Subject: Re: (SWE1) MediaGX motherboard and support
From: [email-masked] (Duncan Brown)
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 13:07:58 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball

On Thu, 23 Dec 1999 02:02:32 -0700, Jim Hicks <[email-masked]>
wrote:

>Very clever.  Too bad you didn't get to finish.

Understatement of the year, heh heh heh...

>Do you know what model MediaGX motherboard is suitable for replacement?
>CPU speed?  Might need to pick up a copy of Computer Shopper and get a
>spare ... I presume that would be significantly cheaper than buying a
>replacement through WMS parts.

I don't know how badly they're marking them up, but that's certainly
one way to make sure you get the right model!   To be quite honest
with you I was never intimately familiar with that kind of definition
of the board (Chuck and Brad and Tom were the ones keeping up with
that stuff); it just mattered to me what SuperIO and support chips
were on it!

The model number should actually be on the board somewhere.  They just
pull them out of the box and bolt them into the chassis without trying
to disguise what they are.  There was more than one vendor and even
those vendors changed their boards slightly from time to time.  You
should be able to get one that works by following the specs gathered
from a board.  Here's what is in mine:
-- MediaGX "GXm" processor - I believe 233MHz
-- CX5520 support chip
-- PC97317 SuperIO chip
...and whatever that board form factor is called.  It is a small
motherboard, has the "old PC" style power connector, has I/O ports on
ribbon cables instead of soldered to the board.  (One of you
PC-building guys out there knows the name for this style board,
surely?)  Of course it needs a PCI slot (PRISM card) and an ISA slot
(if you ever plan to use the PUB update procedure.)

To be honest, if you use a board we never ran across, it's possible it
won't work because they do something we didn't account for.  i.e. the
benefit of buying a board from Williams is that the board is
"qualified" to run in a Pinball 2000.  But if you try a board and it
does run, it will be fine.  If there were some subtle change that we
didn't account for, the board would refuse to boot or display or
something.  If one of you runs out and finds a board that works, or if
someone figures out the model number just by looking on the board (I
believe it's on a sticker on the bottom?) and figures out a good place
to buy them, by all means report back here for the benefit of all!

(Duncan's Big Risk, Day 0.5 - Still running fine, heatsink is not even
uncomfortably warm.  No slag noticed puddled in case...)

Duncan