Re: Help identifying and testing a 486 motherboard

Posted on 2019-06-26, 18:51

by

by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

wacha wrote: ...the motherboard clicks once after powering on I have no video signal nor any kind of sound coming from the speaker. the motherboard makes the sound other motherboards do during POST, but still, no beeps Am i going crazy or what? 😖

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-06-26, 13:16

by

by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

PTherapist wrote: That PC is currently maxed to 128MB RAM, so I'll have to remove 2 RAM sticks and leave it at 64MB to take advantage of the cache. Use XMSDSK to put a 64MB ramdisk on top of the memory (which is not cached) and then you have all available ram cached + some temporary space to use …

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Re: Larger Disks in my 486DX2

Posted on 2019-06-26, 13:13

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by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm not sure you can. At least i haven't figured that out yet myself either...

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Re: Larger Disks in my 486DX2 "SOLVED"

Posted on 2019-06-26, 11:54

by

by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

twitch86 wrote: ontrack works fine EzDrive uses less memory out of the box (10kB vs 5kB) and when loading ezmem.sys in config.sys file, it frees up all the conv. memory. (Not aware of something similar for OnTrack)

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Re: Performance difference between ISA NICs?

Posted on 2019-06-26, 07:46

by

by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yep, i have not lost any UMB memory because of my 3c509b cards, except for the packet driver itself. I'm also interested in cpu utilization overhead of different cards. (3com, ne2000 compatibles, some others?) When i get some time, i will make a list of my ISA NICs, that i currently have. (Maybe …

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Re: Performance difference between ISA NICs?

Posted on 2019-06-25, 20:05

by

by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@BloodyCactus, it's a quirk of mine to get stuff running the best way possible. (My footer also hints, how i try to get every bit out of conv. memory, while still loading all the stuff i want.) And if i have a choice between multiple cards, then why not to be knowledgable about their differences? ( …

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Re: Performance difference between ISA NICs?

Posted on 2019-06-25, 18:02

by

by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Many variables to consider. ... If you can get networking ups and working on an old DOS computer you should be happy with that. No and no. I am interested in same situation, same machine and now i have 10 different NICs. Which one should i choose? And no, i'm not happy if something works somehow. I …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-06-25, 13:22

by

by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The keyboard controller chip on motherboards (usually the biggest PDIP chip) is also a microcontroller as far as i remember. 😉

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Re: Performance difference between ISA NICs?

Posted on 2019-06-24, 08:04

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by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@Gahhhrrrlic, I have never had any problems with those cards. Some of my cards have had IRQ 3 set to be used and then i just had to change it to IRQ 10 through the configuration utility. Other than that, i have had no problems with those cards...

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Re: Performance difference between ISA NICs?

Posted on 2019-06-23, 17:50

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by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

One thing on my 'to-do' list is to do some extensive benchmarking of ISA NICs, both in terms of throughput and CPU usage. My day job involves quite a bit of tweaking network parameters to maximise performance; applying that to ancient stuff could be fun. That would be amazing! I'm mostly interested …

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Performance difference between ISA NICs?

Posted on 2019-06-23, 06:42

by

by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi! I've been using mostly my trustworthy 3COM 3C509B-TPO cards, of which i have many. There are drivers for every operating system you can think off and generally are no hassle to install. Yet i have many other network cards, and it makes me think, whether those 3com cards are the most optimal? …

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Re: XTIDE BIOS rom vs EzDrive DDO

Posted on 2019-06-22, 09:16

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by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's funny, how people bring out features, that both XT-IDE has and EzDrive has, yet bring them out as an argument for XT-IDE and against EzDrive. (Like for example moving drive from one computer to another) Yet are ignoring the actual differences that are not shining too good light on XT-IDE itself …

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Re: XTIDE BIOS rom vs EzDrive DDO

Posted on 2019-06-21, 13:42

by

by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

HanJammer, You mentioned "latest stable release dated March 2019 if I remember correctly" and i proved you wrong letting you know that latest non-beta is from 2010. This is what it proves. For the points you are making: - There's 0 hassle with EzDrive (and less than with XT-IDE, which requires …

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Re: Time period PC's vs the affordable norm

Posted on 2019-06-21, 12:43

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by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got first computer into my home at 1998, when we got 12MHz 286 for free from downstairs neighbours. About 1999, i found out that the seller in one computer shop has 20MHz 386 laying around. Sold me that for... 6€ in current money. (It was a big money back then and i was just ~9 years old then) …

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Re: Computer builders favorite tools ?

Posted on 2019-06-20, 19:00

by

by GigAHerZ

in Milliways

in Milliways

DaveJustDave wrote: Well, if the Verge has taught me anything.. zipties (aka tweezers), a swiss army knife that HOPEFULLY has a screwdriver inside, an antic static livestrong bracelet, and a butter knife so you can apply a gob of thermal paste. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vmQOO4WLI4 You won …

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Re: Computer builders favorite tools ?

Posted on 2019-06-20, 10:24

by

by GigAHerZ

in Milliways

in Milliways

gdjacobs wrote: My set of screwdrivers? +1

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Re: XTIDE BIOS rom vs EzDrive DDO

Posted on 2019-06-20, 05:04

by

by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, i'm trying to figure out, if the XT-IDE is an upgrade or downgrade compared to EzDrive and so far it seems to be a downgrade. Or am i wrong? You are wrong, unless you are talking about XT-IDE installed on 8-bit 'XT-IDE' controller card (like somebody mentioned before that XT-IDE is mostly for …

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

Posted on 2019-06-19, 21:58

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by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just set up a Pentium 133MHz machine, complete with sound card and everything from my spare parts. Going to sell it as i'm not really a collector, but want few specific machines to work. But often, when i find a deal, i get more than i really need.

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Re: XTIDE BIOS rom vs EzDrive DDO

Posted on 2019-06-19, 21:56

by

by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, i'm trying to figure out, if the XT-IDE is an upgrade or downgrade compared to EzDrive and so far it seems to be a downgrade. Or am i wrong?

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

Posted on 2019-06-19, 19:32

by

by GigAHerZ

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Had the Acorp 5VX32 with a Dallas bios chip converted to a coin cell battery. Searching around the internet, i found the same board's picture with coin cell and some other optional components filled on the board. So i filled those empty places myself as well! In total: Coin cell holder, socket to …

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