VIA EPIA 800 missing S-Video

[Nobu]

Any chance I could put it back in? I imagine it'd need an IC or two, and some resistors/caps that were also left out, but I'm not certain on that. Will have pics later on.

The S-Vid connector itself is under the parallel port, at least one through-hole (the others are either pads or filled holes). It looks like any potentially related components' pads are out/around the rear I/O.

Edit: There's a half-decent photo of a fully populated board over on the RetroWeb: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/via-epia-800

 

[rhkcommander959]

Without a side by side board to compare to you'd be hard pressed to verify you got every component right. Some manufacturers just use bios to disable output, others just leave out components.

If there is a will, there is a way. Good luck!

 

[Nobu]

Looks like it's missing the VIA VT1621, and a bunch of caps, resistors inductors, and diodes to it's left (or below, in my photo). Probably more effort than it's worth -- better off just using the VGA port. :/

 

[Nobu]

So it is through-hole, they're just all filled with solder (just confirmed). And it does have the Composite vid/audio output and undocumented jumper (presumably to choose between the two), so I wonder if the onboard video only supports composite or if they just removed S-Video to save money, or it supports only audio and they just left the jumper...

 

[pendragon1]

to choose between the two), so I wonder if the onboard video only supports composite or if they just removed S-Video to save money,

those^^

 

[toast0]

Probably not worth it if it doesn't have the encoder chip; may as well get an external vga -> s-vid box if you need s-vid.

 

[ChRoNo16]

or buy one from someone else that already has the port you want.

 

[Nobu]

or buy one from someone else that already has the port you want.

Probably next to impossible -- seems only early revision boards had the tv chip, and this board has been out of production for a long time already. No big deal, though. I just thought it would be nice if I had the option.

 

[ChRoNo16]

Probably next to impossible -- seems only early revision boards had the tv chip, and this board has been out of production for a long time already. No big deal, though. I just thought it would be nice if I had the option.

What were you planning to do with it? I actually have one here thats been sitting for a long time

 

[Nobu]

What were you planning to do with it? I actually have one here thats been sitting for a long time

Would run it through the retrotink to my TV. Would be better than using the composite out, and more convenient than another converter box or a separate vga monitor. But I do have a vga monitor and the retrotink also accepts composite, so it's not a showstopper.

 

[Nobu]

I'm sure we all had a pretty good idea already, but to confirm: No video through the RCA jack, it absolutely needed that chip for both S-vid and Composite.

On the bright side, the memory I ordered works just fine. On the other hand, the board doesn't like the USB stick I've been trying to run FreeDOS and/or Plop Boot Manager on, so I guess I'll need to use another boot media. I was able to get it to see the drive as "USB Mass Storage" on the summary info after installing Plop from FreeDOS on my ryzen machine, but it always fails to boot. Fiddling with USB Keyboard, boot order, etc. in the BIOS has not yielded any positive results.

 

[brinstar117]

I don't think the motherboard is capable of native USB boot. I had the slower Epia 533MHz variant which I ran Windows 98, XP, and a bootable live-CD Linux distro (Knoppix I think). If it could directly USB boot I would have done so.

You're probably already aware, but you can get a Compact Flash to IDE adapter to install your OS on to some flash media. I think there are SD card to IDE adapters as well.

Edit: Oops, disregard below, I'm not awake yet. I didn't parse your last post completely.

If I remember correctly, there is a bootable USB utility called Ultimate Boot CD that had a tool called PLoP boot manager that, once loaded, could then be directed to a bootable USB drive to continue loading an OS off the USB drive. It didn't work with all hardware from what I recall, but that was many years ago and it looks like PLoP has been updated since then. Keep in mind that even if it works you will be limited by the anemic USB 1.1 transfer speed but that is still better than running off of a CD.

I was about to direct you to a Vogons forum post about the Epia 800 that might have been useful to you, but it looks like you're already in that thread based on what member asuredawn has been posting.

 

[Nobu]

I don't think the motherboard is capable of native USB boot. I had the slower Epia 533MHz variant which I ran Windows 98, XP, and a bootable live-CD Linux distro (Knoppix I think). If it could directly USB boot I would have done so.

You're probably already aware, but you can get a Compact Flash to IDE adapter to install your OS on to some flash media. I think there are SD card to IDE adapters as well.

Edit: Oops, disregard below, I'm not awake yet. I didn't parse your last post completely.

If I remember correctly, there is a bootable USB utility called Ultimate Boot CD that had a tool called PLoP boot manager that, once loaded, could then be directed to a bootable USB drive to continue loading an OS off the USB drive. It didn't work with all hardware from what I recall, but that was many years ago and it looks like PLoP has been updated since then. Keep in mind that even if it works you will be limited by the anemic USB 1.1 transfer speed but that is still better than running off of a CD.

I was about to direct you to a Vogons forum post about the Epia 800 that might have been useful to you, but it looks like you're already in that thread based on what member asuredawn has been posting.

It supports USB-FDD and USB-ZIP, so if I could get the drive to pretend it's a zip or floppy drive it would work...but that'd probably be a pita. I'll probably get an ide flash module eventually, yeah.

Edit: Well, if this is accurate, I might be able to just reformat the drive in a way which makes it look like a zip drive, and then it should work. I'll probably be limited in space on the "zip partition", but I might be able to just boot from there and load another partition for the OS.

 

[brinstar117]

With regards to S-video, you can always try using a composite to S-video passive adapter. There is usually some small image quality loss, but if you're using a CRT television it shouldn't be too noticeable. If you're handy with soldering you can make your own adapter, just Google a schematic.

If you like explorations and musings into older tech, check out VWestlife. In the following video he talks about such an adapter from Radio Shack.

 

[Nobu]

With regards to S-video, you can always try using a composite to S-video passive adapter. There is usually some small image quality loss, but if you're using a CRT television it shouldn't be too noticeable. If you're handy with soldering you can make your own adapter, just Google a schematic.

If you like explorations and musings into older tech, check out VWestlife. In the following video he talks about such an adapter from Radio Shack.

It doesn't put out composite either, at least not in a format that either my TV or RetroTink recognize, unfortunately. It was all generated by the TV chip that's missing on this board revision.