Uncreative Labs

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

I won an AMI caching vlb scsi controller card on ebay recently. Since it doesn't have I/O (just scsi and floppy) do you think I can get 3 VLB cards working on a 486 (video, scsi + floppy, I/O card) or should I just use a 16 bit card for serial/parr/gameport?

Never seen a VLB caching SCSI card, hope it works well (should have a 50Mhz setting too, my normal VLB scsi are 33Mhz or slower cards).

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Yeah, I saw that caching controller. It looks pretty good.

From what I've read, VLB SCSI just didn't work very well. It seems that VLB can't do DMA properly. I know that the Adaptec cards were particularly bad. Though, I have seen VLB SCSI existing happily with VLB graphics cards at 33MHz. I think running three cards would probably be a mistake. You can forget about running the SCSI card at 50MHz. 50MHz VLB anything is unreliable...even with the waitstate. SCSI VLB is particularly sensitive to BUS speed. Back in the day, the people using the 50MHz systems always went EISA.

I recommend running two VLB cards at 33MHz (or possibly 40MHz), and moving the I/O to an ISA slot. To be honest, I don't even think the I/O on your card uses the VL section. Almost all of the I/O I have seen always resides on the 8-bit section of the card. I think the serial and parallel ports can't really take advantage of extra bandwidth anyway.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

So if I turn off the IDE section via jumper the VLB I/O card will just be using the ISA section of the slot anyway (so it would be ok)?

Currently I have 3 VLB SCSI card (adaptec, buslogic?, Always) with the Always card in use (has IDE, 4 floppy ports, I/O, and SCSI on one card).

I don't think any of the 3 cards likes anything over 33mhz bus speed (tried one at 40 and it didn't even want to work).

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

You'll have to try turning off the IDE and see for yourself, but in theory it should work. I've never tried it since I have quite a lot of perfectly good ISA I/O cards lying around.

Your Always card sounds pretty interesting. I think if you want both IDE and SCSI on the VL bus that would be the way to go. But honestly, there isn't reason you would ever want to do this other than to just say that you did it.

I spent a lot of time playing around and trying to optimise my hard disk transfer rates. I've spent a majority of my time on EISA and VLB controllers. I've been somewhat unimpressed so far. On the VL bus I run EIDE, and on EISA I run SCSI. I'm using fast 7200 RPM drives with transfer rates over 10MB/sec on both setups.

My EISA 486 machine runs the bus at 8MHz. I am running wide SCSI on an adaptec AHA 2742W controller. With a seagate barracuda I am only able to average 7MB/sec. I was pretty certain the drive was capable of a lot more on my pentium system, but I'll have to check that out later. I'm not really happy with the disk performance on this system considering the expensive hardware.

My VLB system is a Pentium (pure VLB, no PCI). I have tried three different PIO4 controllers: A Promise, a DTC and a QDI. The best I have been able to do on this system is also an average of 7MB/sec. I know for a fact this drive is capable of much more than that. I guess the best I have ever heard of on a VLB system is about 10mb/sec.

The ISA bus is capable of 5MB/sec running at 8MHz, and maybe around 8MB/sec on a 12MHz bus. I have a 386 with an AHA 1542CP SCSI controller and 7200RPM SCSI drive that saturates the ISA bus at 5MB/sec. I haven't tried overclocking yet, but I suspect increasing the bus speed might be possible.

When you consider the advanced technologies of VESA and EISA, the ISA numbers really aren't so bad. I think there are two good reasons to run you disk controllers on EISA or VLB bus. Less CPU overhead, and less addressing limitations. But, on a machine where you typically use less than 16MB of RAM, I don't know if it would be such a big deal.

I am kind of curious to know why you want to have both. I think the only time I ever wanted to have both is if I have a shortage of SCSI hard disks or a shortage of IDE CD-ROM drives.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

Card is here, now to install it somewhere. There is an Intel 386 SX/16 chip onboard (the caching IDE cards I have tend to use harris 286/20's).

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Good stuff. I'll be interested to hear how it works out.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

There's another Diamond Stealth 64 VRAM for VLB on eBay. It has 4meg already installed and comes with original box and manuals. It's not that expensive either.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

i think it's like putting a corvette engine in a dump truck

now that I have quashed your dreams!
the os and the software that can be run on older systems does not support of need high end devices.
sure put in the best and fastest car that has a driver for windows 3.1, but it is still a lot slower than a medium quality card in a pci slot and a newer operating sistem on a low end PIII..
the newer chipsets rarely have drivers for older operating systems, in fact dos rarely requires drivers to run,

it's sort of a case of " be all that you can be"
and the difference between ordinary and super is small.
the biggest thing I ever did in the "olden days"
was to run SPINTEST or use the utility in the 286-12 Vlsi mb to determine the best interleave
when I had only xt';s it made a huge difference.
when I had 286's, I purchased a controller with a wd1006 chipset ( 1:1)

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

If you want to see something odd, check out ebay # 120176080619

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Ah, the Hercules Dynamite Pro. It's a pretty good card. I have the "power" version with the W32P chip. Unfortunately there is a small problem with the card. It seems that the output needs filtering or something. I'm not sure if I can fix it though. I found a place selling that Miro card of yours brand new, so I'm thinking of using that as a replacement.

To bad the card that sold wasn't the ISA version. I would have been more interested....

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

I never got around to testing my spare yet, got a B&W Mac G3 in and have been messing with that.

Who has the Miro Card?

I had that exact Hercules card back when my 486 VLB was new, nice card but not worth that kind of money now.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

Here's the link to the place selling NIB. It's kind of pricey though.

http://www.electronicdiscountsales.com/store/0010_Vintage+2+Meg+VESA+Local+Bus+TV+Tuner+%2526+Video+Capture++SKU-83211053+D-06-27-06.htm

I've seen a few W32Ps on ebay lately, but they are all used and also pricey. If I'm going to shell out the big bucks, I want to be certain it hasn't been overclocked to hell by some "hardcore gamer". I suspect my Dynamite Power might have a damaged RAMDAC from overclocking, but I can't prove it.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

$28 shipped seems kind of pricey to me. If you still want mine we can work something out (card looks unused, but I only had one set of manuals and disks for the 3 I purchased).

Can you replace your RAMDAC?

I don't worry too much about older VLB equipment, generally it either works or it doesn't (unlike newer cards that run hot and can be easily damaged because of heat).

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

I don't really have a tool that is appropriate to remove the chip without damaging the circuit board. Even if I had some nice desoldering tools, there is still the issue of getting another RAMDAC. I might do it later, but right now it's not worth the effort.

I think we can probably work out some kind of deal for your Miro instead.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

When are you back in the US anyway? Don't think shipping to china is going to be cheap.