Finally had time to test zxc64's voodoo 1 replica today. It is a replica of Quantum3D's Obsidian SB50-4440, with the extra TMU + 4MB add-on module. I bought it a while back but was too busy to actually try it on actual games.

Unfortunately the official Quantum3D drivers are broken, the card would show corrupted and missing textures. So I tried the 3rd Party Iceman Voodoo driver instead, and crossed my fingers that it would actually utilize the 2nd TMU chip.

Thankfully it did, and this was confirmed after testing Half-Life GOTY. The intro train scene at 800x600 was really smooth with the TMU module attached. Tried it again without the module and It was stuttering at low 10s FPS.

PcBytes wrote on 2025-06-08, 02:21:

Found my GA-5AX rev 4.1 + K6-2+ 500. Might take it out for a spin later if I have the time, and maybe order a K6-3+ down the line.

Exactly what I've been doing. Messing around with setmul. Got the k6-2+ 500 down to 133MHz using th jumpers and switches on the motherboard. Saved a drive copy of a DOS machine purchased three year ago and most of the games work without the CD but the previous owner used an AWE32. Currently changing to gravis ultrasound and sc55. Matrox millenium II PCI 8MB was really terrible, jazz jackrabbit was not smooth so stuck a voodoo3 2000 agp in. lots of save games too

gmaverick2k wrote on 2025-06-08, 17:33:

Exactly what I've been doing. Messing around with setmul. Got the k6-2+ 500 down to 133MHz using th jumpers and switches on the motherboard. Saved a drive copy of a DOS machine purchased three year ago and most of the games work without the CD but the previous owner used an AWE32. Currently changing to gravis ultrasound and sc55. Matrox millenium II PCI 8MB was really terrible, jazz jackrabbit was not smooth so stuck a voodoo3 2000 agp in. lots of save games too

What what a time capsule!

I love seeing a random directory list of DOS video game and utilities! 👍

clownwolf wrote on 2025-06-08, 05:04:

Finally had time to test zxc64's voodoo 1 replica today. It is a replica of Quantum3D's Obsidian SB50-4440, with the extra TMU + […]
Show full quote

Finally had time to test zxc64's voodoo 1 replica today. It is a replica of Quantum3D's Obsidian SB50-4440, with the extra TMU + 4MB add-on module. I bought it a while back but was too busy to actually try it on actual games.

Unfortunately the official Quantum3D drivers are broken, the card would show corrupted and missing textures. So I tried the 3rd Party Iceman Voodoo driver instead, and crossed my fingers that it would actually utilize the 2nd TMU chip.

Thankfully it did, and this was confirmed after testing Half-Life GOTY. The intro train scene at 800x600 was really smooth with the TMU module attached. Tried it again without the module and It was stuttering at low 10s FPS.

The attachment 20250607_2138502.jpg is no longer available

The Voodoo 1 could have more than one TMU?

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-06-08, 18:41:

clownwolf wrote on 2025-06-08, 05:04:

Finally had time to test zxc64's voodoo 1 replica today. It is a replica of Quantum3D's Obsidian SB50-4440, with the extra TMU + […]
Show full quote

Finally had time to test zxc64's voodoo 1 replica today. It is a replica of Quantum3D's Obsidian SB50-4440, with the extra TMU + 4MB add-on module. I bought it a while back but was too busy to actually try it on actual games.

Unfortunately the official Quantum3D drivers are broken, the card would show corrupted and missing textures. So I tried the 3rd Party Iceman Voodoo driver instead, and crossed my fingers that it would actually utilize the 2nd TMU chip.

Thankfully it did, and this was confirmed after testing Half-Life GOTY. The intro train scene at 800x600 was really smooth with the TMU module attached. Tried it again without the module and It was stuttering at low 10s FPS.

The attachment 20250607_2138502.jpg is no longer available

The Voodoo 1 could have more than one TMU?

The thing about the Voodoo 1 and Voodoo 2 is that they're mostly the same, though the Voodoo 2 has more of its optional parts on the standard board - the main difference is that the Voodoo 2 is on a smaller process node so runs cooler and clocks higher, but the V1 and V2 TMUs actually have the same pinout and functionality.
There are some minor differences between the V1's FBI and the V2's CK chips but the functionality for multitexturing is there on both cards if they were built with the same options i.e. 2x TMUs and more texture / framebuffer memory.

Right now I'm making some replacement parts for laptops but I don't have access to the 3d scanner. They're flat objects though so I'm scanning them to get most of the features, my old CCFL / CCD flatbed scanner that I found in a skip, is great for this:

gmaverick2k wrote on 2025-06-08, 17:33:

PcBytes wrote on 2025-06-08, 02:21:

Found my GA-5AX rev 4.1 + K6-2+ 500. Might take it out for a spin later if I have the time, and maybe order a K6-3+ down the line.

Exactly what I've been doing. Messing around with setmul. Got the k6-2+ 500 down to 133MHz using th jumpers and switches on the motherboard. Saved a drive copy of a DOS machine purchased three year ago and most of the games work without the CD but the previous owner used an AWE32. Currently changing to gravis ultrasound and sc55. Matrox millenium II PCI 8MB was really terrible, jazz jackrabbit was not smooth so stuck a voodoo3 2000 agp in. lots of save games too

Yup, I unfortunately got sidetracked with an Rev G equipped Acorp 5ALI61 w/ a standard K6-2 @ 500.

I guess I'll make some people happy here, cause I might just come back to ALI Aladdin 5 and K6 Plus. The REV G of Aladdin5 has been on my hunt list for a long while, and while it's not on an ATX mobo, it's a welcome surprise.

I gutted my XP computer and replaced the motherboard/cpu and ram. It has a i7-4790k in it now 🤣

Made a post about it on here.
Revamped my XP/Vista machine

Put my unused K6-2+ at 450 into the M590 for some extra boost, bumped the RAM up to 128MB, and installed Diablo 2 and MoO 2. I was gonna put in drivers but Win98qi came with them.

Then realized I hadn't enabled DMA for the SD2IDE. That close to tripled disk speed.

Sorted through my 5.25" Floppies and found that 75% were bad, also tried to relube/repair my Creative CD1220E CD drive and failed so far, found a loose spring and the tray is locking closed despite everything being supposedly ready to go lubrication wise. I've been unable to find a way to remove the CD tray to get a full view of the locking mechanism so I'm rather stumped with it. Thankfully I had a singular SATA > IDE adaptor to keep my win95 computer working but it doesn't support CD audio so a lot of games are weirdly silent or even cause CTDs when operating through that adapter but it's better then nothing.

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-06-08, 18:41:

The Voodoo 1 could have more than one TMU?

Yep - that's one of the few boards that has it, you can see it stacked on the board in the photo.

Updating a bit soon, since I'm going to take a break from any vintage repairs tomorrow. (We'll see though 🤣.) Finally managed to find a pen that could bypass the keylock on my xt clone called a MEGA 4000, and the computer turned on and posted perfectly fine. With the key locked it would never make any beeps and the turbo light would never come on, so I'm assuming they found a way to disable the motherboard when the key was locked. To boot the Super 16 Turbo came with a CGA/EGA monitor that works with this XT clone as well so I was able to confirm it is now going through it's post sequence. Pretty elated honestly, it's been a shelf queen for quite a while now. Just need to get all the internals fully hooked up, get the battery on the clock card changed out for a barrel blaster type replacement, and then it'll hopefully be ready to use if I can ever track down a second monitor.

DaveDDS wrote on 2025-05-11, 20:12:

...So I modified DDLINK to allow the bootstrap transfer speed to be changed (and
defaulted it to 9600bps....

Dave,
DDLINK source code for latest changes is not yet posted on your page ...themindfactory.com/dnldsrc.htm.

Also STATUS.TXT last updated 24/12/12.

Any chance you can upload new sources soon?

xa3d wrote on 2025-06-10, 15:41:

Dave, DDLINK source code for latest changes is not yet posted on your page ...themindfactory.com/dnldsrc.htm. […]
Show full quote

Dave,
DDLINK source code for latest changes is not yet posted on your page ...themindfactory.com/dnldsrc.htm.

Also STATUS.TXT last updated 24/12/12.

Any chance you can upload new sources soon?

Sorry, - I've been away ... and hadn't though to check...

I'll try to get to it within the next couple days (got a couple other updates I've going to be uploading as well)

Thermalwrong wrote on 2025-05-25, 02:29:

Ouch :( Personally I use a current limited bench power supply @ 12v with a picoPSU to limit the damage that things like that can […]
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Susanin79 wrote on 2025-05-20, 15:32:

Well, looks like I’ve just learned another hard lesson. Was messing around with a cheap old motherboard, checking CPU voltage, w […]
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Well, looks like I’ve just learned another hard lesson.
Was messing around with a cheap old motherboard, checking CPU voltage, when the multimeter probe slipped off the CPU leg and shorted the Vcc pin straight to ground. Even though I was working under the microscope, my hand shook a bit — didn’t notice anything at first, but the smell of burning told me something was wrong.
Pretty sure the CPU is toast now. The board got so hot a GAL chip literally popped off the diagnostic board.
Kinda sad — I’ll probably never find out what was actually wrong with that motherboard. Not even sure the POST card made it through.
Anyway, learning by doing has its price. No big deal — on to the next one.

Ouch 🙁 Personally I use a current limited bench power supply @ 12v with a picoPSU to limit the damage that things like that can do, but yesterday even that wasn't enough!
In trying to test out a laptop floppy drive, this PicoPSU finally gave up and let the magic smoke out - just a faulty component but that n-channel MOSFET in the lower right was over 100C and let out the smoke:

The attachment IMG_6614 (Custom).JPG is no longer available

It had been playing up for a while, not shutting off when I turned the AT power switch off, but yesterday it was going high current and the Single Board Computer it powers wasn't powering up. So I guess it just let go, hoping that replacing that MOSFET gets it back up and running but who knows. Now running a cheap clone picopsu that I got from a *coin miner last year, this little Advantech PCA-6751 has very modest power requirements.

The other day I fished out my Compaq LTE Elite 4/75CX which wasn't starting up any more because the hard drive was just clicking and not starting up properly. I didn't search for long but apparently it's fairly common, the Quantum Daytona / Quantum Go-Drive has rubber bumpers and they've degraded enough that the heads can't get out of the park position.

The attachment IMG_6594 (Custom).JPG is no longer available

Opened it up and put some kapton tape on the rubber bumpers after removing that big magnet plate above the head-arm. It clanged a couple of times but the drive starts up having blown the dust out with a blower before reassembly.

The attachment IMG_6595 (Custom).JPG is no longer available

The attachment IMG_6597 (Custom).JPG is no longer available

I guess it should stay working for a while but this drive should probably just be replaced with a compact flash card instead.
After I put this back together, it works! It passes a full surface scan too so the drive itself is in good condition, but those bumpers could dissolve more still. Then I remembered I had another Quantum Daytona with a green label maybe 1/2gb capacity which wouldn't start up so I took that one apart as well, sadly while the rubber bumpers had also dissolved, the real problem was the heads were stuck to the platter and once I freed it up, maybe 2 of the 6 heads were broken off and the platter was badly marked so that's dead. Perhaps I should set it up as a display or something. Still, got one working 😀

Today the replacement MOSFETs came in so I can fix the PicoPSU and thankfully just replacing the burnt MOSFET has the little power supply giving out proper voltages and responding correctly to the AT power switch again:

I'm really glad this one was a simple repair and I can use it again since PicoPSUs are pretty well built and it's got harder to get the original ones rather than the knock-offs, I'm pretty sure the original ones can handle more power on the 5v which is what I need. Oh and they provide real spec documents for them which you don't get so much with the chinese ones.

Incidentally now that that MOSFET is replaced and I can test what it does, it's just a power gate for the PicoPSU's 5v rail to the output so that when the PSU is in the ATX off state there's no output. When on it goes to 5v and there's a similar MOSFET handling the 12v rail.

Also today I'm marvelling at the Nvidia FX5200 multi-chip-module GPU on this Toshiba Tecra M2 motherboard, the actual GPU is on the other side of the PCB with the memory chips. That must get rather toasty but it did work when I tested it - sadly the motherboard is useless because it's got a BIOS password.

It's too new of a board for the parallel port trick to work and it's a real Toshiba rather than an ODM laptop. Although Toshiba's method for it was cracked a few years ago, it was never released and there's no free or easy way to unlock it.
Good thing I have a spare board ready for it, this should be the last Toshiba that can run Windows 98 with proper audio and video drivers, though the Portege M200 and the Satellite P10 / P15 probably qualify too.

Toshiba Tecra M4 has the same kind of GPU, just a bit less old, and also cooks itself to death but because the heatsink is too small and the fan is not made to run full blast nonstop... even when I did that, AND underclocked the GPU, it still cooked itself to death and after a few revivals with heatgun, I stopped trying. That thing remains undead for the forseeable future 🤣

Today I put my new 3700+ San Diego through its paces.

2.8GHz stable as you like at 1.4v running 255x11 and RAM at 1:1 for DDR 510

I can make it hit 3GHz but that needed 1.55V so 2.8GHz at stock voltage will be fine for me.

Tiido wrote on 2025-06-12, 17:34:

Toshiba Tecra M4 has the same kind of GPU, just a bit less old, and also cooks itself to death but because the heatsink is too small and the fan is not made to run full blast nonstop... even when I did that, AND underclocked the GPU, it still cooked itself to death and after a few revivals with heatgun, I stopped trying. That thing remains undead for the forseeable future 🤣

Ooh, that's the big PCIe version of the Portege M200 😀 It's interesting I just saw the Geforce Go 6600 mentioned in a video about bumpgate here: https://youtu.be/vpjtRjGPLhI?t=1072
You can see the actual GPU at the start of that chapter and why it's on that list - apparently they have faulty underfill so you'd need to replace the GPU to really fix it.

The cooling on the Tecra M2 is relatively decent with a flat aluminium heatsink with heatpipe and air moving over it, hopefully the FX Go5200 doesn't have such issues?

Since I'm testing some of my other Toshibas, I was wondering why this battery wasn't charging up properly and looking at it with the thermal camera there was a hotspot on just the one cell - looks like this battery pack is getting recycled:

xa3d wrote on 2025-06-10, 15:41:

Dave,
DDLINK source code for latest changes is not yet posted on your page ...themindfactory.com/dnldsrc.htm.
Also STATUS.TXT last updated 24/12/12.

Ok, I've updated more than a dozen things I've been "meaning to" for a bit...
(including the latest DDLINK source code)

This is going to sound silly, but I went to some garage sales with my wife today. Found a sealed 50 pack of early 2000's Maxell CD-Rs for 50 cents and I was WAY too excited to see them. 😜

I need them for use on my DOS system. Bought 2 10 packs on Amazon, one Verbatim one Maxell, both has 2-3 bad disks, about $17 total. Found out the "modern" ones kinda suck and have reliability issues.

So far, used 9 of these, working perfectly. It was a good day!