Awesome rig. I like the gfx card's heatsink. Regarding your CT2230, I'm testing one of these Soundblasters at the moment. I notice that these CT2230s come in various "flavours". Some have the CSP chip, and some don't. Also, some have the CSP "soldered on" to the PCB. (I think it's called CSP.) Also, some have a set of 3 CD-ROM interface pins, and some only have 1. The one I am testing has a socket for the CSP chip, but no chip installed. Also, it has the Creative CD-ROM interface, but not the Mitsumi and Sony interfaces.

To get to the point!, can you run a quick test please? If possible, can you run Doom shareware 1.9, select General Midi (for the daughterboard) & Soundblaster fx, then listen to the opening 10 seconds of the game using headphones. Do you hear a *very* faint clicking/ticking sound? I am also using a daughterboard, but it's by Terratec - I think it's a basic 1MB DB.

Thanks a lot.

yeah the heatsink is permanently glued on the riva128 chip with special thermal glue from ebay, it is the same as voodoo2/3 cards have

I will try the test later at home, I have ultimate doom installed 😁

this 2230 IIRC has a soldered CSP (that to my knowledge is of no importance to games) whereas my 2nd one has a socket and all 3 cdrom interfaces...

keropi wrote:

yeah the heatsink is permanently glued on the riva128 chip with special thermal glue from ebay, it is the same as voodoo2/3 cards have

I will try the test later at home, I have ultimate doom installed 😁

this 2230 IIRC has a soldered CSP (that to my knowledge is of no importance to games) whereas my 2nd one has a socket and all 3 cdrom interfaces...

Nice machine you got there...I'm suprised no one has complained about it being a VIA chip rig yet 😉

Check this link out regarding the CSP chip
http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php/topic,1778.0.html

'tis an MVP3 amigo, I suspect it is no speed-king but damnit it behaves OK 🤣
lemme see about the csp now...

keropi wrote:

'tis an MVP3 amigo, I suspect it is no speed-king but damnit it behaves OK 🤣
lemme see about the csp now...

I think the MVP chipset aint bad, in my Epox MVP3 rigs it's rock solid...even with powerful AGP cards and a K6-III+ but as you say it's no speed king...a PIII will beat it easily

i just realised something a little disturbing about my mobo (and many others): completely BS cpu placement - no voodoo2 cards possible to install

keropi wrote:

i just realised something a little disturbing about my mobo (and many others): completely BS cpu placement - no voodoo2 cards possible to install

Aww too bad keropi. Gotta love the AT style layout, huh?

@retro games 100:
I did not notice any clicking, I assume you mean the music in E1M1 right?

bushwack wrote:

keropi wrote:

i just realised something a little disturbing about my mobo (and many others): completely BS cpu placement - no voodoo2 cards possible to install

Aww too bad keropi. Gotta love the AT style layout, huh?

@bushwack: 😵

My mobo's layout is that bad too - I can't fit in an AWE32 in any other slot but the VLBISA one thanks to the Socket 3 just being so close to the ISAs 🙁

keropi wrote:

@retro games 100:
I did not notice any clicking, I assume you mean the music in E1M1 right?

Thanks for testing. Yep, I meant the music in E1M1. On my SB16, I can hear a constant ticking/clicking noise. It's most noticeable when you start E1M1. Oh well. It's not too important. The sound effects are OK. I will use a Roland MPU-401AT to host the daughterboard instead.

@ keropi:

- Was wondering about that particular mobo. How does it fare ?
Any problems by now?
I suppose chipset drivers are not that big an issue under DOS, or... ?
(been trying to read up on the MVP3, and what issues to expect, VIA etc)

I'm contemplating building a similar box(P90-P166ish), have most parts, apart from the 'mandatory' 😵 LAPC-I, and a mobo*.

(*: well, I guess I DO have that, but it's the original old socket 5 one, and the slot-in pci ide controller have problems finding the hdd - aand I like the 'better' parts/compatability? with a newer board, so...)

- And, the PSU - what are your thoughts on that thing ?
I suppose you use the original AT one ?
I think ATX may be better - and at least much easier to replace if problems.
But then fitting it all - connecting the outer on/off buttons and whatnot, sounds like a nightmare, so... hmm... 😕

- Any other reflections you've made after a month in operation ?
And the "past quirks have been resolved now " you mention - anything in particular ?

PS: where would that bios upgrade be located, I wonder ?

actually this mobo behaves awesome under DOS, never had any probs... the "quirks" I was referring are software ones, I used my own custom stand-alone DOS version ripped fron wi98SE - no windows at all.
I will search for the bios if you get the same mobo - or rip it from my mobo , I cannot remember now where I got it from

Thanks! That was quick... 😁
Sounds promising! Maybe I'll go for that mobo then.
I'll do some more pondering first, of course...heh

What would worry me most would be issues with the hdd, and related (undiscovered) errors etc.

Anyway, about the AT vs ATX PSU 'issues' etc - any thoughts ?

The one I have works fine right now, but... (15 years old!)

(and I already tried to dismantle the pwrbutton cable/contacts mohickey, thinking of replacing it with an ATX, but put it all back for now, realising the 'button' complications...)

Keropi if you want to make windows 3.11 look a bit funky, then you could use Calmira http://www.calmira.de/ with 3.11. and then use the patched SVGA driver that Malik has made a topic with Patched SVGA driver for ANY new graphics card for use in Win3.1x.

That could be awesome to look at, if you have a SVGA card in that lovely machine.

Oh yeah check out Nathans thread out too

Useful Links

I hope it will help you some of the way of having fun.

Are you sure the memory modules aren't EDO DIMM's? The memory chips look kinda 'fat' compared to the old fashioned 32meg SDRAM DIMM's I'm used to seeing.

Btw, were those VIA MVP3 chipsets realy that bad? I don't have a (working) board with that chipset so can't tell from my own experience.

Edit:I think I might have the same board but couldn't get it to work the one time I tried to boot it

@bestemor:
I did not run into any HDD errors , and I am still using an old AT psu... if something goes wrong, I will just replace with an atx, change a jumper and put an ATX power switch on the special mobo pins.

@WolverineDK:
after patching win3.11 to make it work with DOS7, I found they have some serious issues with the FAT32 filesystem, so I just deleted them.

@Tetrium:
both dimms are 168pin EDO ones, which is fine for a pentium1 system. Also the MVP3 chipset is OK , just a cheap working solution... It's no speed rocket but it get's the job done AFAIK

WolverineDK wrote:

and then use the patched SVGA driver that Malik has made a topic with Patched SVGA driver for ANY new graphics card for use in Win3.1x.

Why use a generic SVGA driver when you can use the original RIVA 128 drivers?

keropi wrote:

@Tetrium:
both dimms are 168pin EDO ones, which is fine for a pentium1 system. Also the MVP3 chipset is OK , just a cheap working solution... It's no speed rocket but it get's the job done AFAIK

Ah ok 😀

I was just wondering since in your OP you said there was SDRAM in it