Uncreative Labs

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

I have a 486 DX50 EISA system that is being a pain.

A while ago I tried installing an ATI EISA 2MB video card and all I got was 5 beeps from the system, no boot. I figured maybe that card was bad or it had issues with my adaptec SCSI card.

So I got a caching IDE EISA card for my system and the ATI card still won't work. A week or so ago I purchased a 3MB Supermac Spectrum EISA card and it gives me the same beeping. I also noticed my AVIEW 1MB S3 based EISA card doesn't like my system anymore (machines boots but the screen goes blank and the system hangs when DOS should be loading). The old adaptec wide scsi card got along fine with the AVIEW. Currently using an old ISA 1MB Tseng et4000ax diamond card for video.

Outside of the caching IDE card the only other EISA card I have installed is HP ethernet and a 50 pin adaptec SCSI (for my DAT drive and 8x CDR) and a bunch of ISA cards (IO card to run the floppy from, SB32, Video spigot).

ANy idea what I can do?

EISA seems just as cranky as VLB

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

Hmm...that's strange. EISA should be pretty well behaved assuming you have loaded all of your EISA config files...

How about the state of your RAMified clock? Does it still hold a charge?

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

I have 2 Dallas chips, one for the ISA BIOS and the other for EISA config, both seems to work fine (can be saved and read to).

I have config files for the EISA cards. The one for the motherboard is very generic, so is the one for the IDE caching controller, all the real settings are changed when hitting F2 on bootup when the card is checking the RAM.

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

Hmm...it's very stange. If possible try not to use the generic config files. I once had a link to a page that had just about every EISA config file known to man, but I can't recall the name at the moment. It's strange that with your caching controller you still control most of the settings within it's own BIOS setup. With my Adaptec 2742W and 3com 3C597TX all settings are configured via the EISA Config utility.

I remember having a similar problem one time with my orignal EISA motherboard (TMC PET48PN). It turned out to be a problem with the Startech 16550/ECP parallel port card I was using. I replaced it with a different card based on the same chipset and never had the beeping problem again.

Have you managed to locate the software for your Supermac Spectrum/24? Do you have the VGA passthrough working?

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

The Supermac card is a standard VGA card so I should not need a passthrough (yes I have the configuration files and Win 3.x/NT drivers).

Could be a problem with another EISA card, I will have to remove all the other cards and see.

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

Hmmm...I am guessing then that your Supermac is the Thunder/24 rather than the Spectrum/24. The Thunder/24 has an onboard VGA while the Spectrum/24 does not. At least, that's the way I understand it.

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

Where can you get those VESA cables to connect 2 video cards together? Do you just get an IDE cable and rip it apart?

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

No, unfortunately it's not as simple as that. If you just try to use an IDE cable you will realise that the connection will be backwards and/or flipped. Just get out a multimeter and try to line up the pins with an IDE cable. You'll need to tear the connector off one end and carefully re-crimp it.

Additionally, you will need to use VGA terminator on the card that is passing its signal...at least that's what I've read. You can find the schematics online for it. It's a really simple circuit and you can easily find the parts at a radio shack.

Finally to top it all off you need to make sure that your cards are compatible. Some VGA cards have feature connectors that only work as inputs. Some only work as outputs. Some can be configured as either. It's not always easy to get a good match.