Re: Am I crippling my preformance

Posted on 2020-01-08, 16:52

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

USD 200 for a good SS7 board? Maybe on eBay, but on Amibay or Craigslist you should be able to do better than that... last one I sourced was EUR 25 on our local Craigslist-alternative (a nice Asus P5A). That said, with an Athlon 700 there's no need whatsoever to boost this one to max performance, in …

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Re: Unidentified System (Graduate)

Posted on 2020-01-08, 16:43

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's an XT clone all right :) What I can tell about the cards: - the first card (closest to the drives) is an I/O + floppy controller. - second card has a "104866" part number. That implies a Xebec 1210C MFM HDD controller. - third card is a memory card. Can't make out chips on it or on …

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Re: Am I crippling my preformance

Posted on 2020-01-08, 16:26

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I hadn't thought of that, I'll try 6x75,it's rated as a 450mhz and it's a plus chip. That 'plus' makes it a whole different ballgame :o Those will almost all clock to >600MHz, regardless of what the advertised speed is. 83x6=500 should work fine if board & cards can handle it. That said, 100x6 will …

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Re: PC-3200 2GB DIMM Non-ECC, does it exist?

Posted on 2020-01-08, 15:04

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

They exist, but are pretty pointless. The i865/i875 were Intel's last pure DDR1 chipsets, and both supported max 512Mb chip densities, so max 1GB unbuffered DIMMs. AMD's So939 Athlon64 CPUs were the last AMD DDR1 memory controllers and also did max 512Mb, so max 1GB. The only chipsets I can find …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-01-08, 12:55

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So guys, i got the chance to buy a cheap Matrox G450. I know, this is weak than G400 but will be a step-up than a g200 and maybe a tnt1/m64? If you currently have a G200 it could boost performance a bit, but where a G400 about equal a TNT2 (and the G400Max can beat a TNT2-Ultra in some benchmarks), …

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Re: Am I crippling my preformance

Posted on 2020-01-08, 09:01

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

i430TX has better clock-for-clock memory performance than any of the 'Super' So7 chipsets - but that won't offset the much bigger difference due to 50% faster FSB and RAM access. But... This is a K6-3, with its own L2 cache at full speed, regardless of bus. That significantly reduces the impact of …

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Re: PC-3200 2GB DIMM Non-ECC, does it exist?

Posted on 2020-01-07, 23:31

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not sure I ever saw any, but even if they do, they won't help you :o The HP D530 has an Intel 865G chipset. As its datasheet indicates: The memory bank address lines and the address lines allow the GMCH to support 64-bit wide x8 and x16 DIMMs using 128-Mb, 256-Mb, and 512-Mb SDRAM technology. Max …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-01-07, 00:53

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Very nice price, those Mach32 cards tend to go for more than that alone, and a CT1600 (which is overrated IMHO, but that just makes it more collectible) not far behind.

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

Posted on 2020-01-07, 00:51

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

derSammler wrote on 2020-01-06, 21:05: Here's a picture of the current stack with a floppy disk as size reference. In there are 46 CPUs. And yes, that stack of CPUs is insanely heavy already. That is a work of utter practical beauty 😀

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Re: How to SETUP a Pentium Overdrive

Posted on 2020-01-06, 22:37

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For that price and from China, I would not expect to get a real Cyrix 5x86. The pictures look fishy already, with odd horizontal scratch lines and the text "5x86-100GP" being wavy. In that case they've done their best with the bottom, because that checks out perfectly (compare to this): cyrix_5x86_ …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-01-06, 22:23

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think that it is important to show that you can find good stuff for cheap if you are patient, lucky and friendly. So you already tested all cards and they all work? Because that's often the problem. People sell you crap even for high amounts of money. When buying whatever cards for 1€ each, I …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-01-06, 14:11

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Who can spot the cards that caught my attention? (One is very easy, the other one not too difficult either) :smile: According to the seller, most of the stuff should work (and there was quite a bit more in the lot that isn't in this picture) so I decided to get it for 55€ shipped. I suppose …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-01-06, 13:12

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@FluffyBunnyFeet The ibm model F is designed for XT class machines only. It won't work in anything but, without a converter. [...] XT- and AT-type keyboards used different signalling and aren't compatible. Your 486 is expecting an AT keyboard & can't use this one natively. There's a good chance it …

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Re: AMD K7 Slot A 1000 Orion 512KB Cache working, Slot A 1000 Thunderbird 256KB Cache NOT

Posted on 2020-01-06, 12:45

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

about 11% in actual game performance: Which is not "miles away". And that is in the most CPU intensive game of their time. 11% is a pretty major difference between otherwise very similar CPUs, indeed it's bigger than the difference between Thunderbird and Coppermine, and the same order of …

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Re: info about "Am5x86-P75 AMD AM486DX5-133W16BHC Chip"

Posted on 2020-01-06, 09:07

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hey all. I have one of these versions of the Am5x86-P75 (refer to photo!) Any idea what the cut wires lead to? My guess is an old fan that was cut off as it is an Evergreen Overdrive model. I appreciate any insight before I fire it up. Edit: Does the WB/WT cache option on this chip itself refer to …

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Re: Intresting Motherboard

Posted on 2020-01-06, 09:02

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have got this motherboard http://support.pcpartner.com/support/man/via/895400.pdf and according to this page http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm with newest 2mbit BIOS it should support also AMD K6+ processors. However, there are no jumper settings for those CPUs in manual :-/ …

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Re: Dual CPU system

Posted on 2020-01-06, 08:45

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I just tried to ask: [...] If I build a system with server parts and beat, with a great gap, the 468 and 462 builds in games: Is it cool, or not? But before buying the parts, I'm asking you about the expected peformance, cause, If the answers were negative, I can forget the idea. Right now, I think …

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Re: Good brands/models of early 90's PCs to collect?

Posted on 2020-01-06, 01:30

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by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I own a handful of early to mid 90's PCs but decided not to use my original IBM PCs anymore for actual gaming because I want to leave them in original condition and that means not adding better sound cards or CD drives which sucks for actual gaming. My main DOS rig right now is my HP Vectra which …

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Re: AMD K7 Slot A 1000 Orion 512KB Cache working, Slot A 1000 Thunderbird 256KB Cache NOT

Posted on 2020-01-06, 01:06

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If it's not stable, maybe there are some capacitors to blame. Also it's possible that CPU voltage drops too low under load, which cause instability. Try to increase voltage. Thunderbird was miles ahead of Orion Thunderbird is not miles away. L2 cache performance is only marginally better. Also it …

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Re: AMD K7 Slot A 1000 Orion 512KB Cache working, Slot A 1000 Thunderbird 256KB Cache NOT

Posted on 2020-01-05, 15:12

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The Thunderbird SlotA doesn't work with VIA KX133. With change from Orion to Thunderbird AMD changed something in the bus interface (from "open-drain" to "push-pull"). Chipsets which provide push-pull: VIA KT133, VIA KM133, AMD760. There were some late hardware-modified (a workarround to emulate …

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