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Wyse VX0L: Mods 

Mods

Two entries:

  • Adding a second IDE port.
  • Using the higher transfer rates with short 40-way cables.

In December 2018 I heard from Michal who had added a second IDE port to his V10L:

Out of curiosity I soldered a second header into the board and it turned out to work flawlessly. Simple mod, although requires cleaning soldered pinholes and so it's not an easy task.

Wyse V10L extra IDE interface

A view of the circuit board showing the location of the extra IDE connector. In this example it is partially covered by the 'MAC ID' label.

V10L IDE connectors

A view of Michal's modified board. At the right-hand end is the standard DOM fitted to its connector. At the left-hand end you can see the new connector that Michal has added.

V10L BIOS with second IDE

The BIOS display with another SSD plugged into the new connector.


Wyse VX0 strap to indicate short cable
In March 2022 a correspondent in China wrote:

If you are using a standard off-the-shelf OS and connecting your storage device to the IDE interface either directly or by using a short 40-way cable you may find that the IDE ports only work in ATA 33 mode. On desktop computers you need an 80 wire IDE cable to enable the ATA 66/100/133 modes. The 80-way cables signal their presence by connecting pin 34 on the IDE interface to ground. So, to get the faster modes, I added a wire strap to the board.

With this in place HD Tune showed a sequential read rate of 45MB/s.

[David: You will need to add the strap for Windows 98 or XP. However Linux has a convenient command line switch to say "assume it's a short cable so you can use the higher rates": libata.force=short40c]

 


Any comments? email me. Added December 2018    Last update March 2022