Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-12-17, 18:41

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bought a curious looking mb. I expect it to be a dual socket 5. Pending further investigations though as the left socket heatsink seems to be permanently attached. Filename B0CCA375-F39D-4E00-81E9-D1E51597218B.jpeg File size 1001.2 KiB Views 1407 views

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Re: Socket 4 board not booting - need help

Posted on 2021-12-15, 14:13

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It might have a problem detecing hard drive or booting from it (if preconfigured in setup). I'd make sure to put the most conservative settings (incl. disabling L2 cache). Remove any other cards if installed. Double check disk setting or, even better, remove hard disk configuration altogether and …

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Re: Socket 4 board not booting - need help

Posted on 2021-12-15, 10:36

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Can you enter setup ?

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Re: blog about the pentium, 486, chipsets and VLB cards.

Posted on 2021-12-13, 22:32

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here I am. Thanks for the feedback. My ambition is just to document my occasional experiments rather than do any sort of regular blogging.

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Re: Chips & Technologies F64300 VLB vga question

Posted on 2021-12-13, 22:28

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here you go

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Re: 1992 Orchid Superboard 486 50 MHz system

Posted on 2021-12-11, 22:10

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

@mkarcher This is atually interesting that they say "or 8-bit AT BUS". There is actually a metal pin installed in the extension section of the OLB slot, which physically prevents from installing anything that is not Orchid branded card (or 8bit ISA). https://dependency-injection.com/wp-content/ …

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Re: 1992 Orchid Superboard 486 50 MHz system

Posted on 2021-12-10, 18:47

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Not that it really matters but the dx2-66 was top of the line March 1992 Very few people could have afforded one but they were around B2A99FC0-3279-41C5-B6DA-D0FAB1242BB7.png DX2-50 also existed and was more affordable in 1992, funny thing was dx2’s of all flavors seemed to become more common in …

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1992 Orchid Superboard 486 50 MHz system

Posted on 2021-12-10, 13:56

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I’ve always wanted to make a build like this, but only now do I think I have all the necessary bits together to make it happen. The idea is that this one is going to be using somewhat rate parts that were state of art in mid-1992 and it is going to be showcased in a more modern fully transparent …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-12-05, 11:53

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

EZ COOL ATX-450W JSP

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-12-05, 11:41

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I bought this gorgeous Pentium IV era fully transparent acrylic case. Incl. transparent ATX PSU with -5V rail and decent +5V power... I don't usually work with 2000+ era retro hardware. But this case made me think about doing a Socket 423 build. However, I have another plan for a very special rare …

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Re: Ati Mach64 performance in DOS and Windows 3.11?

Posted on 2021-12-01, 20:24

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I prefer working with SCSI as unlike IDE the adaptor has its own BIOS so that I can easily move my storage between different systems. Don't bother with BIOS disk configuration, all sorts of geometry translation issues, size limits, booting problems, etc. Just plug and boot. A kind of like XTIDE. As …

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Motherboard VARTA battery replacements

Posted on 2021-12-01, 12:53

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I kind of got used to the fact that vintage secondhand motherboards often came without CMOS battery that's been removed due to leaking. However, I now noticed that people started to replace them with simple CR2032 lithium coin battery holders! image_154392.jpg Not only it looks ugly, simply because …

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Re: Ati Mach64 performance in DOS and Windows 3.11?

Posted on 2021-11-30, 22:02

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I have already IDE to SD adapters and I found them great. I wonder about SCSI! I have a great PCI controller... I can find more.... however, there are NO CONVERTERS whatsoever on the planet that go beyond 10 MB/sec SCSI! That v6 SCSI to SD adapter thingy is the best we've got. Does it make sense to …

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Re: Ati Mach64 performance in DOS and Windows 3.11?

Posted on 2021-11-30, 20:20

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Storage controller stuff is complicated. IMHO if backed by solid state device (CF card) it doesn't really matter. Caching makes things slower actually. I don't believe there is a big difference between storage adapters. 13) Best DOS-DOS Games-Win 3.xx sweet spot graphics card, VLB Diamond Stealth 64 …

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Re: The World's Fastest 486

Posted on 2021-11-30, 16:29

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There certainly is a lot of overlap between generations and opinions on what chip goes where. We've definitely discussed this a lot in this thread and others. Some think super-scalar is necessary, while those want to see features like branch prediction, 64-bit data bus, out of order execution, or …

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Re: Ati Mach64 performance in DOS and Windows 3.11?

Posted on 2021-11-30, 16:07

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

You managed to get a VLB running at 41MHz and zero wait states??? How the heck did you do that? What VLB mobo are you using? Yes. It was not that difficult. I am using NexGen VL motherboard, which is a kind of unusual as the bus is not driven directly by CPU, but by the chipset, which likely …

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Re: Ati Mach64 performance in DOS and Windows 3.11?

Posted on 2021-11-30, 15:16

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I found ATI cards (Mach32, Mach64) just below average in DOS and average in GUI. https://dependency-injection.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screenshot-2021-11-01-at-23.41.01-2048x1472.png Check my test here - https://dependency-injection.com/vlb-vga-group-test/ IMHO the sweet spot (both excellent …

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Re: Soundblaster Pro2 CT1600 detected, no sound

Posted on 2021-11-30, 14:14

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I don't believe SB Pro (CT16xx) cards need -5V. Older Sound Blasters do (like SB 2.0 ct1350b or earlier) You can clearly see that the -5V pin is not present on the PCB:

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Re: Early P5 + P54C (Socket 4 + Socket 5) mainboard

Posted on 2021-11-30, 09:11

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I love this board. I have a quite a few S4 and S5 motherboard, but never seen one with both. It is an amazing find.

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Re: 3 (+3 more) retro battle stations

Posted on 2021-11-25, 09:37

by

by mpe

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

This one is currently one slightly cheaper on a bidding platform https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/GP0AAOSwGOZfnGnf/s-l1600.jpg -P 2.02 PCI There is no change in ROM contents between PCI and VLB BIOS versions (confirmed). But it any case no BIOS would add VBE 2.0 support, so VESA TSRs are always …

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