Build is all in its new case, rather cramped in there, thinking I will need an additional fan, will get photographs soon.

But what I was expecting to be a pain in the arse was the EISA setup, which worked fairly easy. The DPT PM2022 worked almost straight away for basic functions like floppy drive. However, once the EISA config had it install as expected failed to boot properly due to using a Level IRQ (as expected), but in it's EISA config is an option to use Edge IRQ, and sure enough once Edge IRQ was selected it booted correctly, so no changing the file.

The 3C597-TX 3Com 10/100 Fast Ethernet on the other hand is causing a few issues, so straight away changed the config file IRQ from Level to Edge, system boots, lights activate on the card, set up MS network client in DOS to start getting my files from the NAS to the system. MS network client sees the card and starts, but refuses to get an IP address from the DHCP server or if I set it manually still cannot seem to get on the network, lights all normal on the back of the network card, so not sure what is going on there. So have a bit of trouble shooting to do there.

What I feared the most was the GD5429 card dying as the graphic glitches got worse, which it did. So in my collection is a Diamond Viper SE (with the IBM 525 RAMDAC), didn't want to use this card, but willing to give it a go already got 4mb of RAM on it though.

One cool thing, despite checking the RAM on the motherboard being seated correctly before starting it the first time (see previous pictures showing 64MB), during a clean of the modules contacts discovered they are 16mb modules that came with the board, and after putting them back in, I had a full 128mb or RAM, nice!

Oh, another issue is MS Network Client and/ or DOS is not a fan of using the upper memory on this system, so might have to do some trouble shooting there, maybe that could be causing my network connection issues.

Things still to do, install a CD Drive, trouble shooting a few things, photographs and of course benchmarks!

Well, after a night of testing I found the initial network card issue, was being caused by a dry joint of the SB16 card, which even though the jumper was in place, electronically was open so was configured as IRQ 10 (not 5) and obviously 10 is what I use for networking.

The next issue highlights the issue with the chipset, it hates any 3Com EISA Network card I put in, even if I tweak the CFG file, so currently have a 3Com ISA card installed, with exactly the same setting as I have for the EISA, but that works!

Every SCSI adapter I try has to be on IRQ Edge mode, and none want to use the full capacity of the drive, the most I can get is an 8gb partition for an entire disk, on an Adaptec EISA card and the DPT will not go above 2gb, but will allow me to create multiple 2gb partitions, so is stuck in a DOS compatible mode, regardless of what Operating System I use.

So at the moment I have set it up for Windows 95, Adaptec SCSI and ISA Networking, to try and play C&C over the LAN with the children! More testing to follow, I must admit though Windows 95 works like a charm on this.

Not been working on this as much as I would like, been busy on other tasks. So a quick update, another little quirk I have noticed is, despite the BIOS reporting 128MB or RAM, Windows 95 only sees 64MB. From previous experiments a typical ISA board maxed out at 32MB (EISA board with standard ISA BIOS in), which led me to the EISA .CFG file, it only has the option to go up to 64MB, so I had a tweak of that file and made my own, including an option for 128MB. Long and short, it sort of works, the Operating System sees 128MB, but it fails on the memory test, so I have to tweak the settings I have made in the .CFG file a little more to make it compatible with the start and end of the memory range.

This got me thinking, as this .CFG file can tweak BIOS settings seperate to the on board BIOS maybe I make a .CFG file to tweak other settings? i.e. timings etc, a sort of poor mans MR-BIOS.

Sounds like some weird chipset limitation or the BIOS isn't properly updating the e820 memory tables. I know the SiS EISA chipset and AMIBIOS has no problems with RAM above 64MB.

Build has been on pause for a while, which is a shame. Also donated the monitor I was using to my eldest as I am building him a computer for Christmas, so the story so far...

1) Waiting for a new monitor.

2) This chipset cannot do shared interrupts at all, you can modify the .CFG files for SCSI cards, but network cards refuse to play ball. So therefore, to get a network card working in the EISA slot it has to be designed to be EDGE compatible, finding which ones are is easy, just go through the Mr. Slug website looking at the .CFG files, the trouble is finding the hardware now a days.

3) My manual has been on pause for a while, I will try and get that updated this weekend if I have time.

4) My tweaked motherboard .CFG file is ready for testing, just need the monitor to turn up.

5) The 128MB ram issue is intresting, as during my research on .CFG files, the AMI ECU/ SCU does not allow configurations over 64MB, thought I had the latest version. But while going through a few different .CFG files, I often find options for configurations over 64MB commented out, with an additional comment stating that AMI ECU/ SCU does not support thoses options.

All in all a very intresting project, this chipset throws some odd curve balls at you.

I believe there should be something you can tweak in HIMEM.SYS to use more than 64mb...but I thought that was only an issue for DOS.
Make sure your EISA config is set to 128mb. If your BIOS reports 128mb, but EISA config is set to something lower you might not be able to use all your memory.

Wow, been a while seen I have chance to play with this project.

1) Managed to aquire another GD5429 VLB but again, the same graphic glitches occur, so thought it might be a timing issue but what ever I try it will not work properly, so stuck with the Viper card which I am actually warming to it plays Duke 3D okay.

2) Found an EISA network card that works with this board an Intel EtherExpress Flash32, nice little card which also has the boot chip populated which includes a program to setup the EISA card without the AMI program. Nightmare with it and MS-DOS LAN Client, which took me a while to work around is that the standard CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT file that is created using the LAN Client setup program won't allow you to use any upper memory manager with it, if you load EMM386.EXE the NET command complains there is no upper memory (despite X= the used ranges). However, if anyone else has this issue, my work around is this:

after IFSHLP.SYS in CONFIG.SYS add:

devicehigh=c:\network\protman.dos /i:c:\network
devicehigh=c:\network\nemm.dos
devicehigh=c:\network\tcpdrv.dos
devicehigh=c:\network\fl32.dos

then remove the following line from AUTOEXEC.BAT

c:\network\net initialize

and then EMM386.EXE works!!

3) I have put a CF-Card/ IDE adapter in the machine for data transfer, while I was having issues installing the network card, which although working I will propably keep in there now.

4) So the machine is fairly much complete and reading for benchmarks and testing, which essentially means I will get side tracked playing Duke 3D, Wolf 3D, Doom, etc.

Another rather slow update, one of my concerns with this build was the lack of fans, rather hot running SCA drive and small case, so bought a Fancard-combo which seems to do the trick.

Benchmarks do not seem too far off my original EISA build which is a shame, expected the VLB card to add a few FPS, but the Viper is rather well known at sucking in DOS, so search continues for a sensible not over priced VLB card.

Well after sometime of this build not living up to expectations, think I am going to take this build apart and store it until I have think of a new direction to go. This board hates any VLB graphics card I have apart from the Viper ?(which is okay but not what I really want) also the missing capabilities of the chipset require hunting for specific EISA cards, these cards are also just getting expensive.

Also just don't seem to have the time anymore to have a proper play with these systems. At the moment I have a thin client setup for DOS games which is quick and seems a lot more flexible for software experiements.

I am thinking maybe go back to my early days and build a 286, always remember being envious reading the magazines at the time and seeing a 286-20 with CD, VGA and sound, while I had a Zenith 286-12.

Damn, that's too bad. You really need to get a proper EISA board at some point. Those HiNT boards are only really interesting when used with 386 CPUs.

Well, have you heared that mkarcher has made a BIOS update for EISA SCSI controllers Adaptec 274x to support HDDs > 8 GB?
Showing some love for Adaptec's ugly ducklings: Adding big drive support to EISA and VL controllers