Re: Thought's on Intel's recent troubles

Posted on 2024-07-25, 16:22

by

by Cosmic

in Milliways

in Milliways

I'm interested to see what the root cause ends up being. Apparently Intel has been shipping properly working chips for a few months now, however, they have the same microcode revision as the faulty chips which makes one wonder if it's really possible to fix the faulty chips with a microcode update …

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Re: Do you even need a vintage machine?

Posted on 2024-06-18, 03:42

by

by Cosmic

in Milliways

in Milliways

I enjoy old hardware almost as much as the software that runs on it. 86Box is an amazing piece of software but for me it doesn't scratch the itch of installing and testing real parts. There's just something so satisfying about getting real hardware up and running and physically experiencing its …

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

Posted on 2024-06-14, 18:33

by

by Cosmic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today I am trying to get a working Java programming environment running on my Pentium 3 rig, it's kinda fun testing old IDEs and old versions of languages. I have working Visual Basic, Python 2, and PowerShell 2.0 running on XP SP3 so far but Java will be a new one. Going to try out JBuilder 6 as …

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Re: professional 3d cards for games

Posted on 2024-06-14, 13:45

by

by Cosmic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yep! I have several early Quadro cards. I like how they look - they have a very OEM/reference design look. Some of them have beefier PCI brackets where the slot cover rolls over slightly to make the card more feel rigid. They tend not to have crazy graphics or logos. Any differences in performance …

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Re: FX 5700 Ultra in a 440BX board

Posted on 2024-06-08, 21:21

by

by Cosmic

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I ran a couple more benchmarks to compare the 900XGL vs FX5700 Ultra. Looks like they're pretty close except for in AquaMark 3 where the FX5700 performs much better. If you know of any other good benchmarks to run let me know. I tried Quake 3 Arena timedemos but they were within 1 FPS of each other, …

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Re: FX 5700 Ultra in a 440BX board

Posted on 2024-06-08, 17:53

by

by Cosmic

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Thanks Serpent! The card works great, I think this is the fastest card I've ever run with a P3. Definitely still CPU bound in many games (e.g. Sims 2, San Andreas, Halo CE, Morrowind) but seems I can crank the graphics settings up a bit and still have reasonable FPS. UT2003 runs awesome, around 60- …

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FX5700 Ultra in a 440BX board

Posted on 2024-06-08, 07:26

by

by Cosmic

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Would an FX5700 Ultra work in a typical 440BX board with an AGP 2x slot? TechPowerUp shows the card as AGP 8x though it's keyed for 3.3V and 1.5V. I've had no problems running an FX5200 or FX5500 in an Asus P2B-B, both of which are also listed as 8X cards with the same NV34 core, though they show up …

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Re: Classic ICQ Server

Posted on 2024-05-29, 19:24

by

by Cosmic

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

This is very cool, especially in light of ICQ shutting down: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/icq-messenger-shuts-down-after-almost-28-years/ I never used ICQ ("I Seek You") back in the day as I didn't know anybody who used it, but I remember downloading the client at least once just …

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Re: Most reliable CF cards for system drive in 2024?

Posted on 2024-05-29, 18:51

by

by Cosmic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I also have had good luck with Cisco and Transcend Industrial CF cards. I've only ever had one die on me and that was the result of reading the whole card with "dd" through a cheap USB to CF adapter, so I can't recommend doing that. :D If you have a spare bay in your main PC it can be super handy to …

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Re: sometimes it's glitch and hangs the PC

Posted on 2024-04-21, 18:52

by

by Cosmic

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

If you have a USB floppy drive or would consider getting one, the BIOS may support booting from it, which would open up some doors for troubleshooting. But even without that, since you are using a CF card adapter, you could try writing Memtest directly to a CF card and booting it that way. If you …

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

Posted on 2024-04-17, 21:43

by

by Cosmic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

if I remove a DDR2 chip from a VGA card, it will display anyway but with artifacts or it won't at all? https://youtu.be/sWdpb5mw_zQ?si=JrwvbyRnTBy-X3bQ&t=403 here you can see card displaying with texture memory physically removed but it's a very specific case. That's fascinating. I assume this is …

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Re: Gta 1 laggy

Posted on 2024-04-17, 21:29

by

by Cosmic

in DOS

in DOS

Which platform or CPU are you using? I've never played GTA 1, but I remember GTA 2 was surprisingly difficult to get running smoothly on some period CPUs (e.g. consistent 40-50 FPS+).

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

Posted on 2024-04-13, 06:13

by

by Cosmic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I thought I'd update the bios using my TL866 programmer. It was all going great until I put the EEPROM in backwards. The POST analyser card now only shows "--" with it. The rom still reads okay on the programmer and I was very worried I'd killed the board? since the ROM connects directly to the …

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Re: ASUS eeePC 701 / 4G FSB Adjustment Utility

Posted on 2024-04-13, 06:08

by

by Cosmic

in DOS

in DOS

So cool! The Asus Eee PC was one of the first netbooks. I remember being blown away by how small they were when new. I don't own one so I can't test the tool but still wanted to comment some appreciation. I have a slightly later netbook with an Atom CPU that is running as a low power server to this …

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Re: Help creating my Windows 98 SE perfect clean installation

Posted on 2024-04-13, 05:57

by

by Cosmic

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

One recommendation is to get comfy with using SCANREG to create backups of the registry. They are stored with incrementing filenames in C:\Windows\SYSBACKUP. Every time you make a successful change to your system (e.g. drivers installed, patches installed, .NET installed, DirectX installed, etc.), …

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Re: sometimes it's glitch and hangs the PC

Posted on 2024-04-13, 00:59

by

by Cosmic

in PC Emulation

in PC Emulation

Need more info. Post the emulator you're using (VMware, 86box, etc.) or the hardware if it's real hardware (CPU, memory, graphics, motherboard, hard drive, etc.), version of DOS, and the games you're having trouble with, then we can try and help.

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Re: Question about XP Pc

Posted on 2024-04-12, 19:12

by

by Cosmic

in Windows

in Windows

Watch out for the dell’s and hp’s a lot of these are work or generic home computers and many are 64 bit. And you will have a nightmare with obtaining cards to fit in them. It shouldn't matter if the CPU is 64-bit, they still run 32-bit software and OSs perfectly as if they were a 32-bit CPU. They …

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

Posted on 2024-04-12, 04:53

by

by Cosmic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today I installed copper heatsinks (9mm x 9mm) on the VRM mosfets on this P2B-B 440bx motherboard to help keep them cool. One of them gets quite hot at 2.0V, too hot to touch, so hope these will help. A case fan will blow over them. I'm slowly overclocking the FSB, starting at 100MHz and am at …

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

Posted on 2024-04-12, 04:51

by

by Cosmic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Wrangled with some ISA soundcards today. To be more specific, Yamaha SW20-PC, Reveal SoundFX SC400 Pro 16, Samsung Audio Magic X and an OEM HP Aztech 2320. And somehow I revived 2 graphic cards, a no name S3 Trio 3D/2X AGP and a Matrox G200 PCI. Nice, what did you do to get the video cards working …

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

Posted on 2024-04-04, 21:27

by

by Cosmic

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

PD2JK wrote on 2024-04-02, 20:01: Finally some working 256k SRAM chips and got this message at the POST, just wonderful to see this line: […] Show full quote Finally some working 256k SRAM chips and got this message at the POST, just wonderful to see this line: DSC_8633.JPG Crammed in the DTK board …

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