Search \ VOGONS

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

Posted on 2023-12-01, 15:25

mrfusion92 wrote on 2023-12-01, 12:16: First power up of the DK440LX and, as most of you have guessed, it has two 266 Klamath cores. Really like this setup, have you tried a PIII 1GHZ dual CPU on Asus P2B-D or equivalent?

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

Posted on 2023-12-01, 15:22

by vmr_

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

And what appears to be a distinctly Canopus graphics card (which one, I can't tell). Geforce 2 MX400. [/quote] correct. Interestingly enough it nearly beats Canopus Spectra X20 Geforce3 in 3dMark 99 and 3dMark2000, need to do more tests. Possibly with Pentium III 1GHZ SL4KL, as I used a PIII 800MHz …

Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2023-11-30, 21:50

by vmr_

in Milliways

Beneath a Steel Sky looks interesting, giving it a try

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

Posted on 2023-11-30, 21:41

by vmr_

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Time to dust off this baby - Abit SH6 motherboard

Re: Cyrix appreciation thread

Posted on 2023-11-30, 21:35

by vmr_

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Cannot help it, have to add what might be "the Unicorn of all CPU Unicorns" - an early Christmas present 😀

Re: Cyrix appreciation thread

Posted on 2023-11-30, 15:01

by vmr_

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Have a bunch of Cyrix MII 400 and a MII 433 in my collection, did not get a chance to test it beyond POST - lack of time :( But in the last 4-5 years since I got more interested in retro CPUs I have seen twice or three times a 433 for sale, of which one is the CPU I got. :) Comparatively I have seen …

Re: AMERICAN MEGATRENDS 286 motherboard missing BIOS chips

Posted on 2023-08-23, 16:35

by vmr_

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, first test done - with somehow unexpected :( results: one of the tantalum capacitors close to power socket exploded with a bit of fireworks and smoke. Luckily the board was mounted in an enclosed case, so it was contained. Maybe a full recap is required to replace all those tantalum capacitors …

Re: Siemens Nixdorf PCD 4ND - RAM expansion card/module 8MB or 16 MB

Posted on 2023-08-23, 11:34

by vmr_

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@MAZter - thanks, indeed no trace of these 🙁

Re: Siemens Nixdorf PCD 4ND - RAM expansion card/module 8MB or 16 MB

Posted on 2023-08-23, 11:18

by vmr_

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think that Siemens may have been using Panasonic as the OEM for these, the RAM card you've shown in it possibly corroborates this since they look similar to the Panasonic RAM cards, assuming the pin configuration is the same. This sounds good, will look now for a suitable 8MB or 16MB Panasonic …

Re: Siemens Nixdorf PCD 4ND - RAM expansion card/module 8MB or 16 MB

Posted on 2023-08-22, 16:26

by vmr_

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

dominusprog wrote on 2023-08-22, 15:51: You have to look for it on eBay. already have the ebay alert set 😀 was wondering if anyone managed to craft any custom RAM module as replacement

Re: AMERICAN MEGATRENDS 286 motherboard missing BIOS chips

Posted on 2023-08-22, 15:15

by vmr_

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

TheMobRules wrote on 2023-08-22, 15:13: vmr_ wrote on 2023-08-22, 15:07: what could possibly go wrong if I switch the BIOS chips? Do take care of installing the ROM chips in the correct orientation though. thanks for clarification, will give it a try soon and share the update here 😀

Re: AMERICAN MEGATRENDS 286 motherboard missing BIOS chips

Posted on 2023-08-22, 15:07

by vmr_

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

dominusprog wrote on 2023-08-22, 15:03: Odd is High and Even is Low. the board missing the chips has no HI/LO marking - just judging by socket numbers 😀 what could possibly go wrong if I switch the BIOS chips?

Siemens Nixdorf PCD 4ND - RAM expansion card/module 8MB or 16 MB

Posted on 2023-08-22, 14:32

by vmr_

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Looking to upgrade a bit a nice Siemens Nixdorf PCD 4ND laptop with 4 MB RAM, 486 DX4 100MHz. Any custom RAM modules available for these laptops? I found several photos of the standard RAM expansions from Siemens - attached here for reference. Also, are the RAM expansion cards the same for 4ND …

Re: Compaq Armada M700 ATI Rage Mobility P Driver?

Posted on 2023-08-22, 14:14

by vmr_

in Marvin \ Video

@pancakepuppy - thank you for sharing the video card drivers, these fixed my video card issues I had with my Armada M300 PIII 600 laptop. Looks easy to extract device drivers from recovery disk - there is a folder on recovery disk with drivers, one dedicated folder per device - so it is a copy&paste …

Re: AMERICAN MEGATRENDS 286 motherboard missing BIOS chips

Posted on 2023-08-22, 14:03

by vmr_

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

while waiting for the EEPROMs and keyboard controller to arrive, I dug out from storage another 286 VLSI motherboard (not same model, but at least another VLSI chipset) - so planning to test with these EPROMS and corresponding keyboard controller. Motherboard with 'new' AMI BIOS and keyboard …

Re: AMERICAN MEGATRENDS 286 motherboard missing BIOS chips

Posted on 2023-08-18, 15:15

by vmr_

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@zyga64 will try it for sure, I missed that link for BIOS with HI and LO images. Also found MR BIOS generic 286 VLSI bios - to also try it. Have a few options now, the long wait to get the EEPROM chips from China starts today 😀

Re: AMERICAN MEGATRENDS 286 motherboard missing BIOS chips

Posted on 2023-08-18, 12:54

by vmr_

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in the absence of original BIOS image, I came across this list of generic BIOSes for IBM compatible boards/machines: http://www.minuszerodegrees.net/bios/bios.htm Will give it a try for the 286 version, using W27E257-12 EEPROMS - once chips arrive. Also came across XTIDE Universal BIOS - wondering …