Help with this I/O controller card

Posted by Hungry_Charge2857@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 27 comments

I was once on here talking about this card but now I've finally pulled the trigger on building my 486 machine. I have a Biostar MB-1433 with an AMD 486 DX4 100MHz, 256 KB of L2 cache, and 64 MB (32 x 2)of DRAM. I've acquired a case with a Turbo button and have replaced the barrel battery with a ML2032 battery. Now I'm looking at this card. I found an exact listing of it on eBay so I'm pretty sure it's just a variation of the Trident TGUI9400CXi I found on VGA Museum. My question though is what type of chip would go in those empty spots?

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tomxp411@reddit

Probably RAM chips... but the fact that the slots are empty might mean the card is dead and someone salvaged the RAM.

I'd look for a different video card.

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tes_kitty@reddit

Looks like you need 256Kx4 DRAMs for this. 414256-70 or 53C4256-70 for example. But back then they had lots of numbers, depending on who made them.

Might not be worth the effort though.

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Hungry_Charge2857@reddit (OP)

From the FCC documentation I found this is a 1 MB VLB Video Card with I/O controller that was released in 1994. The actual FCC filing was February 10th 1994. I plan on only using this for DOS games that don't work on my circa 1999 98SE machine.

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tes_kitty@reddit

I tried to expand the memory on an S3 VLB card once. I had the right, tested memory, but when the card tried to use it, I got flashing artefacts, meaning when moving a window it left parts behind that vanished a moment later. So static images were great, moving images sucked.

Maybe a driver issue or a problem with the card (it's 30 years old after all).

So, I told you the kind of RAM you need, but whether it will work or bring any improvement, that's you need to find out yourself.

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Hungry_Charge2857@reddit (OP)

Adding my current findings. So far all I've found is a manual for the upgraded version of this card and it makes mention of this card existing. I know it maxes out at 1280 X 1024 resolution and comes with 1mb of memory. AESL Technology Inc based in Taiwan is the company that created this version of the card. I'm inclined to believe it is Zip Memory cards that this needs. Despite it looking like 8 spots, I think it's 16. The dram modules I've found all have over 30 pins and each pin line on this is 10. Zip memory cards are 10 pins. Most likely this card doesn't need the Zip Memory cards because I'm sure 1mb of memory is plenty. Also most early 90 software I don't think would utilize a 1280 x 1024 resolution.

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therealmrbuzzy@reddit

Correct you don’t need to add the extra memory. No one did.

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1quirky1@reddit

Is that some kind of proprietary ISA+PCI bus? I vaguely recall seeing one or two motherboards that had this kind of a slot.

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davus_maximus@reddit

ISA plus VESA bus extension.

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Hungry_Charge2857@reddit (OP)

I thought it was weird too at first. I found out it is called a VLB card. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_Local_Bus

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nixiebunny@reddit

The two flat memory chips KM416C256B soldered to the board make me wonder why those sockets are even there. 20 pin DIP DRAMs were not common. Maybe 4 bit wide devices.

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computix@reddit

From the datasheet it looks like it supports Fast Page and EDO 4 bit and 16 bit chips. The datasheet also mentions "asymetrical configurations", so there's a good chance that the video memory can be expanded to 2 MB using those sockets.

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nixiebunny@reddit

I think the soldered parts are 256k x 16 bit chips. So it would need eight 1M x 4 bit chips in the sockets.

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Practical_Adagio_504@reddit

I believe that there are spots for THREE different kinds of ram on this board, and only ONE type needs or is wanting to be populated.

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nixiebunny@reddit

I agree. Which is why I was wondering about the existence of both sockets and soldered DRAM. I would have to go back 30 years to figure out just what types of chips they would be. I recognize the 20/26 pin J lead SMT package, having designed boards with it and the installed chips. I only designed the 16 pin DIP single bit DRAMs onto boards.

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0EFF@reddit

Looks like a trident video card with multi I/o combo. That’s a rare vesa local bus card. 256k onboard and maybe 256k upgrade with 44256 chips?

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computix@reddit

I recommend verifying you can cache the full 64 MB RAM. Many boards need 512 kB cache to cache 64 MB in write back mode. Use Cachechk to verify this.

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William-Riker@reddit

You need to find compatible ZIP memory chips. You can find them on ebay or take them off another old card. You likely can upgrade this from 1MB to 2MB or maybe even 4MB. The speed and max resolution/colour will still be determined by the GPU though.

Vesa is much faster than ISA. An AMD DX4 runs at 3x33Mhz (Should have been called the DX3 but whatever) so this card on VESA should run be able to push 133MB/s through the 33Mhz external frequency of the DX4.

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rosmaniac@reddit

You need to find compatible ZIP memory chips.

There are no Zigzag Inline Package chips compatible with the Dual Inline Package sockets on this board.

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Hungry_Charge2857@reddit (OP)

I'll start looking for ZIP memory chips. Manuals I found were for different versions of this card but there could be some overlap.

I just noticed the manual for the motherboard uses the same jumper configuration for the AMD DX4 as the Intel DX2. I actually do have an Intel 486 but I don't know the exact model just that the number of pins matches and it has Intel written on it. The heat sink has sat on it for so long that I can't get it off with hand power and I'm too scared to use a tool of any kind to separate them

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William-Riker@reddit

Check out this info on your board. It supports the DX4 at 33Mhz x 3.

https://www.philscomputerlab.com/biostar-mb-1433.html

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nopelobster@reddit

They are probably sockets for zip memory chips. Found this vogons post aboit a different variant of the card using the same trident main chip. https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=103784

i hope this helps you or anyone looking for answers on this trident TGUI9400CXi based card. And if you end up finding the manual for it please upload it to the internet archive

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rosmaniac@reddit

They are probably sockets for zip memory chips.

ZIP, or Zigzag Inline Package, chips won't fit these, which are made for Dual Inline Packages, or DIPs.

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Balentius@reddit

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=71043 looks more like it. DRAM chips, further down the thread the owner says he found some and includes pictures, chips are https://www.jameco.com/z/M5M44256BP-8-Mitsubishi-Electric-and-Electronics-USA-IC-44256BP-8-CMOS-DRAM-1-048-576-Bit-262-144x4-80ns-Fast-Page-Mode_2288063.html from the pictures shown. If I'm reading it correctly (years since I've seen these...) each chip is 256k.

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