canthearu wrote on 2020-02-07, 00:36:

It is a perversely interesting board leave entirely as it is!

I like your thinking - it would be interesting to benchmark it as-is and see what sort of performance handicap the fake cache is, that might be a better project.

I hope EGA Wonder 800 works fine...
I'm not sure what the Quadram board is... it has 8086-1 and three 2048x8 SRAM chips... it also has 40-pin connector... Is that memory expansion (Quadram was known for them) or some sort of drive controller?

Last brown card photo is compaq's IDE and floppy, serial and parallel controller. Very well made. Had one and liked it and purchased another years later and is in my collection for old computer.

Cheers,

imi wrote on 2020-02-07, 00:10:

interesting Promise 3DWebSound with OPL4, the bridged pins are a bit weird?

That naming! Sounds like they were desperately trying to jump on too many bandwagons at once 😁

badmojo wrote on 2020-02-06, 23:40:

jheronimus wrote on 2020-02-06, 22:02:

First, a PC Chips M915 — a PCI/VLB/ISA board with probably fake cache chips, a DX2 and what looks like quite a bit of FPM RAM. I have lots of those, but nothing bigger than 4MB per stick, so that could be interesting.

I have one of these too and yep, fake cache like yours. From what I understand it's possible to solder in real cache and flash the BIOS to stop lying about it and use the real thing - so far the motivation to do the work hasn't materialised but it's an interesting board so maybe one day I'll do it.

I've done this on mine when it was working.

No need to touch the bios, it will find the cache.

Here's a speedsys benchmark with a 486DX2 66 after the mod :

Deksor wrote on 2020-02-07, 05:34:

I've done this on mine when it was working.

Did your board break sometime afterwards did it?

Those soldered on cache chips with WRITE BACK written on them are super duper fake 😁 Desolder and put some sockets on. 😀

HanJammer wrote on 2020-02-07, 01:41:

I hope EGA Wonder 800 works fine...[...]

oohhh nice ega wonder, need to get a 2nd one at some point! 😁

canthearu wrote on 2020-02-07, 05:50:

Deksor wrote on 2020-02-07, 05:34:

I've done this on mine when it was working.

Did your board break sometime afterwards did it?

It broke because it's a piece of crap that's way too thin. I had issues running 3.3v chips after putting a chip backwards by mistake and after mounting and unmounting it in several cases, it stopped working properly (now it boots ... Sometimes)

I believe Ancient Electronics on YouTube has a video about the PCChips M915, it's a quirky and flaky cheapass board but it gets the job done if you are short of other Socket 3 options..

imi wrote on 2020-02-07, 00:10:

some cards I got recently :) […]
Show full quote

some cards I got recently 😀

good old Matrox Millenium and Mystique 220
hardware36_14a.jpg

Headland HT209 VRAM 2
hardware36_14c.jpg

Genius YMF724 card
hardware36_14d.jpg

interesting Promise 3DWebSound with OPL4, the bridged pins are a bit weird?
hardware36_14e.jpg
the only other picture I could find of that card was without the OPL4 and the pins were bridged anyways, that is underneath the chip.
also what's the difference between YMF704-S and YMF704C-S?

How do you tell the Mystique and Mystique 220 apart? I have one, but I don't know what it is (haven't tested it yet).

Also, my experience with Genius branded SB Pro clones (ESS and YMF) have been superb, nice catch with that card.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-02-07, 09:01:

How do you tell the Mystique and Mystique 220 apart? I have one, but I don't know what it is (haven't tested it yet).

Look at the main chip if it is MGA1164SG it is Mystique 220, if MGA1064SG it is the original Mystique.

mpe wrote on 2020-02-07, 09:10:

appiah4 wrote on 2020-02-07, 09:01:

How do you tell the Mystique and Mystique 220 apart? I have one, but I don't know what it is (haven't tested it yet).

Look at the main chip if it is MGA1164SG it is Mystique 220, if MGA1064SG it is the original Mystique.

Ah, ok mine is a regular Mystique (+RainbowRunner).

maybe the board number is also an indication 644-03 vs 644-00/01

imi wrote on 2020-02-07, 12:03:

maybe the board number is also an indication 644-03 vs 644-00/01

Anectodally, mine is 644-00

mpe wrote on 2020-02-07, 09:10:

appiah4 wrote on 2020-02-07, 09:01:

How do you tell the Mystique and Mystique 220 apart? I have one, but I don't know what it is (haven't tested it yet).

Look at the main chip if it is MGA1164SG it is Mystique 220, if MGA1064SG it is the original Mystique.

It's far easier to look at the chips. If it has a big TI Video chip near the output port it's a Millennium. The point of Mystique was making it cheaper to produce, so they integrated the DAC into the main chip.

It's about distinguishing a Mystique from a Mystique 220, not a Mystique from a Millennium. 😉

derSammler wrote on 2020-02-07, 13:18:

It's about distinguishing a Mystique from a Mystique 220, not a Mystique from a Millennium. 😉

Oopsie! 😅

This semi-rare ATI Stereo F/X and nice Adaptec SCSI controller arrived in some poor 486 today...

Good looking sound card and SCSI card.