Re: Booting from Compact Flash: Dealing with Virtual Memory

Posted on 2016-02-13, 19:12

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm having probs getting my adapter & card to be recognized as a drive... could I ask what adapter you are using and what IDE controller you are using it with? Also, how large is the card you are using? Thanks Using a Kingston CF/16GB-U2 ( clicky , the 16GB variant) together with a cheap adapter …

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Re: My retro rigs - looking for improvement suggestions

Posted on 2016-02-12, 08:15

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Turned out the Chaintech 7AJA2 board in the DOS monster supports 133MHz FSB Athlon XP's with the latest BIOS, so decided to upgrade from the original Thunderbird 1200. Got myself a Thoroughbred 2400+ (couldn't justify paying almost 10 times more for a 2600+, which would be the fastest possible CPU), …

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Re: The All-amazing super-de-douper SuperPi thread!

Posted on 2016-02-11, 18:40

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Upgraded my Socket A rig from a Thunderbird 1200 (SuperPi results here) to a Thoroughbred 2400+. Not the performance boost I expected, but still quite an improvement: Filename athlonxp.jpg File size 187.88 KiB Views 1916 views

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Re: Strange flickering CRT monitor issue...

Posted on 2016-02-01, 07:10

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I inspected the entire board and all the other joints looked spotlessly clean and healthy. Just the ones around the VGA port appeared to have visibly cracked. At the very least I like to think I've possibly broken a record for thread revival here. This of course means I will now be spending the …

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Re: VGA In Memoriam

Posted on 2016-02-01, 06:46

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What's a good way of piping VGA output to a TV? I'm temporarily working in the living room and there's a big old 1990s TV in the corner with RCA/S-Video inputs, and I was wondering if I could use it to watch movies. My video card has a spare VGA output. There's no RGB capable SCART input on the TV? …

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Re: Loose VGA port on EP-MVP4A motherboard

Posted on 2016-01-31, 20:58

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Obviously broken. You need to desolder what's left of the connector from the board and solder a new one in it's place. You need to look for a 15 pin D-SUB connector to replace the broken one. Some practical tips in addition to this: Preheating the PCB laminate around the connector to 130-150 deg C …

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Re: TMC PCI48AL - BIOS Wanted :)

Posted on 2016-01-31, 20:42

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Found this post with URLs to the maker's former sites. You could try archive.org, sometimes the site snapshots there actually contains linked files too. Found a few bios images for old mobos that way myself.

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Re: Will you ever build a Win7 retro PC?

Posted on 2016-01-29, 15:46

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm in the process of redoing my high-end (components are circa 2008) XP machine and wondered, since I've already got a 2004-based XP machine, maybe I should instead make this a low-end Win7 PC. I'm weighing my options, but what I might end up doing is have each OS on its own HDD (I don't like dual …

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on 2016-01-28, 03:59

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by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Technically, not a dumpster find. But someone brought me a PC, asked me to retrieve all the pics and docs off of it, then do whatever I want with it. So it was destined for the dumpster as far as I'm concerned! It is a Dell Optiplex GX270, circa 2004. Specs: P4 2.8/512k/800 (hyperthreading disabled …

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Re: Asus P4P800 Deluxe won't post

Posted on 2016-01-24, 15:46

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Very interesting discussion, seems I'll have to reevaluate my opinion of Asus products. My main rig mobos has been Asus ones since a P2B board 17 years ago.

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Re: Asus P4P800 Deluxe won't post

Posted on 2016-01-19, 20:40

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's hard to do anything useful with a ESR meter on a motherboard because there are so many caps in parallel. The combined ESR is inclined to make ESR so low the meter shows zero even if the individual ESR's are a bit high. (Would look the same with good caps or a shorted one.) If -all- the caps in …

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Re: Asus P4P800 Deluxe won't post

Posted on 2016-01-19, 19:46

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I got a ASUS P4P800 for free two years ago. It had the exact same problem as you're describing. Only powered on for a second, then died completely down, no POST or anything.I couldn't figure it out. I tried different PSU's, different CPU's, different RAM, reset BIOS, different AGP and PCI video …

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Re: Asus P4P800 Deluxe won't post

Posted on 2016-01-19, 10:33

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The BIOS doesn't even get the time to initialize. The power is cut just a fraction of a second after starting. That is not a good sign, I think a VRM MOSFET is blown. I believe it's some protection circuit in the PSU's I've been testing with that cuts out the power. There's a slight difference in …

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Re: Asus P4P800 Deluxe won't post

Posted on 2016-01-19, 10:15

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You can connect speakers/headphones to the line-out (green jack) of the onboard audio device, and see if the speech POST reporter says anything interesting... Although even if it does, I'm skeptical if it's going to be easy to fix. :( The BIOS doesn't even get the time to initialize. The power is …

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Re: Asus P4P800 Deluxe won't post

Posted on 2016-01-18, 15:54

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, most common reasons are (for P4P800 SE): 1) RAM slots corrosion. Try to clear them with metal ruler and use only 1 DIMM with different slots. 2) Bad caps. 3) 5V/5VSB jumpers corrosion. Yes, several MBs not started because of 5VSB (PS/2 keyboard mostly). 4) Dead northbridge. Fatal. Cleaned the …

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Re: The All-amazing super-de-douper SuperPi thread!

Posted on 2016-01-18, 14:50

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Athlon 1200, 512MB PC133 SDRAM @ default settings, W98SE: Filename athlon.jpg File size 117.21 KiB Views 2044 views Pentium 200, 64 MB 60ns EDO ram @ default settings, W98SE: Filename socket7.jpg File size 90.92 KiB Views 2044 views

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Re: Asus P4P800 Deluxe won't post

Posted on 2016-01-18, 14:28

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, I did store it without a CMOS battery. It's not unlikely that pulling out the reset jumper just breaks the battery circuit, and that removing the battery does exactly the same thing from an electrical point of view. Edit: Tried booting it with the jumper in the reset position just to see if …

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Re: Asus P4P800 Deluxe won't post

Posted on 2016-01-18, 12:06

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hmmm, sounds a bit like what happens if the Bios jumper has been left in the short position for wiping the bios contents, but that is unlikely. I have the same motherboard, used it for 5 years ending up with P4P800SE bios flashed into it with a Pentium M chip and Asus 479 adaptor, it never let me …

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Re: Looking for a video card for Pentium 200 mmx

Posted on 2016-01-18, 11:39

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nothing helped. I tried clearing CMOS taking the battery off, I tried every bios setting, I tried changing the psu to see if that helps and nothing. I tried it in the three PCI slots too. It does work ok with my Trident 9680, but if I put the TNT2 and the Trident at the same time with the CRT …

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Re: Asus P4P800 Deluxe won't post

Posted on 2016-01-18, 10:24

by

by kaputnik

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Asus Socket-478 boards not posting is a common issue. Its mostly memory related but often who knows related... In many cases the board starts working again if you just forget about it now and try again in a month or two. You can try different memory modules, I would use a double sided 512MB PC3200 …

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