VOGONS


First post, by stalk3r

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...as the title suggests, some parts of the card become excessively hot (marked with red below), it works for a while, until it doesn't. After a bit of a cool down it start working again. Any idea whether it can be fixed? Should I put a cooler on it? 😁

https://i.imgur.com/jEfpRU5.jpeg]jEfpRU5.jpeg

Last edited by stalk3r on 2022-01-28, 19:47. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 14, by TrashPanda

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Im guessing they are some kind of memory/cache IC's, its possible they are simply getting old and need to be replaced. I would slap some heatsinks on them and see if that helps but I would also start looking for a replacement.

Reply 2 of 14, by stalk3r

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TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-28, 19:23:

Im guessing they are some kind of memory/cache IC's, its possible they are simply getting old and need to be replaced. I would slap some heatsinks on them and see if that helps but I would also start looking for a replacement.

Quick google tells me these are some octal buffers/line drivers , but it does not really matter as I won't be able to replace them anyway... so let's hope the heatsink will help alleviate the issue

Reply 3 of 14, by keropi

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if these chips get extremely hot then there is some issue - maybe they are to blame or something else
heatsinks will hide the problem for a while but it has the danger or reaching a point where a bigger damage will be done
better find someone to replace the chips and have a look on the card IMHO

🎵 🎧 PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 4 of 14, by TrashPanda

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keropi wrote on 2022-01-28, 20:16:

if these chips get extremely hot then there is some issue - maybe they are to blame or something else
heatsinks will hide the problem for a while but it has the danger or reaching a point where a bigger damage will be done
better find someone to replace the chips and have a look on the card IMHO

This is true but it may cost more to find and repair the issue than it might be to simply retire this card and replace it with a new (Second hand) one. Just finding someone willing to do the rework or is knowledgeable enough about this sound card to have a go at it is likely to troublesome.

Im guessing you would have to have a donor card available for these chips ? they dont seem like the type to still be available.

Reply 5 of 14, by keropi

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74LS244 are easily found in major component sellers , they are not an issue to source
it's the 3 bigger creative chips that are not available to purchase

🎵 🎧 PCMIDI MPU , OrpheusII , Action Rewind , Megacard and 🎶GoldLib soundcard website

Reply 6 of 14, by JimWest

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To be honest, I don't think all three are defective at once. It is possible but unlikely. There must be another reason. Especially since it also affects different types LS244 and LS245.
The only thing that suggests that all three have a defect is that they appear to be from the same manufacturer.
LS244 is a simple inverter if I remember correctly. The only reason I can think of for this component to get hot would be a problem with the power supply.

Reply 7 of 14, by TrashPanda

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JimWest wrote on 2022-01-28, 20:58:

To be honest, I don't think all three are defective at once. It is possible but unlikely. There must be another reason. Especially since it also affects different types LS244 and LS245.
The only thing that suggests that all three have a defect is that they appear to be from the same manufacturer.
LS244 is a simple inverter if I remember correctly. The only reason I can think of for this component to get hot would be a problem with the power supply.

Perhaps a cap is on the way out or a transistor has a hot short.

Reply 8 of 14, by stalk3r

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I will try in another board/PSU to eliminate one possible issue; over voltage on the ISA bus (however I have a VGA and a I/O controller running on the same board which don't seem to have any issues)

Reply 9 of 14, by mkarcher

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All of the three buffer/driver chips seem to be connected to the 8 ISA data bits. If they get hot, it looks like they fight each other driving data to the ISA bus. The left one is used to drive data from the ISA bus to the CD cable and vice versa. It must not get hot at all if the CD drive is not accessed. If the chips get hot, I suspect the address decoding logic is broken, and regularly enables more than one chip to drive data to the ISA bus at the same time. This might be due to a broken custom logic chip by creative labs, or due to a short on the card.

Reply 10 of 14, by stalk3r

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mkarcher wrote on 2022-01-28, 23:27:

All of the three buffer/driver chips seem to be connected to the 8 ISA data bits. If they get hot, it looks like they fight each other driving data to the ISA bus. The left one is used to drive data from the ISA bus to the CD cable and vice versa. It must not get hot at all if the CD drive is not accessed. If the chips get hot, I suspect the address decoding logic is broken, and regularly enables more than one chip to drive data to the ISA bus at the same time. This might be due to a broken custom logic chip by creative labs, or due to a short on the card.

It seems the left side driver chip only gets hot, when the Panasonic CD-ROM interface is connected.

Reply 11 of 14, by Kahenraz

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I have one of these cards. Can you explain a short procedure to see if this is reproducible?

I don't have a CD-ROM compatible with this card. Does any a part of it still get hot without this device connected?

Reply 12 of 14, by stalk3r

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Kahenraz wrote on 2022-01-31, 03:19:

I have one of these cards. Can you explain a short procedure to see if this is reproducible?

I don't have a CD-ROM compatible with this card. Does any a part of it still get hot without this device connected?

I've just tried the card in another motherboard and PSU, and *drumroll* the overheating issue is gone. But, it is still acting weird with certain games, e.g. Pinball Fantasies, it makes some pretty bad noises and the screen is full of artifacts. If I disable sound, it fixes the screen artifacts immediately. Interestingly, it does not have any issues with Doom though.

Last edited by stalk3r on 2022-02-02, 20:50. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 13 of 14, by TrashPanda

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stalk3r wrote on 2022-02-02, 14:10:
Kahenraz wrote on 2022-01-31, 03:19:

I have one of these cards. Can you explain a short procedure to see if this is reproducible?

I don't have a CD-ROM compatible with this card. Does any a part of it still get hot without this device connected?

I've just tried the card in another motherboard and PSU, and *drumroll* the overheating issue is gone. But, it still is acting weirdly with certain games, e.g. Pinball Fantasies, it makes some pretty bad noises and the screen is full of artifacts. If I disable sound, it fixes the screen artifacts immediately. Interestingly, it does not have any issues with Doom though.

I would question what features the games causing the artefacts are using on the sound card that DOOM is not using, might be able to isolate which ICs are involved that way.