MattRocks wrote on 2026-02-27, 10:19:

After many of us vulnerably exposed ourselves - what actually is in giantenemycat’s mystery box? You can't start a story and not finish it.. 😉

It took them a while to dispatch, so only just arrived today :^)

Pentium 133
QDI P5I430VX-250DM Explorer II (Socket 7)
16MB SIMMs
Trident TGUI9680-1
OPTi 82C933
Samsung SV0432A 4.3GB (in the "Mum+Dad" caddy)

giantenemycat wrote on 2026-02-27, 16:46:

Pentium 133 QDI P5I430VX-250DM Explorer II (Socket 7) 16MB SIMMs Trident TGUI9680-1 OPTi 82C933 Samsung SV0432A 4.3GB (in the " […]
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Pentium 133
QDI P5I430VX-250DM Explorer II (Socket 7)
16MB SIMMs
Trident TGUI9680-1
OPTi 82C933
Samsung SV0432A 4.3GB (in the "Mum+Dad" caddy)

Man that looks C-L-E-A-N

Picked up this Terratec Aureon 5.1 PCI for ~$10.

Not a very exciting card honestly (CMI8738 MX), but it has S/PDIF in/out which caught my eye. Curious to see how well it works in Windows 98 & ME.

giantenemycat wrote on 2026-02-27, 16:46:

It took them a while to dispatch, so only just arrived today :^) […]
Show full quote

MattRocks wrote on 2026-02-27, 10:19:

After many of us vulnerably exposed ourselves - what actually is in giantenemycat’s mystery box? You can't start a story and not finish it.. 😉

It took them a while to dispatch, so only just arrived today :^)

Pentium 133
QDI P5I430VX-250DM Explorer II (Socket 7)
16MB SIMMs
Trident TGUI9680-1
OPTi 82C933
Samsung SV0432A 4.3GB (in the "Mum+Dad" caddy)

I was close... (whistling emoticon) 🤣
The mobo isn't that bad, I have it and it's great for testing cpus.
Not the Speedeasy model, TRW doesn't have a pic, if you ever take it out take a couple of good pics for them.

I have the Jumperless model and it makes testing so much easier than moving jumpers around.

giantenemycat wrote on 2026-02-27, 16:46:

It took them a while to dispatch, so only just arrived today :^) […]
Show full quote

MattRocks wrote on 2026-02-27, 10:19:

After many of us vulnerably exposed ourselves - what actually is in giantenemycat’s mystery box? You can't start a story and not finish it.. 😉

It took them a while to dispatch, so only just arrived today :^)

Pentium 133
QDI P5I430VX-250DM Explorer II (Socket 7)
16MB SIMMs
Trident TGUI9680-1
OPTi 82C933
Samsung SV0432A 4.3GB (in the "Mum+Dad" caddy)

Oh, nice! Hey, I nailed the TGUI9680 VGA card and I guessed OPTi 82C930 or 82C931 sound... so that is pretty close. 😁

Looks to be in beautiful condition. Thanks for the mystery, it was fun.

Also, did Mum + Dad turn out to be secret agents or something? What was on the drive that it needed to be removable? (Please don't post anything personal of course.) 😅

Greetings people, I am planing to buy an Matrox G400 MAX, but it is an OEM DELL card. Is there any drawbacks to that version I should be aware of?

giantenemycat wrote on 2026-02-27, 16:46:

It took them a while to dispatch, so only just arrived today :^) […]
Show full quote

MattRocks wrote on 2026-02-27, 10:19:

After many of us vulnerably exposed ourselves - what actually is in giantenemycat’s mystery box? You can't start a story and not finish it.. 😉

It took them a while to dispatch, so only just arrived today :^)

Pentium 133
QDI P5I430VX-250DM Explorer II (Socket 7)
16MB SIMMs
Trident TGUI9680-1
OPTi 82C933
Samsung SV0432A 4.3GB (in the "Mum+Dad" caddy)

I was 17MHz off on the CPU speed, bang on for motherboard chipset, and bang on for VRAM installed. I'm chuffed with that! 😁

What do you all do with incidental HDD data? I prefer to not have it in the first place. But, when you discover you have it, do you blindly erase the data (drivers, licenses, etc.) or do you treat as part of the historical record?

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-02-27, 18:18:

Oh, nice! Hey, I nailed the TGUI9680 VGA card and I guessed OPTi 82C930 or 82C931 sound... so that is pretty close. 😁

Looks to be in beautiful condition. Thanks for the mystery, it was fun.

Also, did Mum + Dad turn out to be secret agents or something? What was on the drive that it needed to be removable? (Please don't post anything personal of course.) 😅

Bravo, good guess. Unfortunately the HDD seems to be dead - I took it out of the caddy to be sure and it powers up, but never gets picked up by BIOS. The LED on it flashes with some sort of error code. 🙁

Bonus, I had actually also bought another one from the same seller and they arrived together :^)

Cyrix 6x86-PR166+ (133MHz)
Amptron PM-8800A
48MB SIMM
S3 Virge 4MB (325)
Avance Logic ALS120

From some searching, the board is a PCChips M520/25 clone. This one has an "illegal" BIOS revision. I can't find much info, but it seems the mobo manufacturers weren't authorised by Award to use it?

The ALS120 being there is funny, I actually bought one last year because it was in my family's first PC. I had very hazy memories of it, and then by absurd luck managed to find a Windows resource report (attached) that had been printed out for some reason decades ago, while looking through old moving boxes. The BIOS revision+date was huge, and I eventually managed to track it down to being an AST Bravo LC/MS (likely LC) specifically of a 430TX revision from 1997.

Shader_BiH wrote on 2026-02-27, 20:04:

Greetings people, I am planing to buy an Matrox G400 MAX, but it is an OEM DELL card. Is there any drawbacks to that version I should be aware of?

I read somewhere that rev A has AGP 4x problems, should be solved with rev B.

PD2JK wrote on 2026-02-27, 21:12:

Shader_BiH wrote on 2026-02-27, 20:04:

Greetings people, I am planing to buy an Matrox G400 MAX, but it is an OEM DELL card. Is there any drawbacks to that version I should be aware of?

I read somewhere that rev A has AGP 4x problems, should be solved with rev B.

Yes... The first revision is only stable at 2x agp. This one however is rev B card, and it's brand new. Really looking forward to add it to my collection. Will post when it arrives 😃 Thanks

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2026-02-23, 15:16:

@dionb why the guess that combines ISA and AGP? Why not ISA and PCI?

There will be PCI in there too, but the VGA card in the 5th slot from bottom is exactly where it would be in one of the Super Socket 7 AT boards (take a look at the DFI P5BV3+, Jetway
J-598B or one of several PCPartner/VTech boards - or even an early Asus P5A-B). Of course it could be coincidence and there are also enough boards with AGP on other slots, but given the 1998-era CDRom I think it's probably more than a coincidence. Anyway, enough other people were already suggesting various older PCI/ISA boards, so no point in going for the same 😉

Nexxen wrote on 2026-02-27, 18:06:

giantenemycat wrote on 2026-02-27, 16:46:

QDI P5I430VX-250DM Explorer II (Socket 7)

TRW doesn't have a pic

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … -explorer-ii-sp
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … -explorer-ii-sp
?

rasz_pl wrote on 2026-02-28, 00:38:

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … -explorer-ii-sp https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … -explorer-ii-sp […]
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Nexxen wrote on 2026-02-27, 18:06:

giantenemycat wrote on 2026-02-27, 16:46:

QDI P5I430VX-250DM Explorer II (Socket 7)

TRW doesn't have a pic

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … -explorer-ii-sp
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … -explorer-ii-sp
?

It's the jumpered version he has,
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … ii,-non-speedea

Nexxen wrote on 2026-02-28, 00:40:

rasz_pl wrote on 2026-02-28, 00:38:

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … -explorer-ii-sp https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … -explorer-ii-sp […]
Show full quote

Nexxen wrote on 2026-02-27, 18:06:

TRW doesn't have a pic

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … -explorer-ii-sp
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … -explorer-ii-sp
?

It's the jumpered version he has,
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … ii,-non-speedea

Nice catch. /Beesly mode What if I told you They're The Same Picture? 😀 The only difference seem to be Q7 U24 U25 and the Bios.

rasz_pl wrote on 2026-02-28, 04:56:

Nexxen wrote on 2026-02-28, 00:40:

rasz_pl wrote on 2026-02-28, 00:38:

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … -explorer-ii-sp
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … -explorer-ii-sp
?

It's the jumpered version he has,
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … ii,-non-speedea

Nice catch. /Beesly mode What if I told you They're The Same Picture? 😀 The only difference seem to be Q7 U24 U25 and the Bios.

I used the jumperless board lately, switching from one cpu to the other without setting the jumpers is like heaven.
IIRC it's tied to cpuid.

giantenemycat wrote on 2026-02-27, 20:44:

Bonus, I had actually also bought another one from the same seller and they arrived together :^)

Missed opportunity to start another "Guess the components" quiz 😢

OMORES wrote on 2026-02-27, 17:56:

Picked up this Terratec Aureon 5.1 PCI for ~$10.

Not a very exciting card honestly (CMI8738 MX), but it has S/PDIF in/out which caught my eye. Curious to see how well it works in Windows 98 & ME.

those cards are actually surpringly good for DOS gaming when you don't have an ISA slot. I can't remember the details but there are threads about it here. Magical german engineering.

schmatzler wrote on 2026-02-27, 13:12:

I checked my A22p now and it's running BIOS 1.07, so I guess I also messed that one up. 1.07 is the attached file - please try t […]
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Flare400 wrote on 2026-02-23, 15:43:

Thank you, I was able to downgrade the BIOS to Version 1.09 (KYET36WW), but I am still having the same problem.

I checked my A22p now and it's running BIOS 1.07, so I guess I also messed that one up. 1.07 is the attached file - please try that out and tell me if it works.

This should really be the correct downgrade, because I posted about that in 2020 on the German Thinkpad forum, but must've had the wrong version in my head when transferring it into the accompanying wiki.

Sorry for the hassle. 😁

Hallelujah!
Third time is the charm!
Thank you for your help!
I don't know if I would have figured out it's a BIOS problem on my own. It blows my mind that such a problem was left unnoticed for several BIOS versions. I guess the people who bought these laptops went straight for Windows 2000 and used them for more serious tasks 😀

Yeah, these things were extremely expensive workstations (around $4000 in 2001, which would be way over $7000 nowadays). Most people probably didn't even run Windows 98 on them, especially not to play DOS games. 😀
I'm happy it worked out and you've confirmed it!

Have fun.

Couldn't resist buying pretty good looking Tandon drive (TM100-2A)...