I believe the NetVista case is the one on ebay that bargainland is selling with the spray painted red side, for "not for resale" purposes
I believe the NetVista case is the one on ebay that bargainland is selling with the spray painted red side, for "not for resale" purposes
I had no problem finding the case on E-Bay, but I wanted to get more details about it. The description on E-Bay is pretty scarce and the IBM website comes up with a million hits when you enter NetVista. I know this case will work with this motherboard deal, but I like to learn details of things before I buy. I was hoping someone would know a model number or part number for the case so I can find the thing on the IBM website.
thats what I was thinking, as far as the NetVista case, I think the flex atx case that fxsts is referring to has a 95W PSU
The board has a front analog and digital audio-out header pins on-board. If you connect an audio pin jack or something of that kind to the right pins, it may work. Another possibility is to solder on an audio pin jack (or an audio I/O connector) directly to the board where the audio I/O connector is supposed to be located. I did not have the time to try it out last night.
I still have not figured out the IR thing. The receiver I got in the package is nothing like the one shown here. Instead, it's just a dinky circuitry board with a cable (not exactly but similar to this) which is supposed to be connected to the motherboard (but where and what rotation???). Now, I am a bit worried if I might have left something else in the box which was all filled with beans.
Regarding the NetVista case, yes, the skinny case which you get the most hits when you run a search on NetVista on eBay is what I have been talking about.
The quick spec for the case is.
- 1 x 5 1/2 Bay (for CD-ROM Drive or etc)
- 1 x 3 1/2 Bay (for Hard Drive)
- 1 x case speaker (Does not come with a connector to plug on to the motherboard)
- 2 x Front USB connections (9 pin assignment connector. This ECS board does not have on-board USB header pins for this)
- 95W Power Supply with 2 x 4 pin and 1 x mini-4 pin power connectors
- Power LED & Hard Drive LED
- Power ON Switch
- No space for Floppy Drive
- Only works with Low Profile Add-on cards
There will be a couple of things you need to do (or get) in order to have this motherboard to work in this NetVista case.
1. You will need to modify the I/O back panel. Need to make holes for composit video out and S-video out. Also, need to make the space for the third, top USB port bigger for LAN connection.
2. You will need an ATX Power Extension Cable. You can get one for around $5 plus shipping online. I have made mine using parts from a dead ATX power supply (male connector with cables) and an old Socket 7 ATX motherboard (female header) to save $$.
Even after so many years installing motherboards, I have never done this on board IrDA thing. In fact, I have never used any IrDA on computers except the one which came on my old Toshiba Libretto.
So I am pretty clueless with this thing.
Anyway, this link on Microsoft makes me wonder if I am supposed to install the dinky receiver to the on-board serial connection instead or the IrDA connection. The header from the receiver doesn't quire go with the on-board IrDA connection. I will try it out tonight and see.
So I am pretty clueless with this thing.
Anyway, this link on Microsoft makes me wonder if I am supposed to install the dinky receiver to the on-board serial connection instead or the IrDA connection. The header from the receiver doesn't quire go with the on-board IrDA connection. I will try it out tonight and see.
No, I have not. I hate being put on hold, so I am not keen on calling for tech support.
Also, there is another issue with this IrDA thing. I believe that you would need a clear line of sight to get it to work. Does this mean I need to have this dinky bare circuitry hanging outside the case to get it to work?? Hmmmm, .........
Also, there is another issue with this IrDA thing. I believe that you would need a clear line of sight to get it to work. Does this mean I need to have this dinky bare circuitry hanging outside the case to get it to work?? Hmmmm, .........
Are you supposed to connect it to the mb itself or does it have a connection for usb,serial? Sounds like you may have to do some case modding
fxsts -
Thanks for the info.
The Infrared is definitely line of site and you will probably have to make a little window in the front of the case for the receiver.
Thanks for the info.
The Infrared is definitely line of site and you will probably have to make a little window in the front of the case for the receiver.
I have also learned that the USB ports on the board are a little off to the left to fit the NetVista's I/O panel, so I will need to do a little more serious Dremel work.
EDIT: Actually, the I/O panel of NetVista case was worse fit than I had expected. After creating the holes for video ports and enlarging the holes for the USB and LAN ports, I realized that it was about 5mm off to the left. I managed to work it well by bending the hooks and sleeves to hold the I/O panel both on the panel and case and sliding it to the right a little.
EDIT: Actually, the I/O panel of NetVista case was worse fit than I had expected. After creating the holes for video ports and enlarging the holes for the USB and LAN ports, I realized that it was about 5mm off to the left. I managed to work it well by bending the hooks and sleeves to hold the I/O panel both on the panel and case and sliding it to the right a little.
Good news!! I was able to successfully make the sound to work.
On the way from work today, I stopped at All Electronics in Van Nuys, CA and pick up of a couple of These. These fit perfectly on to the right soldering spots on the board where the sound I/O is supposed to be at. Only problem was that they sit a little lower than the normal sound I/O header, so you again need to enlarge the holes on the I/O panel.
Actually, after I soldered these pieces (I only installed two and did not bother with MIC port), I turned on the Windows. No, sound... I felt like crap. Then, I read through the manual one more time and learned that J7 header control the sound I/O ports. You need to short pins 3-4, 5-6, and 7-8 in order for them to work. So I started putting jumpers, and Bingo!!!. The speakers started playing sound!!! The pin 5-6 controls the Line Out.
Next, I need to work on the IrDA port. Unfortunately, I really don't have much clue on this thing. Anyone???
On the way from work today, I stopped at All Electronics in Van Nuys, CA and pick up of a couple of These. These fit perfectly on to the right soldering spots on the board where the sound I/O is supposed to be at. Only problem was that they sit a little lower than the normal sound I/O header, so you again need to enlarge the holes on the I/O panel.
Actually, after I soldered these pieces (I only installed two and did not bother with MIC port), I turned on the Windows. No, sound... I felt like crap. Then, I read through the manual one more time and learned that J7 header control the sound I/O ports. You need to short pins 3-4, 5-6, and 7-8 in order for them to work. So I started putting jumpers, and Bingo!!!. The speakers started playing sound!!! The pin 5-6 controls the Line Out.
Next, I need to work on the IrDA port. Unfortunately, I really don't have much clue on this thing. Anyone???
fxts,
so is the CMI sound chip on the board? I believe it is situated in the far corner by the PCI slot. I think the missing chip you pointed out is a component for the optional modem.
also, how is the IR keybd/mouse hooked up to the board? Is there a special connector or something?
btw, if you haven't gotten the IR keybd working, are you using USB to hook up a keyboard? The package2you website mentions that the board has no PS/2 connectors.
thanks for any info.
so is the CMI sound chip on the board? I believe it is situated in the far corner by the PCI slot. I think the missing chip you pointed out is a component for the optional modem.
also, how is the IR keybd/mouse hooked up to the board? Is there a special connector or something?
btw, if you haven't gotten the IR keybd working, are you using USB to hook up a keyboard? The package2you website mentions that the board has no PS/2 connectors.
thanks for any info.
same here, i do the same thing. i basically go on fs/ft buy up random crap and make computers always saying i'm gonna try linux. then i just have this new computer sitting here. usually i set some crazy price limit and try to build a system and in the end just sell it for what it cost just to mess with it. I am building a tualatin celeron now jus tbecause i'm bored. haha.
this really isnt that great a deal since the boards is so limiteed.
compgeeks has the tualatin board for $31 right now. granted it has no onboard lan or video. but it has a decent amount of slots and will still fit into the netvista case. you can pick up a low profile video card, and a netgear lan card (rear bracket availble at newegg) for about the price of the usb sound products this thing comes with. granted youd have no IR keyboard, but that keyboard looks like pure crap as it is.
- Aug 11, 2001
- 8,784
- 1,774
- 136
Great to hear you have sound working!!!!
This makes me wonder, of the other missing ports, might they also be viable if only the connectors were attached... i don't have any particular plans, but the gameport might also be nice to have (especially since I happen to have an audio/game connector from a dead motherboard).
Is the keyboard IR receiver connector like that picture you linked, or a double-row with 6 pins? I don't have mine yet, but see in the manual (Chapter 2, page 33, page 27 by Acrobat's count) a 3x2 header for aux keyboard, near the corner of the CPU socket. I would imagine either this or serial is used for the IR keyboard, not the IRDA header.
Where could I get some those I am on the east coast? Is it hard to solder? How good is the sound? Have you tested the S-Video yet?
This board is not too bad after getting the sound to work. In fact, I am pretty amazed by how integrated the board is compared to Intel 810E FlexATX boards I have worked on. At the same time, I have to admit that the IrDA thing has been such a disappointment.
The $31 Tualatin board from the other thread seems pretty good except that it seems to have fixed FSB setting. I did not see the exact measurement of the board, but NetVista case could house a MicroATX board as long as the width on the board it narrow enough. If you could fit the board in Netvista case, you can a lot better performance off Tualatin Celeron than Cuppermine even without overclocking the chip to run on 133Mhz FSB. I am planning on picking up one of those Powerleap Tualatin adaptors next time I go to Japan in December as they sell those for about $30.
C-Media sound chip (integrated with the modem) is indeed present at the location. I don't know what the missing chip is for. The modem is also there, and I believe that it will work if you get their modem card.
The IrDA transceiver connects to the motherboard with a header with a ribbon cable. My problem is that I do not know where it connects to on the motherboard as I do not see jumper pins which exactly fit with the header.
I am using a USB keyboard. The board also has a set of 6 pin jumpers for Keyboard. This is one of the candidates for the IrDA connection, but I also think that you could connect P/S2 keyboard blacket to it if you happen to have one of those.
I think that everthing on the board is there. You just need to install the connectors. As I never use game port any more, I did not pay too much attention to it. Also, I could not find a dead motherboard new enough to have integrated sound in my closet. My gut feeling is that if the connector you have match the printed circuitry of the board, the game port should also work.
Regarding the IrDA transceiver, the connector has double row with 8, 10, 12, or 14 pins (I don't quite remember as I do not have it with me as I type this but not 6 pins). I will still try to connect it to the aux keyboard and serial as you suggested.
You can order them from All Electronics, although they might charge you fixed $5 for shipping. They have Panaflo case fans for pretty cheap so you would not feel so bad paying $5 shipping for 75c stuff. Soldering them was pretty easy, but it is also depending on how good you are with soldering in general. I am pretty suck at it, and it wasn't difficult for me.
Sound = as good as any other on-board integrated sound.
Compsit video out = Hmmm.... Not very good although I do not know what good TV out should look like
S-Video = Have not tried
I've been following these posts in the hope that the audio out limitation would be resolved. If it is I'll buy one of these suckers, otherwise its not worth it. Rather then be just a leach I did a little research within the ECS manuals. Here is what I found:
jumper/header J7 controls analog audio out for a front I/O port. In other words, an audio front I/O bracket should duplicate the audio functions and connectors normally found on the back of the MB. This makes sense since this is a special OEM MB where the manufacturer had a specific design for "front only" audio.
Other ECS motherboards also have a documented header for a front audio bracket (K7SEM). This header is 10 pins with each pin documented (i.e. MIC in, Audio out etc). Now the problem is J7 is 20 pins. Since the control of the front audio is setup with jumpers 3-8 on J7 and if you assume 1-2 and 9-10 are not used; then pins 11-20 are probably the audio header. Below is the normal pinout:
Pin 1 MIC
Pin 2 GND
pin 3 MIC-P
pin 4 VCC
pin 5 FPOUT-R (front out- right) ????????????
pin 6 RET-R (rear out- right) ???????????
pin 7 NC
pin 8 KEY
pin 9 FPOUT-L (front out- left) ?????????
pin 10 RET-L (rear out- right) ??????????
I'm no EE but I can quesstimate what; GND, MIC, MIC-P, FPOUT-R, FPOUT-L are. I have no idea what VCC, NC, KEY, RET-R, and RET-L are.
This is all a guess! I would be pretty confident that FPOUT-R is audio out - right. But I'm less confident that RET-R is "rear" audio out right. It could be an analog input.
To test this theory out I would:
remap J7 (in my mind) pins1-10 as 11- 20
Play a CD in the CD drive
Verify that the CD player is working????
Place a voltmeter (+- 5volt?) on pins 12 and 19. GND for negative and FPOUT-L for positive
See what happens
If this is trully an analog header the volt meter should dance with the music. Then you could just hack a simple audio jack.
Lotsa Luck!
jumper/header J7 controls analog audio out for a front I/O port. In other words, an audio front I/O bracket should duplicate the audio functions and connectors normally found on the back of the MB. This makes sense since this is a special OEM MB where the manufacturer had a specific design for "front only" audio.
Other ECS motherboards also have a documented header for a front audio bracket (K7SEM). This header is 10 pins with each pin documented (i.e. MIC in, Audio out etc). Now the problem is J7 is 20 pins. Since the control of the front audio is setup with jumpers 3-8 on J7 and if you assume 1-2 and 9-10 are not used; then pins 11-20 are probably the audio header. Below is the normal pinout:
Pin 1 MIC
Pin 2 GND
pin 3 MIC-P
pin 4 VCC
pin 5 FPOUT-R (front out- right) ????????????
pin 6 RET-R (rear out- right) ???????????
pin 7 NC
pin 8 KEY
pin 9 FPOUT-L (front out- left) ?????????
pin 10 RET-L (rear out- right) ??????????
I'm no EE but I can quesstimate what; GND, MIC, MIC-P, FPOUT-R, FPOUT-L are. I have no idea what VCC, NC, KEY, RET-R, and RET-L are.
This is all a guess! I would be pretty confident that FPOUT-R is audio out - right. But I'm less confident that RET-R is "rear" audio out right. It could be an analog input.
To test this theory out I would:
remap J7 (in my mind) pins1-10 as 11- 20
Play a CD in the CD drive
Verify that the CD player is working????
Place a voltmeter (+- 5volt?) on pins 12 and 19. GND for negative and FPOUT-L for positive
See what happens
If this is trully an analog header the volt meter should dance with the music. Then you could just hack a simple audio jack.
Lotsa Luck!
I ahve never soldered anything, I will have to check out their site and see if there is anything I may need. The mb should be here tomorrow. I just wish I knew when the NetVista case will be here.
- Aug 11, 2001
- 8,784
- 1,774
- 136
I dont' "necessarily" plan on using game port, but since the sound connector block I have does have the game port on it...
If there's a serial header on the motherboard it's probably a double row 10 pins? I have a different ECS motherboard somewhere that has double row 16 pins that's supposedly for aux keyboard, needs jumpers on it to use the PS/2 port. The only thing is i would feel bad if my ideas caused you to damage YOUR motherboard, I'm just making guesses and observing that the keyboard manufacturer's page linked to earlier in this thread seems to suggest a serial connection, but even the IRDA is serial so that's little help. Maybe an email to Parex would help determine IR receiver pinout.
BTW, I've only had occasion to call Package2You twice, but they didn't put me on hold at all, answered right away, it was a pleasant surprise.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 23K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Facebook
Twitter