doogie wrote on 2024-01-13, 18:17:

-Lastly with the USB flash drive->fixed disk feature..while it works great in DOS, eventually in 98 I get I/O timeouts, garbage data and so on. I assume this is much more to do with unorthodox things Windows 98 does. Really what this means in my case is, copy the setup files in DOS to the SSD, then pull the USB flash drive and carry on entirely from SSD or network.

I noticed this too. I was getting I/O errors and frozen system when trying to copy files from USB stick in W98SE when "USB as Fixed Disks" option was enabled in bios. I disabled that and let Windows mount the USB stick (with Nusb36e drivers), seems to fix the issue.

Eivind wrote on 2024-01-16, 19:59:

If someone with mad driver skills wants to give this a shot, then knock yourself out! 😀 Otherwise, for the time being, looks like we'll have to stick with Radeons or Voodoo cards.

I definitely don't have mad driver skills, but I'm a software engineer with EE and reverse-engineering as a hobby and I'm fairly motivated to get to the bottom of this. Doing quick googling around, I tried modifying my card's BIOS to disable SBA and FW, but that didn't seem to make a difference. Now I'm wondering if it's worth trying to flip some bits to force the card into thinking it's a PCI model. If the two protocols are signal-compatible, that could work, right?

Booting into Linux and trying out the proprietary Nvidia driver there might give some insight too.

valterb wrote on 2024-01-23, 20:27:

I definitely don't have mad driver skills, but I'm a software engineer with EE and reverse-engineering as a hobby and I'm fairly motivated to get to the bottom of this. Doing quick googling around, I tried modifying my card's BIOS to disable SBA and FW, but that didn't seem to make a difference. Now I'm wondering if it's worth trying to flip some bits to force the card into thinking it's a PCI model. If the two protocols are signal-compatible, that could work, right?

My understanding is that they're compatible insofar as AGP is a superset of PCI - meaning that most of the AGP signals (electrical and protocol-wise) are identical to its native PCI counterpart.
Both the PCI and AGP technical specs are available if you want to do a deep dive! 😀

valterb wrote on 2024-01-23, 20:27:

Booting into Linux and trying out the proprietary Nvidia driver there might give some insight too.

Good idea!

Eivind my board looks great, Thank you.

Can the 1gb version of the Vortex86 work with this board?

Dothan Burger wrote on 2024-01-25, 04:29:

Eivind my board looks great, Thank you.

Can the 1gb version of the Vortex86 work with this board?

I think so, but I haven't actually tested it - tried to order a 1GB module a while back, but DMP were all sold out (and still are, I believe).

Hi Eivind,

Any opportunity of buying a functional board from you? I'm based in Denmark, so it's close 😀

So my board has been working good and I was trying out some games. The machine was on screen saver then the screen possibly went to sleep when I was doing something else. I tried to wake it but couldn't get any display. So powered it off and back on, still no display. Tried a different GPU, same. Reading about a similar issue earlier in this thread I checked FB8 and it was getting 3.3V on only one side. So removed it and jumpered FB8 (removing the FB it fell apart). Tested again and got some magic smoke (see picture below of bottom of board). Hopefully its not ruined. Pretty sad this happened. Is that burnt trace the ground plane? the side closer to socket measures shorted to ground. And the side of FB8 further from the slot of measures 468ohms to ground . And somehow R30 right next to AGP slot was turned sideways and fell off when touched. What is the value of R30? Any ideas what to check or why I lost video would be greatly appreciated. I think I will set this project aside for today and come back to it later this week with a clear head.

Don't worry, you might be able to fix it if you got a soldering iron. Try checking the continuity of that trace first.

Aaron707 wrote on 2024-02-07, 01:24:

So my board has been working good and I was trying out some games. The machine was on screen saver then the screen possibly went to sleep when I was doing something else. I tried to wake it but couldn't get any display. So powered it off and back on, still no display. Tried a different GPU, same. Reading about a similar issue earlier in this thread I checked FB8 and it was getting 3.3V on only one side. So removed it and jumpered FB8 (removing the FB it fell apart). Tested again and got some magic smoke (see picture below of bottom of board). Hopefully its not ruined. Pretty sad this happened. Is that burnt trace the ground plane? the side closer to socket measures shorted to ground. And the side of FB8 further from the slot of measures 468ohms to ground . And somehow R30 right next to AGP slot was turned sideways and fell off when touched. What is the value of R30? Any ideas what to check or why I lost video would be greatly appreciated. I think I will set this project aside for today and come back to it later this week with a clear head.

First of all - I just updated the github page with complete schematics, layouts and gerbers, so you're all free to follow along.

Then, to you issue Aaron, the trace that fried is part of the "VCC_3V3_AGP" net - one of two 3.3V power rails going to the AGP slot. The reason it was destroyed is almost certainly a dead short to ground - which if I understand you correctly is what you measured as well. Looking at your photo, I'd venture a guess and say that the short is somewhere really close to the fried area, as that trace is actually thicker right there than at some other places on the same net. If the short was farther away, the thinnest part of the net would likely have melted.

Try removing the AGP card from the slot (to keep VCC_3V3_AGP and VCC_VIO_AGP separated) and locate the point where the burnt trace shorts to ground - that's a good place to start at least.

Not sure why R30 loosened and fell off, might have been desoldered by the heat caused by the short? The (partial?) short probably happened first, then the FB8 was ruined by the increased current, and when you bridged the FB8 footprint, the current melted the trace.

If nothing else was destroyed, if you're able to locate and fix the short and then solder on a good-thickness wire in place of the broken trace, you should hopefully be good to go. Fingers crossed! 😀

Lastly, I don't yet understand why you got the short in the first place - hopefully we'll get to the bottom of this!

Alright. Thanks to all your posts and testing I'm up and running. I turned off the USB fixed disk feature. I switched from a GeForce mx card to a Radeon. Everything seems to be working now. Confirmed 3d games work with Homeworld cataclysm. But it was very slow. Need to experiment and see what games work best.

Only thing I need to tinker with is the fan. It is not spinning. I'm using the 5v noctua with the 3 pin connector. Bios seems fine. Tried all three headers. Is it an issue that I am using a 3 pin fan cable on this 4 pin header?

fluxrez wrote on 2024-02-15, 06:10:

Alright. Thanks to all your posts and testing I'm up and running. I turned off the USB fixed disk feature. I switched from a GeForce mx card to a Radeon. Everything seems to be working now.

Good to hear! 😀

fluxrez wrote on 2024-02-15, 06:10:

Confirmed 3d games work with Homeworld cataclysm. But it was very slow. Need to experiment and see what games work best.

Yeah, it's not a very fast system. Sweet spot is DOS and early Win95/98 games for sure.

fluxrez wrote on 2024-02-15, 06:10:

Only thing I need to tinker with is the fan. It is not spinning. I'm using the 5v noctua with the 3 pin connector. Bios seems fine. Tried all three headers. Is it an issue that I am using a 3 pin fan cable on this 4 pin header?

Not sure which pins this 3-pin fan cable uses...?
The connectors use the standard 4-pin PWM layout, which you can see here:

I guess you should be able to just tap into pin 1 and 2, but I'd strongly recommend using a PWM fan if you value silent-running fans... 😉

I'm using a standard 3pin fan. On pcs it usually works. I tested the voltage on pin 2. It was slightly less then 3 volts... Should it read 5volts?? I'll try flipping it to 12 volt with a proper PWM fan.

fluxrez wrote on 2024-02-15, 18:37:

I'm using a standard 3pin fan. On pcs it usually works. I tested the voltage on pin 2. It was slightly less then 3 volts... Should it read 5volts?? I'll try flipping it to 12 volt with a proper PWM fan.

Errr... Try removing the jumper from FAN1_VDD and measure the voltage directly on pin 3 (the one with the "5V" label above it). It should definitely be 5V, as it's coming directly from the ATX connector.

The voltages were normal when I tested it as you instructed. And I switched to a proper PWM 12 volt fan. Fan is working. Good to go. I am not going to bother testing the low voltage.

Next weekend Ill try installing games. So far I just ran StarCraft and Mech commander 1. Both ran perfect.

These games all work pretty well.

Next I think I'll tinker with older DOS games. And get the pi setup.

Games I tried that don't work:
MechWarrior 3 (too slow)
Mechcommander 2 (Too slow).
Unreal tournament (playable, but slow)
Diablo 2: never loads? This might need a no-cd patch.

I am using daemon tools.

fluxrez wrote on 2024-02-26, 07:35:

Diablo 2: never loads? This might need a no-cd patch.

I had a problem like that and I think I fixed it by updating the game to a relatively recent patch.

Thanks, I got it working with patch 1.13d. Patch 1.14d gave me a bunch of DLL errors AFTER it installed. Runs well.

You're a genius Eivind! This board is amazing and even with all the quirks it's been a blast to work with your creation.

My LED was working then it stopped and seemed dead. I reflashed the bios, cleared the CMOS and after changing the settings in that section again it came back.

Of all the AGP cards I own, only two will work with this board. A brand-new Radeon 7000 and a dying Radeon 7200. Weirdly even when they work, they never receive an IRQ. I'm looking at a Radeon 9550 128mb for really the same price as the 9250. Anyone get anything more powerful working?

I honestly don't see a reason to get anything more powerful running. If I understand this thing well enough, the CPU is the bottleneck. Only early 3D games are playable.

fluxrez wrote on 2024-03-04, 02:27:

I honestly don't see a reason the get anything more powerful running. If I understand this thing well enough, the CPU is the bottleneck. Only early 3D games are playable.

I will agree, *Llama in my view is first of all for dos and some early-late win95/early win98 gaming pc anything faster then that i would go for p3.

Suggestions in forums for all in one that do play dos to late win98 3d games has always been to have a 486 / early pentium and then a p3 whit 3dcard for more requiring old games.