Who needs input filtering, anyway?

Figuring out more stuff with my STB/Compaq Interwave card.

The Compaq driver version is 2.02
1. Flash to GUS PnP firmware so the GUS PnP 2.2 drivers can be used. Fixes DirectSound crashing. Not sure exactly what other differences there are.
2. Figured out how to get the standard GUS PnP folder IW.INI to work when adding the 4MB patch. Had to change a few things that I took from the Compaq IW.INI, such as vendor, init string, etc.
3. Maxmode seems to be working. All it does is add the intialization and mixer settings. The Compaq setup by default initializes in DOS and also loads SBOS. The standard GUS PnP does neither. With maxmode loading the default way, it reloads the initialization. Going to streamline it.

Going to do a full write-up after I figure everything out.

So much scattered/wrong/incomplete information out there.

Anybody ever tried using a 16MB SIMM in one slot?

Maybe I should just try it and see what happens.

Edit: It sees a 16MB 60ns parity stick as 256k

So after my Asus P4P800 failure, I decided to go try my newly acquired Asus SK8N (with FX-53 and 2x 1GB RDDR-400).

Put it on my test bench, green LED on power switch on. But pressing power button was a no go. Fans didn't even attempt to spin. Very weird. Replaced the SK8N with my usual Asus M2N board, and it powered on fine. Switched to an old Enermax 365W just to try. Lo and behold the thing powers on and into BIOS.

What gives? I thought ATX spec was universal. The power supply I use on my test bench is a very new Corsair CX-750M. I hesitate to use that Enermax with the SK8N because the 12V rail was reading at a dismal 11.3V in BIOS.

I put together a combination of some parts I've had around for years, probably stripped out of some retail box system from the late 90s.

It's a Gateway 2000 Intel 430TX ATX board (3 PCI, 3 ISA) with Integrated Rage II, ES1370 and a K6 233 (which it probably came with originally, since it isn't a SS7 board and it doesn't look like Pentium material).

I added 2x32MB of PC-66 SDRAM and it seems to work fine.

I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet though. It might make a decent "time machine" since the limited OEM BIOS at least has L1\L2 cache disable options and there are jumpers on board for adjusting FSB (60\66) and multi. I'm not sure how integrated sound and video interfere with things on these older boards though. I couldn't find any way to disable either in the BIOS. Anyone have experience with this?

Also, would a K6 233 work okay passively cooled or is that a bad idea?

I'll probably just end up selling the combo real cheap unless there's some compelling reason to keep a plain old K6 when I have a nice SS7 board with a K6-2 already.

Flashed my Hot433(Rev. 1.x) with a rom from the AllInOne pack(uploaded by Feiopa - THX) and the update worked!
After the procedure the option(host to pci clock 1 : 1/2... or similar) was available and a fsb higher then 50mhz was available. Unfortunately I didn't get far with the 15ns cache rams and both the FPM & EDO 50ns simm didn't seem to work either(the ram sockets on the board are a bit shady).

I'll now have to wait for the srams from China and then I will proceed with my tests. With a fsb of 50mhz I can set all settings to max, besides the cache which has to have one WS added(2-2-2). Should the 12ns srams not deliver the expected performance than I'll jump back to the 50mhz fsb with which the board is a little screamer.
Sadly, "close but no cigar" - a theme that makes these vintage machines atrocious and at the same time so exciting and rewarding.

Before I forget - the new bios "433aus2c" disabled the 1st level cache on the Am5x86... which is a bit baffling.

Edit: after further checking the cache issue - L1 cache is not disabled per se, but it is not possible to change the mode of the cache anymore in the bios which may run contrary to what's jumpered. It's grayed out but works according to "cachechk7". L2 cache mode is not changeable as setting it to WriteThorugh leaves one with a system hang.
"host pci divider option" is not available in "433aus2a" anymore, but I got the rig set up in it's original state now.

agent_x007 wrote:

Close... Core i7 980X (with 5 cores and HT disabled) :D […]
Show full quote

brostenen wrote:

P3 overclock??? 😳

Close...
Core i7 980X (with 5 cores and HT disabled) 😁

Sidenote :
Speedsys lists CPU Clock/Bus speed, Motherboard's name and BIOS date, correctly.
Interesting...

PS. I did use test on CF card DOS is on (1GB).

Yeah the rampage motherboard should have given it away.

That aside whats up with the cache test?

Jade Falcon wrote:

agent_x007 wrote:

Close... Core i7 980X (with 5 cores and HT disabled) :D […]
Show full quote

brostenen wrote:

P3 overclock??? 😳

Close...
Core i7 980X (with 5 cores and HT disabled) 😁

Sidenote :
Speedsys lists CPU Clock/Bus speed, Motherboard's name and BIOS date, correctly.
Interesting...

PS. I did use test on CF card DOS is on (1GB).

Yeah the rampage motherboard should have given it away.

That aside whats up with the cache test?

Don't bet on that... 😀 My knowledge of hardware stops at around 2005/early-2006.
If you asked me about rampage, then I would say that it is some kind of chipset.
I have been using laptops as my daily driver since 2006.

Everyone needs a classic IBM ThinkPad running MS-DOS + Windows 3.11 on it. Also got it to dual boot with Windows 98SE... More pictures https://imgur.com/a/YYUPF

Assembled my first Socket 7 rig in years with the following setup:

• Pentium MMX 166 @ 208MHz
• ExpertColor TX531 baby AT (ALi M1543/M1531)
• 128MB PC133 SDRAM
• S3 ViRGE DX 4MB PCI
• Audician 32 plus
• Dreamblaster S2
• 32GB CF @ IDE
• 1.44MB and 1.2MB flyppydrives
• Creative CD-RW 12-10-32X
• 3COM Fast EtherLink 3C905

As I didn't have any PS/2 brackets for mouse I just rewired an USB connector to use with a PS/2 compatible USB mouse. Still need to mount brackets for USB, serial and parallel ports. I think my dad had the exactly same motheboard model in his computer that he built in '98, but then with a Cyrix 6x86MX PR200 (still got that CPU, but I'll stick to the Pentium MMX for now).

brostenen wrote:

Don't bet on that... 😀 My knowledge of hardware stops at around 2005/early-2006.

Far enough.
But if you knew retro hardware well enough from the Piii era it still would have stood out at the very lest.

I'm kind of amazed that speedsys knew it was a rampage board.

Kamerat wrote:

I think my dad had the exactly same motheboard model I his computer that he built in '98,

That's pretty damn cool 😀

I've been playing a lot of games from 2006-2009 on my 9800GX2 (Basically 2 8800GTS 512MB on a single card) to see if SLI cards were worth the money.
In short I've come up with "Not in most cases" as the anwser. Even with an EVGA 680i SLI with 8GB DDR2 1067 (running at 900MHZ) and an E8400 OC'd to 3.8GHz the CPU is stilling maxing out and bottlenecking before using more than around 60-70 percent of the GPU power available to it. This is one of the most powerful (and obscenely expensive) gaming setups you could ask for from that era and its still not enough to back one and there was an option for 2 of these to use Quad SLI.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

I've been playing a lot of games from 2006-2009 on my 9800GX2 (Basically 2 8800GTS 512MB on a single card) to see if SLI cards were worth the money.
In short I've come up with "Not in most cases" as the anwser. Even with an EVGA 680i SLI with 8GB DDR2 1067 (running at 900MHZ) and an E8400 OC'd to 3.8GHz the CPU is stilling maxing out and bottlenecking before using more than around 60-70 percent of the GPU power available to it. This is one of the most powerful (and obscenely expensive) gaming setups you could ask for from that era and its still not enough to back one and there was an option for 2 of these to use Quad SLI.

Back in 2007 I found that to be the case as well. I had two 7800GTX cards in SLI and most games just did not use it efficiently if at all. I do remember Oblivion actually taking full use of my 7800GTX SLI setup and it still wasn't enough for smooth framerates when large battles took place. Back then Oblivion on high detail looked like real life. 🤣

liqmat wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

I've been playing a lot of games from 2006-2009 on my 9800GX2 (Basically 2 8800GTS 512MB on a single card) to see if SLI cards were worth the money.
In short I've come up with "Not in most cases" as the anwser. Even with an EVGA 680i SLI with 8GB DDR2 1067 (running at 900MHZ) and an E8400 OC'd to 3.8GHz the CPU is stilling maxing out and bottlenecking before using more than around 60-70 percent of the GPU power available to it. This is one of the most powerful (and obscenely expensive) gaming setups you could ask for from that era and its still not enough to back one and there was an option for 2 of these to use Quad SLI.

Back in 2007 I found that to be the case as well. I had two 7800GTX cards in SLI and most games just did not use it efficiently if at all. I do remember Oblivion actually taking full use of my 7800GTX SLI setup and it still wasn't enough for smooth framerates when large battles took place. Back then Oblivion on high detail looked like real life. 🤣

What's funny is for the price of a single 7800GTX you could buy an 8800GTS that beat 2 of them. That was only a year later. My 8800 cards normally pull triple digit frame-rates @ 1280x1024 in Oblivion with 2x AA. I mean to test Skyrim on my 9800GX2 later. I'm worried the framebuffer being 512MB will only bottleneck the G92 chips. I'll try Oblivion later too but I need to hunt down my save game.

To be honest I found the 7800GTX to be a stinker card. It was not a huge improvement over my 7800GS AGP that I had upgraded from. Moving to a 8800GTX was a massive improvement.

A few days ago I watched a few SMT soldering videos and saw a related video of a guy doing a Turbo Duo recap job. So I bought a game bit and took apart my Duo just now. It looked good except at one spot where the headphone jack was. I got some IPA and q-tips to clean it up. I BARELY touched one of the SMT caps and it came right off. I think it took a bit of the pads with it, but I'm not 100% sure.

I'm going to do a recap soon, but I need to research this more. I'd like to use SMT barrel caps or maybe try that ceramic mod.

Learned that when both using XP stock driver ViRGE/GX PCI has Direct3D support but Trio3D AGP hasn't.

I've been wrestling with my HP Vectra 486/66XM, and while the system itself appears to work well enough, it doesn't seem to like CD drives. It's possible that the hard drive doesn't like slave devices, since it has six jumper states with absurdly specific settings, but I've run out of Givadam™ for now, so I'll mess with it again when my supplies are refilled. If all goes well, I can also start building up my stripped down tower systems (486 33MHz and some species of Pentium 1) into something usable.

I finally discovered a part of Windows that I feel incredibly dumb for not having known about earlier. .VHD files. 😐

I downloaded a clean Dos 6.22 installation as a VHD file (a complete virtual hard drive with everything needed to boot DOS) and was able to mount it in Windows 10, use MiniTool Partition Wizard to copy the "drive" (using the Disk Copy Wizard) to a 400x 8GB CF card that I have (with one 2Gb partition for now for DOS compatibility... will add more later if I need to store more on this card), and it JUST WORKS. I can plug this thing into any motherboard I've tried so far and it just boots. I loaded it with some DOS games, benchmarks and will probably add some diagnostics and common drivers to it as well. This is going to make testing out older motherboards extremely easy. Obviously more complex parts of the system (like sound devices) would need to be configured per-device, but as a quick stability\functionality test of a board this is going to be awesome.

How have I been missing VHD files all these years? You can easily make them through the Disk Management interface... I had no idea.

I can probably do this to back up working installations of Windows 98SE, XP and anything else for my retro systems too, just in case I screw them up at some point and want a fresh start without having to reconfigure anything. With multiple TB of space available, retro system disk images are a drop in the bucket and worth the time saved, for sure.

Testing floppy drives. I need a working 360k drive for an upcoming project. sadly I think most of these are 1.2mb.