Yeah, maybe the proprietary stuff from Compaq is also guilty 😀 The funny thing is, that when I use a slowdown utility the instruments are playing fine in Heart of China Intro, but when it's disabled again it's playing fine too 😁

magic!
🤣

Hiya - any of these bad boys left in stock? I submitted a request via the cognito form - is that still a valid way to place an order?

Thanks!

yes the form works and there are a bunch of pcmidi that get built on demand - but ofcourse there is also a queue for these
they are plenty so no shortage of cards, just shortage of time 😑

So strange.

Music to my ears thanks keropi, pin intended 😁

appiah4 wrote on 2021-07-02, 08:22:

So strange.

What's so strange my homey?

I was referring to the Compaq issue turning out to be speed related after all, sorry about the confusion..

Happy customer 😁

Hey that looks like my 386DX 🤣
Thanks for the support Pierre32!

Hi Keropi-

I was hoping you could give some advice - I haven't used the MusicQuest in a while (been playing games on t TNDLPT for the last several months), but now I have tried to use it again, I am getting no midi out.

- there is definitely a signal of some kind as the midi switch I am using has a green light that comes on when the PC is powered on, and goes off when it is off. So cables are connected OK.
- I am using default IRQ2 and port 330.
- I have tried with nothing loaded, no emm386, no mouse driver, still same.
- No other sound card installed.
- Games detect the existence of the MPU. E.g. in DN3D setup, it thinks there is something on 330, because if I change to 300, it says not detected.

Any ideas?

kolderman wrote on 2021-09-12, 04:59:

Hi Keropi- […]
Show full quote

Hi Keropi-

I was hoping you could give some advice - I haven't used the MusicQuest in a while (been playing games on t TNDLPT for the last several months), but now I have tried to use it again, I am getting no midi out.

- there is definitely a signal of some kind as the midi switch I am using has a green light that comes on when the PC is powered on, and goes off when it is off. So cables are connected OK.
- I am using default IRQ2 and port 330.
- I have tried with nothing loaded, no emm386, no mouse driver, still same.
- No other sound card installed.
- Games detect the existence of the MPU. E.g. in DN3D setup, it thinks there is something on 330, because if I change to 300, it says not detected.

Any ideas?

Let me tell you a story about my weekend, and y'all can decide how much of a coincidence this is. (To relieve any tension I will state up front that my card is fine.)

My card is brand new. I first tested it in my P200 system, then moved it to its real home, the 386 pictured a couple of posts up. This all took place a week ago, and everything was dandy.

Last night I was testing a few games, using an MT-32 and a TG100. Things worked, then they didn't. I run through a MIDI Solutions Quadra Thru, so like you I could see the MIDI signal going out. Not only that, the screens on my MIDI modules were lit up with activity. It was like all MIDI volumes were at zero. The obvious troubleshooting step is to look at my audio signal path, and I thoroughly ruled out any issue there. Rebooting all hardware ended up fixing the issue.

Putting that mystery out of my mind, I powered down to put some stuff on CF. On next powerup, pop!

Obviously, I am not suggesting the card caused this. One of these has gone before and I was too lazy to sweep through and do a recap, so I'm not overly surprised this happened. But is it possible that an unstable voltage was causing weird issues with the card? And could that be the case for you too?

I'm not smart enough to answer that - just spitballing considering the coincidence here.

[edit] The card is now back in my P200 and functioning perfectly.

I do occasionally get the -12V rail be a bit unstable on this rig - but from what I hear nothing of interest uses -12V. I have tested the PCMIDI on a different PC without that issue, and it still does not work. I have tried slowing down the CPU too, still no dice.

@kolderman
all I can think about is a connectivity issue - the green light on the midi-thru device does not mean that you actually get a midi out signal
so maybe it is a bad cable? a bad midi adapter? a bad jack? if you have a pcmidi with wavetable header install a wt board there and see if you get sound directly from pcmidi's audio out jack
is MQDIAG reporting the card found?
if you cannot find the issue you can always sent it for checking/repairing no matter when you bough it

@Pierre32
yep that's the tantalum plague allright... couple of days ago I repaired a 386DX board for a friend that had the exact same thing happen to his board but the explosion also created a HOLE in the pcb 🤣
it seems in your case the damage is minimal... once one of these go bad then it means all need to be replaced IMHO , annoying and tedious sadly
A dying capacitor can indeed affect things depending where it is connected and what it does

We must not forget that we are actually using 25-30 years old electronics that were never made to last this long in the first place. But we have reached a point in time when age is catching up to them , from the smd electrolytic and tantalum capacitor issues to chips just dying from internal failures. All we can do is maintain and repair them as best as we can...

keropi wrote on 2021-09-12, 07:23:

couple of days ago I repaired a 386DX board for a friend that had the exact same thing happen to his board but the explosion also created a HOLE in the pcb 🤣

Ouch! I definitely got off lightly. Anyway, into the repair queue for this old beauty.

I tried two cables already (well I reused the break out cable that came with the card cuz I don't have another), and another midi device. This one said "Bad I/F data" or similar.

I will try mqdiag and a waveblaster soon.

Latest result - I get some sound with DN3D sound setup. The midi light flashes for quite a while (maybe 30 seconds), but then I just get a stream of garbled piano. It happens on multiple midi modules, so it's not the final cable. Will do some more digging tomorrow.

I had a tantalum on the -12V rail explode on me while repairing a 286 motherboard last week; I replaced all decoupling caps on that board with electrolytics and everything was good. I should probably do this for all my boards..

Hi Keropi,
Are any of these still available? I tried Sam and Max recently with a SB32 (CT3600) connected to an SC-88 (original hardware) and got a lot of hanging notes. I assume using one of these cards would address that?
Thanks,
J

JayAlien wrote on 2021-11-07, 17:16:

Hi Keropi, Are any of these still available? I tried Sam and Max recently with a SB32 (CT3600) connected to an SC-88 (original h […]
Show full quote

Hi Keropi,
Are any of these still available? I tried Sam and Max recently with a SB32 (CT3600) connected to an SC-88 (original hardware) and got a lot of hanging notes. I assume using one of these cards would address that?
Thanks,
J

yes there are a few left I have seen your form request 😀

Thank you, payment has been sent 😀