I found a problem, two vga card with 1M Video memory trident gd5422 are no show on 386 but can show on 486.
Try other ISA slots. Check the ISA bus speed setting in BIOS.
PS:
GD5422 is Cirrus Logic, not Trident.
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A bit more info might help...
- what 386 motherboard do you have?
- what 486 motherboard do you have?
- exactly which video cards with Trident or (Cirrus Logic) GD5422 chipsets do you have?
- what monitor are you using?
- is the 386 known-good? (i.e. does it work with other video cards? - and if so, which?)
If two cards work in another system but not on the 386, the simplest explanation would be that there's nothing wrong with the VGA cards but the 386 isn't booting properly.
If the 386 does work with other video cards, there's probably a problem with settings. Which? Depends on the exact motherboard and VGA cards.
If you get sync but a black screen make sure -12V is working
That's probably just bad luck when it comes to motherboard and expansion card compatibility - I have an ISA Tseng ET4000/W32i card that refuses to work with a 386DX motherboard, ISA Trident cards refuse to work with a TI486SXLC2 motherboard, one of my 286 motherboards refuses to work with an UMC UM408AF card and has stability issues with a S3 P86C801 card, just to provide a few examples.
(yes, I'm aware what I'm saying is overly simplistic - not factoring in specific mobo chipsets, mobo and video card BIOSes, keyboard controllers etc, but the basic point still stands)
I'm not convinced the 386 is known-good. This could just be overly simplistic reasoning: "I don't see anything in the monitor so it must be a video card problem" not considering the fact that the card needs input to be able to output something. For all we know this motherboard might be half rotted away by battery corrosion or be missing a BIOS (E)EPROM...
