Have you considered adding a second hard drive? 😀

Well that's always an option but I'd like to keep it to one for simplicity's sake. All the other drives I have are either 200-400MB or bigger than 3GB.
I don't think it will be a problem as I've more or less installed all the games I want to- just depends how big some of these game's save files can get 😜

Anyway, was playing around last night looking through my box of sound cards in preparation for the arrival of the wavetable daughterboard. The card I had originally installed was a CT2740, with a 4.11 DSP - which apparently does have the hanging note bug in certain circumstances. I tried putting in a Vibra 16 (CT2800) and I am amazed at the difference.

I always though the vibra was cheap and nasty but it sounds way better than the CT2740. Sound is objectively cleaner and clearer. In Alien Carnage/Halloween Harry I would get erratic crackling and popping sounds, this doesn't happen with the CT2800. Its still got the OPL3 so the FM Synth still sounds like I expected. Interestingly, sound in Populous 2 works when it didn't on the CT2740. I assumed it was because the game was expecting an SBPro and the SB16 isn't completely compatible with the Pro, however the sound works perfectly with the Vibra 16.

The only things it seems to miss is the volume control on the back and the bass/treble controls in the mixer software but I've got powered speakers so this isn't an issue. Its got DSP 4.13 which is apparently worse for the hanging note bug than the 4.11, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. It is a PnP card but I didn't even bother with the config software- I just whacked it in an ISA slot and luckily it was configured to the same settings as my previous card so everything just worked.

The CT2800 Vibra 16 seems to be an excellent card if you are just after a basic DOS sound card with OPL3 DM Synth.

The hanging note bug should only occur when also using the digital part of your sound card, but I haven't tested this yet.

Using another card for the digital part should fix your issue. E.g. using an AWE64 with FM disabled and your SB 16 set to other resources...

I just wonder, how did you hook up your IDE CDROM drive in that thing? I thought that 486-era IDE controllers didn't work with CDROM drives, and I also thought that the SB16 CDROM interface only worked with certain non-IDE drives. The reason why I'm asking this is because I have a similar 486 in storage, but the CDROM drive in it (an old Creative branded one that hooks up to the SB16) is on the fritz, and I need to replace it.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I just wonder, how did you hook up your IDE CDROM drive in that thing? I thought that 486-era IDE controllers didn't work with CDROM drives, and I also thought that the SB16 CDROM interface only worked with certain non-IDE drives. The reason why I'm asking this is because I have a similar 486 in storage, but the CDROM drive in it (an old Creative branded one that hooks up to the SB16) is on the fritz, and I need to replace it.

Did you try hooking it up as a slave or master? from my own experience you seldom fail with these IDE controllers...think I've gone thru testing around 15 of them and only one has failed recognizing a CD-ROM

I just hooked it up as a slave to my hard drive. I left the primary slave set to NONE in the BIOS, but when I loaded the DOS drivers it found the drive and worked.

I just assumed that as long as you had an IDE compliant drive it should work? I'm not sure whether you need support for CD drives in the BIOS.

I see. When I get around to digging my 486 out of storage, I'll have to give that a try. 🤣

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I just wonder, how did you hook up your IDE CDROM drive in that thing? I thought that 486-era IDE controllers didn't work with CDROM drives, and I also thought that the SB16 CDROM interface only worked with certain non-IDE drives

The earlier SB16 cards did have non IDE CD controllers. There where 3 main interfaces:

- Panasonic / Matsushita (the Creative Drive is one of these)
- Sony
- Mitsumi

Some cards had SCSI.

AFAIK with triple speed onwards drives used the IDE interface. As has been suggested, just try all the configuration options (Master and Slave jumper) on the Primary and Secondary controller ports.

I would be surprised if it didn't work...

DonutKing wrote:

Sound is objectively cleaner and clearer. In Alien Carnage/Halloween Harry I would get erratic crackling and popping sounds, this doesn't happen with the CT2800. Its still got the OPL3 so the FM Synth still sounds like I expected.

Do you happen to have a picture of this card?

The big chip on that card does it say: Vibra16S and CT2504-TCQ?

Thanks

I just now noticed, but the HOT-407 has EISA slots. Any plans to play with that aspect?

Not really. I don't have any EISA cards and they seem pretty rare.

DonutKing wrote:

Not really. I don't have any EISA cards and they seem pretty rare.

If you're looking foe EISa cards I got some SCSI-2 and an Elsa Winner 1000 gfx card for sale

I appreciate the offer but I think I'll pass for now. Budget is stretched a little thin at this time of year 😀

DonutKing wrote:

Plugged in an external battery pack from Jaycar and it was happy 😀

any chance of pics / more explanation?

Damn, necro bump!

I don't have this machine any more - motherboard died, it was parted out and I built another machine in a different case.

The battery I used was sealed, had a single 3.6V cell in it about AA size, and had a 4-pin connector on it which fits on the EXT_BATT header on the motherboard.
I tried looking on jaycar.com.au but it seems they don't sell this battery any more.

You could instead buy a 3 cell AA holder wired in series; 3 alkaline AA batteries will give you 4.5V but this should still be OK. You would then just connect the wires to the EXT_BATT header. Make sure you locate the batteries somewhere away from the motherboard in case they leak.

3 Rechargeable AA's would equal 3.6v to 3.9v, probably a better idea than alkaline AA's which can be up to 1.7v each when new which would be over 5v for 3 of them.

chrisNova777 wrote:

DonutKing wrote:

Plugged in an external battery pack from Jaycar and it was happy 😀

any chance of pics / more explanation?

A five year bump? No, don't do it again.

Stiletto wrote:

http://s17.postimg.org/bz1begprz/Necro.gif […]
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chrisNova777 wrote:

DonutKing wrote:

Plugged in an external battery pack from Jaycar and it was happy 😀

any chance of pics / more explanation?

A five year bump? No, don't do it again.

This is why old threads should lock automatically. If a thread is of such importance that it needs to be left open then it should be stickied and not allowed to drop to the bottom of the queue.

I personally like to come back to my build threads over the years as the machine is updated, etc. If my build threads automatically locked I would be most aggrieved.

sliderider wrote:

This is why old threads should lock automatically. If a thread is of such importance that it needs to be left open then it should be stickied and not allowed to drop to the bottom of the queue.

The problem with that idea is that we have threads of such information density that we'd have nothing but pages and pages of stickies before the recent posts appear. 😀