Unknown ISA Graphics card... help!!!

[robzta]

Hi. I have a graphics card which does not seem to be detected when plugged into a DELL OPTIPLEX GX1. I'm not too sure if the machine itself requires drivers for the ISA port... When opening the device manager, there are no triangled exclamation marks next to any of the devices. I've tried detecting new hardware with, and without, the card inserted. Either way, there are no changes on the device manager.

The card itself has been marked with the following :

UNIC2 94V-0 2895
E119697

Appart from that, not much else is on the card to even indentify the manafacturer.

Can I get some help this piece of hardware? I have enclosed pics...

 

[mikey99]

I can't tell much from that picture even with my glasses on

Are you saying the card outputs video ? I guess it does if you're able
to view the dev manager.

What OS are you running ? 95/98/NT?

 

[Chuck(G)]

Better focus would help a lot!

Failing that, what are the legends on the large chips? I see an IIT graphics processor and what looks like a Xilinx logo on another. I see what's probably an EPROM in an PLCC socket and a lot of surface mount discretes. But that's all I can tell.

 

[per]

Hi. I have a graphics card which does not seem to be detected when plugged into a DELL OPTIPLEX GX1. I'm not too sure if the machine itself requires drivers for the ISA port... When opening the device manager, there are no triangled exclamation marks next to any of the devices. I've tried detecting new hardware with, and without, the card inserted. Either way, there are no changes on the device manager.

It seems like a VGA-card. I don't know how how "non-standard" it is, but my guess is simply that it uses the genetic VGA driver supplied with Windows; it simply doesn't require it's own driver because there are no "special things" with the card that the genetic driver doesn't support.

 

[JohnElliott]

You could use DEBUG to look at the video BIOS and see if there are any recognisable strings.

From a DOS prompt:

C:\>[B]debug[/B]
-[B]dc000:0,ff[/B]

 

[Chuck(G)]

Doing a little digging, IIT (later 8x8 ) produced a set of chips for their version of IBM XGA, called AGX. I think that's what you've got.

Download WHATVGA and run it to see if it can identify your card. You can't run it from Windoze (2K/NT/XP/Vista/7), it's got to run from DOS. The best way to do this is to create a DOS boot floppy with WHATVGA.EXE on it.

 

[bear]

The Windows "find new hardware" doesn't really work well with arbitrary, non-plug-and-play ISA cards.

I don't think that's a graphics card in the way you suspect. At the very least I am skeptical there is a VGA (or EGA or CGA) section on the card. There's no obvious VGA ROM or output DAC, and too many analog signal processing type passives. I suppose instead it's intended to be attached to the feature connector of a VGA card and provides, for example, broadcast video capture or MPEG 2 decoding.

With a better image I could make a more intelligent guess.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Take a look at the first fuzzy photo and note what seems to be audio circuitry near the upper right hand corner, complete with RCA plug and a mini phone jack.

I wonder if this isn't a narrowband videoconferencing card. IIT was a major player in that area.

 

[barythrin]

I'm not a circuitry expert like Chuck or bear but if your video card is working just at a low resolution it may actually be working and displaying things at the maximum resolution it can support with the little RAM it has. It would display much like a newer system with a bad/generic driver.

You also may need to plug video cable into the new card and not the on board video card or it won't disable the on board video. We had some issues with that in Dell's from that era not working with dual-displays. A few required the newest BIOS be flashed and a model or two automatically disables the on board video once a new card is plugged in but some don't and need a BIOS tweak to change where the video output is going to come from.

 

[bear]

I wonder if this isn't a narrowband videoconferencing card. IIT was a major player in that area.

Chuck - I think your guess is much better than mine were. I wasn't even thinking of video conferencing. The analog components really do look like an input section which would sort of rule out an MPEG decoder, which besides would have more hooks into the system (like a CD-ROM controller for starters), and a straight video capture card would not need the feature connector and its own monitor connection.

The RCA connector would support a composite video camera, the phono jack a dynamic microphone, and it would display on your monitor by overlaying an analog video signal onto the output from your VGA card, which would come in over the feature connector, and then be displayed as one image on your monitor, which would be plugged into the conference card. If you plugged your monitor into the VGA card, it would work to display normal computer graphics but any conference video would be displayed as a black (or pink) rectangle.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Still wish we had better photos of the thing.

 

[robzta]

Hi guys. Sorry bout the tardiness but been away. I have now submitted clearer pics.

Just to let you the end consist of 1x VGA socket, 1 x RCA (phono) scocket, and 1 x small headphone plug. The PC is running XP SP3.

Since I have looked at this situation again, I've read that I may need to configure the ISA slot with the ISA Configuration Utility found on the Dell resource CD which would have come with the PC. Does this sound right to you guys? Cos whilst Dell CD's are available on ebay, I'm uncertain as if these disks are appropiate for my machine - the sellers don't know either. Don't want to order a dud.

Not sure as whether this hardware would be usefull as I am hoping that the RCA turns out to be Video-IN...

 

[per]

Not sure as whether this hardware would be usefull as I am hoping that the RCA turns out to be Video-IN...

It may also be composite-out (as of it's color). Have you tried to connect it to the composite-in on a TV?

 

[robzta]

It may also be composite-out (as of it's color). Have you tried to connect it to the composite-in on a TV?

As it is not in my possession at the time of writing (now with my brother elsewhere), I shall give that a go when I visit him next week

 

[channelmaniac]

Sure does look like a video output board from here...

If it were a decoder I'd think it would have some more chips on it, particularly from Bt or Phillips.

It looks like an add on board that would hook to the feature connector of an existing video card with a ribbon cable and the HD-15 connector is simply a passthru of the video from the other card.

 

[Chuck(G)]

My vote's still for videoconferencing, particularly with the Samsung KS0119 now visible--it's a video encoder, so the RCA jack is probably NTSC out. The mini phone jack is almost certainly audio. If there is camera input, it's probably on another card.

 

[386User]

No longer have video on my Epson 386

No longer have video on my Epson 386

I'm having problems with my old Epson 386, boat anchor.

The problem is I can no longer get a video signal, with the monitor continually going into standby mode. I checked this monitor against my current system and it works OK. Therefore the problem has to be the ISA video card. I installed a couple of old Trident ISA cards and still can't get a video signal.

Any suggstions:eh:???????

 

[per]

I'm having problems with my old Epson 386, boat anchor.

The problem is I can no longer get a video signal, with the monitor continually going into standby mode. I checked this monitor against my current system and it works OK. Therefore the problem has to be the ISA video card. I installed a couple of old Trident ISA cards and still can't get a video signal.

Any suggstions:eh:???????

I suggest you should start a new thread about this, but I would like to ask some questions first:

Have that combination of monitor and graphics card worked in that computer before?
Do that combination of monitor and graphics card work in another PC?
Do you have the ability to post pictures (of both the card and the monitor)?

 

[386User]

My 386 Graphics card stopped working

My 386 Graphics card stopped working

Thanks for replying Per. I have not tested the system for about 8 years and the last time I did, it worked. The Viewmaster CB6746SL monitor has not been used with the 386 before. I also recently tested the 386 using both a Dell & Diamond View monitor and could not get video. I do not have the facility to check any of the 3 ISA graphics cards in another 386/486 PC. Both the Epson 386 motherboard and memory board are Tiger brand. The original video card is a 1988 Video Seven 650-0095, Cirrus Logic chipset CL-GD510A-32PC-B. I attempted to locate a user manual for this card on the net, without much success. It has both 9 & 15 pin EGA/VGA ports. I will attempt to post some pictures.

regards

 

[ZOBEX]

Might be a dual output for instructional material or demonstrations, both running at the same time. The composite to a larger display (for the day at least) and audio out for the presentation. Like for corporate, trade shows or instructional material for a school or such. I recall seeing such a setup in the California University system also an early version of AutoCad (no audio naturally). At one time I ran AutoCad 1 on a 286 machine. There were any number of video pass throughs at the time, so much for the header. I have some header ISA cards here even in a few XT's.

Remember you could then run composite into an adapter then into a large screen TV set also you could run your sound card audio into the TV audio input jack. Some TV sets had composite video input jacks on them. Now that I think of it, my Brother did exactly that with is Packard Hell 386SX. He ran both the composite TV simultaneous with his crummy EGA/VGA monitor.

Take a look at the first fuzzy photo and note what seems to be audio circuitry near the upper right hand corner, complete with RCA plug and a mini phone jack.

I wonder if this isn't a narrowband videoconferencing card. IIT was a major player in that area.