Re: Yet another build advice thread - S7/Pentium MMX

Posted on 2023-10-04, 18:20

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you have an LCD monitor, you might consider not using older S3 cards. I have two Virge cards and they are both unusable because they produce a dark image, someone else here had the same problem with an S3 VLB card. Trident and Cirrus Logic were much better, although slightly blurry in higher …

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Re: Voodoo 2 compatibility and trustworthiness

Posted on 2023-09-30, 14:04

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

It seems that some sell cards that are listed as "for parts only" for 280 USD. While allegedly working cards, might sell for 170 USD. But these are just listings, doesn't mean that they sell. I would always look at the seller's other items and sales history. Is it someone who sold other old …

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Re: Any modern psu's that have large 5v rails

Posted on 2023-09-29, 06:31

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My PSU has only 20A on the 5V line and it can handle the most powerful systems I throw at it (Athlon 1400 @ 1500 MHz, Barton XP @ 2400 MHz), paired with a Radeon 9800 Pro. It makes sense if you do the math (75W CPU, 15W graphics card, 5W hard disk = 95W). The only problem would be graphics cards …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2023-09-29, 05:37

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-09-29, 02:58: was mislabeled as AGP but is actually the PCI model I love that, feels like christmas when this happens and you're the first one to grab it.

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Re: Help with a Gigabyte GA-5AA rev 2.2

Posted on 2023-09-27, 11:49

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

From your photo it does not look as if there is a connection between "1" and "A" on the top side. Switch your multimeter to resistance mode and measure the resistance from the solder hole to the exposed metal in the top plane "A". If there is a short-circuit, you will get a very low resistance. If …

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Re: Help with a Gigabyte GA-5AA rev 2.2

Posted on 2023-09-25, 09:45

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In my experience it's not a major problem, I have some Socket A motherboards with bad caps, and they have a resistance of 15-20 ohms to ground, they still run fine. But I also have this one board that begins smoking when turned on, and a resistor unsolders itself and moves back and forth in the …

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Re: Help with a Gigabyte GA-5AA rev 2.2

Posted on 2023-09-25, 05:48

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Do you still have the capacitor that you desoldered? Measure its resistance. If it is low or short, it is leaking. And I can see at least one other capacitor connected to the same circuit. If this one is bad as well, it could be the cause for the short circuit. Desolder it and test the board again. …

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Re: Help with a Gigabyte GA-5AA rev 2.2

Posted on 2023-09-25, 05:24

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

From the picture in your first post, it can be seen that the component lead that is next to the capacitor (the inductor coil) is connected to the top and the bottom plane. This means that the square pad of the capacitor must have also had connection to both sides before, so the soldering can not …

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Re: Help with a Gigabyte GA-5AA rev 2.2

Posted on 2023-09-25, 04:57

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

kinetix wrote on 2023-09-25, 04:49: I measure the resistance in that place without the capacitor Did you measure with all of the capacitors currently removed? If there are other capacitors in the same circuit, you need to remove them as well.

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Re: Help with a Gigabyte GA-5AA rev 2.2

Posted on 2023-09-25, 04:34

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you measure the resistance of capacitors in circuit and you get a short or low resistance, it can mean that one or more capacitors have developed a high amount of leakage current. This can happen if the capacitors have not been powered on for a long time. You need to desolder all capacitors from …

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Re: Tips for building (or starting to build) a retro DOS/98/XP PC under a $100 budget?

Posted on 2023-09-10, 05:11

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

dormcat wrote on 2023-09-10, 05:00: Of course if you spot a Made-in-Japan Plextor CD-RW with a reasonable price, grab it! I have read this a couple of times, what's so good about them? I have one of these, but did not want to use it in any retro build, it's loud and not particularly good looking.

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Re: VIA VT-8321 sound on Windows 98

Posted on 2023-09-06, 07:02

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you need the play/skip button, it becomes quite difficult to find drives, because only one in five or so seems to have it. Here are some others I found: https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/elektronik-alt-13-stueck-cdd-3600-msi-48x-max-acer-/2496871740-225-3347 - Some drives in good condition …

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Re: VIA VT-8321 sound on Windows 98

Posted on 2023-09-05, 15:28

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's a CD changer, you can put multiple discs in and load them with the buttons. Nice collector's item, but other than that, no idea if it's any good for compatibility. I think I've seen this model in a YouTube retro video.

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Re: VIA VT-8321 sound on Windows 98

Posted on 2023-09-05, 15:18

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sorry, I cannot promise you anything. The offer that I posted is just an example, it's the first one I found. I think 2003 could be OK, but something from 1999-2001 is probably a bit safer. And date is just one indicator, another one would be the manufacturer. About this particular one, all I know …

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Re: VIA VT-8321 sound on Windows 98

Posted on 2023-09-05, 05:21

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's impossible to say for sure that the CD drive is to blame, there is so much unexpected errors with old hardware, it could also be the motherboard. I'd say it's a 50% chance that the CD drive is at fault. It would feel stupid to spend 30€ on a CD drive and then find out that it still doesn't work …

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Re: VIA VT-8321 sound on Windows 98

Posted on 2023-09-04, 18:18

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This board uses a VT8233 southbridge, this is a newer chip that does not support DOS soundblaster emulation anymore. Only VT82C686A, VT82C686B and VT8231 southbridges support it. You have to run DOS games from Windows or buy a PCI sound card with DOS support (for example: Soundblaster Live, ESS SOLO …

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Re: VIA VT-8321 sound on Windows 98

Posted on 2023-09-04, 12:36

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's really nice of you that you don't want to torture the poor PC any longer, haha. I too think it deserves a break. The main problem is, to solve these kinds of problems, you need at least two pieces of hardware to cross-check. It's good to have two motherboards, two sound cards, two CD drives …

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Re: VIA VT-8321 sound on Windows 98

Posted on 2023-09-04, 07:22

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It is a self-extracting .exe archive that contains the .sys driver, just run it under DOS. I also found the manual for this drive, and it mentions a DOS driver that comes on a driver CD that was sold with the drive. It will be very hard to find this exact driver CD, but it is worth a try to check …

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Re: VIA VT-8321 sound on Windows 98

Posted on 2023-09-04, 02:48

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This message is meant for when you connect the CD-ROM drive to the IDE header of an old ISA sound card. But this does not apply to your situation, your drive is directly connected to the motherboard IDE connector. I found out that this TS-H492 drive is actually made by Toshiba. The Toshiba MS-DOS …

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Re: VIA VT-8321 sound on Windows 98

Posted on 2023-09-03, 17:12

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by asdf53

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Your CD drive seems to be very new (2007), is that a DVD drive? I found this post from another vogons user who mentioned problems with DOS CD audio and newer CD drives: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=1153553#p1153553 He suggested using "MTMCDAI.SYS", can you download and try that one? Here …

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