I personally do not mind modifying, soldering, or customising rare/expensive computer hardware. I do not care for original or mint condition hardware or to preserve it as if it were an expensive piece of art. Of course, this is just my preference - I like to modify things and tinker. However, I do agree that having the SB-LINK and PC/PCI connection on motherboards which already have an ISA slot to be a little point defeating. I would like to see this feature on boards which lacked ISA slots. Does it even occur on boards without an ISA slot?

Yes, I have a number of PCI-only motherboards (mostly P4) with working SB-Link. See threads:
List of motherboards with SB-link (PC/PCI) header
YMF744, DOS, no DMA? (PC/PCI, SB-link tests) (edit YES DMA, read further down)

mockingbird wrote:

But unfortunately, it did not work: […]
Show full quote

But unfortunately, it did not work:

IMG_1924.jpg

IMG_1925.jpg

The next step is to play with the device ID as you suggested, but that's it for today. I must say that the quality of the sound output was very very good in the test program. Very crisp and clear.

BTW, these images show version 3.11 of the Yamaha setup utility. IIRC, the latest version is 3.16; try that version as well. Also, keep in mind that not all chipsets have all features available via SB-Link.

Anyone care to clarify this?

In this post, stamasd says to modify offsets af4b and af83, but in this post, Kamerat says to modify offsets aec0 and aec1.

j^aws wrote:

BTW, these images show version 3.11 of the Yamaha setup utility. IIRC, the latest version is 3.16; try that version as well. Also, keep in mind that not all chipsets have all features available via SB-Link.

Thanks.

I managed to get 3.16 from Yamaha afterall. Their page is down, but the files are still on their server:

http://download.yamaha.com/api/asset/file/?la … &asset_id=46447

Also, I'm not clear on why only the Device ID has to be changed but not the vendor ID...

Modding a device ID from the same vendor, perhaps?

gdjacobs wrote:

Modding a device ID from the same vendor, perhaps?

Ah, ok thanks. Makes sense... Indeed, there is "06 11" (vendor 1106 - VIA) in aec5 and aec6.

The problem is that "B9 10" (10B9 - ALI) shows up in many places:

• 0x00000627
  0x0000ae4f
  0x0000ae8a
  0x000134c1
  0x00013be2
  0x00017a93
  0x00019c96
  0x000237ab

Oh and thanks for the SPDIF advice. Do you know a good way of testing SPDIF output (or any way, for that matter)?

I just use my receiver, but you could technically check it with an oscilloscope for things like Vpp, noise, rise time, etc.

mockingbird wrote:

Anyone care to clarify this? […]
Show full quote

Anyone care to clarify this?

In this post, stamasd says to modify offsets af4b and af83, but in this post, Kamerat says to modify offsets aec0 and aec1.

j^aws wrote:

BTW, these images show version 3.11 of the Yamaha setup utility. IIRC, the latest version is 3.16; try that version as well. Also, keep in mind that not all chipsets have all features available via SB-Link.

Thanks.

I managed to get 3.16 from Yamaha afterall. Their page is down, but the files are still on their server:

http://download.yamaha.com/api/asset/file/?la … &asset_id=46447

Also, I'm not clear on why only the Device ID has to be changed but not the vendor ID...

The attachment IMG_1927.JPG is no longer available

Looks like your PCI ID is already in there, device ID at offset AE4A-AE4B and vendor ID at offset AE4F-AE50.
You can always try this modified exe, not sure if it will work as I exchange one of the Intel IDs with yours and made the old one read as 3412:3412. 😜

Kamerat wrote:

Looks like your PCI ID is already in there, device ID at offset AE4A-AE4B and vendor ID at offset AE4F-AE50.
You can always try this modified exe, not sure if it will work as I exchange one of the Intel IDs with yours and made the old one read as 3412:3412. 😜

Thanks.

Could not get it to work... There are three options when choosing the IRQ type, INT, Soft IRQ, or ISA. ISA is greyed out. S-IRQ allows you to select the IRQ but the program says it can't find the IRQ when you try to save.

Got an old MEW-AM (It's an Asus board for an HP Vectra IIRQ) with an unpopulated SB-Link header. Gonna try it on there just to see how it works, if it does even work. this is an Intel 810 Chipset.

EDIT: Darn, I ripped all the caps out of this thing a while ago. I have to put them back in before I try it on this thing.

It's been some time but I finally completed my testing of the PC/PCI or otherwise called SB-Link header on the P5A. I'm glad to report that it works (tested on a YMF724).

Some observations:

- There is no need to play with interrupt settings in your BIOS. This pertains to SETUPDS 3.16 - it doesn't care which interrupt your card is actually on. You can be running in ACPI with all devices on IRQ11, it works just fine (and many boards of that era did offer an ACPI BIOS later on, as did the P5A). Don't make any IRQ reservations for "legacy" devices or anything special like that. The only thing you need to be sure to do is select an IRQ other than the one your card is actually reports being on in your startup screen when you configure SETUPDS.

- INTA# mode doesn't make use of the SB-Link header. If you have it working in this mode, you are not using serialized IRQ. To be clear: If you're getting a 'cannot detect' message in SETUPDS, one of several things could be causing it. Your cable could be plugged in wrong, or what is less probable, perhaps your SB-Link header isn't actually functional.

- I don't know what the "ISA" setting is in SETUPDS. I could not get it to work on a BX board (though I did not try it on the P5A), and I'm not sure if it makes use of serialized IRQ (i.e. the SB-Link connector) either. Documentation is sparse, but perhaps someone here could elaborate on it.

All this said -- my testing was limited to the SETUPDS utility. I didn't test any games or anything like that, so I'm not aware of any quirks with SB-Link and the Aladdin V chipset. SETUPDS 3.16 supports this chipset without any modification. My testing was confirmed by running SETUPDS with the cable both inserted and removed. When removed, I received a 'cannot detect' when trying to use S-IRQ mode (though INTA# did work without the cable). When it was inserted, it allowed selection of S-IRQ and the sound demos played fine.