VOGONS


packard bell under performing

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Reply 60 of 142, by PCBONEZ

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I hate it when people that haven't even tried something try to tell me something I've done can't be done.
It's almost as bad trying to help someone that doesn't bother to answer the questions asked in trying to help them.
The first is ignorant. The latter is flat out RUDE!

King_Corduroy wrote:

these Packard Bell's used proprietary motherboards.

No they are not proprietary. They use a standard layout called LPX.
Same standard was used by many other manufacturers including Dell, Compaq, HP, IBM. AST.
Same standard was used by PB for 386, 486, Pentium, Super7 Pentium Pro and I think even some early PII.
You can in fact swap motherboards between PBs and swap between completely different brands.
My 486 PB was upgraded to Pentium then later to a Super7.
I once built a PB-Compaq hybrid just to prove to myself it would work.

King_Corduroy wrote:

I doubt very much that the motherboard has been changed or upgraded...... it would have been a nightmare to fit another in there as far as I know.

Sorry. It's just not that hard. A lot of people more adventurous than you have done it. The only thing that can be a PITA is the bracket for the riser (because the risers location on the board is standard, not it's connector socket(s)to the mobo or it's layout - so the risers have to be swapped with the mobo) but anyone that is the least bit 'handy' can work that out.
.

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Reply 61 of 142, by Tetrium

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I have some Socket 5 board which came out of one of those OEM machines and even though online manuals gave the correct specs like jumper locations and board layout, instead of the cache chips it had empty solder dots (so no cache at all!).

As long as emosun doesn't give us more to work with (like a model number, his installed OS and some pics of his motherboard) then I fear this isn't gonna go anywhere. He did remove some of it's installed memory, might as well have taken te opportunity to take a pic and upload it here, but he didn't.

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Reply 62 of 142, by emosun

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emosun wrote:
King_Corduroy wrote:

I doubt very much that the motherboard has been changed or upgraded, these Packard Bell's used proprietary motherboards and it would have been a nightmare to fit another in there as far as I know. But yes you are right it would be nice to know what the mobo number is. @Emosun - could you by any chance take some photo's of the inside of the system? Also could you take an external shot of the back of the case so that I can see the manufacturers labels, assuming the mobo is original that would tell us the exact model of Motherboard.

Yes it the stock m415 board that it came with linked earlier here http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/810.htm

Was already posted it's that board. Of the two 810/820 it's probably the 810 due to having 2mb of vram. The same one King_Corduroy , heck even the case stickers are the same. 🤣

I installed a fresh a copy of 98 and same results with quake. Very laggy with the onboard gpu.

I reinstalled the radeon 700 and heres whats happening. it's playable but laggy if the desktop is on a low resolution (800x600). However , if the desktop is running at 1280x960 , the game runs very well. I'm not sure why a higher res would make it run faster. but it did an 18.4fps at that res

I'm also having a terrible time figuring out how to change the res in quake. I looked up the command but it doesn't really do anything , just says -width isnt a command

Reply 63 of 142, by Tetrium

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There might be some physical damage to the board or some type of misconfiguration which might explain the symptoms your system is having which might otherwise be overlooked.
We have eagle eyes, we spot everything! 😁

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Reply 64 of 142, by PCBONEZ

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emosun wrote:
Was already posted it's that board. Of the two 810/820 it's probably the 810 due to having 2mb of vram. The same one King_Cordur […]
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Was already posted it's that board. Of the two 810/820 it's probably the 810 due to having 2mb of vram. The same one King_Corduroy , heck even the case stickers are the same. 🤣

I installed a fresh a copy of 98 and same results with quake. Very laggy with the onboard gpu.

I reinstalled the radeon 700 and heres whats happening. it's playable but laggy if the desktop is on a low resolution (800x600). However , if the desktop is running at 1280x960 , the game runs very well. I'm not sure why a higher res would make it run faster. but it did an 18.4fps at that res

I'm also having a terrible time figuring out how to change the res in quake. I looked up the command but it doesn't really do anything , just says -width isnt a command

Are you 12 years old? - Have ADHD?

Everything suggests a real problem with your motherboard yet you are too busy playing with an inappropriate video card to answer questions from people trying to help you.

Off the top of my head the problems might include:
No cache. Bad cache.
Bad caps.
A blown IC chip (video chip, cache chip, video RAM, main chipset, RAM controller, I/O chip, MOSFETs to mention a few.) - YES WE NEED PHOTOS.
Damaged trace.
Bad PSU.
Cracked PCB.

But we can't move on to explore those because you haven't answered the first questions or uploaded the requested photos.
.

GRUMPY OLD FART - On Hiatus, sort'a
Mann-Made Global Warming. - We should be more concerned about the Intellectual Climate.
You can teach a man to fish and feed him for life, but if he can't handle sushi you must also teach him to cook.

Reply 65 of 142, by Tetrium

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PCBONEZ wrote:
Are you 12 years old? - Have ADHD? […]
Show full quote
emosun wrote:
Was already posted it's that board. Of the two 810/820 it's probably the 810 due to having 2mb of vram. The same one King_Cordur […]
Show full quote

Was already posted it's that board. Of the two 810/820 it's probably the 810 due to having 2mb of vram. The same one King_Corduroy , heck even the case stickers are the same. 🤣

I installed a fresh a copy of 98 and same results with quake. Very laggy with the onboard gpu.

I reinstalled the radeon 700 and heres whats happening. it's playable but laggy if the desktop is on a low resolution (800x600). However , if the desktop is running at 1280x960 , the game runs very well. I'm not sure why a higher res would make it run faster. but it did an 18.4fps at that res

I'm also having a terrible time figuring out how to change the res in quake. I looked up the command but it doesn't really do anything , just says -width isnt a command

Are you 12 years old? - Have ADHD?

Everything suggests a real problem with your motherboard yet you are too busy playing with an inappropriate video card to answer questions from people trying to help you.

Off the top of my head the problems might include:
No cache. Bad cache.
Bad caps.
A blown IC chip (video chip, cache chip, video RAM, main chipset, RAM controller, I/O chip, MOSFETs to mention a few.) - YES WE NEED PHOTOS.
Damaged trace.
Bad PSU.
Cracked PCB.

But we can't move on to explore those because you haven't answered the first questions or uploaded the requested photos.
.

Broken or improperly installed CPU cooler might be another reason, memory modules could also be problematic.
The thing is that theres so many things that could've gone wrong, especially if the system owner doesn't have a lot of experience with building computers.

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Reply 66 of 142, by kanecvr

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Since OP refuses to answer our questions and instead of listening to advice keeps trying whatever idea pops in his head, I think we should let him figure the problem out on his own. He will eventually, everything he needs is right here on this thread. I'm out.

Reply 67 of 142, by Sutekh94

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nvm

Last edited by Sutekh94 on 2016-01-12, 19:49. Edited 2 times in total.

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Reply 68 of 142, by Tetrium

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Sutekh94 wrote:

See, this is why photos are everything. A lot of us have plenty of experience dealing with systems like these, and we can easily spot a problem with your system's motherboard given the chance. Key words being "given the chance". Of course, there's also the longstanding unanswered question of how much cache is on your board... Not answering questions like these only leads to frustration on the part of the people trying to help you.

This thread is progressing at about 1 frame each 10 seconds it seems, but I tend to agree with above replies.

And no need to get frustrated, we may as well still receive that hardware pr0n very soon 😁

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My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 69 of 142, by Sutekh94

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Tetrium wrote:

And no need to get frustrated, we may as well still receive that hardware pr0n very soon 😁

I'd have to agree with that! 🤣

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Reply 70 of 142, by King_Corduroy

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Yeah I was going to say take it down a notch guys remember HE has the problem not you, wth are you all getting so upset about. 🤣

As for PCBONEZ I'd say off hand you were acting pretty immature yourself, there is nothing to get upset about here. Yeah he didn't answer your question big fuckin' deal... As for me I'm not an idiot and yes I've worked on computers before. As for being "handy" I also repair typewriters and Victrolas for my hobby. I had a feeling I'd heard that it was LPX before but decided to not add that in, in fact I vaguely remember my father getting a newer mobo for my families original Packard Bell and switching to an AMD cpu. Like I said it's pretty immature to jump straight to name calling.

Check me out at Transcendental Airwaves on Youtube! Fast-food sucks!

Reply 71 of 142, by King_Corduroy

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emosun wrote:
Was already posted it's that board. Of the two 810/820 it's probably the 810 due to having 2mb of vram. The same one King_Cordur […]
Show full quote
emosun wrote:
King_Corduroy wrote:

I doubt very much that the motherboard has been changed or upgraded, these Packard Bell's used proprietary motherboards and it would have been a nightmare to fit another in there as far as I know. But yes you are right it would be nice to know what the mobo number is. @Emosun - could you by any chance take some photo's of the inside of the system? Also could you take an external shot of the back of the case so that I can see the manufacturers labels, assuming the mobo is original that would tell us the exact model of Motherboard.

Yes it the stock m415 board that it came with linked earlier here http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/810.htm

Was already posted it's that board. Of the two 810/820 it's probably the 810 due to having 2mb of vram. The same one King_Corduroy , heck even the case stickers are the same. 🤣

I installed a fresh a copy of 98 and same results with quake. Very laggy with the onboard gpu.

I reinstalled the radeon 700 and heres whats happening. it's playable but laggy if the desktop is on a low resolution (800x600). However , if the desktop is running at 1280x960 , the game runs very well. I'm not sure why a higher res would make it run faster. but it did an 18.4fps at that res

I'm also having a terrible time figuring out how to change the res in quake. I looked up the command but it doesn't really do anything , just says -width isnt a command

Lower the resolution, I played it on low res to have it smooth. 800x600 is indeed slow even without OpenGL. Like I said before this is not a high end gaming machine.

Check me out at Transcendental Airwaves on Youtube! Fast-food sucks!

Reply 72 of 142, by Sutekh94

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King_Corduroy wrote:

As for PCBONEZ I'd say off hand you were acting pretty immature yourself, there is nothing to get upset about here. Yeah he didn't answer your question big fuckin' deal... As for me I'm not an idiot and yes I've worked on computers before. As for being "handy" I also repair typewriters and Victrolas for my hobby. I had a feeling I'd heard that it was LPX before but decided to not add that in, in fact I vaguely remember my father getting a newer mobo for my families original Packard Bell and switching to an AMD cpu. Like I said it's pretty immature to jump straight to name calling.

To be honest, I'd kinda have to agree with this as well... I think we all need to calm down a bit, like you said.

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Reply 73 of 142, by emosun

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King_Corduroy wrote:

Lower the resolution, I played it on low res to have it smooth. 800x600 is indeed slow even without OpenGL. Like I said before this is not a high end gaming machine.

See that's the issue right now is I'm trying to lower the res in quake but am not sure how. From what I've seen the command is -width 800 -height 600. However I get an error saying "-width is not a command". There's no regular menu option to get the res lower , only command which from what I've read is a common thing with some quake versions.

Reply 74 of 142, by King_Corduroy

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There should be a video setting under options. It should be by default 320x200 or something.

Check me out at Transcendental Airwaves on Youtube! Fast-food sucks!

Reply 75 of 142, by emosun

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King_Corduroy wrote:

Yeah I was going to say take it down a notch guys remember HE has the problem not you, wth are you all getting so upset about. 🤣

As for PCBONEZ I'd say off hand you were acting pretty immature yourself, there is nothing to get upset about here. Yeah he didn't answer your question big fuckin' deal... As for me I'm not an idiot and yes I've worked on computers before. As for being "handy" I also repair typewriters and Victrolas for my hobby. I had a feeling I'd heard that it was LPX before but decided to not add that in, in fact I vaguely remember my father getting a newer mobo for my families original Packard Bell and switching to an AMD cpu. Like I said it's pretty immature to jump straight to name calling.

And btw , ty for being patient.

I'm glad at least one person has enough patience , and courtesy to wait and help someone as best they can. I was saving removing the motherboard as a last option. Because when I do take a picture of it it will be the board alone disassembled from the machine so I can inspect both sides. right now the system is a rats nest of ide and power cables

Reply 76 of 142, by emosun

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King_Corduroy wrote:

There should be a video setting under options. It should be by default 320x200 or something.

yes , however it just lists the available modes , and you have to use the prompt to enter the command to change it. It doesn't have an option to simply select the res.

Supposedly (from what I read) some quakes are like that.

Reply 77 of 142, by emosun

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Also , I'm using cpu-z 1.57 to check the l2 cache on the board and it claims this board has no L2 cache. only two L1 cache at 16kb each

King_Corduroy check your board and see if it also is the same or different.

Reply 78 of 142, by alexanrs

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You might be better off with something more period correct to check cache... like a SPEEDSYS benchmark or CACHECHK. If it REALLY has no cache... well... either find a way to update to a K6-3 or get your soldering iron out, because you're gonna be soldering cache chips there (or just ditch the motherboard altogether).

If you had just checked the cache the first time it was asked, and it doesn't have any, then you would've saved yourself quite some time testing stuff. A board without L2 cache and a Pentium probably dips to 486 levels of performance.

Reply 79 of 142, by kanecvr

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Tetrium wrote:
Sutekh94 wrote:

See, this is why photos are everything. A lot of us have plenty of experience dealing with systems like these, and we can easily spot a problem with your system's motherboard given the chance. Key words being "given the chance". Of course, there's also the longstanding unanswered question of how much cache is on your board... Not answering questions like these only leads to frustration on the part of the people trying to help you.

This thread is progressing at about 1 frame each 10 seconds it seems, but I tend to agree with above replies.

And no need to get frustrated, we may as well still receive that hardware pr0n very soon 😁

I'm not upset at all 😀 - in fact it's kind of my job to try and help people who down't want to listen to your advice - this happens every day at the hospital. You tell someone they should stop drinking because they have chronic liver disease, you prescribe treatment, and then, two months later they're brought back in by ambulance in serious condition. Some listen, others don't - it's just how people are.