Some "more interesting" M810 BIOSes here, http://www.lejabeach.com/M810/M810.htm

I have one also, I think it's gonna get a Duron of some stripe.

Interesting indeed! Thanks for this! I’m a bit surprised these boards had enough of a following to warrant a page dedicated to them and modded BIOSes for them. Weird.

A Duron would be perfect for the M810. I think the VRMs on them aren’t too happy with the hungrier Athlons.

Can you scan that paper covering the AGP slot? I'm curious as to what it says.

I see a bunch of video cards listed on that sticker. Maybe that's which cards the AGP slot supports per se, but I digress. Probably a warning saying to not use AGP 1x cards in there or probably something else. I've seen something like that before many years ago.

I'm not familiar with them and would love to see what it says.

HanSolo wrote on 2022-03-03, 21:53:

a Soundblaster AWE 32 with OPL.

The OPL being a discrete Yamaha YMF-262 on the left, next to the CD-ROM connectors?
...in addition to the one integrated in the CT1747 main Chip?!?

Creative Labs never made much sense, but that seems idiotic.
Maybe they had some CT1747 yield where the OPL part did not work?

WJG6260 wrote on 2022-03-04, 05:13:

Recently picked up this fascinating VLB card. Gotta say, it’s pretty darn fast.

It's probably pretty much unknown in the states, but Miro was a rather prominent brand in Germany those days. They made, at least, VGA and sound cards and CRT screens.
I own a Miro Highscore Voodoo1 - known for its shamefully proprietary loop cable.

A Miro Crystal 10 SD happens to be the first VGA card I ever bought. It made do with the S3 805 chip, which is ok, but nothing to write home about. It could be maxed out at 2 MB, your's appears to have 4, which is pretty elite as well.
The 10SD can be set to decent refresh rates via DIP switches on the backplate. The RAMDAC on yours has a higher number, there should be some driver to do the same.
Thanks for showing me a 20SD for the first time - always wondered whether it was merely a 10SD that came with 2 MB, but no, it's way better. Nice find.

WJG6260 wrote on 2022-03-04, 05:13:

Also, I grabbed this PCChips M810LMR. It was ~$11, and it’s probably not worth that; I do have to say that it’s pretty nice for […]
Show full quote

Also, I grabbed this PCChips M810LMR. It was ~$11, and it’s probably not worth that; I do have to say that it’s pretty nice for what it is. It’s slower than my KT7A and AMD760-based GA-7DX, but still not that bad. It came with the original manual, disk, and AMR card.

The SiS730 itself really isn’t too bad. Sure, it’s an integrated chipset with sound, graphics, and the works all stuffed into it, but it’s pretty fast and very stable. Despite the usual shoddy PCChips quality, this board seems fun for testing. It’s perfect with an Athlon 1400 and even runs at 133/133 FSB/RAM, despite the manual seemingly insisting (contrary to SiS’s specifications) that the SiS “Thunderbird” chipset (as they deemed it) can only handle 100/133. Apparently the integrated MIDI isn’t half bad. SoundBlaster compatibility needs work and possibly some aspirin, to say the least…

Also, I probably need to update the bios on this thing as it does not like Athlon XPs very much. A 1700+ Palomino would run at 1100MHz, but not at 1466MHz; apparently it should be able to do the latter, so I’ll try a re-flash and see…

C4D5E2C0-B41A-4970-A7DE-8C3CB0FF42B3.jpeg

All those bad caps probably aren't helping anything.

WJG6260 wrote on 2022-03-04, 05:13:

Also, I grabbed this PCChips M810LMR. It was ~$11, and it’s probably not worth that; I do have to say that it’s pretty nice for what it is. It’s slower than my KT7A and AMD760-based GA-7DX, but still not that bad. It came with the original manual, disk, and AMR card.

The SiS730 itself really isn’t too bad. Sure, it’s an integrated chipset with sound, graphics, and the works all stuffed into it, but it’s pretty fast and very stable. Despite the usual shoddy PCChips quality, this board seems fun for testing. It’s perfect with an Athlon 1400 and even runs at 133/133 FSB/RAM, despite the manual seemingly insisting (contrary to SiS’s specifications) that the SiS “Thunderbird” chipset (as they deemed it) can only handle 100/133. Apparently the integrated MIDI isn’t half bad. SoundBlaster compatibility needs work and possibly some aspirin, to say the least…

Also, I probably need to update the bios on this thing as it does not like Athlon XPs very much. A 1700+ Palomino would run at 1100MHz, but not at 1466MHz; apparently it should be able to do the latter, so I’ll try a re-flash and see…

I've received a similar board with this SiS chipset with a larger hardware bundle recently. It's an Elitegroup K7SEM.
It has a pretty much everything onboard that was needed for some lightweight office or casual gaming machine back then: VGA, Sound, ATA100, even LAN as I found out by chance (though it needs some special LAN bracket it unfortunately didn't came with, beeing the reason I didn't notice that feature at first).
I think I remember having seen some similar info about tested graphics card as on the sticker on the AGP slot of this M810LMR somewhere on the net, but I don't seem to be able to find it again...

The board is serving me as some testing rig for AGP cards with unknown working status at the moment, beeing paired with an Athlon XP 2000+. So I can confirm the chipset can work at 133/133 CPU/RAM without struggle (which can be set within the BIOS). The manual says there's one restriction: the RAM can not run slower than the CPU. So 100/133 CPU/RAM is ok, 133/100 is not. But that's not a real drawback imho.

I kind of like those SiS chipsets someway. I have boards with SiS 5582, 530, 630E / 630ET (latter one supports P3 Tualatins) and 730 right now and can't tell anything really negative about them. Might not be the fastest ones within their class but they are doing their thing. It's like with all oldies, if you need more speed get a newer ride.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-04, 08:06:

The OPL being a discrete Yamaha YMF-262 on the left, next to the CD-ROM connectors? ...in addition to the one integrated in the […]
Show full quote

HanSolo wrote on 2022-03-03, 21:53:

a Soundblaster AWE 32 with OPL.

The OPL being a discrete Yamaha YMF-262 on the left, next to the CD-ROM connectors?
...in addition to the one integrated in the CT1747 main Chip?!?

Creative Labs never made much sense, but that seems idiotic.
Maybe they had some CT1747 yield where the OPL part did not work?

No, only the integrated one in the CT1747

Added a cheap BFG FX5700 Ultra 128m DDR2 to my collection, along with a pair of D-LINK XTreme Wireless N Desktop Adapter DWA 552 PCI adaptors for my XP machines.
Normally I use Ethernet but its nice to have wireless for when I cannot be arsed hooking up a cable to the switch and running it to where the machine resides, wish I had Cat6 piped through out the home in the walls with sockets. But that would require more effort than Im willing to spend on my home and climbing through the roof space ..nope not doing that again anytime soon.
The fucking huge spiders up there dont much like me intruding on their living space.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-03-04, 06:42:

Can you scan that paper covering the AGP slot? I'm curious as to what it says.

Absolutely! My apologies for the not-so-good angle, but here’s a couple of photos.

bjwil1991 wrote on 2022-03-04, 07:30:

I see a bunch of video cards listed on that sticker. Maybe that's which cards the AGP slot supports per se, but I digress. Probably a warning saying to not use AGP 1x cards in there or probably something else. I've seen something like that before many years ago.

It seems to be. What I find most interesting is that the sticker mentions “Manual Page Index II” and my copy of the original manual that came with this board seems to utterly lack any such index. Perhaps these issues were remedied at some point? My board seems to be PCB Rev. 5.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-04, 08:18:

It's probably pretty much unknown in the states, but Miro was a rather prominent brand in Germany those days. They made, at leas […]
Show full quote

WJG6260 wrote on 2022-03-04, 05:13:

Recently picked up this fascinating VLB card. Gotta say, it’s pretty darn fast.

It's probably pretty much unknown in the states, but Miro was a rather prominent brand in Germany those days. They made, at least, VGA and sound cards and CRT screens.
I own a Miro Highscore Voodoo1 - known for its shamefully proprietary loop cable.

A Miro Crystal 10 SD happens to be the first VGA card I ever bought. It made do with the S3 805 chip, which is ok, but nothing to write home about. It could be maxed out at 2 MB, your's appears to have 4, which is pretty elite as well.
The 10SD can be set to decent refresh rates via DIP switches on the backplate. The RAMDAC on yours has a higher number, there should be some driver to do the same.
Thanks for showing me a 20SD for the first time - always wondered whether it was merely a 10SD that came with 2 MB, but no, it's way better. Nice find.

Hey, thanks for the information! I’ve got a couple of Miro, ELSA, and SPEA cards and can say they’re all really top-notch. It’s confusing to me how they had seemingly no US presence and yet some OEMs like Compaq used ELSA cards for workstations. I always found that kind of odd.

The Highscore is an awesome card. I believe the loop cable it uses is the same as one used by Sigma Designs for some sort of MPEG or capture card? I can’t remember precisely what it’s for, but I’m pretty sure those two are interchangeable, but don’t quote me on it. The Highscore’s 6MB always fascinated me. In some ways, I’ve always been more partial to the V1 in quirky configurations, including the Rush.

I’ve had great luck with 805s and, actually, my Diamond Stealth24 is roughly as fast as this card, being at worst some 7% off in benchmarks. The Miro 10SD is a really nice one; that extra MB would be helpful in Windows, no? As for the 20SD, unfortunately it’s only 2MB, but that’s definitely plenty for my purposes. I will say that the RAMDAC utility is something I’ll keep an eye out for—thanks for that suggestion!

These older cards can sometimes be tricky with LCDs. I use a VisionRGB E1 for capture and it can handle some weird refresh rates pretty okay (I’ve got a borked ATi Rage Pro PCI that only displays 640x490 at like 80-something Hz and it can capture an imagine on it somehow).

pete8475 wrote on 2022-03-04, 08:31:

WJG6260 wrote on 2022-03-04, 05:13:

Also, I grabbed this PCChips M810LMR. It was ~$11, and it’s probably not worth that; I do have to say that it’s pretty nice for […]
Show full quote

Also, I grabbed this PCChips M810LMR. It was ~$11, and it’s probably not worth that; I do have to say that it’s pretty nice for what it is. It’s slower than my KT7A and AMD760-based GA-7DX, but still not that bad. It came with the original manual, disk, and AMR card.

The SiS730 itself really isn’t too bad. Sure, it’s an integrated chipset with sound, graphics, and the works all stuffed into it, but it’s pretty fast and very stable. Despite the usual shoddy PCChips quality, this board seems fun for testing. It’s perfect with an Athlon 1400 and even runs at 133/133 FSB/RAM, despite the manual seemingly insisting (contrary to SiS’s specifications) that the SiS “Thunderbird” chipset (as they deemed it) can only handle 100/133. Apparently the integrated MIDI isn’t half bad. SoundBlaster compatibility needs work and possibly some aspirin, to say the least…

Also, I probably need to update the bios on this thing as it does not like Athlon XPs very much. A 1700+ Palomino would run at 1100MHz, but not at 1466MHz; apparently it should be able to do the latter, so I’ll try a re-flash and see…

C4D5E2C0-B41A-4970-A7DE-8C3CB0FF42B3.jpeg

All those bad caps probably aren't helping anything.

Yeah, that’s one thing I noticed too when I got the board. They’re not as bad looking in person, granted I have awful eyesight. But they’re low-quality G-LUXON caps that I’ll replace when I’ve got the time. I do really appreciate the suggestion though; I suppose that could explain why it doesn’t want to run an AXP at full bore 🤣

It works stably now, but it’s more of a testing board than anything I guess.

ChrisK wrote on 2022-03-04, 09:28:

I've received a similar board with this SiS chipset with a larger hardware bundle recently. It's an Elitegroup K7SEM. It has a p […]
Show full quote

WJG6260 wrote on 2022-03-04, 05:13:

Also, I grabbed this PCChips M810LMR. It was ~$11, and it’s probably not worth that; I do have to say that it’s pretty nice for what it is. It’s slower than my KT7A and AMD760-based GA-7DX, but still not that bad. It came with the original manual, disk, and AMR card.

The SiS730 itself really isn’t too bad. Sure, it’s an integrated chipset with sound, graphics, and the works all stuffed into it, but it’s pretty fast and very stable. Despite the usual shoddy PCChips quality, this board seems fun for testing. It’s perfect with an Athlon 1400 and even runs at 133/133 FSB/RAM, despite the manual seemingly insisting (contrary to SiS’s specifications) that the SiS “Thunderbird” chipset (as they deemed it) can only handle 100/133. Apparently the integrated MIDI isn’t half bad. SoundBlaster compatibility needs work and possibly some aspirin, to say the least…

Also, I probably need to update the bios on this thing as it does not like Athlon XPs very much. A 1700+ Palomino would run at 1100MHz, but not at 1466MHz; apparently it should be able to do the latter, so I’ll try a re-flash and see…

I've received a similar board with this SiS chipset with a larger hardware bundle recently. It's an Elitegroup K7SEM.
It has a pretty much everything onboard that was needed for some lightweight office or casual gaming machine back then: VGA, Sound, ATA100, even LAN as I found out by chance (though it needs some special LAN bracket it unfortunately didn't came with, beeing the reason I didn't notice that feature at first).
I think I remember having seen some similar info about tested graphics card as on the sticker on the AGP slot of this M810LMR somewhere on the net, but I don't seem to be able to find it again...

The board is serving me as some testing rig for AGP cards with unknown working status at the moment, beeing paired with an Athlon XP 2000+. So I can confirm the chipset can work at 133/133 CPU/RAM without struggle (which can be set within the BIOS). The manual says there's one restriction: the RAM can not run slower than the CPU. So 100/133 CPU/RAM is ok, 133/100 is not. But that's not a real drawback imho.

I kind of like those SiS chipsets someway. I have boards with SiS 5582, 530, 630E / 630ET (latter one supports P3 Tualatins) and 730 right now and can't tell anything really negative about them. Might not be the fastest ones within their class but they are doing their thing. It's like with all oldies, if you need more speed get a newer ride.

Interesting! I think the K7SEM is this board’s cousin, from what I read. Seems like a great board and I’m with you—it’s nice to see everything neatly packaged here by SiS. It sure makes working on these boards easier, and it makes testing immeasurably simpler.

The M810LMR seems to not like certain AGP cards, including the V3. That’s fine by me I’d say, as the SiS 300 integrated setup is pretty decent overall and I’d rather use this board with a Duron and a Blade 9880 or something like that, just as an unconventional setup.

Thanks for the info on the chipset! That’s pretty interesting and makes sense. Sounds like the perfect board for your test case and, honestly, I think you’re right that the performance it offers is plenty. It’s actually not that much slower than a KT133A setup, in terms of memory performance and throughput.

SiS is an underrated chipset manufacturer. I really do agree with your takes on their products. Their integrated solutions are decent, and some of their performance chipsets are just top-of-the-top. The SiS5571 is excellent for its era and comparable to the 430HX, in some regards. It’s also quite good with Cyrix 6x86s. I’ve had luck with the 5591 as a stable AGP chipset for Socket 7, and it’s fast, even at 83MHz. SiS530 is pretty good too. Their later chipsets are also awesome; I’ve got a Pentium 4 board with the 645DX and it’s solid for AGP testing and tinkering. I’ve also got a Pentium M board with the SiS661FX, which I haven’t really messed with too much, but that should make a solid, solid Windows 9X machine.

I do also like some Via chipsets, despite the hate they often get. The 686 southbridge is sometimes wonky, but the 694X/Apollo Pro 133A and Via VPX have always worked well for me. The Via VP2 might be my favorite Socket 7 chipset not named 430HX.

Thanks for that, I got an ASUS V3800 come in the other day and know exactly where to park it now.

WJG6260 wrote on 2022-03-04, 15:33:

Yeah, that’s one thing I noticed too when I got the board. They’re not as bad looking in person, granted I have awful eyesight. But they’re low-quality G-LUXON caps that I’ll replace when I’ve got the time. I do really appreciate the suggestion though; I suppose that could explain why it doesn’t want to run an AXP at full bore 🤣

It works stably now, but it’s more of a testing board than anything I guess.

My theory about the cockroach like survivability of PC Chips boards is that the designers knew they'd get the cheapest/crappiest components and designed for worst case, whereas the engineers and designers at other motherboard makers designed for good components that were assumed to stay in spec eternally... (Spoiler, they didn't)

Although it was free, I got this 8IG1000 Pro just yesterday from a AGFA dlab.1 machine I had to repair.

It works but there's a ton of bad batch nichicons (and a round of OSTs) that NEED to go.

The photo shows both versions - left is the rather barren 8IPE1000 version - no LAN, no 1394. Just bare functionality. Right is the 8IG1000 Pro. 1394, CSA LAN, DualBIOS, all the missing bells and whistles that the 8IPE1000 should have. Except for the absolutely useless (AGP exists for a reason on these, thank god) Intel GMA (or whatever name they had for it during the 845/865/915 era)onboard.

I was digging through my garage to move out some stuff and found an old Gateway P3 system that I picked up at one of the local thrift stores. I'm gonna bring it inside later and see what's in there, as I don't recall what was inside beyond the fact that it was a populated system. I picked up some old, unopened RAM from Staples that they had on clearance, which will go into the box. I'll definitely replace the OEM soundcard with a useful one that has a wavetable header, which will get the X2GS that I'll be ordering.

HanSolo wrote on 2022-03-04, 13:29:

No, only the integrated one in the CT1747

OK, right, the chip I saw lacks two legs to be a YMF-262.
Well, that one in the CT1747 is the minimum amount of OPL3 a SB16 should have.
It somehow still seems to be a discussion whether the integrated one was as good as the original. No idea, I liked it on my ct2770.

WJG6260 wrote on 2022-03-04, 15:33:

It’s confusing to me how they had seemingly no US presence and yet some OEMs like Compaq used ELSA cards for workstations. I always found that kind of odd.

I think, all three companies, ELSA, Miro and Spea were old enough to have started out in a "business only" PC environment. Hard to get a market share on foreign turf there, always some politics involved.
Spea ended up as part of Diamond.
ELSA apparently was quite big on CAD workstation gear. Their permedia based "Gloria Synergy" are pretty abundant and I have two "Gloria [whatever their equivalent of gf256 an -DDR were]". The DDR version is AGP pro and has a big-ass passive cooler.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-04, 15:47:

Thanks for that, I got an ASUS V3800 come in the other day and know exactly where to park it now.

WJG6260 wrote on 2022-03-04, 15:33:

Yeah, that’s one thing I noticed too when I got the board. They’re not as bad looking in person, granted I have awful eyesight. But they’re low-quality G-LUXON caps that I’ll replace when I’ve got the time. I do really appreciate the suggestion though; I suppose that could explain why it doesn’t want to run an AXP at full bore 🤣

It works stably now, but it’s more of a testing board than anything I guess.

My theory about the cockroach like survivability of PC Chips boards is that the designers knew they'd get the cheapest/crappiest components and designed for worst case, whereas the engineers and designers at other motherboard makers designed for good components that were assumed to stay in spec eternally... (Spoiler, they didn't)

Glad I could be of help!

You know, I quite like your theory. It definitely seems probable. I’ve had a number of “premium” motherboards take a dive on me and yet PCChips ones just chug along happily…

I will say that I have had better luck with PCChips boards than the horror stories tend to make one believe. The M912 is a solid, acceptable late VLB board. The M919 (never used one, but have a few friends who have them) seems okay, despite the auto-divider and cache situation. The Amptron PM9600 is a really fast Aladdin IV+ board, and one of the only that I know to use that chipset.

I think their LMR and LMRT boards are drawing my interest now more than before since I’m on a quest to setup an in-home dial-up ISP. I’ve got it going now at 33.6, and I’d eventually like to setup a V.90 system. Lord help me.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-04, 16:06:

WJG6260 wrote on 2022-03-04, 15:33:

It’s confusing to me how they had seemingly no US presence and yet some OEMs like Compaq used ELSA cards for workstations. I always found that kind of odd.

I think, all three companies, ELSA, Miro and Spea were old enough to have started out in a "business only" PC environment. Hard to get a market share on foreign turf there, always some politics involved.
ELSA apparently was quite big on CAD workstation gear. Their permedia based "Gloria Synergy" are pretty abundant and I have two "Gloria [whatever their equivalent of gf256 an -DDR were]. The DDR version is AGP pro and has a big-ass passive cooler.

Makes sense to me. I definitely remember ELSA stuff being advertised for/equipped in various CAD machines, that’s a great point. I’d be interested to see what their Gloria Synergy cards were like; the build quality of their cards is quite nice and the Permedia2 is supposedly decent, right? That AGP Pro GF256 sounds quite cool! Can’t say I’ve seen anything like that before. I have one of those giant Gloria L cards (it came with a PPRO board I bought a long while ago) and it’s got an early Glint chip, the Glint Delta, and an S3 Virge for good measure. It’s also got like 16 or 20MB of total RAM. Absolute beast of a card.

WJG6260 wrote on 2022-03-04, 16:10:

I’d be interested to see what their Gloria Synergy cards were like; the build quality of their cards is quite nice and the Permedia2 is supposedly decent, right? That AGP Pro GF256 sounds quite cool! Can’t say I’ve seen anything like that before. I have one of those giant Gloria L cards (it came with a PPRO board I bought a long while ago) and it’s got an early Glint chip, the Glint Delta, and an S3 Virge for good measure. It’s also got like 16 or 20MB of total RAM. Absolute beast of a card.

I'm borrowing the photos of the Synergy, mine are somewhere in the heap (thanks, Fabian):
http://www.amoretro.de/wp-content/uploads/201 … aphics_card.jpg
There was a "ViVo" edition with a bunch of S-video and composite connectors.
The civilian version was called the Winner 2000 office:
http://www.amoretro.de/wp-content/uploads/els … a_2_8mb_pci.jpg

The quadro cards, they're not exoctic either and I didn't exactly buy them today, but did not post them here before.
Note the "pro" uses up two slots and comes with a 30 mm high cooler.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-04, 16:48:

I'm borrowing the photos of the Synergy, mine are somewhere in the heap (thanks, Fabian): http://www.amoretro.de/wp-content/uplo […]
Show full quote

WJG6260 wrote on 2022-03-04, 16:10:

I’d be interested to see what their Gloria Synergy cards were like; the build quality of their cards is quite nice and the Permedia2 is supposedly decent, right? That AGP Pro GF256 sounds quite cool! Can’t say I’ve seen anything like that before. I have one of those giant Gloria L cards (it came with a PPRO board I bought a long while ago) and it’s got an early Glint chip, the Glint Delta, and an S3 Virge for good measure. It’s also got like 16 or 20MB of total RAM. Absolute beast of a card.

I'm borrowing the photos of the Synergy, mine are somewhere in the heap (thanks, Fabian):
http://www.amoretro.de/wp-content/uploads/201 … aphics_card.jpg
There was a "ViVo" edition with a bunch of S-video and composite connectors.
The civilian version was called the Winner 2000 office:
http://www.amoretro.de/wp-content/uploads/els … a_2_8mb_pci.jpg

The quadro cards, they're not exoctic either and I didn't exactly buy them today, but did not post them here before.
Note the "pro" uses up two slots and comes with a 30 mm high cooler.

Thanks for the pics! The Synergy is a great looking card. The mention of a ViVo one certainly brings back some memories...

That pro variant is pretty impressive. It reminds me of the 3DLabs Wildcat. AGP Pro is neat, but it feels like there's so few cards supporting it and it's just not worth the performance gain. This thing must've been a beast in its time.