Either one or both PSU or VGA needs recapping, as the ripple got so bad that you can see it.
Do not waste money for buying a Cirrus vga, they are utter crap that should be avoided.

Oh dear!

Well, that sounds like a pain. I think I'll try one more card before I tackle anything like that.

Just a small warning:
If the ripple comes from the PSU and you "fix" the issue by swapping in a graphics card which still has good capacitors that conceal the ripple problem, the eventual consequence will be serious, as this ripple slowly kills the mobo caps, too, and finally might result in the psu choking, resulting in a computer damaged beyond repair.

Wow, that sounds dire. Thanks for the heads-up!

Sounds like I'll be visiting my dad's workshop to do the soldering. I'll use the opportunity to put a new fan into the PSU as well.

henryVK wrote:

Dear Vogons, […]
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Dear Vogons,

I'm currently putting together a P1 system and I got a Spea V7 Mirage P-32, S3 Trio32 86C732-P PCI card, supposedly tested, for very cheaps...

Today I got around to installing Win95 and already in the setup I noticed these vertical moving lines across the screen, like interference or ripple. Once I hit the Windows desktop it was pretty apparent that it is pretty severe. Now, I'm 100% certain it's not the CRT so I'm guessing this is an issue with the card? Is this a common issue with S3 Trios? Should I bother with investigating, repair (I have no experience with video cards) or move on to another card. There's a Cirrus CL-GD5446 that I could get, which I understand has similar speed.

Thanks and cheers,

Henry

I have seen this before with PCI cards especially S3 cards.
I think the problem is some solder joints have gone bad or maybe the ram needs to be reset.
I have been able to fix this problem with bad ram chip solder joints by pouring some "No-clean flux" or "flux paste"on the ram solder joints and heating up the solder joints with a heat gun until the solder is all gone. Just let the solder do the job. To perform this correctly heat up the ram chips with a heat gun and remove each ram chip.
Then clean the solder joints with solder wick. Then apply solder paste to each ram chip solder pads and reset the ram chip. Use the heat gun to smelt the solder until all the solder is burned up. The solder joints should be clean and as new.

Heat gun:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/450W-LCD-Display-Ele … 56150cf2f8a2212

Solder paste:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/10CC-Solder-Paste-Fl … fMAAOSwLMRcduQ1

No Clean solder paste:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/NC-559-ASM-10cc-Sold … voAAOSw0O5aJLjc

Alright, thanks for the additional lead! I'll test another card that I have coming and then look into any potential recapping/refitting.

I can't do any of this at home very well because I only have a very rudimentary soldering iron. However, my dad runs an e-bike business and should have all the professional grade tools at his garage.

Okay, so I swapped the Trio32 for a Miro Trio64 and the ripple is drastically reduced.

I will tackle the PSU next, or rather, due to time contstraints and feat of electrocuting myself I asked my "radio guy" to replace the caps for me. Hope that will get underway tomorrow and I can move on to the next stage of this project 😀

Thank you for your input, everyone, I will report back whether the problem has been eliminated entirely!