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

Posted on 2015-07-10, 07:17

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm preparing to try fixing one 286 motherboard. It seems there is a problem with at least one shorted tantalum capacitor and the PSU won't even give power to the board. Hopefully I'll get to it this weekend. This is the picture of the board: http://i.imgur.com/pkPuIEk.jpg I'm suspecting C62 to be …

---

Re: Advice on some legacy 16-bit VGA graphics cards

Posted on 2015-07-10, 07:03

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'd test different 512 and 1024kb cards to see which one is the best for your configuration. It's somehow funny with Trident cards. They are usually slow and some can even have bad quality output. But I have one 8900D 1MB that performs as fast as ET4000 and has good image quality. It seems rare but …

---

Re: Giving away old computers

Posted on 2015-07-09, 18:13

by

by kixs

in Milliways

in Milliways

Amibay, Vintage-computer... I'd be interested, but I guess you're half way around the world 😉

---

Re: Underclocking on a KT133A Board

Posted on 2015-07-08, 10:08

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It looks you're in luck. Not every KT133A board supported Athlon XP & Semprons out of the box. Every Athlon XP should work, but it will be limited by 133MHz FSB and low multi. You should get a higher rated mobile processor that use 133MHz FSB and have multi above 15x. But this creates another …

---

Re: Damage on CPU edge

Posted on 2015-07-08, 07:16

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Try it. It could just work.

---

Re: A 3dfx Voodoo 5, Vortex2, Pentium III-S based Glide Beast Gaming PC

Posted on 2015-07-07, 17:23

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Last week I got Tualatin P3-S 1.4GHz, now I wish I had Voodoo 5 😁

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2015-07-06, 12:53

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

And the 386 board. Looks like it has never been used. I hope it works! Even came with a manual! http://i.imgur.com/J2ONgzAl.jpg?1 One of my earliest hardware memories was a Genius mouse that came with our first PC. I n I did some further research on it. Unfortunately, it only supports 33 and 40MHz …

---

Re: Going below a Pentium

Posted on 2015-07-05, 04:50

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Get that 486 and you'll be more then fine for older games. If you want a 386, get DX and 33-40MHz. SX and lower clock speed feel really slow - too slow if you're not used to it.

---

Re: Please advise me on a Tualatin motherboard?

Posted on 2015-07-04, 08:07

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have one QDI SynactiX 5EP V2.0 with Intel 815EP chipset running Tualatin S 1.4GHz cpu right on my desk now with box and manual.

---

Re: Old Hard Drives

Posted on 2015-07-03, 03:31

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I believe there are already many topics on this... You can use CompatFlash to IDE adapter and then use any CompactFlash card on old computers that support IDE drives. For up to 386 less then 512MB CF is recommended as they usually can't address/use more then 504MB. But you can use some software LBA …

---

Re: K6-2 450

Posted on 2015-07-02, 13:15

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here is one review from back in time: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/k6-iii.html

---

Re: CRT vs LCD?

Posted on 2015-06-22, 12:28

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What will you use it for? For low res games and DOS look for good 15-17" Trinitron (Sony, Mitsubishi, IIyama). For Windows and hi res games 19-22" Trinitron (Sony, Mitsubishi, IIyama). I like almost flat screen of Trinitron tube. There are also good non-Trinitron screens (Samsung, Nokia). Because …

---

Re: CRT vs LCD?

Posted on 2015-06-22, 10:53

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Stojke wrote: Can any one suggest some high end CRTs? High end... what do you mean by that exactly? The 22" Mitsubishi 2070SB I have is best of the best in my book 😁 and I had lots of high end CRTs back in the days... But it's not really recommended for low res games. In DOS you have very big scan …

---

Re: CRT vs LCD?

Posted on 2015-06-22, 06:39

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

newstuff.jpg I only have LCD's on my main desk (no space). But I also own several CRT's. From small 12" to 22". At the moment this is my CRT list: - 12" mono VGA (one TVM and one Dell) - 13" color VGA Siemens - 15" Sony Trinitron 100SX - 17" Philips (high end, it does 1600x1200 too) - 17" Samsung …

---

Re: S3 AGP Cards (and possibly others) Too Bright

Posted on 2015-06-17, 06:41

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Sometimes it's not bad that the video card outputs too bright picture... I have one old CRT monitor that it's too dim and this would actually help :lol: I don't have any Savage3D cards, but I have many other S3 (around 20) and only one of them has this over bright output - I think it's some Trio64 …

---

Re: How is Windows 95 on a 486SX 25MHz with 4mb ram?

Posted on 2015-06-12, 13:14

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Like always... you should also check other components that might hold the system back - like HDD and VGA. HDDs were always the slowest part and replacing it with some good CF card you get much more responsive system overall (like today with SSDs).

---

Re: How is Windows 95 on a 486SX 25MHz with 4mb ram?

Posted on 2015-06-12, 11:37

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

4Mb? Well, I am using W95 on a 486DX4-100Mhz with 64Mb-72pin and without any complex apps my ram is always full. It's not running badly but I still think that W95 and 486 architecture were just not right. It's like anything it's using 100% and more cpu power not to mention disk swap. 64MB is way " …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2015-06-12, 08:02

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

newstuff.jpg Usually I don't post here... but this time I'm quite excited that I finally managed to get 22" Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2070SB in a very good condition (case and picture wise). This is what I got yesterday: - 22" Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 2070SB - very good picture - 17" Samsung SyncMaster …

---

Re: How is Windows 95 on a 486SX 25MHz with 4mb ram?

Posted on 2015-06-12, 06:42

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As said... it will be slow because of heavy virtual memory usage. I'd say 16MB is practical minimum. It will be better if you use CF card as old small IDE drives are painfully slow and with all the virtual memory swapping, CF will be far better. I've installed Win95 on my 386DX-40, 32MB, 512MB CF …

---

Re: Which Tualatin for GA-6VTXE?

Posted on 2015-06-09, 11:14

by

by kixs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

...that 45 USD shipment for a tiny CPU is way off. Good luck with that 😉

---