VOGONS


First post, by kixs

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Hi,

got this card as untested... yeah 🤣 Of course it turns out it's faulty...

By the looks at least some memory chips are bad. I would use a PCI card as a donor - well, not me as I would break it even more. But would find someone to replace the chips - how hard would this be?

Photos:

QIlhPIUm.jpg MKG3eAGm.jpg

RGTCAPpl.jpg RC5mIB5l.jpg

The donor card:

Gg36Bn7m.jpg

Last edited by kixs on 2023-12-19, 12:24. Edited 1 time in total.

Requests are also possible... /msg kixs

Reply 1 of 6, by Horun

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I think you should super clean the edge contacts with a pencil eraser and then IPA before doing anything else, looking at the pictures they do not look clean.....

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 2 of 6, by MikeSG

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Re-insert all socketed chips a few times before you do anything else. Especially the addon card above the RAM

Slight oxidisation on memory chips/conncetors is the number 1 causes of failure than anything else

Reply 3 of 6, by kixs

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The PCI card is a donor if some chips on ISA card are bad.

ISA card works as shown on the photos. Only BIOS chips are socketed. I already cleaned the ISA connector.

How might someone diagnose what to replace? Memory chips, DAC...

Requests are also possible... /msg kixs

Reply 4 of 6, by kixs

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Checked for any loose pins on the chips and it seems all the pins have good connection.

About memory size. It's recognized only 1MB of VRAM. M64 diagnostics says 8x 256K VRAM - so it should be 2MB.

I have also put the 2MB memory upgrade card on it and it still recognizes only 1MB of VRAM. Probably bad memory chip(s).

Requests are also possible... /msg kixs

Reply 5 of 6, by MikeSG

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Do you have the manual for it, for jumper settings?

Some cards do have an IRQ (interrupt request) selection in jumper settings. An interrupt error is mentioned in the screen shots.

Any BIOS IRQ settings? Any IRQ conflicts with other cards?

Reply 6 of 6, by kixs

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Even if there is a jumper with IRQ setting (I haven't seen it on any ISA Mach64 card tho). The more pressing problems aren't associated with it (memory size, image corruption, green tint).

Requests are also possible... /msg kixs