The transistor replacement was a sucess, pin 1 still gets ~6V but pin 3 now gets the correct 12V.
When the computer goes into sleep the fans stops.

So this is how it looks in my case now, havnt done the cable management yet.
Do you guys think that the cooling is enough for the voodoos?

Front 120mm fan is intake, and it blows over the cards.
The CPU fan blows air on the CPU. (this is the configuration it was in, I havnt changed the fan)
The back 120mm fan is exhaust.
The PSU fan is exhaust.

I will try to change the CPU fan to a 80mm one later so it will be a little more quieter, also I might slow down the intake and exhaust fans a little bit.

Hi again!

So, now I have come to the soundcard question.
From what I could gather the ones I had wherent that great so I have asked around with family and friends and have come up with a couple of more sound cards that I now have available.
What I need is a versitile system and it should cover as much as possible.
I got two ISA slots available.
These are the cards I have available to use:

1-
AWE64
CT4520
Chip: CT8920NBQ
ISA

2-
AV308
AD Chips
Chip: CMI8329A
OPL: LS626
ISA

3-
MUSIC16
Chips: Crystal CS4231A-KL, OPTi 82C929A
OPL: DXP44Q with integrated DAC
ISA

4-
AZTECH
Chips: AZT 2316-S, Crystal CS4231A-KL
OPL: Yamaha YMF262-M
ISA

5-
Sound Blaster
CT4170
Chip: VIBRA 16XV CT2511-SAT
ISA

6-
CT4810
Chip: CT2518-DAQ
PCI

7-
Sound Blaster Live!
CT4670
Chip: EMU10K1-ECF
PCI

8-
Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS
SB0350
Chip: CA0102-ICT
PCI

Image of the cards:


My toughts is; Audigy2 for win9x and then AWE64 for midi and then I have either the AZTECH or OPTi card for OPL.
I saw that there is a mod to upgrade the integrated memory on the AWE64, I got the equipment for this so that should be no problem.
But maybe it's better to buy a new wavetable card and use it with another card instead of the AWE64?

Also, is there a good buying selling community you can recommend?

Thanks in advance!

filurkatten wrote on 2022-01-21, 06:39:

So this is how it looks in my case now, havnt done the cable management yet.
Do you guys think that the cooling is enough for the voodoos?

When you are in doubt you could consider this rather elegant solution:
https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-print-models/gadg … rd-fan-mounting

filurkatten wrote on 2021-12-09, 13:58:

But if the PLL chip in the 440BX supports the lower voltages that would be the more interesting build with an CPU upgrade (a Coppermine with 100MHz fsb).

small nitpick - VRM not PLL
Even earliest Intel Slot 1 standards required VRMs able to go down to 1.8V. 1.8V is safe to All Coppermine CPUs, as a bonus lets them OC better 😀

filurkatten wrote on 2021-12-09, 13:58:

Is there any mods you can do to the 440BX to add support for the low voltages?

only in case you want to use FC-PGA CPU (coppermine) with a slotket without jumpers, or PGA slotket.

rasz_pl
I did some more testing with the M6TBA V 1.2 motherboard.
When connecting a coppermine cpu it delivers the correct voltages. Around 1.65 - 1.7V but it wont boot.
I guess its because its not supported by the bios and I already tried with the latest one.
So if I want to use that board the bios needs to be modified and that is something I dont know how to do but if you got some resources I can read about it I might give it a try. 😀

Im now using the abit board instead and it works great with the 850MHz coppermine cpu. 😀

PARKE
Saw those aswell, I could make something similar. I have a 3d printer athome so that would be no problem.
The front fan in my case is a intake and it will blow across the voodoos now when the header is fixed, so I think they should be fine. 😀

An update.
I finally got WinME installed on a SSD with a PATA to SATA adapter.
Partitioned the SSD in two partitions with linux, one for windows and one for games and software.
Had major trouble installing at first and it all came down to a bad adapter, it was one of the green pcb ones with the marking: "XD-629A7-7" on it.
The new one I ordered looked basically the same but the PCB itself felt a bit sturdier and it was marked "VER:M03C".
The first problems I had was data corruption and random freezes. I could copy the installation dir to the SSD but I could not access it.
Got a bit further with a 80 IDE cable but the installation froze just as it started.

With the new adapter the installation went mostly great, at first I got some error relating to truefont and then some disk read error.
The truefont error dissapeard when I removed all but one RAM stick and the disk read error went away when I did the IDE HDD setup in the BIOS and chose USER instead of AUTO.

Next step is to test my hardware, I know the GPU's are working but I need to test my network adapter and sound cards.
I will only keep the sound cards I will put in the machine so I want the best of the ones I have available.

What would be the best aproach to testing the sound cards?
My thought was to pick out a few games and then record the audio with my main computer via the Line In and then compare the result.
Also, I need to start collecting drivers for the sound cards.

Have been running memtest the last few day to test my 3sticks of RAM that I was planning on using.
Two tested ok without errors sfter 12 passes and one failed just as memtest started. So I will only use two stick I think. But thats 256Mb so it should be fine. 😀
Mostly bought one extra because it was the same brand with the same chips if one would fail.

Hi again.

Havnt had the time to test as many sound cards as I wanted but I have tested both the Aztech one and the OPTi one.

Aztech
No problem getting it installed, but I noticed right away that it's picking up analog distortions like when I move the mouse, open folders and such.
Also it is quite noisy, like a high pitched tone.
Sounds really good thou from what I could tell, exept the noise.
Noise present in both speaker and line out outputs.

OPTi
Even easier to install than the Aztech.
No high pitch tone but the card is much quieter.
This card has a jumper for speaker or line out and I used the line out. The Aztech card had two outputs, one for speaker and one for line out, I used the line out.
Sounds almost the same as the Aztech when I adjust the volume except it sounds like it has more bass.
Maybe the difference is some filter at the output?
I think I like this card more for the OPL stuff. 😀

Got one OPL card left to test.
The AV308 with the LS626 OPL clone.
I'm qurious how this card will sound.

At the moment it looks like I will be using unless the AV308 suprises me.
OPTi for OPL
AWE64 for wavetable (modded with bigger RAM for the fun of it)
Audigy 2 for Windows.

filurkatten wrote on 2022-02-12, 17:39:

Have been running memtest the last few day to test my 3sticks of RAM that I was planning on using.
Two tested ok without errors sfter 12 passes and one failed just as memtest started. So I will only use two stick I think. But thats 256Mb so it should be fine. 😀
Mostly bought one extra because it was the same brand with the same chips if one would fail.

The first (2?) ultra-quick tests of memtest are extremely basic and mostly just detect a bad connection. If you got a fail in those, make sure the contacts are clean and try reseating it. That stick might be fine.
If you only get a fail in the slower tests though, then it's a deeper problem.

filurkatten wrote on 2022-02-18, 23:12:

Hi again. […]
Show full quote

Hi again.

Havnt had the time to test as many sound cards as I wanted but I have tested both the Aztech one and the OPTi one.

Aztech
No problem getting it installed, but I noticed right away that it's picking up analog distortions like when I move the mouse, open folders and such.
Also it is quite noisy, like a high pitched tone.
Sounds really good thou from what I could tell, exept the noise.
Noise present in both speaker and line out outputs.

Aztech 3rd gen cards are generally considered pretty noise-free, so sounds like something on the card is faulty, and given your level of experience in electronics, probably something you could fix. Maybe as simple as bad caps. Still, if you have a working alternative you might not need to bother.

OPTi Even easier to install than the Aztech. No high pitch tone but the card is much quieter. This card has a jumper for speaker […]
Show full quote

OPTi
Even easier to install than the Aztech.
No high pitch tone but the card is much quieter.
This card has a jumper for speaker or line out and I used the line out. The Aztech card had two outputs, one for speaker and one for line out, I used the line out.
Sounds almost the same as the Aztech when I adjust the volume except it sounds like it has more bass.
Maybe the difference is some filter at the output?
I think I like this card more for the OPL stuff. 😀

OPTi-based cards are generally unloved, no doubt because they tended to come from relatively obscure manufacturers, but they are reliable and easy workhorses. If the sound quality is decent (that is always a valid question with obscure provenance) you have yourself a very usable card for "FM".

I use quotes there as you're not doing this card justice with only considering it for FM. What you also have is SBPro2 support, bug-free MPU401 MIDI and WSS to boot. I would recommend using this as the default card in DOS for everything except SB16 and AWE stuff (which the AWE64 can do).

The AWE64 doesn't have MIDI hanging note bugs, but does suffer slowdowns when MIDI and 16b digital audio are playing at the same time on the same card

Got one OPL card left to test.
The AV308 with the LS626 OPL clone.
I'm qurious how this card will sound.

Could be very interesting. C-Media ISA chips suffer even more than OPTi by only being used on awful low end designs. This chip is one of only a handful of full SB16 clones- but with decent MIDI and WSS like Creative never had, putting it on par in terms of features with the ALS100. Big questions though are how it sounds and how good compatibility is

My experiences with the CMI8330 is that it was decently compatible but not perfect, having trouble with some older DOS stuff (eg Ultima 7)

At the moment it looks like I will be using unless the AV308 suprises me. OPTi for OPL AWE64 for wavetable (modded with bigger R […]
Show full quote

At the moment it looks like I will be using unless the AV308 suprises me.
OPTi for OPL
AWE64 for wavetable (modded with bigger RAM for the fun of it)
Audigy 2 for Windows.

With what you have, that sounds like a good way to go for now.

shamino
It failed in the first test, right away.
I have looked at the contacts and they look great, I have cleaned them a extra time but the issue is still the same.
I also traced all contacts with the multimeter and they seem to go the where they should.
I think I'll just go with 256 RAM for now. 😀

dionb
Yeah, I've read good things about the Aztech cards so I was a bit dissapointed to be honest.
All the elek. capacitors look good and I dont really have the time to desolder and replace them all so I think I'll settle with the OPTi card.

Thanks for the input with the OPTi cards capabilities!
If I go the external midi route I know that this is the card that will handle it and not the AWE64 card.

I got around to test the remaining cards, they all worked. Both the CT4170 and the AV308 picked up the analog beeps and where quite noisy.
The AV308 OPL stuff sounded on par with the OPTi from what I could hear exept it was a bit noisier.
Also, I never got the AV308to work in winme only running in DOS.

So, my conclusions is that I will use the OPTi card, AWE64 and Audigy 2 like I said above.
The rest will be sold.

Another question I got, what would be the best solution to connect all the sound cards so I only have one output?
Should I go from lineout to linein on each card or is it better with a physical switch?
My first thought was to have a three way switch on the front panel with a audio jack and connect the lineouts on the cards to the switch so I can switch them on the fron of the chassi.
Last question how would you configure these 3 soundcards?
Will they cause any conflicts? Im gonna use them in different scenarios from each other.

So, I have tried to use my two ISA card together but I cant get it to work like I want to.
The problematic card is the AWE64.
They work when only one of them is installed but if both are installed the AWE64 freaks out.
I guess I have some kind of conflict.
This is happening in windows by the way.

So, if both cards are installed the computer gets mini freezes and stutters. If I disable the SB16 driver for AWE64 and reboots the problem goes away.
I dont see any conflicts when checking the device manager for the opti card driver and sb16 driver.
But if I disable the opti card and enables the sb16 the problem is still there.

I dont really have any experience with this kind of troubleshooting so any help is much appriciated!

What Im trying to achieve is to have my three soundcards installed in the machine and then to be able to switch between them depending on the game. Preferable from windows.
Maybe this is possible with a batch file that disables/enables the device then reboots. (Was looking around and saw a flag for enabled/disabled in the registry maybe this would do it?)

I use both an OPTi 82C930 and an AWE64 CT4520 in my Pentium MMX system and have no issues.

The thing to keep in mind is that you want the two cards to use different resources. For example, the OPTi can have A220, I5, D1, P330 while the AWE64 would take A240 I7 D3 H5 E640 P300. You also want to disable CQM on the AWE card to avoid resource conflicts on port 388. This can be done in DOS using CTCU and under Win9x through Device Manager. It might also be necessary to disable the joystick port on one of the cards.

The device manager wont let me change any resources for the AWE64.
The listed things related to AWE64 in device manager is,
AWE64 16-bit Audio SB16 compatible WDM,
AWE64 Wavetable MIDI AWE32 compatible WDM
and the joystick.

EDIT
Ok, when I enable plug and play os in BIOS I atleast dont get the conflict.
But I still have trouble changing address för the AWE64 and getting for example DOOM to pick it up.

I can now change audio in windows to get the AWE64 to play the wi dows sound but not game sounds.

I think I must be missunderstanding something or has missed something.
When I start DOOM for dos in winme I can use the setup tool to setup the sound card. This works good if I only have one card in the system.
When I have two only the OPTi one works BUT! no matter what setting I use aslong as I picked sound blaster it works even if the irq is different in device manager. So, device manager says opti uses irq 5 but even if I select 2, 5 or 7 in DOOM setup it works.
No sound from AWE64 nomatter the settings.

Also, IRQ 2 is set to programmable interrupt controller. Can this be changed?
I saw in BIOS that I could reserve IRQs for ISA.

I'm guessing its something easy Im missing.

Finally got it working!
I had to "update" the awe64 driver to a older version than the one that was boundled with winme.
I think it was AWE Software Upgrade from vogon drives.
Now it will change the addresses and irq when I update them in the device manager.
I set them to this:
AWE64: A240 I5 D0 H7 P300 T6 E640
OPTi: A220 I7 D3 T4

And now I can for example setup a bat menu for doom that sets novert and then chooses between two configs for the different cards. 😀

Only one card left to configure, the Audigy2.
But its a PCI card so I hope it will be easier and I will not use that card in DOS anyway.

EDIT
By the way, please tell me if you think Im spamming away to much.
I just thought it could be a fun read my whole retro PC story. 😀

I finally got time to install my Audigy 2.
It went great, no trouble at all.
Then I did some experimenting, I wanted to have all cards connected so I only have one output in the back.
My first thought was a mixer of sort but I thought about it some more and found that the simplest solution would be to just hook one card up to the Audigy2 AUX and one to CD. So that was what I did and it worked great!
But then I was one CD input short so I connected it to the AWE64 and that worked aswell.
Is this a good practice? Or will I run into some issues?
I used all line out on the cards and CD IN and AUX IN looked like they where line inputs.
So now I have a 3 sound card system with no conflicts and one output. 😀

I also got my hand on two other sound cards.
One Sound Blaster 32 CT3670 with some RAM.
I though that maybe this card could replace the AWE64, they seem to have the same chips on them.
And one Aztech MMSN826.
I dont know anything about this card and if it will be a good fit in my system, but it seems to have a onboard waveblaster of sort.

EDIT
I have now tried both the MMSN826 and CT3670.
I wasnt that impressed by the MMSN826 so Im not going to use that one but the CT3670 was good!
I compared the noise level with the CT3670 and my AWE64 and it was more quiet, it has the same chipset as the AWE64 and RAM slots so Ill replace my AWE64 with it.
Read that you could flash AWE64 firmware to it, what would be the benefits with that other then disableing the IDE connector?

Hi again.

Heres an update about my retro pc build;

The system:
ABIT BX6 Rev2
PIII 850MHz
512MB PC133 RAM Samsung brand
Geforce3 TI 200
Voodoo2 12MB SLI
Audigy 2 zs
SB32 flashed as AWE64 with 32MB RAM
OPTi929
PNY 120GB SSD with generic adapter

I have been playing alot of games on it and it works great!
All sound cards works and I can setup touse wichever suits the game best. Could not be happier with them.

Some initial troubles I had with the ssd, I would get random read errors and crashes. I replaced the adapter and the problem went away.

Glide games works really good, Im having no issues there.
Have been playing Hexen2 and Unreal alot.

The games that have been giving me the most trouble is older titles as expected.
Some examples are the Elder scrolls 1 and 2.
The first one would work sometimes and sometimes not. I think the problem I was having is due to lack of conventional memory but as Im running winme there wasnt much I could do about that. So I resorted to DOSBox.
The second game worked better, but Im having some keyboard input problems. Its like it thinks Im just tapping the keys.
This I could not resolve, and I cant get it to work with DOSBox either. It just gets stuck with a black screen. Its fully playable thou, awesome game by the way! 😀

The two first Monkey Island games where also a bit troublesome, the adlib would just create the most aweful sounds and screeches.
I tried some slowdown tools and using Throttle solved the issue.

The newest title I tried was Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind.
And to my surprise it worked better then expected.
When I first tried I had just 256MB ram but the game where really unplayable. Would get around 15-22FPS.
I upgraded with one more 256MB ram stick and then the FPS where way more stable. Its running at 25-30FPS in city areas. Playable!

When testing Morrowind I where curious about how overclocking the CPU would affect performance.
So I did play around abit and just increasing the FSB to 112MHz (~950MHz cpu speed) gave great result with Morrowind but now Throttle wont slow down the CPU enough for Monkey Island to have working adlib.

When using 112fsb the system got abit unstable, when clicking folders it would sometimes give dll errors. This was with 256MB ram, I havent noticed it with 512MB, yet.
Is my assumption that the fsb oc is not only increasing the pci bus speed but also the ide speed?

My motherboard can only oc the pu in steps.
66MHz (1/2)
75MHz* (1/2)
83MHz* (1/2)
100MHz (1/3)
112MHz* (1/3)
117MHz* (1/3)
117MHz* (1/4)
124MHz* (1/4)
129MHz* (1/4)
133MHz* (1/4)
138MHz* (1/4)
143MHz* (1/4)
148MHz* (1/4)
153MHz* (1/4)

The 117MHz pci speed seem to be more in spec then the 112 one but when increasing the fsb anymore Im just getting a black screen.
Could this be a sign that my GF3 just wont support higher agp oc?

Some final thought after all this rambling.
Would a newer gpu might solve the oc problem or is it more probably a cpu issue?

Im wainting for a Geforce4 TI 4280 that a friend is sending me, its agp 8x but my motherboard o ly supports 2x. It got both key slots and I have read that other gf4 works with 2x. Do I dare to try in my motherboard?

Lastly, if I where to upgrade my cpu with a slocket am I assuming correct that I can buy one of those cheaper ones that supports coppermine as the cpu Im using now is a coppermine?
And if my motherboard supports lower voltages, an I use the same slocket with a tualatin or do I need a powerleap slocket?
I can change cpu voltages in bios but I dont know how low I can go.
Are there any alternatives to slowing down the pc fron Windows. I have been using Throttle but maybe there is something better? Or a combination of programs maybe?

Here it says it supports cpu voltages 1.40v - 3.2v in 0.05v increments.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/239

The voltage controlling ic is the CS5165, and afterlooking at the datasheet it does seem like it can handle down to 1.40v.
What vid pin combiation does the tualatin use to request voltages?
Is it the same as the CS5165 support?
Also, if I buy a slocket that supports a coppermine cpu, I do need to modify it to be ablo to support a tualatin if I understand correctly?