this 5.25 floppy drive toasted?

Posted on 2023-01-12, 19:45

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

konc wrote on 2023-01-12, 15:39: I don't know if it matters, but why it's defined wrongly? (500KB DD) 500K is correct, it refers to the transfer rate for 1.2MB HD floppies, that is 500Kbits/sec.

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Re: Plugged in AT power supply P8/P9 in the wrong order. Am I screwed?

Posted on 2023-01-08, 05:39

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you didn't press the power button, there is no problem at all. Even if you did, decent power supplies will detect the short circuit and refuse to start. The problem is with dodgy power supplies without short circuit protection, those will cause a disaster in that case.

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Re: ECS Local Bus VGA card artifacting

Posted on 2023-01-08, 00:34

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Well, the bodge did the trick! The card is working perfectly again, it passes all VDIAG tests! Kudos to mkarcher for pinpointing the issue with such precision, I tip my hat to you sir. I still hate having a bodge wire on a board that looks like new but I really can't complain. I'll try and tidy it …

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Re: ECS Local Bus VGA card artifacting

Posted on 2023-01-07, 22:24

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Well, I have good news and not-so-good news. The good news is that the video card is probably fine. First of all, mkarcher you were absolutely right regarding how the data lines are handled. With a multimeter and some patience, I traced all 32 data lines from the ET4000AX chip to the F245 chips and …

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Re: ECS Local Bus VGA card artifacting

Posted on 2023-01-06, 22:10

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

So, here's the connections that I've been able to determine so far: VI-811_833_A8D8D24.jpg Looks like U23 would be the chip that handles D8 (at least is connected to the ISA D8 pin, not sure how this works in a local bus configuration), while the ISA A8 is connected to pin 2 of U31. Seems U23 could …

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Re: ECS Local Bus VGA card artifacting

Posted on 2023-01-06, 17:13

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Thanks for the responses guys! @mkarcher, you seem to be onto something here, I haven't had the time to pull out the card and do any checks, but during a boring work call I ran some tests using VDIAG, the testing software that was included with Tseng cards. And you are in fact correct: yellow text …

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ECS Local Bus VGA card artifacting

Posted on 2023-01-06, 08:47

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Recently I got this somewhat rare card: VI-811_833_large.jpg It looks like VLB but it's actually ECS Local Bus, one of several custom pre-VLB local bus implementations. It unfortunately uses exactly the same connector, which has likely caused some to mistake it for a VLB card, with possibly …

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Re: Hopefully simple question for SCSI heads!

Posted on 2022-12-29, 18:25

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This post claims that it is possible to boot from CD-ROM if you update the BIOS to v2.11. Normally you can't access the optical drive in DOS without loading the ASPI CD driver, but looks like this BIOS versions does allow booting?

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Re: Hopefully simple question for SCSI heads!

Posted on 2022-12-29, 01:58

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not sure about the AHA-1542CF as I don't have one, but on other Adaptec controllers you can enter the config utility (Ctrl+A) and select which IDs you want to include in the BIOS scan. By default all the IDs are set to "yes" so they will be scanned at boot, you can set all of them to "no" except for …

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2022-12-28, 18:46

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by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

Ya know, I've owned the game since release and have yet to install it. After viewing some YT footage of gameplay it just looks like GTA with some cyberpunk genre jewelry hanging off of it. Am I wrong? I was desperately hoping for more of a Blade Runner atmosphere. It seems like it plays out more …

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Re: Socket 4 motherboards/ Chipset comparison benchmarks Pentium 60 and 66Mhz (6 motherboards)

Posted on 2022-12-24, 07:44

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

To build a period correct pc, if we are talking about months, years, is not too easy 😀 Another issue with the socket4 builds, most of the boards sold in a 95 config - the socket7, cheap socket 3 cpus released, it was not a good offer anymore. So I would target the first part of 94 to build a decent …

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Re: Socket 4 motherboards/ Chipset comparison benchmarks Pentium 60 and 66Mhz (6 motherboards)

Posted on 2022-12-24, 06:02

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thx… similar benches looked for, i plan since a long time an early socket4 rig. There is one issue with the fast 93 pentium machine theory, the early pci mainboards came out in the very end of 93 or very early 94. The pcmag tested the branded machines just in jan of 94, the pci cards what they got …

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Re: 386 with 4GB?

Posted on 2022-12-21, 22:56

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The 4GB thing is just a consequence of the 386 being a 32-bit CPU, like every x86 from that point until the release of the 64-bit processors. I don't think any manufacturers came up with a way to support that amount of RAM because it would have been: horribly expensive, very challenging …

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Re: Overdrive socket, ICL Ergopro C4 33B?

Posted on 2022-12-21, 15:08

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's a Socket 1 actually (also known as the original "OverDrive" socket, that's why there's no "Socket 1" label on some of them). Sockets 2 and 3 have an additional outer row of pins for the Pentium Overdrive.

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Re: Asus P/I-P55SP4 cache not detected and stuck at 8MB no matter pair of SIMMs I use.

Posted on 2022-12-19, 03:59

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This is an image of the support disk from my P/I-P55TP4XE. It contains a version of PFLASH.EXE from March 15, 1995. Maybe it works on your board.

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Re: 486 board - no video

Posted on 2022-12-16, 21:52

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Any suggestions? Maybe I can put it on my Christmas list and one of the kids will buy it for me. 😁 Definitely the TL866 . It's relatively cheap, reliable and works with pretty much everything (except maybe older stuff like Commodore ROMs that need higher voltages). Also you can use it to test logic …

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Re: 486 board - no video

Posted on 2022-12-16, 19:53

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, it's quite strange. Personally I think the board is mostly fine... what happens if you try to turn it on without a video card? Do you get the AMI beep code for missing video consistently? There are indeed some boards that are quite finicky about what graphics cards they like, but usually in …

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