Re: Will my 440BX motherboard support Pentium III 600MHz CPU?

Posted on 2021-05-20, 10:08

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

SL43E is a cB0 stepping. I had good luck with those. Many years ago I ran two SL43E CPUs in separate machines at 800/133MHz with no problem. They both passed memtest86 at 840/140 at default voltage, which was enough to convince me they were solid for 133FSB so I didn't try any higher. What I don't …

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Re: Sleeper pc trend

Posted on 2021-05-20, 01:59

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

If I was building a new PC, I might use an old case just so I can have drive bays. Or so it can be housed in something that feels as substantial as the money I spent, instead of a plastic piece of junk. However I never had a window case. I could actually go for one of those on a retro PC.

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Re: Sapphire X1950 Pro AGP Died on the spot - ressurection possible?

Posted on 2021-05-19, 07:41

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I have a Sapphire X1950GT 256MB AGP, which I guess is the wimpier brother of your card. I think it's the same PCB. It has the same bank of MLCCs that you photographed, with 5 out of the 6 positions filled. I can confirm that all 6 of those cap positions are in parallel, including the one that's …

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Re: PS/2 Ports Dead (Again, Different MB)

Posted on 2021-05-19, 05:04

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Unrelated side note: Your board has a Coppermine capable voltage regulator (visible in your photo) so it will go down to 1.30V Vcore. Just in case you don't already know.

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Re: PS/2 Ports Dead (Again, Different MB)

Posted on 2021-05-19, 04:56

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This may be really inconvenient, but it might be worth removing the board and examining it closely to see if the PS/2 connector is still well soldered on every pin. Also try to assess the connector itself. These things can sometimes get broken pins or cracked solder joints due to their life of being …

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Re: When publishers break software on purpose (Adobe in this case)

Posted on 2021-05-18, 15:45

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

The activation scheme only exists for the benefit of the publisher, who does it to protect their copyright and ability to generate income from it. As such I don't categorize it as "product support". It's not a feature of the product itself, it's a padlock they chose to put on the outside of the door …

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Re: ABIT BH6, is it dead?

Posted on 2021-05-17, 23:24

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sorry for the string of quotes, just trying to keep the sequence of events organized: So I was told to update my BIOS, which then didn't work and the BIOS was totally borked with no way to enter it and requiring a recovery disk. I was later sent a floppy drive, 2 disks, and one cable. the floppy …

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Re: ABIT BH6, is it dead?

Posted on 2021-05-17, 09:34

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Slot-1 contacts are flaky. Since you're getting no beep codes, a contact problem with the CPU is one of the possibilities, and that happens a lot with Slot-1. The CPU retaining bracket can impede being able to easily reseat the CPU. In some cases it actually prevents seating the CPU fully into the …

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Re: 9x vs 2k/XP for Socket A with 3GB of DDR RAM

Posted on 2021-05-17, 02:13

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I think the decision really depends on what you want to run on it. Based on what you said about the graphics card, it sounds like you're targeting older games that supported Win9x, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's required. Do you have a specific list of games in mind for this PC? If so, …

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Re: Pentium 3 1.4 Tualatin (Compaq Spare)

Posted on 2021-05-16, 03:54

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world... I permanently epoxied a heatsink to a Tualatin 1.4GHz so that I could use it in a Compaq.

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Re: 10 000 games added to steam in 2020

Posted on 2021-05-15, 02:22

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

With how many games get published on GoG/Steam these days, it continues to seem like the high dollar "AAA" end of the game industry ought to be headed for collapse when people stop paying $50 for those titles at release. Just the amount of competition alone seems like it would water down the revenue …

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Re: V.90 or V.92 56k Serial Modem w/ DOS, WFW 3.11, Win98 support

Posted on 2021-05-13, 08:24

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I recently threw out all my internal modems. But I did hold on to a Serial USR "X2" V.90 modem that was firmware upgraded to V.92 (if I'm remembering those terms correctly). I doubt I'll ever use dialup again, but I just wanted to have one good modem in my legacy stash. It was bulletproof and always …

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Re: Are Voodoo graphics card THAT good ?

Posted on 2021-05-11, 14:25

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I've often wished I could find what prices I was seeing in Nov/Dec 1999 so that I could re-evaluate my low budget upgrade from back then. But there are a few factors that played into me asking for (and getting) a K6-3 instead of a Celeron 1) Finding and carefully comparing benchmarks on hardware …

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Re: What game series did you stop getting and why?

Posted on 2021-05-08, 21:59

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

[*] Dragon Age : absolutely loved the first one, the second one was probably the biggest disappointment I've ever experienced in gaming, a truly wretched game in my opinion. I managed to finish it somehow, but by the end I was wishing that every character would die in horrible agony.Didn't bother …

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Re: What game series did you stop getting and why?

Posted on 2021-05-08, 21:39

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

Mega Man --------- I've played through the first 3 games, but I don't like the embellishments they were starting to add by then. I prefer the simple mechanics of the first 2 games. In terms of characterization/personality/whatever - I liked this simple also. You Mega Man! Go - Kill Bad Guy! Even the …

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Re: What retro hardware you killed today or in the past :(. Killing spree stories+serial killers are welcome.Rest in pie

Posted on 2021-05-07, 14:38

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Fried the mouse port on a motherboard and an attached mouse when I plugged the bracket in backwards. I knew something was wrong when I reached for the mouse and it was hot... When hotflashing a Flash ROM, I burned a chip by putting it in backwards. It was immediately obvious when it burned my finger …

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Re: Strangest thing found on harddrives

Posted on 2021-05-06, 22:40

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

A company's bankruptcy statement, assorted business mails, accounting info, full OneDrive with active phone sync (family/business photos) etc. Very strange that someone would just give away a laptop with all this and not even wipe or remove the HDD. Not many people know how to wipe a hard drive …

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Re: Strangest thing found on harddrives

Posted on 2021-05-05, 01:40

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

A Compaq Pentium Pro server I bought came full of files from an insurance agency. Lots of form letters, also some Excel (maybe Access?) files. There were some spreadsheets with people's names and phone numbers and such but nothing real interesting. There was one file that was encrypted using the …

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Re: S3 ViRGE/DX

Posted on 2021-05-03, 23:13

by

by shamino

in Windows

in Windows

My Virge card back in the day accelerated very few games, and only if I was running DirectX 2. Once I installed DirectX 3, the games still ran but acceleration was gone. That was a very long time ago and maybe there's something I did wrong. I don't know anything about that game but if it's 3D then …

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Re: How can I tell between Geforce2 MX and MX400?

Posted on 2021-05-03, 04:55

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

You could use the date codes on the RAM chips as a clue. I don't know exactly what date range you'd see on MX400 cards vs original MX - but the later the dates the more likely it's an MX400. Stay away from anything showing year 2000 dates. I'm not sure how far into 2001 the MX400 came out, but I …

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