Re: Motherboard diagnostic cards: recommendations?

Posted on 2023-02-26, 21:03

by

by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

They all come from China... I've bought mines from Aliexpress, I found 3 versions: The first which was the best (and I lost it), had the manual with all the codes for ami, award and phoenix bios. The second one had 2 segments led instead of 4 and fewer lesds to check the voltage (a stripped down …

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Re: Amstrad 5.25 floppy drive compatible with 386?

Posted on 2023-02-26, 03:59

by

by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Back talking about the floppy drive, I somewhat fear it might be a 360kb drive (despite it shouldn't be due to age). Anyway I actually have 2 floppy disks 5.25, both seems to be low density. Also the first time I tried to put in the following disk, it was read fine, but the second time... boom, …

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Re: Pentium 3 (Coppermine) Motherboard comparison

Posted on 2023-02-26, 00:52

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by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

BUMP, after 2 years let's update the comparison. In a very unsuccessful topic, I briefly explained the difference between Abit ST6 against Asus TUSL2-C, then I decided to take them out from closet again and do the very same testing (with same configuration) as the other motherboards. Next step if I …

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Re: ACER E-5 91212 ISA what's the use of this card?

Posted on 2023-02-25, 11:07

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by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Good news everyone! The guess about 8\16 was right, changing the jumper made the card use 8 bit isa. That's not the end of the story The hw\sw switch did the trick! Switching from SW to HW made the card enable or disable the stuff according to the jumpers! So the plot tickens there was probably a …

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Re: ACER E-5 91212 ISA what's the use of this card?

Posted on 2023-02-24, 22:37

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by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It reports 2 com ports (2F8H and 3F8H) and 1 lpt port (378H). I switched the jumpers of all com ports but checkit still shows the same result, 2 com ports and 1 lpt. Just under the Acer chip there is another jumper which says: HW\SW and it's actually set for SW setting. Just for the sake of …

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Re: ACER E-5 91212 ISA what's the use of this card?

Posted on 2023-02-24, 21:00

by

by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I took the other card, the vga chip is an ATI 28800-5. There are 2 jumpers with envga, one is labelled j11 while the other is near the lowest memory socket, they both need to be switched to make the vga enabled, it has 512kb of video memory as suggested. I also took off the jumpers the hdd enable …

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ACER E-5 91212 ISA what's the use of this card?

Posted on 2023-02-24, 20:12

by

by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

On my first and probably last dump I've been given 2 of those cards: IMG_20230224_202830_cr2.jpg I've tried to hook it up but as video card won't work (probably because the ram sockets are not populated), it also takes the control of floppy drive and the hard drive. Is it a all in one card? Why …

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Re: Amstrad 5.25 floppy drive compatible with 386?

Posted on 2023-02-24, 14:29

by

by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The jp3 was set for keyboard control, since the jp1 is hard wired on the same way I thought to have a full speed or very low speed. The problem with this computer is that with the provided mfm card now the hard drive works like a charme (a mfm without any bad sector!), I was able to achieve such …

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Re: Amstrad 5.25 floppy drive compatible with 386?

Posted on 2023-02-24, 13:59

by

by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are you kidding me? The fact that your mainboard already has a cr2032 battery holder soldered onto the location where the varta battery normally is located would indicate leaking issues do exist if the battery isn't removed before leaking. I will have to disappoint you, the motherboard always had …

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Re: Amstrad 5.25 floppy drive compatible with 386?

Posted on 2023-02-24, 11:18

by

by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are you kidding me? The fact that your mainboard already has a cr2032 battery holder soldered onto the location where the varta battery normally is located would indicate leaking issues do exist if the battery isn't removed before leaking. I will have to disappoint you, the motherboard always had …

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Re: Amstrad 5.25 floppy drive compatible with 386?

Posted on 2023-02-24, 10:04

by

by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I had another idea, but apparently doesn't work. The mfm card is this one: https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-disk-floppy-controllers/E-H/EVEREX-SYSTEMS-INC-Two-MFM-ST506-drives-EV-332.html Since the hard drive works, while floppy doesn't, what happens if I add an isa super i\o card? I took a Gold …

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Asus TUSL2-C vs Abit ST6 which is better?

Posted on 2023-02-23, 16:39

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by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hello, I've bought some time ago the abit st6 which was in very bad conditions, probably kept in a barn with some water leakage, bulging caps and so on. I asked for a recap (polymod actually) and it was ready to get back on business. Then a friend gave me a pc which inside I found the most wanted …

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Re: Amstrad 5.25 floppy drive compatible with 386?

Posted on 2023-02-23, 08:10

by

by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That definitely makes sense but those modern design using vintage parts are usually very expensive. Probably the motherboard has some quirks and the only tool I have is a multimeter :p That being said step forward have been made since now it boots fine every time, it boots on a freshly installed …

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Re: Amstrad 5.25 floppy drive compatible with 386?

Posted on 2023-02-22, 13:45

by

by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm going to give up for today. I was able to boot with mfm hard drive on the pc, it boots fine constantly, I installed a new isa videocard, no video errors nor checkit shows any visual glitch, but then there is another issue, the floppy drive stopped working. I tried several (which worked before on …

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Re: Amstrad 5.25 floppy drive compatible with 386?

Posted on 2023-02-22, 09:19

by

by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you for the guide. Funny enough the replacement cpu I ordered was from Poland :) That being said, I have some updates: After some swearing, removing and putting back cards on the pc, I was able to make it constantly boot without hanging, so I plugged the isa eide card and I was able to get to …

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Re: Amstrad 5.25 floppy drive compatible with 386?

Posted on 2023-02-22, 07:21

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by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

plenty of metal left for a fix - you dremel out the plastic above to uncover it :) With the new cpu the behaviour is even more erratic, most of the times the pc doesn't boot, the diagnostic card throws random numbers, while with the old cpu it was booting consistently. If I ship the cpu to you, …

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Re: Amstrad 5.25 floppy drive compatible with 386?

Posted on 2023-02-21, 21:46

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by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I already bought a new 286 cpu and mounted it, the old one had almost none metal left on the broken pin: Filename IMG_20230221_222428_cr.jpg File size 169.07 KiB Views 541 views

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Re: Amstrad 5.25 floppy drive compatible with 386?

Posted on 2023-02-21, 19:57

by

by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So we are back on business good people. Where we were? The mfm card seems to be the problem since with an eide sd card the pc booted fine without any visual glitch. It's the only mfm card that I have (and do not plan to buy another just for this pc). Any test I can do to check the mfm card only?

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Re: Strangely Slow DOS Benchmarks - Slot 1 and Socket 370

Posted on 2023-02-13, 21:05

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by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I suggest to try Restart in md-dos mode after boot on windows and check if there is a performance difference. I remember there was a topic about similar issue with via chipset for slot1\socket 370

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Re: Different system memory region in use from boot to boot

Posted on 2023-02-13, 13:06

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by Nemo1985

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I will do this test when I get back home and report the result. The system is obviously at since it's a 486, I will shut off the pc after booting for several time.

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