Re: Cheapest "retro" gaming PC you have?

Posted on 2017-12-27, 20:50

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Cheapest for me was the Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus for $17 (tower, keyboard, and mouse) which needed a new clock battery, and I had a few parts lying around (CD drive, RAM, dual floppy drive, joystick, data tape drive, and sound cards), so I installed those parts to make it as a Multimedia …

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

Posted on 2017-12-27, 17:25

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Swapped the Mitsumi 48x CD-ROM drive with a Delta 52x CD-ROM drive in my Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus, and now, practically everything matches the color of the case. The reasons why I replaced the CD drive were because the Mitsumi drive is: 1) Not serviceable by anyone, except for the manufacturer …

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Re: Apple PowerMac G3/400 help needed

Posted on 2017-12-27, 16:32

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi, did you press the inernal reset button for the NVRAM already ? Some Macs require this to come back to life once the battery has failed or hardware was changed. Wouldn't this be the reset button for the NVRAM? https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2046/3541162420_cbdac09887_b.jpg Source: How to Reset …

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Re: Compaq 386s/20 - How to enter the bios?

Posted on 2017-12-27, 16:22

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus does this as well when I install an HDD above 2GB (I can only enter up to 4000 cylinders and LZ), and if it's not configured manually (auto-detect), it would say the HDD is smaller in size (ex: 773MB instead of at least 2GB). Also, when the CMOS battery dies, it …

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

Posted on 2017-12-27, 05:25

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Gutted out the HP Pavilion 7955 from the case due to issues, and planning on upgrading my Socket 370 system to the Pentium 4 board from the Pavilion or keep the Socket 370 as-is. I also took the liberty of installing 512MB more RAM in the PowerMac G3 (going to do another test tomorrow after work to …

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Re: Most frustrating part of working on old computers?

Posted on 2017-12-26, 22:11

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I purchased an external parallel port Sony StorStation Ditto 2GB that needs a new rubber cap for the tape motor (that spins the inner tape cartridge wheel left and right) since the one that was in there disintegrated due to the high levels of humidity or heat, and the one tape I had for my Conner …

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Apple PowerMac G3/400 help needed

Posted on 2017-12-26, 17:22

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I purchased a used, and slightly beat-up Apple PowerMac G3/400 (Blue & White) for $9.99 that can run Mac OS X up to Tiger 10.4.11 (up to 1GB SD-RAM PC-100) and upgradable processor on a ZIF socket (up to 450MHz). Specs: PowerPC 750 400MHz (L1: 64K, L2/L3: 1MB) 256MB PC-100 SD-RAM (2x 128MB) 6GB ATA- …

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Re: Yet another 486 DX4 100 build

Posted on 2017-12-26, 16:10

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Ah, the PCChips M912 v1.7 motherboard. That was my childhood to adulthood board (1994-2012) until the BIOS chip gave out. I might as well get 2 desktop tower cases for both my Socket 7 system and my AM3+ system and put them on a table with the KVS switch boxes for the Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-12-23, 21:16

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's what I bought today: https://i.imgur.com/PqrgoDIh.jpg PowerMac G3/400 (needs work) Dazzle video capture + software 52x CD-ROM drive with drivers Sony StorStation external tape drive 2GB compressed Dell Studio CD/DVD (Windows 7 Premium 64-bit, drivers CD/DVD, DVD/CD burning software, Office …

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Re: 3Com EtherLink III 3509C-B (RJ45/AUI) Resource conflicts

Posted on 2017-12-23, 14:27

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Do I need an MS-DOS program to change the base I/O for the NIC? Possibly. It's needed to set up that rom socket, at least. http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=37820 http://www.tavi.co.uk/ps2pages/ohland/nic.html http://www.tavi.co.uk/ps2pages/ohland/3com.html Drivers: 3c90x.zip, 3c509.zip …

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Re: Need help with my first 486 boards.

Posted on 2017-12-22, 20:56

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm not familiar at all with motherboards and CPUs from this era. These are the first boards from this era I have had in my possession. These boards need a couple repairs, but if I knew more about them it'd probably help. What kind of CPU is that? How can I tell which boards it will work in and …

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

Posted on 2017-12-22, 20:27

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

sf78 wrote: Made this build today. Everything (besides the CD-drive) was from the hoarders stash, including SB pro 2. 😊 Good looking system you got there. SpeedSYS is known for the Y2K bug. What does it say for the file names when you do the dir command?

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[SOLVED] 3Com EtherLink III 3509C-B (RJ45/AUI) Resource conflicts

Posted on 2017-12-22, 17:50

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Here's the deal that I'm facing right now. I upgraded Windows 3.1 to Workgroups 3.11 with success and when the NIC drivers, as well as the TCP/IP drivers got installed, I cannot seem to get the NIC to work whatsoever. Windows would report that it cannot get anything from the DHCP server, and when I …

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Re: OPL2LPT

Posted on 2017-12-22, 17:27

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I would be amazed if there would be an OPL3LPT with the Covox Speech Thing for SFX and voice.

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

Posted on 2017-12-21, 20:23

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

oeuvre wrote: Upgraded my Optiplex GX1 from Pentium II 350MHz to a 1GHz Celeron via slocket. Works like a charm! Just had to zip tie it all in there. Windows NT 4.0 Workstation? I haven't used that OS in years.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-12-21, 18:45

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

^^ WOW that is one, make that two, crappy packaging jobs. My settlements exactly. I would be surprised if those cards work without the anti-static bags in place, as well as the bubble wrap. When I buy something online, I always ask the seller to put the electronic item into an anti-static bag, and …

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Re: Most frustrating part of working on old computers?

Posted on 2017-12-21, 18:10

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I installed the 4.6GB Fujitsu HDD from my Pavilion N3350 laptop with the 2.5" to 3.5" IDE HDD kit from MicroCenter (had to buy another cable, DeoxIt, and batteries) into my Packard Bell, but it detected it as a 733MB HDD (I understand why mainly because the system only supports up to 2GB). Here're …

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Re: Unisys CWD-4002

Posted on 2017-12-21, 16:24

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Try using the MSD program (Microsoft Diagnostics) to check and see which device is using Port 220h (there should be an option in the BIOS to disable the on-board sound card (if there is one)).

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Re: Sound Blaster Issue - works but no sound

Posted on 2017-12-21, 16:08

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

are we talking about These small CWD models? I do not get any! soundcard working on that thing! It has to do with the onboard-lan that I really need. It would be the best Little machine if I get Sound and Lan working on it. https://www.flickr.com/photos/94839221@N05/albums/72157683681646872 Did you …

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Re: OPL2LPT

Posted on 2017-12-21, 16:04

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

What about the "slowdowns" the 8bit-guy and LGR are talking about? What is the recommended CPU power required for the OPL2LPT. I own an ORANGE NUBUS PC-Card for a 68K Quadra700. This Thing has a native LPT1 breakoutcable/box but only a 486/sx25. Thx Doc According to the 8-Bit Guy's website http:// …

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