Why the 4x CD drive ? Much faster ones were around in '96-97. Is it extremely quiet or compatible...?

Yeah, just nice and quiet and what I have on hand.

I never liked high speed CDROM drives. They lag when they need to spin up for every access, and they shake and make noise for no good reason. The way they run annoys me, it's like revving up a dragster to go across a parking lot.
4X-6X drives were perfect IMO. Smoother and more immediately responsive.

Nifty project bjt, never seen an AT desktop case with a sleep button before. Is that a golf ball being used as a power button?

I'm not bothered by noisy computer components (CD/DVD-ROM drives, hard drives, case fans), I actually expect them to be. But if others prefer them to be quiet, that's fine.

I would love someone to fill one of those huge cases with like ten 5.25 bays up with nothing but Bigfoots in a Raid and Delta 80mm case fans. Can you imagine the power consumption and noise level?

I had on of those cases with the golf ball at one stage, and it had a 4X mitsumi in it. I agree with the drive speed thing, most faster drives are too loud / slow to spin up. That 4X mitsumi is still going though after all these years.

I generally stay away from clv drives (anything over 8x) with the exception of my plextor 32x caddy loader, which is somehow quiet.

The 4 ISA slots and the soundcard choice have my seal of approval!!

Actually, i would recommend you to install the WIN 3.1 driver for the YMF-718 card. It brings a more recent DOS driver.

I suppose the standard DOS driver is version 2.09 and the one that comes for WIN3.1 is 2.11. I used to complain about these drivers but...not anymore! 😎

You can slow faster cd\dvd drives down in dos with this TSR.

Also that case doesn't look that crusty!

And so it begins... been doing some digging about this board.
It was manufactured by a (presumably now defunct) Taiwanese company called "Totem". http://web.archive.org/web/20000524111731/htt … om.tw/index.htm
Seems like it's not too bad specs-wise. 512KB cache so it will cache 64MB. The 1.4 bios seems to be the latest, released 97, so hopefully no problems with drives >8GB.

This build was supposed to be about using parts I already have, but have already ordered a few bits:
2x matching 32MB double-sided dimms
AT->PS2 keyboard adaptor
PS2 mouse header bracket

Will need a floppy drive as well, that should be it though.
Anybody know if USB works on VX/98SE well enough to use a USB stick? If so I'll try to install a bracket.

I do also have a nice NEC chipset USB 2.0 PCI card I could use, might work a lot better than the VX USB.

I can confirm that a Belkin NEC chipset usb 2.0 pci card will work with a TX chipset just fine. Not sure about the VX

VX's integrated USB has always been problematic for me.

You can ways use a Gotek floppy and kill 2 birds with one stone. If your like me once networking is up I next to never use the FDD anyway.
Remember seeing a few golf ball cases when they were still new, but on towers, didn't like them at the time but think they are kinda cool now

Didn't get a chance to start over the weekend, but I've assembled all the parts for this build at least.

Some good progress with this build.

Got to cleaning the case. This is a real finger-slicer 😵

The PSU is suprisingly dust-free but the insides don't inspire confidence and the fan is loud. I think I'll swap in a nicer ATX unit with a converter.

Really pleased with the board, it's in great condition. It only supports 2.9V for MMX CPUs which is actually 0.1 higher than the P55C wants, no big deal. Replaced the dead CMOS battery.

Out with the old

In with the new. Such a solid chip the P55C.

Back together with a minimal setup for bench testing. New fan on the HSF.

It lives! Nice to see the SDRAM is all recognised, as VX is infamous for only supporting low-density DIMMS. 64MB means that Win98SE is a real option for this machine.

Next up - install a HDD and test the AWE32 I received yesterday.

bjt wrote:

Got to cleaning the case. This is a real finger-slicer :dead: http://i.imgur.com/D28FoNHl.jpg […]
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Got to cleaning the case. This is a real finger-slicer 😵

Consider it a necessary blood sacrifice for what you want to achieve. The results will be worth it, though 😀

Out with the old http://i.imgur.com/Gqhnc7Jl.jpg […]
Show full quote

Out with the old

In with the new. Such a solid chip the P55C.

Agreed. P55C is a very consistent and dependable performer.

It lives! Nice to see the SDRAM is all recognised, as VX is infamous for only supporting low-density DIMMS. 64MB means that Win9 […]
Show full quote

It lives! Nice to see the SDRAM is all recognised, as VX is infamous for only supporting low-density DIMMS. 64MB means that Win98SE is a real option for this machine.

Next up - install a HDD and test the AWE32 I received yesterday.

Great results so far. Keep moving forward - and your fingers crossed 😊

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

Consider it a necessary blood sacrifice for what you want to achieve. The results will be worth it, though 😀

No blood has been spilled - yet! I think it's waiting for the right moment.

Originally I was just going to use a YMF718 card for audio, but I thought it would be nice to have a real SB16 as well for compatibility's sake. EMU8000 is nice to have too so I picked up this AWE32 CT3780. This one doesn't have CQM, memory slots or a wavetable header. I'm finding that AWE32s are much less common on UK eBay than AWE64's at the moment. Even AWE64 Gold are quite common.

Unfortunately, although the card was advertised as tested, the FM and AWE tests in diagnose.exe both produced static. I guess the seller just tested wave output in Windows. Inspecting the card showed up a few broken traces 😠

The larger broken trace on the right is a +ve supply voltage to the EMU8000 section of the board. The break on the left only affected one trace, a digital output from the EMU8000 to a DAC in the output stage. The larger break was fairly straightforward to bridge after scraping back the green coating to reveal fresh copper.

I wasn't confident of bridging the smaller break without damaging the surrounding traces so I decided to run a jumper wire between the two nearest vias, unfortunately this was quite a distance. I used epoxy to cover the vias and bond the jumper to the pcb after soldering.

With these fixes FM and AWE output work again, which was a nice payoff. I'm still planning to run the YMF718 alongside to handle MIDI and the XR385.

Nice work! I wish I had your 'particular set of skills' (best Liam Neesen voice).

bjt wrote:

I picked up this AWE32 CT3760.

But depicted is CT3780.