VPI-486SP3 - drives spin up, no video \ VOGONS

VPI-486SP3 - drives spin up, no video

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First post, by debs3759

Posted on 2020-08-17, 17:13

debs3759 Offline

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I have 2 x VPI-486SP3, a rev 1.22 and a 1.8.

The 1.8 works perfectly, it has been tested with a TI DX4-100 and a Cx 5x86-133 (the Cyrix was tested for another collector). I set the 1.22 up with the same jumpers and the tested TI DX4, and used the same graphics caed (a VLB Tseng ET4000)? I also tried a PCI card in each of the 3 PCI slots. Neither of them gave me any video output, but the hard drive spun up, the floppy seek worked and the CPU fan spun.

Any suggestions as to what might be wrong? I can't find my POST tester to see what is happening. Had hoped to be selling it, but can't now I know (or think I know, if I'm lucky) that it's half dead.

See my graphics card database at www.gpuzoo.com
Constantly being worked on. Feel free to message me with any corrections or details of cards you would like me to research and add.

Reply 1 of 6, by Disruptor

Posted on 2020-08-17, 20:57

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Do you use EDO or FPM DRAM?

Reply 2 of 6, by TheMobRules

Posted on 2020-08-17, 20:59

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Since you have a working board you can look for differences in temperature and see if any chip on the non-working board gets noticeably hotter. That could point to a fault.

Also, you can swap the BIOS chips of the two boards to discard a corrupt BIOS in the non-working one.

Reply 3 of 6, by debs3759

Posted on 2020-08-17, 21:05

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Disruptor wrote on 2020-08-17, 20:57:

Do you use EDO or FPM DRAM?

FPM. I believe it doesn't support EDO. I basically set it up with exactly the same as I use on a later, working version of the board (but my DOS discs appear to be corrupt, as the DOS setup no longer loads, so I've got to recreate the setup discs)

See my graphics card database at www.gpuzoo.com
Constantly being worked on. Feel free to message me with any corrections or details of cards you would like me to research and add.

Reply 4 of 6, by debs3759

Posted on 2020-08-17, 21:07

debs3759 Offline

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TheMobRules wrote on 2020-08-17, 20:59:
Also, you can swap the BIOS chips of the two boards to discard a corrupt BIOS in the non-working one.

I'll look into that tomorrow, it's getting too late to do that and switch boards tonight 😀 Thanks for the suggestion.

See my graphics card database at www.gpuzoo.com
Constantly being worked on. Feel free to message me with any corrections or details of cards you would like me to research and add.

Reply 5 of 6, by Disruptor

Posted on 2020-08-17, 21:15

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debs3759 wrote on 2020-08-17, 21:05:

Disruptor wrote on 2020-08-17, 20:57:

Do you use EDO or FPM DRAM?

FPM. I believe it doesn't support EDO. I basically set it up with exactly the same as I use on a later, working version of the board (but my DOS discs appear to be corrupt, as the DOS setup no longer loads, so I've got to recreate the setup discs)

On my PVI486-SP3, with EDO it directly jumps into boot block. Then you only have picture with an ISA graphics card that is stupid enough.
So, this is obviousely not the case.