Unable to maintain I/O port assignment

Posted on 2018-06-23, 06:09

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As if there weren't enough reasons to hate IRQ/DMA/PORT stuff... I am trying to get all my cards to play nice with each other but they simply refuse to stay the way I set them. I clear my BIOS by removing the battery and putting it back in place. Then I go to the Peripherals section in my BIOS and …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-19, 18:07

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I can't read the entire thread now, but have you actually tried benchmarking the system? Phil's VGA benchmark should be a pretty good tool to find out if you've got a speed deficiency, try some of the later 3D tests such as Quake and PC Player Benchmark. A CPU can't be half-dead. It either works or …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-19, 18:05

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The mobo provides only "BIOS default" or "SETUP default", what I used was "BIOS default" and I had no performance issue with that. But who knows, maybe the CMOS holds some hidden feature that a "BIOS" or "SETUP" default won't reset, but the mobo uses a DALLAS accumulator, so clearing that is going …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-19, 16:57

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The CPU speed is reported at POST. As for the power reduction, you can enable/disable this within the bios in the power management setup. Yeah the speed is reporting 133 everywhere I check. I can look at the jumpers 1 more time anyway. All that power reduction stuff I disabled in the BIOS but... …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-19, 15:07

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

To my knowledge I can't disable it from the BIOS... it's supposed to be open circuit for OFF right?

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-19, 13:45

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are you sure nothing's connected to the header that could trigger the green pc feature ? For no particular reason I had connected the turbo switch to it, which then had a solid light at all times so when I started diagnosing this speed issue I disconnected it from the MB header. It currently …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-19, 02:03

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well... I guess it's over. I flashed the BIOS to the latest version and I'm still getting the same score. I guess something on the board or the CPU is damaged. Odd that the computer should work fine in every way but just at 60% speed. Oh well. I guess I should be grateful that it works at all. DX5 …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-18, 21:28

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I did run speedsys using the same mobo, the same CPU (pentium 120) and a similar video card (ATi RAGE 2 +DVD with 4MB of RAM) and here are the results : HOT557.gif I also tested several configs like disabling L1 cache which made the score to reach the 20's, disabling the L2 cache which had no …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-18, 15:21

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not totally sure how realistic the OP's goals are for the 2-megabyte ATI 3D Rage II. You definitely need proper hardware acceleration, like a Voodoo Graphics, for those types of games. More and more it's seeming to be not very realistic. However, I've tried to operate on the assumption that my …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-18, 03:17

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Again, I think you are simply expecting too much of your system. You have a good 1995/96 pre-voodoo system ideal for duke nukem and that era of games. The rage 2 and pentium 133 simply can't play those sorts of games you're interested in In this benchmark, they are getting 10fps in Mechwarrior 2 …

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Re: Trouble playing System Shock XMIs through Sound Blaster Pro 2

Posted on 2018-06-18, 01:49

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Hello, I am trying to play the System Shock XMI files through a Sound Blaster Pro 2, but I am having many problems getting the files to play correctly through any OPL chip. I have all of the XMI files from System Shock, as well as cit.opl. I have tried using xplay from AIL2, as well as the MIDIPAK …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-18, 00:31

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As has been mentioned several times previously, the ISA SCSI card is a no-go. ... Everything is pointing to a bottleneck that is not the CPU, Cache, RAM, or Video Card. I have to disagree. As evidenced by the fact that I completely gutted my computer, including its SCSI card, and got the exact same …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-17, 19:17

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not sure what else to do except to remove everything as suggested earlier and see if that fixes it. Why not just do it? It only takes a few minutes to remove all cards except for the video card. With all drives and cards removed, just boot from a DOS floppy and have speedsys or some other small …

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Re: ESS AudioDrive ES1868F Loud glitchy distortion

Posted on 2018-06-15, 02:01

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by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I have tried DMA 1, but not the others, so I'll give that a shot tonight. Do you know how to disable the wavetable? The installer just asks what port I want it on. Is there a port that disables it? I might have been mistaken about the hardware toggle for the wavetable. It is merely controlled …

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Re: ESS AudioDrive ES1868F Loud glitchy distortion

Posted on 2018-06-14, 20:29

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I was going to say, try DMA 1/5 (low/high) and IRQ 5, PORT 220h, disable the IDE interface, disable wavetable if you're not using it and disable the amplifier. Then go to your mixer settings in the config.sys and zero out anything you don't need like mic or line in. The less stuff that's on, the …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-14, 19:39

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well that speed might not be normal, but that doesn't mean this is the PCI that is being slow. Since the whole computer is slow, maybe that's just another symptom and not the cause of it. By the way, since I have the exact same board, and a 3D rage II+DVD (so close enough), I could dig mine out of …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-14, 15:30

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've determined that this page (http://vintage3d.org/rage2.php#sthash.cE2dVGSC.dpbs) is a good reference for me to follow, to see if my card is functioning properly. I think it's pretty clear from the benchmarks he ran, that it isn't putting out at full speed. He talks about his "clocking tools" and …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-14, 15:04

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Isn't this just the video memory speed ? If I'm correct, then it's doing fine. If not, try to clean the slot ? Have you tried to remove anything that's not needed and is L1 cache enabled in the BIOS ? I think you should also disable any power reduction feature in the bios I don't remember having a …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-14, 04:23

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by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ozzuneoj: Oh for sure but I'm talking about FPS in the high single digits at best. I just played Wipeout again and it's barely managing the illusion of motion (often achieved with 6 FPS) except in the tunnel areas. It's almost as though the PCI bus is the problem... 30MB/sec transfer for the video …

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Re: Something is slowing my machine down

Posted on 2018-06-14, 02:14

by

by Gahhhrrrlic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ok so... With the BIOS as it was, speedsys score was 63 (between an AM5x86 @ 133 and a genuine P133 score) With L2 cache turned off this drops to 43 (lost 33%) With internal cache turned off it's down to 14.8 (lost like 80%) so it definitely appears as though the cache is doing its job. The case has …

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