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My 486 Optimization

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Reply 20 of 24, by Shodan486

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d1stortion - Nope, works smoothly without the SCSI subsystem - it's probably because all the Image managers are recognized as SCSI devices - this makes some sort of conflict with the overall system, but since the device in the Device Manager is a pure driver, you cannot change anything there, thus I gotta look for more versions that the OS & controller will cope with.

It's trying to terminate the SCSI deamon tools soft or what ? 😁

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The second problem is workarounded - it seems the the onboard IDE and the SCSI also don't like each other: When hooking up the CDROM and trying to copy something in the OS, it hangs, gives me write errors, corruption and stuff. When I'm in DOS, thus not loading the win95 driver for the SCSI (no need, the firmware recognizes the drive and it's already partitioned + formatted), they both work flawlessly, so when I wanna add something or install, I gotta burn it on the CD and copy it via DOS.

MOBO: PVI-486SP3 Rev 1.2
CPU: POD-83
RAM: 2x16MB
VIDEO: Matrox Millenium 2MB/Voodoo2 12MB/Video Blaster VT300
AUDIO: SB Vibra16 FM
SCSI: 72GB 15k RPM HDD/YAMAHA CD-RW 16x/ZIP drive + FDD drive
NIC: 3Com Etherlink III
PSU: 230W Generic
OS: Win95 OSR2.5

Reply 21 of 24, by d1stortion

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So you are on 95? If you don't find the reason for your problem with the hardware, your last resort would be to go 98 SE. Your CPU should (barely) cut it for this OS, but there are 3rd party tweaks to make it lean like 95.

Reply 22 of 24, by Shodan486

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Really? Well, if you could point me to some direction or just provide some links / searchwords etc., I'll definitely take a look at it. But I'd rather stick to win95 and, again, workaround this problem by acquiring a SCSI CDROM drive and burn my images onto CDs. It's not the speed I'm concerned with, but the unburdening of the CPU, even if it's slight (and that sure ain't), by using SCSI to handle all the storage I/O subsystem.

MOBO: PVI-486SP3 Rev 1.2
CPU: POD-83
RAM: 2x16MB
VIDEO: Matrox Millenium 2MB/Voodoo2 12MB/Video Blaster VT300
AUDIO: SB Vibra16 FM
SCSI: 72GB 15k RPM HDD/YAMAHA CD-RW 16x/ZIP drive + FDD drive
NIC: 3Com Etherlink III
PSU: 230W Generic
OS: Win95 OSR2.5

Reply 23 of 24, by Shodan486

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The CDROM (and accidentally also the HDD) problem is resolved & againg workarounded by disabling the onboard IDE and hooking it up to my soundcard - I was surprised I was seeing my HDD also in WIN (not dos), because I was lead to believe that these are not 100% IDE compatible controllers, but rather a CD player or maybe a data access controller.

Thus I'm satisfied.

MOBO: PVI-486SP3 Rev 1.2
CPU: POD-83
RAM: 2x16MB
VIDEO: Matrox Millenium 2MB/Voodoo2 12MB/Video Blaster VT300
AUDIO: SB Vibra16 FM
SCSI: 72GB 15k RPM HDD/YAMAHA CD-RW 16x/ZIP drive + FDD drive
NIC: 3Com Etherlink III
PSU: 230W Generic
OS: Win95 OSR2.5

Reply 24 of 24, by feipoa

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I am glad you finally resolved your issues.

I've even had issues with Daemon Tools 4.x in WinXP and SCSI HDD/CD-ROM. I no longer use Daemon Tools after spending days trying to resolve an issue, resulting in an inevitable reformat. Based on my readings in the forums, the problem was directly related to Daemon Tools causing this BSOD. With the days I lost tryig to fix it, I should have reformatted earlier.

You should not have any problem using a SCSI CD-ROM on the 50-pin narrow connector and a SCSI HDD on the 68-pin ultra LVD connector of a 2940U2W. I have run 486's like this for over a decade. Even better, if you want to use a DVD-ROM, DVD-RW, or CD-RW on your SCSI controller, you can use an IDE-to-SCSI or SATA-to-SCSI converter offered by ACARD. These are noted in the World's Fastest 486 link, namely.

• ACARD AEC7732U Bridge Adapter, SATA (ATAPI DVD-ROM) to 50-pin Ultra SCSI
• ACARD AEC7720U (C1) Bridge Adapter, IDE/ATA (CD/DVD-ROM or harddrive) to 50-pin Ultra SCS

Alternately, you can use a cheap $5 SATA-to-IDE converter and just run a modern white DVD-RW drive on a standard IDE PIO-4 controller.

One more thought, which version of the Adaptec ASPI layer do you have installed? You might want to determine which is the best one to use for Win95.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.