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

Posted on 2017-12-31, 06:22

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Upgraded my Socket 370 system to the guts I took out of the Pavilion 7955 system (Socket 478). Specs: Intel Pentium 4 1.5GHz @ 400MHz FSB ASUS P4B-LA (HP OEM motherboard) <-- will get a better BIOS for more AGP features 2x 256MB SD-RAM PC-100/133 RAM (expandable to 1GB) Intel i845 Chipset ADI AC'97 …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-12-30, 17:53

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

JeffBai wrote: Final pieces came in today to complete this butterfly! […] Show full quote Final pieces came in today to complete this butterfly! Why does img=640x480 tag not work? Thought it was part of bbcode... The butterfly ThinkPad. That's amazing to see that.

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Re: Dudes it is time to make a MOTHERBOARD, i know it wil cost dearly, but i will buy it!

Posted on 2017-12-29, 18:49

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nobody said it would be easy... but it is possible, and it could make money if crowdfunded trough something like kickstarter while being sold in parallel on it's own website. To keep cost down, unassembled kits could be sold. Just provide the PCB (with BGA parts pre-soldered) + the rest of the …

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

Posted on 2017-12-29, 14:07

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Figured out what went wrong. The 32MB SIMM-72 (2x 16MB) memory had issues. The Phoenix BIOS beep codes were this: 1-4-2-1 <-- CMOS RAM read/write failure (this commonly indicates a problem on the ISA bus such as a card not seated) However, in some cases, the PC still does this with only the built-in …

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

Posted on 2017-12-29, 03:52

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's really surpring how well that came out. Glad you got it working, man. Also, I installed the jumper for the PC Speaker on my Packard Bell to do some diagnostics on the computer why it wasn't POSTing at all. It had a series of beep codes that was continuous, and I thought it was the RAM that …

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Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus BIOS upgraded, not POSTing?

Posted on 2017-12-28, 20:39

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I upgraded my Packard Bell's Phoenix BIOS from 4.03 X1.1A PNP to 4.05 with success (now my HDD gets detected with the full 4.6GB), but when I turn the system off and back on, it won't POST (All 3 keyboard LEDs turn on), but when I push the reset button, it works. What would be the issue here? …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-12-28, 18:21

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Interesting. ATI did a tremendous job adding a bus mouse to their line of video cards with the mouse.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-12-28, 17:57

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

blurks wrote: ATI VGA Wonder XL24 Noooooice! Is it a bus mouse?

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

Posted on 2017-12-28, 00:56

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Good luck, man. I got my first IT job 3 months ago as a Help Desk specialist. I managed to upgrade my Packard Bell's BIOS from 4.03 to 4.05, but it won't POST for the first time until I reset the system (maybe a loose cable or something). It now detects the HDD with the full size. I believe the …

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Re: Cheapest "retro" gaming PC you have?

Posted on 2017-12-27, 20:50

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Cheapest for me was the Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus for $17 (tower, keyboard, and mouse) which needed a new clock battery, and I had a few parts lying around (CD drive, RAM, dual floppy drive, joystick, data tape drive, and sound cards), so I installed those parts to make it as a Multimedia …

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

Posted on 2017-12-27, 17:25

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Swapped the Mitsumi 48x CD-ROM drive with a Delta 52x CD-ROM drive in my Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus, and now, practically everything matches the color of the case. The reasons why I replaced the CD drive were because the Mitsumi drive is: 1) Not serviceable by anyone, except for the manufacturer …

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Re: Apple PowerMac G3/400 help needed

Posted on 2017-12-27, 16:32

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, did you press the inernal reset button for the NVRAM already ? Some Macs require this to come back to life once the battery has failed or hardware was changed. Wouldn't this be the reset button for the NVRAM? https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2046/3541162420_cbdac09887_b.jpg Source: How to Reset …

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Re: Compaq 386s/20 - How to enter the bios?

Posted on 2017-12-27, 16:22

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus does this as well when I install an HDD above 2GB (I can only enter up to 4000 cylinders and LZ), and if it's not configured manually (auto-detect), it would say the HDD is smaller in size (ex: 773MB instead of at least 2GB). Also, when the CMOS battery dies, it …

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

Posted on 2017-12-27, 05:25

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Gutted out the HP Pavilion 7955 from the case due to issues, and planning on upgrading my Socket 370 system to the Pentium 4 board from the Pavilion or keep the Socket 370 as-is. I also took the liberty of installing 512MB more RAM in the PowerMac G3 (going to do another test tomorrow after work to …

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Re: Most frustrating part of working on old computers?

Posted on 2017-12-26, 22:11

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I purchased an external parallel port Sony StorStation Ditto 2GB that needs a new rubber cap for the tape motor (that spins the inner tape cartridge wheel left and right) since the one that was in there disintegrated due to the high levels of humidity or heat, and the one tape I had for my Conner …

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Apple PowerMac G3/400 help needed

Posted on 2017-12-26, 17:22

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I purchased a used, and slightly beat-up Apple PowerMac G3/400 (Blue & White) for $9.99 that can run Mac OS X up to Tiger 10.4.11 (up to 1GB SD-RAM PC-100) and upgradable processor on a ZIF socket (up to 450MHz). Specs: PowerPC 750 400MHz (L1: 64K, L2/L3: 1MB) 256MB PC-100 SD-RAM (2x 128MB) 6GB ATA- …

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Re: Yet another 486 DX4 100 build

Posted on 2017-12-26, 16:10

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Ah, the PCChips M912 v1.7 motherboard. That was my childhood to adulthood board (1994-2012) until the BIOS chip gave out. I might as well get 2 desktop tower cases for both my Socket 7 system and my AM3+ system and put them on a table with the KVS switch boxes for the Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-12-23, 21:16

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's what I bought today: https://i.imgur.com/PqrgoDIh.jpg PowerMac G3/400 (needs work) Dazzle video capture + software 52x CD-ROM drive with drivers Sony StorStation external tape drive 2GB compressed Dell Studio CD/DVD (Windows 7 Premium 64-bit, drivers CD/DVD, DVD/CD burning software, Office …

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Re: 3Com EtherLink III 3509C-B (RJ45/AUI) Resource conflicts

Posted on 2017-12-23, 14:27

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Do I need an MS-DOS program to change the base I/O for the NIC? Possibly. It's needed to set up that rom socket, at least. http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=37820 http://www.tavi.co.uk/ps2pages/ohland/nic.html http://www.tavi.co.uk/ps2pages/ohland/3com.html Drivers: 3c90x.zip, 3c509.zip …

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Re: Need help with my first 486 boards.

Posted on 2017-12-22, 20:56

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm not familiar at all with motherboards and CPUs from this era. These are the first boards from this era I have had in my possession. These boards need a couple repairs, but if I knew more about them it'd probably help. What kind of CPU is that? How can I tell which boards it will work in and …

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