Re: Slim Floppy Drive to Normal Motherboard?

Posted on 2023-11-22, 17:31

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For cables that do what you're trying to do, you could check out Optiplex floppy drive cables. Those often used slim FDD and have a regular 34-pin connector - I've used a couple of them in my builds over the years and they work nicely. The part code is 04N093 or 7F455: Dell-7F455-floppy-cable.jpg …

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Re: Faulty Voodoo 2?

Posted on 2023-11-22, 16:56

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I have a basically pristine Creative Voodoo 2 CT6670. Looks like it´s never been used. It has EXACTLY the same error log with mojo as Donut King back in 2019 with his card. FBI Memory shows 0 MB and TMU PowerOn Sense is 0xdead. Has anybody an idea what causes this? For diagnostics output from the …

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Re: Faulty/Dead TSENG ET4000AX Card ...

Posted on 2023-11-22, 16:44

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Thanks for sharing the additional pictures, that helps a lot :) You say it remains dead, does that mean no VGA output or the BIOS gives the "no VGA" beep code error? It seems to be very tough to find any information on your particular card, the closest I've been able to find is this one: …

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Re: 3Dfx Voodoo 1 - Low level hardware information and diagnostics thread

Posted on 2023-11-22, 01:13

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Thanks for this information. I had some success repairing my Diamond Monster card earlier this year. There is software You can check the Ram chips but need a PCI card that has expansion slots. https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=92761 I still have a friends card to repair and all RAM chips …

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

Posted on 2023-11-21, 23:30

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Aging capacitors can also cause memory errors and graphical glitches. https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=87035 Hehe, this particular 3Dfx card doesn't have a single electrolytic capacitor, take a look :) It's a complete trainwreck: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=1212923#p1212923 It …

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Re: 3Dfx Voodoo 1 - Low level hardware information and diagnostics thread

Posted on 2023-11-21, 21:31

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Wow, 18 months ago I forgot I made this picture when I was first troubleshooting my £20 trainwreck Voodoo 1 reference design card: 3dfx-reference-design-vgaswitch.png This is from the PI5C-3384Q datasheet since that's one of the first parts I was fixing. Should be the same on most designs that use …

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Re: Faulty/Dead TSENG ET4000AX Card ...

Posted on 2023-11-21, 21:19

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Could you get a front lit picture in higher resolution? Also, where's the RAM?

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

Posted on 2023-11-21, 20:04

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Lol now I'm getting lighting glitches and out of place polygons on this Voodoo 1, guess now the framebuffer memory is having some trouble... I did clean the flux and in doing so probably dislodged yet another chip leg. I wish I had the patience and skill to even attempt to do repairs like that. …

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

Posted on 2023-11-20, 18:30

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Lol now I'm getting lighting glitches and out of place polygons on this Voodoo 1, guess now the framebuffer memory is having some trouble... I did clean the flux and in doing so probably dislodged yet another chip leg.

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

Posted on 2023-11-20, 18:05

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Wah, I've been buying broken 3DFX cards for a while to see if I can fix them. Today I was looking over a Voodoo 1 that I'd bought last year and I could never get it to do anything. It would only report 0xDEAD for the TMU status with 57005 TMUs. I'd thought it was down to a broken pin since there …

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Re: Micronics 09-00065-52 386 motherboard BIOS issue

Posted on 2023-11-20, 17:50

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What beep codes is it giving? If a computer doesn't boot but is beeping that means the CPU is running BIOS code to send beeps to the PC speaker - so it may not be a BIOS issue. Another way to verify would be to use an POST card and see what codes it's giving. If the codes match up with the AMI / …

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Re: Magenta output on ps/2 30 286

Posted on 2023-11-20, 14:40

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Congratulations on the fix :) I had a similar problem with a 386SX that would only run the display when the RAMDAC area was heated up. Putting a generic replacement in its place worked: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=63&p=1155084 And now the display is fixed. I guess some of the early RAMDAC …

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Re: What is this machine (odd clone laptop - 486 dx66)

Posted on 2023-11-19, 18:15

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just keep it running / powered for a while to see if the CMOS battery recovers. That one's got a small (12mm diameter) rechargeable cell which you can see in the brown heatshrink just by the piezo speaker near the front edge of the laptop's motherboard. That should not be replaced with a CR2032 non- …

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Re: Toshiba Tecra 550CDT HDD ribbon cable

Posted on 2023-11-19, 18:05

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Okay the Tecra was out today so I measured all the pins, here's what it looks like: HDD-flex-cable-pinout.png Hope that helps, you can usually get the flex cables working by putting some enamel wire to fix the breaks (hang on... you have the flex cable, you can do this visually anyway but whatever) …

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Re: Need help with Intel Professional/GX Workstation L486

Posted on 2023-11-17, 22:36

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Since there's no wires in that system for the front panel, my guess is that the PC speaker is located inside the power supply possibly? That's probably why the PSU connector has extra pins, it would need them to add speaker, LEDs and reset buttons.

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Re: 3Dfx Voodoo 1 - Low level hardware information and diagnostics thread

Posted on 2023-11-16, 23:31

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

If you give me a potential pinout I can make an initial pinout picture for you :) Just 16 pins between the two I am trying to figure out why my Orchid Righteous 3D only sees 1MB on the TMU when I can't see any bad pins. I am wondering if perhaps I reconfigured one of the strap resistors - I did most …

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

Posted on 2023-11-15, 16:58

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Check the Service Manual here: https://dl.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_laptop/esuprt_latitude_laptop/latitude-cpx-h_service%20manual_en-us.pdf On page 31 (39 in the PDF) it shows how to replace the reserve battery, that's the ~6v nimh pack that likes to leak - it's hiding inside the palm …

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Re: 3Dfx Voodoo 1 - Low level hardware information and diagnostics thread

Posted on 2023-11-15, 16:50

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Wow, thank you for checking that, that's amazing that the pinout is the same :) That's quite interesting that the TT bus is potentially just used to send the TMU's data back to the frame buffer and the FT bus is shared - that must be why there are FT address pins, to address data to each of the TMUs …

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3Dfx Voodoo 1 - Low level hardware information and diagnostics thread

Posted on 2023-11-15, 03:26

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by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The Voodoo 1 was the first 3d accelerator I had, I skipped the Voodoo2 so the Voodoo 1 is the one I have more interest in - I still don't have enough Voodoo II for an SLI setup as well ;) It seems that unlike the Voodoo 3 and perhaps the Banshee, there's very little definitive information on the …

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Re: Replacement PCI bracket for Voodoo 1? (Diamond Multimedia)

Posted on 2023-11-15, 01:27

by

by Thermalwrong

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I made a 3d printed one the other day for the one of the 3DFX Voodoo 1 reference card I bought for parts, which didn't come with one: 3d printed 3dfx bracket (1).JPG 3d printed 3dfx bracket (2).JPG I intend to share it but haven't done so yet. Consider as well, those metal brackets are newly made ' …

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