Re: FIC PA-2007 Performance Bottleneck

Posted on 2021-03-04, 12:22

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Attachment seems missing. Attachment now seems added Tbh though, Speedsys is a very artificial benchmark. If Doom runs fine - Doom runs fine, and if everything else you actually intend to use runs fine, then whatever is causing a single low benchmark is not impacting in actual use and not really a …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-03-03, 21:22

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...] Always loved those orb coolers... shame about their thermal performance - least they look nice :) They also made a hell of a lot of noise, particularly in relation to their thermals. But if they're not being used much that's less of an issue, and a spare fan controller can do miracles keeping …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-03-03, 17:01

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Happy day! Filename 16147904297280.jpg File size 175.21 KiB Views 1643 views A more-or-less local PC shop was clearing out their stock room and found piles of 20-year old stuff, particularly cooling equipment. So, NOS Zalman CNPS coolers galore, and a Golden Orb as I already had one and think they …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-03-03, 14:08

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I bought a 333MHz Celeron but was sent a 266MHz Pentium 2. If the seller gives me the option to keep or send back I was wondering what CPU was likely to be faster? I've got a 66FSB Slot 1 system. Mendocino cache was smaller but faster. At the same clock, it was neck-and-neck with a Deschutes P2 or …

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Re: Asus P5A v1.06 - ALi Aladdin V with 1MB of Cache! (Full Review / Optimization Guide)

Posted on 2021-03-03, 13:56

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just for clarification: are all 1.06 revision P5As provided with 1MB cache, or is it rare even within that revision? Edit: to answer my own question - nope. Pics of 1.06 showing 512kB cache chips abound.

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Re: Candian soundcard oddity : Videoquip Dave-2000 (circa 1994?)

Posted on 2021-03-03, 13:54

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Tiido wrote on 2021-03-03, 12:52: This doesn't look like it'll have any sort of DOS games compatibility. I'm pretty sure it is some speech synthesis card for a dedicated software environment. Wouldn't the Soundport at least give WSS support, if addressable via common WSS resources?

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Re: Help getting more than one Sound Card to play nicely in DOS

Posted on 2021-03-03, 13:52

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Oetker has the right of it. Unisound is a DOS sound card driver written by a Vogons member Jazefox. It can be used as a simple one-size-fits- all many way to get ISA PnP sound cards working. OK, then would have been helpful to at least mention you were raising SET BLASTER in context of Unisound. …

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Re: Help getting more than one Sound Card to play nicely in DOS

Posted on 2021-03-03, 12:19

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

[...] Quick question before I launch into any longer explanations: Are you familiar with the "SET BLASTER" variable in Autoexec.bat, at all? SET BLASTER doesn't set anything in the hardware... I think Shreddoc mentioned that because Unisound uses the BLASTER settings to configure the sound card. …

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Re: Help getting more than one Sound Card to play nicely in DOS

Posted on 2021-03-03, 09:18

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

[...] Quick question before I launch into any longer explanations: Are you familiar with the "SET BLASTER" variable in Autoexec.bat, at all? SET BLASTER doesn't set anything in the hardware, it's just sets the DOS environment variable BLASTER so software reading that variable know where to find the …

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Re: Have you desolder things from trash boards to fix things

Posted on 2021-03-03, 08:34

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

douglar wrote on 2021-03-03, 04:02: dionb wrote on 2021-03-02, 23:11: If it's still in good shape and I need it: hell yeah. Why do I feel like this quote originated with Dr Frankenstein ? Not consciously, but... if I could, I would 😉 Computers are just semi-stable constellations of spare parts. You …

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Re: Have you desolder things from trash boards to fix things

Posted on 2021-03-02, 23:11

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If it's still in good shape and I need it: hell yeah. In fact currently actively looking for some dead stuff to scavenge hard-to-find parts (SCSI terminator resistor networks...)

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Re: ISA NIC on WIN2000

Posted on 2021-03-02, 00:02

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

NE2000 was 16b ISA non-PnP 10Mbps, RTL8139 a ubiquitous PCI 10/100Mbps design. Cheap and workmanlike, with no CPU offloading, but generally reliable enough. Whatever problem OP has, it's not generic RTL8139, so either a bug in his board design, or it's just damaged.

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Re: ISA NIC on WIN2000

Posted on 2021-03-01, 23:36

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Focus on the 3Com, it's best supported. 3C509(B) cards can be set to PnP or fixed resources. Most people use fixed. Given it's not auto-detected that's probably the case with your cards. To read out current resources and/or set new ones, you need the 3C5X9CFG.EXE tool which runs under DOS. So make a …

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Re: Soundblaster AWE32 CT3670 One Channel problem

Posted on 2021-03-01, 16:54

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Probably a typo for C146, an SMD cap just next to the damaged part of the PCB.

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Re: Video Card prices

Posted on 2021-03-01, 11:59

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Well china isn't going to allow crypto currency. And at anypoint the EU or US central bank could just ban it. Theres nothing stopping them Banning something doesn't make it go away. See how well the War on Drugs turned out. China may not allow it, but if you purchase something in China on the Dark …

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

Posted on 2021-02-28, 21:15

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Main activity today was supervising my son's completion of his first soldering project (a simple digital clock). Had to do a few little reworks after he lifted a bunch of pads on two LEDs and a transistor, but nothing a few bodge wires couldn't solve. He's doing a lot better than I was age 8. But …

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Re: Is this a good card?

Posted on 2021-02-28, 00:58

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

[...] Not sure if it works. I went to pick up four beige towers and he asked if i wanted some other stuff. Walked away with 14 mobos, three video cards tseng et4000, mach 64, and this. Some new in box super socket 7, socket7 boards, socket 3 maybe. Some boards had cpu's pentium overdrive, a 486 dx, …

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Re: Ultimate Packard Bell P3 / Voodoo3

Posted on 2021-02-28, 00:04

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Update a few months on. Found another one again. And I hit paydirt :) - no artefacting - came with Coppermine CPU, happily works with that and other CuMine CPUs - runs solid at 133MHz FSB - the P3-600E it came with does 6x133=800 effortlessly. - also rock-solid with Tualatin on Upgradeware Slot-T …

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Re: Do you have SoYO branded motherboards?

Posted on 2021-02-27, 18:56

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

PC Chips boards were fine too for the most part. The shop I worked at back then used to sell tons of budget machines with PC Chips boards with very few failures. Trick was to not use the cheapest possible PSU's. There were some decent boards, but all had wafer-thin PCB, cheapest possible specs of …

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Re: PS/2 Port Stopped Working

Posted on 2021-02-27, 14:00

by

by dionb

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Let's see... The mouse in known-good on other system, so it's definitely port-side. Also, the mouse initializes itself with power- on, which suggests that +5V and GND are fine. That leaves two suspecst: CLK and DATA. First thing to do is to check continuity between the port/bracked and the header on …

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