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

Posted on 2021-10-25, 17:13

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I caution to anyone, replacing failed components on a hard drive is dandy but many has firmware kept in a large chipset. Other than that, cannot open the internal guts where platters are. The data recovery vendors who do heads swap consider this data recovery only. Once done it is trashed. The …

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Re: Performance of 486 with internal cache off, external on is like?

Posted on 2021-10-25, 16:38

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes, typical situation, I know this is specific but generally is what like for intel and amd 486dx 33, 66 and 100 with internal cache off, external cache on? Cheers,

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Performance of 486 with internal cache off, external on is like?

Posted on 2021-10-24, 22:48

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Subject says all. A search yielded confusing results. Thanks and cheers,

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Re: Why does a 286 processor need 4MB of memory?

Posted on 2021-10-24, 19:13

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Early on, I had PS/1 2011, floppy only with terminal on another floppy with serial connection via adapter cable to the wall (b-jack) in 1993 during college. Once I got my LTE 386s/20 working correctly same way the 2011 got sold. Same with my 486 computer finally running later on once I got all the …

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Re: 2nd rebuilt chieftec: my 2nd type of a time-machine?

Posted on 2021-10-23, 00:19

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

That temps for CPU is really good if you have fan at 7V or less to manage noise. Cheers,

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Re: Lada Racing Club - skip protection system (FrontLine)

Posted on 2021-10-23, 00:16

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I can answer this: If that game is that old, only way are to run properly is on older OS & *older* hardware. GTX 970 is not XP supported, GTX 960 and earlier are XP supported. Best preference is GTX 560ti, GTX 285, yet better, 7800 GTX /7900 GTX due to better support of directx 9.x and earlier, Lada …

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Re: Upgrading embedded S3 Trio 64 to 2MB in IBM PC 350

Posted on 2021-10-22, 14:52

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Left most vram chip in socket is dead (darkened brown), get another chip. Cheers,

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Re: Old PSU - dark residue (glue?)

Posted on 2021-10-22, 14:38

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Resistor is fine, it is the glue that was tan in color and pliable. When this glue ages with time, it is not the heat it darkens to this hard, crumbling brown color. What worse if glue is touching the components' metal leads, tend to leak electricity. Cheers,

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Re: Games to play on a socket 7 machine with SiS 6326 graphics.

Posted on 2021-10-17, 21:08

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by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Ceramic as in dishes, tiles, mugs etc, glass, etc are made from basic minerals but the basic materials is not renewable sources. This needs to be looked into. Ditto to plastic, etc. Concrete too but at least they can be ground up and recycled into new concrete but feedstock minerals needed. Better …

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Re: Right to repair discussion (split from What retro activity did you get up to today?)

Posted on 2021-10-17, 20:47

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Right to repair is what I understand completely since I repair stuff for a living. Without the information and parts we would not able to give the quality of repair in less time instead of replaced whole thing outright. Customers wanted options. In other words, right to repair translates to keeping …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-10-17, 16:25

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That little card that plugs into mainboard is cache card option added to your NCR computer. Very nice to have. Cheers,

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-10-14, 20:44

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

On this vintage, could be 400K or 800K drive, you need another newer Mac that can take 1.44MB and 800K/400K. Initially use Basilisk Mac emulator only deals with 1.44MB, keep in mind. What I did: Copy the floppy images and imager software, and all the goodies you can download for this vintage Mac, …

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Re: CRT Repair Question - Screen issues - Please help

Posted on 2021-10-14, 01:16

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

lost color is on CRT board itself, you will see a cracked solder joint. Helps if you have a magnifying glass. And good idea to check the large board that is under the CRT as well. Problem is, you may have metal shielding covering the CRT board that needs to be removed to see them. Cheers,

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Re: Can someone with a Voodoo 5 confirm if these graphical glitches are a software or hardware error?

Posted on 2021-10-14, 01:11

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Way you have graphics rendering properly everywhere else means the GPU is good and bad square points to one of bad area in VRAM for this GPU. Replace them. I got same effect once on a ET4000/w32i/p and replaced the vram fixed that. First step is to disable one of two GPU, rerun the demo, you will …

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Re: 1980s Zenith TV repair: horizontal line & compressed image

Posted on 2021-10-13, 23:35

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Reason I was saying about hot large resistors is some makers used it for large voltage drops to supply different low voltages and they heat too much and thermal cycling breaks the solder joint and corrodes the resistor's leads makes them not solderable or poor solder connection when resoldered. For …

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Re: 1980s Zenith TV repair: horizontal line & compressed image

Posted on 2021-10-13, 00:56

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Stop! Warning: Zenith is worst of all using their specially designed semiconductors and Zenith also used their unique part numbers and they have very bad about the solder joints. When I get any of these Zenith at former job eventually hated them so much as I had to fix to their liking. Some keep …

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Re: Toshiba Satellite Pro 420 CDT booting/hdd/fdd issues

Posted on 2021-10-11, 22:01

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Possible floppy drive has bad capacitors or belt went liquid. Cheers,

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Re: CRT Repair Question - Screen issues - Please help

Posted on 2021-10-11, 21:47

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Solder joints breaking. Visually check and resolder all boards. Yes all. One right location when solder joint break will blow up and burn out possible irreplaceable part. Cheers,

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

Posted on 2021-10-11, 19:51

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Z420 confirmed can take registered ECC. Cheers,

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

Posted on 2021-10-11, 19:02

by

by pentiumspeed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Get HP Z series workstation! Especially Z4xx series and will take unbuffered standard ram, unbuffered ECC or registered ECC. For light workstation or affordable segment get Z2xx series. This can take typical i5, i7 or E3-xxxx xeon series, if using xeon, you can using unbuffered ECC ram. Cheers,

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