VOGONS


First post, by Blitz_25

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Hi,

I'm first time post and long time reader of this forum. Recently i found an old IBM aptiva 2107 with SiS 530 chipset however no motherboard brand or tipe anywhere on PCB. some search on the net suggests it's actualy manufactured for IBM by Acer and looks like same layout as Acer's V75M MB. Anyone knows if that is correct?
Anyway to cut short, i'm triying to find relevant drivers for this MB but can't seem to find any on the web. Doas any of you know where to search? Also there's an onboard VGA , again anyone knows it's relative performance vs ATI/nVidia/Matrox couterparets?

It's been loong time a wish of mine to get me again a proper socket 7 for my win98 SE setup since something just doasn't fell right on P4 rig though it runs stable (no BSOD so far) and extremelly fast.

Reply 1 of 4, by Pierre32

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You should be able to find it all here: http://w3.sis.com/download/

The onboard graphics driver will be easy to find. For audio, network etc you may have to experiment with different downloads.

The SiS530 has SiS6306 graphics. The closest to that detailed on wikipedia is the 6326; perhaps it is comparable. Doesn't sound too promising and you'll no doubt want to add a video card. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SiS_6326

Reply 2 of 4, by dionb

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Generally you want to go for drivers from the chipset manufacturers, regardless of which ODM made the boards and which OEM sold them. If there's SiS 530 in there, you need SiS 530 drivers. Without pics we can't comment on the ID as Acer V75M, but IBM certainly did use many Acer boards.

You'll also need drivers for any onboard devices. The V75M has an ESS sound chip (probably a Solo-1).

What's not onboard is VGA. That is integrated into the SiS 530 chipset - and the distinction between onboard (a separate chip on motherboard with its own RAM) and integrated (no separate chip, no own RAM) is very relevant for your performance question.

Integrated VGA shares system RAM. That costs you a few MB, but far worse: it also costs you half the memory bandwidth to CPU in tasks which are both CPU and video-intensive, i.e. games. The IGP in the SiS 530 is the SiS 6326, which in itself is a poor performer as standalone chip with its own RAM, both in Windows 2D and 3D, and even in DOS. Integrated, you can basically halve all those scores again. That makes it slower than an S3 Virge in 3D, so slower than any nVidia chip (with possible exception oft eh nV1) and slower than any ATi chip newer than the Mach64. VESA compatibility (DOS SVGA) is decent, not as good as S3 or nVidia, but better than ATi. As for Matrox, a Millennium I would perform better in Windows.

Put another way: just adding a PCI SiS 6326 would double performance straight away, anything else would likely improve it further. Native SiS 530 integrated VGA is less 'proper socket 7' and rather the sort of low-end experience performing far worse than CPU numbers would lead to believe. With PCI VGA though the SiS 530 is fine, on par with Via MVP3 or ALi Aladdin V for the most part.

Reply 3 of 4, by evasive

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Aptiva 2170 board claimed to be Acer V75M in some ebay ads.

Layout Acer V75M:
http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/acer/mb/v75m.htm

Layout Aptiva 2170 system board:
http://ps-2.kev009.com/eprmhtml/eprmb/f1598.htm

Sound is indeed ESS Solo-1

Reply 4 of 4, by Blitz_25

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Thanks guys for your replies and links to drivers. After some more digging on the web it's confirmed that MB is an Acer build V75M with "IBM" bios. As mentioned by dionb it doas have ESS solo-1 onboard audio. From what i can see VGA ram is not soldered to the board but instead uses system RAM so performance from the already weak VGA will be even lover hence a dedicated VGA will bee needed so a hunt for PCI graphic card is opened 😀