Re: Windows 7 question

Posted on 2022-03-02, 12:50

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I agree with above post, Vista was great after 7 years of improvements. I have a maxed out system system dedicated to Vista. With that said, a new unused system builder license for Windows 7 Professional is less than $30 and readily available. This is too expensive? Alternatively, if you have or …

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Re: Last version of microsoft office to run on win 98?

Posted on 2022-02-25, 14:20

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Is it still possible to activate Office XP nowadays? I know that Windows XP still activates by phone (and by Internet too if you update the certificates beforehand, I'm told). If that works Office 2002 should work too. Now, if the activation actually validates the key you input or rather just spits …

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Re: Adding 3.3v to pci

Posted on 2021-12-26, 09:45

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've done this mod in the past to make a graphics card that required 3v3 (chinese Rage XL) work in a 5v only slot. I jumpered a few 3v3 supply pins on the back of the slot, didn't even bother wiring them all. They were NC and not even connected among themselves, and then wired them to a LM2576 …

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

Posted on 2021-10-25, 17:30

by

by andrea

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: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2021-10-25, 16:45

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This week I'm doing hard drive testing and repair. It's by no means a fast job, and perhaps a bit pointless given how cheap used drives are, but doing what many people think it's impossible (How many times have you read/heard that hard drives cannot be fixed and that one reallocated sector means …

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

Posted on 2021-09-27, 19:09

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Pulled a Pentium200 PC from storage for a Win95 install. During Windows and other installations I got some error messages about not being able to write to disc C, as well as the drive just being sluggish in general. Ran checkdisk and found this:P_20210922_204918.jpg OOF. When 1 appears, more will …

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

Posted on 2021-09-13, 06:08

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I drilled some holes into the bottom plate from a borked floppy drive to build a 2.5" to 3.5" hard drive adapter. Followed by some more adapters for maximum adapterception.

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Re: video card for athlon 64 build

Posted on 2021-08-02, 17:41

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I'd get something like the 7900GTO. Fast for XP, and period correct with your Athlon X2, has no bump mapping issues the more modern GPUS might have and the GF7 was fairly energy efficient. GeForce 7 might not have bump mapping issues but sure has bump issues, as does GF8 and contemporary nForces. A …

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Re: CC0 Pentium III vs CD0 P3 ... CPUID 6-8-10... are there real differences???

Posted on 2021-07-23, 19:47

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks very much for those... PChoarderPatrol, I was able to dig around a bit more and found this supported CPU table... https://web.archive.org/web/20030404165006/http://sj.dfi.com.tw/support1/CPU%20Support%20List/CPULstSock370.htm Where we notice that celeron support goes to 800, PIII 100fsb …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-04-26, 19:18

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I drove about 45 minutes to pick up via facebook marketplace a new PC today. This is my 2nd retro rig. It is a Gateway model "500." It actually boots up into windows 98. It has I think a 10 GB quantum fireball HD. 2 optical driver that show up in the OS, but the trays won't open. A GeForce MX 200 I …

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Re: Cedar Mill in early 775 motherboards

Posted on 2021-04-26, 19:00

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, I ordered it. Let's see what happens. Will come back and update. (Not gonna lie, paying for a P4 in 2021 feels weird)

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Cedar Mill in early 775 motherboards

Posted on 2021-04-24, 12:36

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hello to all, I was wondering, has anyone ever tried a Cedar Mill P4 in an early, supposedly Prescott only, 775 motherboard?. I was thinking on upgrading an ASUS PTGD1-LA, or an HP Puffer2, depending on what you want to call it, with the i915P Chipset. Both the ICs on the board and the CPU date from …

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Re: Understanding what usefulness of PII 400 or 450 vs PIII 800?

Posted on 2021-03-12, 12:55

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2021-03-11, 12:27: Nowadays I would go for the PII 450 as it used to be a kind of "end of an era" cpu. PII 450 doesn't fit even into that category. That would be Slot 1 PIII 600. But weren't many 450 Katmais (those with SL35D s-spec) essentially factory downclocked 600Bs? …

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Chinese Gigabyte 6VTXE BIOS

Posted on 2021-02-13, 16:53

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hello, I have here a Gigabyte 6VTXE with what seems like a buggy bios. No matter what you set it to it always run the memory at CAS 3. (and I know the modules I have are ok at CAS2). I see that the IMV694X-ISA board, its clone from China, has an entirely different BIOS, Award rather than AMI, which …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2021-01-27, 22:37

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Half of the dashboard of my car is coated in a soft touch finish. I'm frightened of the day it is starting to turn into glue. On the door panels it has already started... yuck. This soft touch madness is just a mere micrometer behind touch controls when it comes to the most stupid decisions in car …

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

Posted on 2021-01-27, 22:19

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Finally today the 775 CPUs I had ordered arrived. Of these five CPUs, only one was used for NewPC-Linux. The CPUs are Pentium DUAL-CORE E2140 and E2160, CORE2 DUO 4300 and 4400 and 6320. The 4400 went to the place of a P.D.C. E2180, on an ECS P4M890T-M2 motherboard with 2GB DDR2 RAM, the chipset is …

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

Posted on 2021-01-27, 21:32

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I just repaired (again) a Frankenstein laptop that was bad when it was new and still is today. The issue was that the network card would only connect if manually set to 10Mbps. Auto and 100Mbps wouldn't negotiate a link. In the past I tried replacing the jack (MagJack) hoping it was just a dodgy …

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

Posted on 2021-01-27, 20:58

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Finally today the 775 CPUs I had ordered arrived. Of these five CPUs, only one was used for NewPC-Linux. The CPUs are Pentium DUAL-CORE E2140 and E2160, CORE2 DUO 4300 and 4400 and 6320. The 4400 went to the place of a P.D.C. E2180, on an ECS P4M890T-M2 motherboard with 2GB DDR2 RAM, the chipset is …

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

Posted on 2021-01-24, 13:08

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today I replaced FW82439TX chip to Gigabyte GA-586T2 motherboard. Old chip had a lifted corner what occured as memory fault. Fortunately 3 pads were torn off from the BGA - not from the motherboard. NOS chip from AliExpress. Baked it for couple of hours @80-100°C. Table stove as bottom heater. …

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

Posted on 2021-01-05, 08:43

by

by andrea

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What about recelling the current battery? What's that ? Intriguing ! Does it involve opening it ? Yes, it's basically replacing the actual battery cells (99% of the time just regular 18650s) inside the battery pack. Anybody ever seen laptop LCD damage like this? There are a bunch of these spots …

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