VOGONS


First post, by cyberluke

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Hi, I bought Optiplex 433/LE and it has missing both buffer and cache.

I got 15ns cache and for buffer it should be TTL, but 74F244N is not working. No pc speaker noise, only hdd led goes on and screen will not turn on. I also tried latch version 74F643 os=r something like that.

Does anyone know what should come there?

There is one ebay seller from Bulgaria and he refuse to send me photo, he has it including the buffers. Last two months Im only buying various parts and it is not working.

I would be also curious if you could out isa vlb riser from IBM or if it is possible to make vlb riser for this board like DIY.

Here are my photos.

Reply 1 of 13, by cyberluke

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Adding more photos, you can see 74F245 is onboard and wired to these two buffers.

Reply 2 of 13, by cyberluke

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Ok, it might be 74F245, latch version of ttl.

Reply 3 of 13, by cyberluke

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In the end 74F245N (SN74F245N Texas Transceiver LED Driver 8-Bit-Bus DIP20) seems to work, but now I have a problem with cache. I used 20ns cmos sram for both tag and cache: Alliance AS7C256-20PC. I know it supports only 128kb of cache total. I have around 20 chips total and tried to put them randomly, maybe some of them are faulty. Once it did boot into bios and it did show 120kb. But then it locks up during the boot from HDD or FDD. Then I tried different chips combinations and it never works anymore. It beeps or it locks up after BIOS POST.

Any clues? Try to order new chips? 20ns should be safe value for 486DX motherboards.

Reply 4 of 13, by majestyk

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The 5th socket "TAG" is for TAG-RAM.
The chipset might not be happy with a 256K SRAM chip in this position but demand 128K TAG (or 64K) instead.

Reply 5 of 13, by cyberluke

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I have additional photo from E-Bay.

Tag ram is MCM6265CJ15 = 15ns, probably 64k (this could be it!)

Cache looks like IDT chip 20ns (some have Alliance chip 20ns)

So that should be correct. I have tried tag 20ns (Alliance) and 15ns (Winbond) and no luck so far.

I have ordered 1x Winbond 15ns and 4x IDT 20ns now.

Last edited by cyberluke on 2022-01-03, 17:27. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 6 of 13, by cyberluke

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EDIT: Tag looks like 8K x 9 Bit Fast Static RAM

Reply 7 of 13, by majestyk

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So I guess it won´t work with 32Kx8 for TAG...

Last edited by majestyk on 2022-01-03, 18:04. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 8 of 13, by cyberluke

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Yes, looks like I made a progress. Just ordered MCM6265CJ15. Thank you!

Reply 9 of 13, by snufkin

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Hope you get it working. I just looked up on UltimateRetro just in case there was any information on it:
https://www.ultimateretro.net/en/motherboards/1593
https://www.ultimateretro.net/motherboard/manual/33432.pdf

And... no. The MicroHouse sheet shows both TAG and U55&57 as unidentified. So if you do get it working this could be a small gap filled in.

Reply 10 of 13, by majestyk

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Many / most boards have 8Kx8 for TAG with 128K cache - 8Kx9 is quite unusual. But nothing is impossible when it`s a DELL 😉

Reply 11 of 13, by cyberluke

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Yes, it is strange. I have read that Dell & IBM motherboards of that time could have similar compatible stuff. Here is datasheet for that TAG: https://www.alldatasheet.com/view.jsp?Searchword=MCM6265CP15 and it says 8K x 9.

I have verified that U55&57 are 74F245N and TAG is MCM6265CP15. You can see that on the last screenshot above.

Reply 12 of 13, by cyberluke

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I confirm MCM6265CJ15 for TAG solved my issue and now external cache is 128kb - fully recognized 20ns cache!

Reply 13 of 13, by cyberluke

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Windows 98 is very slow though. Perhaps need better CompactFlash adapter or this IDE controller is just ISA integrated with no DMA. Then I think only ISA SCSI can rescue this situation bottleneck.