Re: ATX/Micro ATX mid/mini towers that best match baby AT dimensions?

Posted on 2016-03-26, 17:47

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My 2 Baby AT mini towers are about 12.5" tall. It's kind of difficult with modern ATX cases... while you may find cases of the same height you will have some problems: - Many (most?) newer cases have at most 1 3.5" external bay - The mounting holes in the motherboard tray may not match with Baby AT …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2016-03-26, 17:34

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's really cool Formulator! The Paradise VGA with the Indy bundle brings so many memories... I remember when I bought that game back in the day. Good times.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2016-03-25, 21:14

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I just picked up a pile of old hardware on eBay. I only knew some of what was included, and it was worth the money ($20+$12 shipping)... here is what ended up being in the lot: Three motherboard boxes: One: A nearly-new Asus A7V motherboard (Socket A, Via KT133, PC-133, ATX), that looks like it was …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2016-03-12, 22:03

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just bought (finally!) a full 486 on eBay, € 51 + shipping: http://s5.postimg.org/dj6gf7oer/image.jpg Here the specs: Motherboard: Unichip 486 WB 4407 Rev 1.1 CPU: Intel A80486DX-33 VGA: Cirrus Logic VLB CL-GD5428 HD/Floppy controller: MIO-2080 HD: IBM H3256-A3 256MB IDE Floppy PSU: SK-230W (?) …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2016-03-11, 18:59

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just bought (finally!) a full 486 on eBay, € 51 + shipping: http://s5.postimg.org/dj6gf7oer/image.jpg Here the specs: Motherboard: Unichip 486 WB 4407 Rev 1.1 CPU: Intel A80486DX-33 VGA: Cirrus Logic VLB CL-GD5428 HD/Floppy controller: MIO-2080 HD: IBM H3256-A3 256MB IDE Floppy PSU: SK-230W (?) …

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Re: Leaping Lab rats! Another build progress of some kind by Reese!

Posted on 2016-03-06, 04:36

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does the keyboard work in DOS? If so, go into the CMOS setup and set "Keyboard Installed" to "No". Unfortunately, it won't let me progress. The POST screen does tell me to press F1 to continue or DEL to enter the BIOS, but it doesn't do either. The keyboard does flash its lights after the RAM test, …

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

Posted on 2016-03-06, 04:19

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Those ATX -> AT converters are relatively cheap, but still probably more expensive than rolling your own if you have PSUs that aren't worth fixing that you can harvest parts from. Instead of connecting the green and black wires together (which will cause the PSU to power on every time power is …

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Re: Help with cache ram!!!

Posted on 2016-02-28, 21:44

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nice! That will definitely be useful for others who unfortunately have fake cache in their retro PCs! I'm still amazed at how those motherboard manufacturers got away with this... total impunity! Imagine if a car manufacturer would sell models with engines featuring a couple of "fake cilinders"! 😁

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Re: Has anyone else had their system catch fire?

Posted on 2016-02-25, 20:23

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, not exactly fire but still somewhat funny nonetheless: One morning back in 2000 or so I turned on my Pentium III PC only to have the power supply make a strange "pzzzzzzt" sound followed by a black smoke cloud that left a nice stain on the wall. The strange part is that both the stain and the …

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SB Live 5.1 Digital Front Panel Connector

Posted on 2016-02-22, 20:49

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hello I have a Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital (model SB0220) that has a proprietary white front panel audio connector, apparently this card was bundled with Dell PCs that had this special connector for the front panel (though I bought mine as a retail version back then IIRC, never had any Dells). …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2016-02-22, 02:59

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As an iconic American rapper Ice Cube once rapped.. "Today was a good day" :cool: :cool: http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/922/O90Zpe.jpg http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/922/z7jCGi.jpg http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/1024x768q90/922/NBgxjb.jpg Wow! Now that's something you …

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Re: Alternatives to storage devices (hard disk drives) in "legacy" PC's - advice needed

Posted on 2016-02-19, 19:18

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The boot failure issue under DOS with CF is generally resolved by simply running FDISK /MBR after installing. I haven't heard many people complaining about write speed under DOS with CF either, as it was said before DOS doesn't do massive writing to the HDD in normal situations. Anyway, in my case ( …

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Re: Alternatives to storage devices (hard disk drives) in "legacy" PC's - advice needed

Posted on 2016-02-19, 18:33

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In my experience using CF cards with a CF-IDE adapter for DOS 6.22/Windows 3.1 builds has been very convenient. Every I/O controller card detects the adapter without issues, and performance doesn't seem to be a problem (in fact, I get better read/write speeds with CF cards than with my old IDE …

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Re: SB16 CT2940 causes keyboard to stop responding

Posted on 2016-02-19, 07:39

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just an update on this, as I seem to have found the cause of the problem: after doing some further testing I started getting "Internal stack overflow - System halted" errors and instability while running Doom. This led me to suspect memory issues, so I replaced the 16MB of 60ns Parity FPM (4 30-pin …

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SB16 CT2940 causes keyboard to stop responding

Posted on 2016-02-18, 23:27

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi guys I just installed a Creative SB16 CT2940 in one of my 486 builds and I'm having some strange issues. I first installed CTCM, it detected the card just fine and assigned all ports without conflicts. Then I installed the drivers and after everything was set up I ran DIAGNOSE.EXE to check if the …

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

Posted on 2016-02-07, 23:19

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Went through some of my boxes and found Acorp ATC-1415 board to play with. It had some problems as it would run CPU's only at 5V and it wouldn't run an ISA video card. So I tried it with ISA sound card. It worked fine. I already removed the leaking barrel battery when I got it. But it wouldn't …

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Re: L2 Cache problem on 486 mainboard

Posted on 2016-02-01, 23:59

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I agree with Tetrium. JS2 should be in 1-2 according to the manual.

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Re: PC100 M747 - The bane of my existence

Posted on 2016-01-29, 20:33

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nice to see all those examples of PCChips legacy! They really infested the market with their garbage. :lol: I assume the naming of the chipsets with stuff like "BXcel" or "BXPro" is a way of misleading customers into thinking that they're buying something that is comparable to Intel's 440BX right? …

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Re: PSU - bust the myth

Posted on 2016-01-29, 17:07

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by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This thread prompted me to open an old Antec SmartPower 2.0 I had in storage. Every single Fuhjyyu cap was bulging and leaking . Though this PSU worked well enoguh back when I used it, I would stay away of these things for retro builds. I also had an Antec TruePower 450W and a TruePower Trio 650W, …

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PC100 M747 - The bane of my existence

Posted on 2016-01-29, 03:15

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today while I was doing some cleaning in my house I found this, lurking in a dark corner like an ancient evil that is not to be disturbed: http://i.imgur.com/nw0muvz.jpg?1 Yes, it's the heinous PC100 M747 , a slot 1 motherboard from the late 90s made by PCChips under the brand "PC100". It is without …

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