VOGONS


First post, by cyberluke

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Hi, I accidentally won some auction and there was this VLB card for 30 USD. I did not notice until it came to my hands that some parts are missing.

1) BIOS is missing, that might be simple: just download and flash BIOS from this website: http://chukaev.ru54.com/video_en.htm
2) Additional memory to expand it to 2MB is missing: this might be easy to buy on E-Bay (do you know which ones are the best? It is probably some 40-pin DRAM, 70ns or 60ns)
3) Oscillator is missing: this should be simple, just buy 14.31818 one
4) The upper resistor is missing on my board (CR3) - Does anyone know what to put there?
5) The bottom resistor CR4. My board has only gold plates. On the photo I see some silver - it looks like something is soldered there or is it empty as well?

Thank you. Next time, I guess I won't buy in my country, but buy on E-Bay...

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Reply 2 of 8, by SSTV2

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Are you sure that missing crystal was desoldered by someone? I'm wondering, because ISA/VLB based graphics chips can be configured to source 14.318 MHz clock from the ISA bus, thus making an external crystal unnecessary. CR3 looks like a standard 1N4142 glass diode and CR4 was unpopulated on purpose during manufacturing.

Reply 4 of 8, by cyberluke

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SSTV2 wrote on 2021-08-21, 21:48:

Are you sure that missing crystal was desoldered by someone? I'm wondering, because ISA/VLB based graphics chips can be configured to source 14.318 MHz clock from the ISA bus, thus making an external crystal unnecessary. CR3 looks like a standard 1N4142 glass diode and CR4 was unpopulated on purpose during manufacturing.

The external crystal is connected using two wires and I see something that resembles these two wires inside the pins. It looks like someone cut it. But perhaps I might just put BIOS there and try to start it up, hopefully it won't smoke 😁

Reply 5 of 8, by cyberluke

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mt777 wrote on 2021-08-21, 23:05:

I have identical card so potentialy can help

Friend above provided answer that CR4 is 1N4142 glass diode...I was thinking it was a resistor.

Can you please tell me what kind of memory chips you have? I think there are the same like on many PCI and ISA cards, right? For example I have Cirrus Logic PCI here with OKI M5416258A-35J - well that one is smaller size. But it will be some similar, mostly it is OKI brand for memory chips.

Reply 6 of 8, by mt777

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brand doesn't so matter, just FPM instead EDO on ISA/VLB cards. It is hardly to find them (due to on common S3 cards there are EDO rams in sockets which could be pulled).
I bought bunch of FPM SOJ 256kx16 from ALI.

Reply 7 of 8, by SSTV2

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cyberluke wrote on 2021-08-22, 09:27:

The external crystal is connected using two wires and I see something that resembles these two wires inside the pins. It looks like someone cut it. But perhaps I might just put BIOS there and try to start it up, hopefully it won't smoke 😁

Ah, then you should install one, I made there a typo with diode model, I meant 1N4148 diode (0.7Vf), not 1N4142, but it could also be a schottky diode with a lower forward voltage drop eg. BAT41.

Reply 8 of 8, by RiP

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mt777 wrote on 2021-08-22, 09:53:

brand doesn't so matter, just FPM instead EDO on ISA/VLB cards. It is hardly to find them (due to on common S3 cards there are EDO rams in sockets which could be pulled).
I bought bunch of FPM SOJ 256kx16 from ALI.

EDO worked fine in my S3 805 (P) VLB