Re: L2 cache and 386 performance

Posted on 2020-02-03, 18:18

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have a 386DX-33 machine with 64k cache, is it worth it to upgrade to 128k? If you can increase the cache size without increasing the cache memory waits, your system will be a tiny bit faster. If you have to increase the cache memory waits to keep the system stable after increasing the cache size, …

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Re: I need information about certain CPUs' prices in 1997

Posted on 2020-02-01, 16:30

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

June 1997 prices: https://books.google.com/books?id=AnmwQa8W3JUC&pg=RA12-PA4&lpg=RA12-PA4&dq=amd+k5+price+1997&source=bl&ots=f8RBtdKwHv&sig=ACfU3U05uH9EgTI4lxBW0KYG0YLMj_vlSQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiS1syJ3rDnAhXKg-AKHc3yDPY4ChDoATAMegQIChAB#v=onepage&q=amd%20k5%20price%201997&f=false Ahh, the grey …

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Re: Stuck ST-177I drive

Posted on 2020-01-31, 23:03

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

“Stiction” from lubricant breakdown was a real problem with early 3.5 inch drives.. sometimes the heads would stick. Try the wiggle at power on , or try warming the drive up to a few degrees above room temperature to soften the lubricants. Opening up the drive could work but it’s sort of a last …

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Re: Until what date is a pc with ISA bus needed?

Posted on 2020-01-31, 22:50

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don’t think many people had a P4 before the year 2001.

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Re: When was booting from cd-rom possible ?

Posted on 2020-01-31, 20:35

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm familiar with the floppy emulation, but there's been other types of bootable CD/DVD's since than, yes? What other bootable CD-Rom formats came out since then?

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Re: When was booting from cd-rom possible ?

Posted on 2020-01-31, 20:15

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Torito_(CD-ROM_standard) El Torito is an extension to the ISO 9660 CD-ROM specification. It is designed to allow a computer to boot from a CD-ROM. It was announced in November 1994 and first issued in January 1995 as a joint proposal by IBM and BIOS manufacturer …

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Re: any use for broken hard drives?

Posted on 2020-01-31, 00:53

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

chinny22 wrote on 2020-01-30, 22:12: I swap out dead hardware for working at work where PC's are going to be recycled. Seems harmless enough as long as you don't accidentally recycle the data too!

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Re: Until what date is a pc with ISA bus needed?

Posted on 2020-01-30, 23:20

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'd say ISA was handy to have around before 2000, because that's a nice round number. But like floppy drives, they both became much less important after 2000.

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Re: Disk on Module (DOM) Preference

Posted on 2020-01-30, 20:09

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I allocated a $100 budget from my recent retro profits for this. I ordered 2GB versions of these DOMs: * LeiDisk * OneFavor * HyperDisk * APacer These were all in the $16-$22 range, so they were all bargain bin cheapo I mean competitively priced. The Apacer was just a circuit board with a ATA …

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Re: Disk on Module (DOM) Preference

Posted on 2020-01-30, 13:18

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

OK, thanks for the link. That thread went cold was right before I started reading regularly, but had a lot of useful info. Somehow it evaded my best searches on the site. I recently got a wind fall of available retro hobby funds after selling my Alaris Cougar II and Voodoo 5500, so I purchased 4 …

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Disk on Module (DOM) Preference

Posted on 2020-01-29, 20:13

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I was considering purchasing a 40 pin Disk on Module (DOM) device. I see several brands on Ebay: LeiDisk HyperDisk KingSpec Innodisk Anyone care to share their preferred brand or capacity? Any feed back about compatibility, performance, power on pin 20, or longevity would be great. Benchmarks would …

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Re: Not for the faint hearted

Posted on 2020-01-29, 03:41

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I can't imagine the response if they came out with a Voodoo 5500 PCI or an Alaris Cougar II clock.

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Re: WIN95 How much is too much video ram on 486?

Posted on 2020-01-17, 15:07

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by douglar

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Hard to imagine that too much ram could be a problem. 1mb min, 4mb is probably more thanenough. I’d be more concerned about drivers that support your monitors resolution, 2d acceleration in the driver, and raw dos performance.

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Re: SSD, Windows 98, Worth it?

Posted on 2020-01-17, 14:55

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here is a dos tool that can secure erase a flash based ATA device. https://www.lifewire.com/hdderase-review-2619137 If you backup your system, do a secure erase and then restore, it should return your ATA flash device to full factory fresh performance.

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Re: SSD, Windows 98, Worth it?

Posted on 2020-01-17, 03:06

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I can tell you with certainty that my 4GB CF card that has been in use on a variety of retro tasks is now showing notably reduced write speeds, while the read speeds are unchanged from when it was brand new It that a "serious problem" or "catastrophic consequence" certainly not, but diminished …

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Re: SSD, Windows 98, Worth it?

Posted on 2020-01-16, 04:46

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

maxtherabbit wrote on 2020-01-15, 21:08: How would one perform a low level format on a CF card? You could try a tool from the vendor or you could try a utility like this: https://www.techspot.com/downloads/5265-low-l … ormat-tool.html

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Re: SSD, Windows 98, Worth it?

Posted on 2020-01-15, 20:45

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Even if the CF cards can't use TRIM isn't there some manual way of forcing a block erase? A low level format should force block erase pretty nicely. Do CF cards do wear leveling? My legacy systems run with a relatively small data foot print. I have an old 64GB drive that does wear leveling, but I …

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Re: Best PCI card for a 486

Posted on 2020-01-12, 17:16

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by douglar

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I got a cheap Jaton GeFORCE MX 4000 64MB (208PCI-64TWIN) video card that has a "single notch" PCI connector. I don't get any video out when I put it in a FIC LEO 486 VIP motherboard, Via 82C486A / 82C505 chipset, Bios 4.15G. The computer still works and I can see the drive lights responding to my …

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Re: I'd like to build a VLB system

Posted on 2020-01-11, 04:41

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

like how much is cheap?

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Re: Am5x86 heatsink question

Posted on 2020-01-10, 03:36

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by douglar

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I made 486 heatsinks for my 5x86 chips using cheap 40mm heat sinks & dental wire off ebay. The fan is the most expensive part.

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