Re: Collecting rants

Posted on Yesterday, 16:37

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If people had more self-control this would never happen. But they want that item, they want it for $400, and they'll buy it for $1000 too. Why? They want the item NOW. They don't want to wait for a cheaper option, they want that item even if they have to get into a bidding war to get it. They can't …

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Re: Is a Voodoo 2 worth the cost

Posted on 2020-09-10, 20:43

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I still have a Gateway tower with a P3-500 in it and 2 Voodoo2 SLI cards that I used to play Diablo 2 on. Visuals were fine for me on a CRT at the time. I paid $300 for my original V2 when it was first released (hope I kept the box not sure) and got another one a few years later much cheaper (same …

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Re: Is a Voodoo 2 worth the cost

Posted on 2020-09-10, 19:34

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I still have a Gateway tower with a P3-500 in it and 2 Voodoo2 SLI cards that I used to play Diablo 2 on. Visuals were fine for me on a CRT at the time. I paid $300 for my original V2 when it was first released (hope I kept the box not sure) and got another one a few years later much cheaper (same …

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Re: Bought this (Modern) hardware today

Posted on 2020-09-02, 16:35

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by Unknown_K

in Milliways

in Milliways

There are 486/33 socketed upgrade boards for the IBM PS/2 model 80's (I have a few).

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Re: Collecting rants

Posted on 2020-08-28, 02:13

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by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

On the topic of prices and availability. Is the general idea that eBay is always going to be the worst in terms of pricing? I assume finding local sellers on facebook or craigslist or whatever is going to net the best deals? I have been looking to increase my parts collection recently so I have …

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Re: IBM 5150, correct period considerations and more

Posted on 2020-08-21, 00:11

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by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I stuck a CGA card in my early 5150 64K board because I have a couple CGA monitors (the original MDA is on the shelf). My unit came with a Monet Carlo RAM serial card with the same black wide bracket used on IBM original PC cards.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-08-20, 22:53

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by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It contains a nice mobo, the DFI LanParty NFII Ultra B with a Athlon XP 2500+, plus a nice Geforce 4 ti 4200. I didn't known at the time the state of the components, and mainly did it just for the mobo, unsurprisingly the fault was a horrible PSU gone bad. The DC-DC converters on the vcore are in …

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Re: Where did 83 MHz come from, and why didn't it catch on?

Posted on 2020-08-20, 21:31

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by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Reminds me of the original Apple G3 Wallstreets having a 83FSB bus along with the more common 66FSB that was quickly removed on the later Wallstreets (and maybe Beige G3 towers). I figured there must have been an issue with 100Mhz SDRAM at the time as there was never 83Mhz RAM and 66Mhz would be too …

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Re: What's the success rate of repairing faulty graphics cards?

Posted on 2020-08-16, 06:50

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by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I fixed a few cards over the years. 4870x2 just needed a new fan. HD7950 needed reflowed using a hot air workstation and some liquid flux. various other cards with broken power connectors, solder cracks, bad capacitors. Most dead cards stay dead.

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Re: Collecting rants

Posted on 2020-08-16, 06:42

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by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This still counts as poor packaging, the box is way too small and not enough bubble wrap. I don't get people. A huge roll of bubble wrap is like $15 and using 10-20-30 layers of that prevents nearly every damage. PC in the picture has maybe 2 layers and look at the size of that box, way too small. …

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Re: Collecting rants

Posted on 2020-08-16, 03:53

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by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Powermac 9500's are very brittle these days(same with 7500 and 8500 and Quadra 800/840av). The 9500 I own will drop bits if you look at it funny.

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Re: AT case suggestions

Posted on 2020-08-10, 21:01

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by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Anything modern with not have an AT compatible mounting plate and most likely won't even have slots for floppy drives (most new cases are diskless). AT cases will be pricey these days but the early ATX cases were backwards compatible with AT mounting and some even had an AT backplate you had to …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2020-08-10, 03:33

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by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is that an aluminum turkey baking pan? Luckily peroxide and aluminum work well together.

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Re: How much RAM do you need ?

Posted on 2020-08-10, 03:30

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by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For a DOS gaming machine 4MB was fine. Back in the day when I built my new 386DX/40 I had 4MB of RAM but since I wanted to use Excel and some data bases I upgraded to 16MB of RAM and purchased a IIt FPU. Never bothered to put more then 32MB into a 486 and that was over 15-20 ago when I used a web …

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Re: overwhelmed by motherboard and CPU selection for 486 build

Posted on 2020-08-07, 17:31

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by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

486 boards don't have USB so you need a real floppy drive or GOTEK. If you go with Vesa Local Bus (VLB) you will need a floppy/ide controller card as well as a video card. If you go with a PCI based board then I/O and floppy, HD are built in and PCI video cards are easier to find and cheaper. Either …

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Re: Tips for thrifting 486 parts?

Posted on 2020-08-04, 08:09

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by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There are not that many capacitors on 386/486 boards and not the kind that leak anyway. I would look for: Leaking CMOS batteries and corrosion. Is anything missing (keyboard controller, cache, jumpers) that would mean the board was broken and somebody stripped it for parts before recycling. Has …

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Re: Collecting rants

Posted on 2020-07-26, 19:44

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah, good point actually. I mean we all think that X might happen in the future but we rarely look back if what we thought would happen at this point in time actually did happen. That reminds me: a friend's father was absolutely sure that GPUs would become as cheap as chocolate bars one day. Well …

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Re: Collecting rants

Posted on 2020-07-26, 19:43

by

by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sometimes a seller would put in "rare" even if it's blatantly untrue lol. It's such a commonly abused word I makes me laugh rather than have a look at the item. Like a PlayStation listing with 'rare' in the description. Over 100 million were manufactured, and it's not even one of those audiophile- …

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Re: Your favorite retro socket/platform

Posted on 2020-07-13, 05:54

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by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Socket 3 /486 just because of all the different card types it had (ISA/VLB/PCI/MCA/EISA) plus you can even get a 486 card for a Nubus slot Mac.

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Re: The first ATX case?

Posted on 2020-07-03, 02:33

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by Unknown_K

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Intel made one of the cases I have for a early Pentium EISA server sold by Zenith Data Systems ( A Zenith Data Systems Z Server EX). Those systems were not ISA or ATX and had the processor and RAM on separate cards from what I recall and you could have used a 486 or P66 card in that system. I forget …

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