Re: SC-88 repair?
Posted on 2018-12-27, 01:59
Check the internal power supply rails. If the PSU is failing, you're going to get all kinds of flaky behavior. Could be the RAM is fine, it's just not running stable.
Re: akula65 and MS SideWinder 3D Pro Win9x Drivers
Posted on 2018-12-26, 00:11
Just finished the nodelay pack. Nothin doin. "Not connected" all the way. I have the original driver disk, which I use on my Pentium 166 with Win 95 (since it doesn't have native drivers), and that works fine. I have a few other Pentium CPUs - up to 233. I'm not sure if I would start to see this …
Re: DVD video playback on P3 and win98se.
Posted on 2018-12-23, 19:43
Doesn't the SB Live! have a 48kHz mixer? That would be era appropriate. Do PowerDVD etc. provide MCI drivers for MPEG2 streams, or just DVD playback?
Re: Need help deciding between two SB16 cards for my 386...
Posted on 2018-12-23, 09:16
I thought I heard something about a new clone that supports MPU-401 Intelligent mode. IIRC, Akbkuku got one gratis. Anyone know anything about something like this? Real Rolands are history, and everything else I've seen is UART only.
Re: 2018 - A Year of Bad RAM
Posted on 2018-12-23, 08:42
The only thing I remember like that is how some chipsets didn't like double-sided or single-sided --- one of the two. Around PIII/P4 era, I believe.
Re: akula65 and MS SideWinder 3D Pro Win9x Drivers
Posted on 2018-12-23, 03:27
Oh, that makes things much easier! I would've slogged through it for the greater good, but... 😀 Sorry I missed the existing docs. Edit: Tried all 48 in the adj pack - no luck. All showed Not Connected. Should I try the No Delay pack?
Re: akula65 and MS SideWinder 3D Pro Win9x Drivers
Posted on 2018-12-23, 01:36
I downloaded both sets and am trying the Adj batch first. I am using my Win98 FE, PII-450 with AWE64 (ISA). For reference, with retail AWE64 drivers and stock Win98 SideWinder 3D Pro driver, when I add the joystick in the Gaming Options control panel applet, it just freezes for a moment and then …
Re: Exploring a PC Chips M912
Posted on 2018-12-18, 21:38
I'm not totally sure how programs determine how much cache is installed, but I seem to remember seeing discrepancies before. IIRC, memtest86 has gotten it wrong a few times. I would expect the BIOS (POST screen) to be authoritative. Maybe take that 128K figure with a grain of salt -- but also this …
Re: PSU problem
Posted on 2018-12-18, 20:41
Typically a server -- at least one in production, at a business where somebody gives a crap about IT -- will have a service contract. When the PSU fails, you call Dell / HP / IBM / Cisco and say "I lost a PSU, please have another here by EOB today." Then you go to lunch, and by the time you get back …
Re: Hard drive sizes for different machines/eras
Posted on 2018-12-13, 22:33
Depends on how big your game collection gets. :-) I have a bunch of Sierra series compilations... all the Kings Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, LSL that come on one to four CD-ROMs each. If you do full installs of some of the later games, they'll consume 30-100MB apiece. I think one of the Space …
Re: Hard drive sizes for different machines/eras
Posted on 2018-12-13, 20:53
I'm kind of in the "biggest the machine will take without too much hacking" crowd. I like to avoid disk managers, and as such, SCSI might be an option to circumvent some of the earlier (386-era 504MB) limitations. When my dad bought his first 386, it came with a 120MB drive, which he later upgraded …
Re: Your opinion on these 6 different AT PSUs?
Posted on 2018-12-10, 19:22
Just another hardware hacker learning what I can from discussions like these. I know things got pretty deep, but there just isn't an easy answer to questions like "what makes a good PSU". Unfortunately, if you have to ask to begin with, the explanations often don't make a lot of sense. I know this …
Re: Anybody recognize this VLB controller?
Posted on 2018-12-07, 19:45
Good idea on the FCC ID. I'll have to remove it and check on the back. I'm still looking for a datasheet for the chipset, where I might be able to track the jumpers to pins on the IC -- and hopefully they're single-purpose pins, and not GPIOs with some custom sauce firmware. That Prima sticker will …
Re: Power supply advice
Posted on 2018-12-07, 19:27
I'm in NA as well. Newegg doesn't list the AT supply under a filter of Power Supplies + Manufacturer: StarTech. I think I arrived there via Google search once and it was NLA. Even on the StarTech site, the PSU section lists "ATX, AT, and 80%+ efficiency" in the heading text, then has no link for …
Re: Your opinion on these 6 different AT PSUs?
Posted on 2018-12-07, 19:19
Hm, maybe I just don't have enough experience gained from tearing down dubious power supplies, so I'll grant you, anecdotally, there may be some correlation that implies you should scrutinize the rest of the design. That said, I use discrete diodes in all of my own designs, and it's absolutely not …
Re: IDE hard drive partitions
Posted on 2018-12-07, 18:50
The standard MBR-style partition table has four slots. The "primary" partition type is just a normal partition occupying one of those slots. An "extended" partition occupies one of those slots and creates a child partition table of its own, with a little more flexibility. There's really nothing in …
Re: akula65 and MS SideWinder 3D Pro Win9x Drivers
Posted on 2018-12-06, 21:45
I might be able to help with this. I have several PCs and a SideWinder 3D Pro. 386SX25 with SB Pro 2.0, DOS / Win3.1 486DX2/66 with SB16, DOS / Win3.1 P166MMX with SB AWE32, Win95 PII-450 with SB AWE64, Win98 (waiting on parts) --- and PCI cards --- PIII-1.0 with SB Live!, WinME P4-2.4 with SB …
Anybody recognize this VLB controller?
Posted on 2018-12-06, 21:29
I got this with a 486 motherboard. Works, but I have no documentation on it, and the jumpers aren't labelled at all aside from the "Jx" designations. I have found no trace on Google by name, and no luck on Stason by name or likeness. Filename questvl.jpg File size 402.61 KiB Views 779 views Any …
Re: The worst sounding hard drive I've ever heard
Posted on 2018-12-06, 21:14
I have an old 420MB Quantum that sounded like a circular saw for a while after I first got it. I used it in a 386, and the bearings eventually settled down. Not quiet by any means, but not any worse than other drives of its vintage. Still works fine, but I was running out of space, so it got …
Re: Power supply advice
Posted on 2018-12-06, 20:58
I haven't found that Startech supply in the wild. Do you happen to know where it can be obtained? If you use an ATX-to-AT adapter (which is handy to have for testing if nothing else), note that they don't always provide -5V to the motherboard, since many ATX supplies don't provide that rail anymore. …
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