Quick Start Gaiden Ep 3: A Two For One Deal [MSI MEGA]

This one's two of them.

Chapters:
00:00:00 Intro
00:03:09 Hifi functions
00:08:55 PC components
00:14:43 PC bootup / TV out weirdness
00:21:05 Software features demo
00:33:05 Gaming performance
00:43:14 Conclusions
00:44:32 Teardown
00:51:41 Power supply
00:57:28 Motherboard analysis
00:59:40 Special hardware features
01:12:00 Outro

[CathodeRayDude]

Okay, here's a note that made my head hurt: When I pulled the CPU, I thought "huh, that sure doesn't SAY 1500 on it, " but I assumed AMD was just using weird nomenclature. I've since been informed that it's a much higher end chip, and that the BIOS is simply _calling it by a completely incorrect name._ Unlike Intel boards which identify the chip by reading a string out of a ROM, AMD boards _guess the model number based on the speed, I guess?_ I'm now hearing stories about Athlon XPs being misdetected as Athlons. What on earth was AMD thinking?

I've also been informed that the MS-5 was a common MSI chip that provided freq/temp monitoring.

[FooneTuring]

Hey, the next time you run into a "I have the software but not a serial" problem, recall that you know at least one hacker. I'd be happy to get you a serial!

[PeterBellefleur]

It was really common for the "local mom and pop" computer store to buy bare bones systems in bulk, and finish building them and selling them in their shops, so that's likely where a lot of these were sold on to consumers.

[TechLeftBehind]

1:11:12 - That little MS-5 chip is a voltage and frequency monitor/controller, usually marketed as "MSI CoreCell". MSI wanted people to believe that it made their computers run quieter and longer. In reality, all it did was be an indecipherable blackbox that turns your PC into a pumpkin when it dies (which it did, often).

MSI kept making and using chips like this (MS-6, MS-7) for a few more years before they gave up and admitted that the SuperIO chip that was already on the board does the same job perfectly well.

[thcriticalthinker]

This is almost a little guy as well tbh

[RichardG]

Schematics for the MS-6796 motherboard are out there, and while the Bluebird implementation is very similar to the Clevo, it still answers questions. The AC97 codec is indeed shared, through the H_ pins on the right side that the Clevo doesn't use. I2C port 1 is connected to SMBus (so it must be the control method) and port 2 to the tuner module (which runs on 8V), a small EEPROM and the front panel. USB and SD remain unused. There's an interrupt line going from the Bluebird to a GPIO on the nForce, and an SMI line from the front panel to the nForce for some reason.

[Mrdrcaptaintroy]

Can you imagine, it's 2003, you're playing Halo, and listening to Creed playing on the radio, both from your MSI mega. life will never be better.

[cptcrogge]

I bought the Intel version of this device on release, put in a 3 GHz Pentium 4 (Prescott) and was really happy, I replaced the fans with silent ones and had a cool little gaming cube. In the beginning I used a spare Geforce 2 MX and actually found out that the iGPU was faster than the Geforce. The FX5900 of a friend ran like a charm, I used long-term a Radeon 9600 256MB. It was one of the first barebone cubes which could handle dual-slot GPUs. I think it was my first PC with Wi-fi and an SATA connector. The Hi-Fi mode played MP3 like a charm and the dark-red color looked cool.

[flussence]

During the teardown i saw those purple/brown molex wires and speedran the seven stages of grief. This whole video was a rollercoaster

[meatbyproducts]

Had a friend in the military that had one of these. He had the silver and brown one. He had a PlayStation for gaming and he was happy with that and he only used a computer to type up things he needed in the classes he was taking on the side. With the little space you have in the military barracks this worked great for him. It was a stereo about 80% of the time.

[SailorLoonie]

oh hell yes the quick start theme song

edit: There are a few of these up on ebay for decent prices. I DO NOT need another retro PC, and

[ICanDoThatToo]

It's a reverse mullet: party in the front, business in the back.

[altebander]

The behavior of the S-Video port would be consistent with the following issue: It's not reliably detecting that you connected something by S-Video.
When you first booted it up you could see the dot-crawl from the chroma signal, so it was colour. In fact it probably was colour all the time. However when it appeared monochrome on the monitor, the PC sent a composite signal via the luma channel. When it appeared colour on the monitor, the PC sent the chroma correctly via the chroma channel. Combining S-Video into composite is not completely trivial, at least not if you want to do it correctly. (you can short it, but that's not a good way to do it) It could be that it came with a cable that connected the S-Video Luma signal to whatever composite video input the TV had, leaving the Chroma connection open. This is something that can be detected fairly easily on the output chip by putting on a small DC-voltage and measuring the current. If it's open it should not have any current, if it's connected it should be terminated by 75Ohm, causing some current to flow.
Now it could be that you either didn't turn on the luma termination on your monitor or the monitor has a DC-blocking capacitor before the terminating resistor. That way the chroma termination wouldn't work reliably and it would switch to composite mode.

BTW there's another one of those oddball combinations out there, and it's a PC/TV combination made by Siemens Nixdorf. I don't know the model number, but it was an all-in-one PC, I think a Pentium 133 MMX or something combined with a 15 inch TV. The TV was fairly fancy for that time, being stereo and it had a high resolution CRT for stunning images. It either took VGA from the PC or usual video inputs. The PC had a built-in TV tuner so you could also watch TV in a window.

[ChefSalad]

Speaking of high-voltage capacitors, when I was in middle school in the mid-90's, disposable cameras with flashes were all the rage. If you took them apart, they had a nice 330V capacitor and you could make it charge up whenever you wanted. I had a lot of fun walking around with the flash from one of these cameras charged up and touching people with the capacitor. In particular on this trip to Florida with a bunch of kids from school to see the various NASA related sites in Florida, as well as Disney and Busch Gardens and Universal, was when I discovered this capacitor magic. Eventually, some of the other kids also figured this out and we ended up having a running stealth battle, shocking each other when we least expected it. First, you'd hear the whine of flash charger, and then you'd feel 330V on your arm. We also figured out that bridging the capacitor with a piece of mechanical pencil lead would make an explosion with a flash brighter than the actual flashbulb. It was great fun. Especially when we flew back home and I had my disassembled flash sitting on top of a six pack of Coke in my carryon. Fortunately for me, this was pre-9/11, so I just got searched and let go, but it was still a bit scary.

[famitory]

shoutout to the clock for insisting on the Objectively Better 24 hour format. always good to see an ally.

[Kwpolska]

Perhaps the bad recording quality was a deliberate "anti-piracy" measure?

[SeanBZA]

Radio is controlled over I2C, as after all that communication method came from TV sets, where it was the Intermettal bus, used to control integrated TV sets, and later on as tuners went digital, the IM bus was used to control it, and this directly became I2C as it was expanded out into the PC world for low speed peripherals on the mainboard, as it is both robust and cheap, plus there are lots of software and firmware libraries for it for many processors, plus a whole lot of IC's that sport I2C bus as interface as well. In radios it is common, so that things like the front display, actual radio, CD player, tape deck are all controlled from a separate microcontroller, using only a 1 wire connection, and sub processors in each unit. Means various models can use the same basic blocks, and only use a small EEprom, again via I2C, to have setup bitmasks for features, and also that security coding that was so prelevant to have.

Modern PC's use it for Vrm control, and for processor features as well, along with the things like temperature and voltages. Also used for getting memory data during initial boot, as the separately powered I2C chip can give all the details to set up voltage, speed, access type and termination, before the memory controller turns on the memory voltage controller, so it powers up with the correct parameters to make it work.

[TommyAgramonSeth]

20 years ago I would be capable of murder for this device if I knew it existed. I love the concept so much.

[christiansimmers]

Alright, 2 things I know about the MSI Mega Cache:
1: My grandfather had a few, from what I understand they were popular for mass data transit by couriers back in the day when sneaker was still faster than data.
2. They were also sold as accessories at GameStop for the Xbox 360 to transfer saves and other game data, which is how a lot of people from category one got their hands on them.

[Ziraya]

The 5&12Vsb lines probably have their own ground because of how current loops work. The return current will flow back to the source along the shortest path available to it, if this path is large, it transmits quite a lot of EMI and can end up making charge differences weirder in unrelated but connected places. By including a ground wire right next to the voltage wire you give it the shortest possible current loop and preventing a lot of headaches. Chassis Ground, such as in cars, is one of the few places you see solo voltage wires, and I'm pretty sure cars are moving away from it as they become more computers, and in electronics using Chassis Ground is frowned upon, it's there for safety and EMI shielding, just like the ground on an electrical outlet, it's generally not good when current flows there.