DJNW wrote on 2024-10-14, 12:01:

Okay, so hear me out - the onboard audio of the MX is HD Audio, so it can only be activated via SBEMU, which can cause issues with certain dos extenders (eg TD2192), right?

Nope. Vortex* or AMD LX southbridges are not supported by SBEmu.

*UPD - apparently, those SoC's with integrated HDA (DX2\DX3\MX) are, actually, compatible with SBEMU.

DJNW wrote on 2024-10-14, 12:01:

Someone could get hold of one of the various V86MX based Little Guys out there (eg ebox3350MX) and (assuming the right pins are accessible on the board) make up and attach a little LPC-attached sound card. If it's doable, it would be both cheaper and faster than having a new SOM shipped from Taiwan, easier to assemble and encourages reuse of old parts.

Cheaper - maybe, but definitely not easier.
You could try through and share the experience.

DJNW wrote on 2024-10-14, 18:49:

Okay, so hear me out - the onboard audio of the MX is HD Audio, so it can only be activated via SBEMU, which can cause issues with certain dos extenders (eg TD2192), right?
Someone could get hold of one of the various V86MX based Little Guys out there (eg ebox3350MX) and (assuming the right pins are accessible on the board) make up and attach a little LPC-attached sound card. If it's doable, it would be both cheaper and faster than having a new SOM shipped from Taiwan, easier to assemble and encourages reuse of old parts.

It's an interesting possibility. Although the LPC soundcard would have to be pretty small to make sense.

I have started porting nukeykt's LPC soundblaster to the ice40 FPGA, maybe that would be a good path - https://github.com/rasteri/LPCBlaster

What's the benefit of LPC soundblaster over LPC2ISA bridge? I can see only tha smaller size but it lost the universality to connect any ISA soundcard you want. And it doesn solve missing LDRQ# anyway...

rasteri wrote on 2024-10-14, 19:31:

It's an interesting possibility. Although the LPC soundcard would have to be pretty small to make sense.
I have started porting nukeykt's LPC soundblaster to the ice40 FPGA, maybe that would be a good path - https://github.com/rasteri/LPCBlaster

Nice, but IMHO, Vortex is not the best candidate for testing.
LPC can really mess things up, including BIOS.
And digging up Vortex integrated flash recovery process still gimes me shivers 0_o

RayeR wrote on 2024-10-14, 21:06:

What's the benefit of LPC soundblaster over LPC2ISA bridge? I can see only tha smaller size but it lost the universality to connect any ISA soundcard you want. And it doesn solve missing LDRQ# anyway...

PC/104 is smaller than any ISA soundcard anyway. Just a possibility of adding a compatible soundcard and keeping original design may be more than enough.
LPC SB could be made as a module, pretty much the same as Vortex SOM, which anyone could then use as a base for a soundcard design for their system (with a "Quest For LDRQ#" included).
Some thin clients have mPCI slot onboard for wifi for example, and a soundcard could be designed around that slot.

I had a similar idea of creating an ISA card, in which you could swap sound chip IC's as modules (highly integrated ones, such as ALS120, ESS1868, CS4237B, etc).

Paul_V wrote on 2024-10-14, 21:40:

LPC can really mess things up, including BIOS.

Indeed. Care must be taken when handling stuffs on LPC bus.

A vanilla dISAppointment v0.1/v0.2 (without the extra resistor) would prevent the system from booting. As for v0.3, I couldn't get it work, and it somehow messed up the SuperIO that the system may not boot and in some cases even prevented fans from spinning up.

AMD chipsets (including later Ryzen CPUs) appear to have some restrictions on LPC access in place, that made dISAppointment only somewhat useful for a debug card (port 80h), but in turn made the board immune to those interferences (e.g. the AMD board will boot without any issue even when dISAppointment v0.1/v0.2 was without the extra resistor required for its proper function).

The nature of AMD's restrictions on LPC were unclear as they were never explicitly mentioned in the documentations I've looked at...

RayeR wrote on 2024-10-14, 21:06:

What's the benefit of LPC soundblaster over LPC2ISA bridge? I can see only tha smaller size but it lost the universality to connect any ISA soundcard you want. And it doesn solve missing LDRQ# anyway...

Yeah mainly just smaller size. Think TPM module with a 3.5mm socket on it...

Also soundcard chips are only available NOS with a finite supply, an FPGA solution would be available indefinitely

But yeah obviously this wouldn't solve LDRQ, or at least not without some ES1938S-TDMA-style shenanigans.

Did you ever get Quake running with a SB16? I had a thought that it might just not like IRQ7 in that configuration (Quake and SB16)? Maybe it would work on a different one? 🤔

7F20 wrote on 2024-10-19, 17:51:

Did you ever get Quake running with a SB16? I had a thought that it might just not like IRQ7 in that configuration (Quake and SB16)? Maybe it would work on a different one? 🤔

On my X99 system with dISAppointment v0.2, Quake does work with my CT2950 using IRQ7. Actually, I can only use IRQ7 on my system, since IRQ5 was highly contested, impossible to free.

It's just that Quake doesn't appear to cooperate well with JEMM (invalid opcode) that I have to use a boot config without JEMM to run the game.

LSS10999 wrote on 2024-10-20, 15:11:

7F20 wrote on 2024-10-19, 17:51:

Did you ever get Quake running with a SB16? I had a thought that it might just not like IRQ7 in that configuration (Quake and SB16)? Maybe it would work on a different one? 🤔

On my X99 system with dISAppointment v0.2, Quake does work with my CT2950 using IRQ7. Actually, I can only use IRQ7 on my system, since IRQ5 was highly contested, impossible to free.

It's just that Quake doesn't appear to cooperate well with JEMM (invalid opcode) that I have to use a boot config without JEMM to run the game.

Interesting. I wonder then if this was something that got solved after Rasteri's YT video, or it's just down to certain SB16 cards working and some don't?

In my case Quake works well with JEMM (tested on ESS1869, IRQ5 and 7).

So i made an account just to ask this, and i couldn't find a more appropriate thread for this question.
I must confess that i'm not so tech savvy, most of my information on how work with PC hardware comes from the internet, as i don't have any prior knowledge on how to do things related with technology (even though it's one off my interests).
I've learned a lot just by looking up tutorials and building stuff myself, but lately google has been failing me on niche topics like this. I've looked up some things that might just work for what hardware i have, but i don't know any thing past that.
I got the 20-1 TPM pin-outs and Socket FM2+ motherboard manual, i couldn't find anything past that but i'm pretty sure it's enough info to find if it works or not.

I personally have no idea how to read these pin layouts and if they're compatible or not with what the dISAppointment actually needs. Here are some images that might be useful if someone can help me out with this, please and thank you.

The elusive LDRQ signal is not present on the TPM header, and without that you're not going to get DMA support. If you are lucky it is found on some resistor somewhere...
In addition, AMD boards have been a problem, or at least some of them anyway...

I finally ordered some PCBs and among them is this :

I'm not quite sure when I get to assemble it, but it shouldn't be too far in the future. I had my first exam today which went well and another will come on friday which should go well too and after that there's only few more weeks of school left ~

Nice PCB design, what are the dimensions of board?
My single is 138x55mm
BTW are there still bridges available? I just looked at Ali and not much there. I bought mine some years ago for a 10$ or so...

RayeR wrote on 2024-12-04, 22:52:

BTW are there still bridges available? I just looked at Ali and not much there. I bought mine some years ago for a 10$ or so...

They seem to be available at utsource atm.

Heckett Heriot wrote on 2024-12-04, 19:39:

So i made an account just to ask this, and i couldn't find a more appropriate thread for this question.
I must confess that i'm not so tech savvy, most of my information on how work with PC hardware comes from the internet, as i don't have any prior knowledge on how to do things related with technology (even though it's one off my interests).

Honestly if you're not good with tech this is not the project for you. As well as being able to solder you'll need to be able to read schematics and maybe even write code to get this to work.

Heckett Heriot wrote on 2024-12-04, 19:39:

So i made an account just to ask this, and i couldn't find a more appropriate thread for this question. I must confess that i'm […]
Show full quote

So i made an account just to ask this, and i couldn't find a more appropriate thread for this question.
I must confess that i'm not so tech savvy, most of my information on how work with PC hardware comes from the internet, as i don't have any prior knowledge on how to do things related with technology (even though it's one off my interests).
I've learned a lot just by looking up tutorials and building stuff myself, but lately google has been failing me on niche topics like this. I've looked up some things that might just work for what hardware i have, but i don't know any thing past that.
I got the 20-1 TPM pin-outs and Socket FM2+ motherboard manual, i couldn't find anything past that but i'm pretty sure it's enough info to find if it works or not.

I personally have no idea how to read these pin layouts and if they're compatible or not with what the dISAppointment actually needs. Here are some images that might be useful if someone can help me out with this, please and thank you.

It's that there is something I don't know of that's interfering with LPC access on AMD chipsets. dISAppointment can work (tested with both FM2 and AM4) but the best thing you can use there is just POST card.

Was thinking about getting coreboot to boot on a F2A85-M (not connecting LDRQ1# for now although it's easily accessible) as a comparison, but initial boot attempts were not successful and I haven't had time digging it further. I've experimented with coreboot before but sadly it's nowhere near usable for boards that once had such support.

On the other hand, all those old AMD boards are no longer officially supported anymore. The related support code have been removed upstream, although they are still accessible through unofficial means and hopefully still buildable. Whether it can boot is another story, and I'm pretty much on my own about that.

You'll definitely need a LDRQ# for proper ISA DMA that sound cards need. Older AMD chipsets such as AM3/FM2 had 2, AM4 has 1. AM5 no longer has it, just like Skylake.

And I've a question about LDRQ0# when reading the boardviews of a few Gigabyte AM4 boards -- the boardviews suggest the LDRQ0# being directly connected to both SuperIO and a pull-up resistor that's probably unpopulated. I don't have such boards myself so I'm not sure how it's really wired underneath, and whether I could just access LDRQ0# from the resistor side (assuming unpopulated) without touching anything else, as I don't have the means to lift the LDRQ# pin from SuperIO off the board at the moment...

RayeR wrote on 2024-12-04, 22:52:

Nice PCB design, what are the dimensions of board?
My single is 138x55mm
BTW are there still bridges available? I just looked at Ali and not much there. I bought mine some years ago for a 10$ or so...

Board is about 244 x 60mm, made to fit under µATX board to make it the size of a normal ATX board.

I got the chips from utsource, they weren't exactly cheap but I have 5 them and plan to put them on all the 5x PCBs also.

What is the price on utsource and shipping cost? Once I seek for some IC and found it on utsource as it should be on stock then when I tried to order it they just changed the status to not available so I ordered nothing 😒

My chips were 13€ each IIRC, shipping was "free" since the order total was more than 200€ but I had to pay 50€ in import taxes in the end. Not cheap in any case 🤣

Uh oh, such shiping/taxes really killing cheap components prices...