Re: HP Omnibook XE3-GC (Win98SE/Win2K): First foray into dual-booting

Posted on 2019-10-27, 18:24

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

No I meant that I have not seen that yellow tape thing, but I indeed saw the CMOS battery (and I tested it on my board, it's still holding up a good charge, I let the laptop sit unplugged last week and when testing it yesterday, the CMOS battery was still charged). But it's due for a replacement …

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Re: anything interesting in this card?

Posted on 2019-10-27, 18:11

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Eh to test something if it boots, sure why not, but using this in an actual build... Not so much.

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Re: HP Omnibook XE3-GC (Win98SE/Win2K): First foray into dual-booting

Posted on 2019-10-27, 13:50

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

@Rage I haven't seen this "yellow cellophane covered" thing on mine (by looking in the RAM trapdoor), but if it's where the battery is, this might be problematic the day I'll have to replace it. Unless the cellophane was missing on my unit... By the way, yes it's definitely a ZX chipset, so that's …

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Re: HDD WD 20MB XT

Posted on 2019-10-26, 23:03

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Grzyb wrote: There are HDDs compatible with both XTA and ATA, but the mode must be selected with a jumper. One such drive would be the Seagate ST351A/X, although its jumper settings can be quite unsettling: https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/ … -SL-IDE-AT.html

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Re: HDD WD 20MB XT

Posted on 2019-10-26, 20:30

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's a XTA (8-bit IDE) hard drive, so no it won't work in a 486 or higher as the IDE interface that was mostly used in computers was ATA (16-bit IDE/EIDE). Unless you have a 8-bit XTA card which I'm not sure will even work on a 16-bit PC.

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Re: PC hard drive backup / mirror

Posted on 2019-10-26, 17:06

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you have a Linux computer that still have a IDE port, then sure this could be a viable option. By the way I know under Linux you can do this from the "Disks" applet, because dd can be destructive (and belive me, I learned it the hard way...) Or else, if the hard drive is new enough to support LBA …

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Re: HP Omnibook XE3-GC (Win98SE/Win2K): First foray into dual-booting

Posted on 2019-10-26, 09:16

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Looking at the motherboard now (I tore it apart yesterday, a connector became loose and would cause issues), I couldn't find a CMOS battery on the mobo, and even without the laptop's battery in, it still retained the BIOS settings, so there must be some kind of super capacitor (like on the original …

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Re: "Fat Face" Compaq Presario: why?

Posted on 2019-10-25, 16:34

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Anonymous Coward wrote: http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/large/48/90/product-104890.jpg […] Show full quote Cor blimey! 😳 I wonder what kind of nasty stuff the designers at Compaq were high on when they designed this atrocity.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2019-10-25, 15:42

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

cyclone3d wrote: Ooooh, nice. I've been wanting to get a couple GTX 690 but the prices are just too high to justify it. There's a guy in Scunthorpe who's selling some for roughly 50 bucks or so, but they appear to be non-functional. I'll grab one soon enough just for shit and giggles for my …

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Re: Iomega ZIP CD 650 won't work

Posted on 2019-10-25, 11:23

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi! I hate to be the bearer of bad news but those ZipCD CD drives were quite unreliable, so there might be a high chance that your unit is a dud. Anyways, I may have located a driver for it, I can't confirm if it's the good one (as I do not have any ZipCD) but, please, give it a try, and report back …

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Re: HP Omnibook XE3-GC (Win98SE/Win2K): First foray into dual-booting

Posted on 2019-10-24, 23:20

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I'll give that a shot soon enough, but now that you mention it, I've looked on AIDA32 and it reports something among the lines of "440BX/ZX" so that might be it. Take a look for yourself, I've attached a Aida report. @oeuvre Tis sad to see what ThinkPads became, I had a L540 and this thing just... …

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Re: Looking for a multimedia kit?

Posted on 2019-10-24, 20:42

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I wonder what kind of stuff they smoked while posting this listing 😁 If anything I'd just buy it for the 5¼-inch FDD alone, these aren't getting any easier to find.

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Re: HP Omnibook XE3-GC (Win98SE/Win2K): First foray into dual-booting

Posted on 2019-10-24, 19:12

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Never had an Omnibook but know there's a bit of a cult following for them. Are they really that good? They feel quite solid, so that's certain, the keyboard doesn't feel that "mushy" (unlike the one on my Armada 1700 which feels like massaging fruit cake :dead:) so that's always a plus. As for the …

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Re: Music Quest MPU clone cards, anyone interested in them?

Posted on 2019-10-24, 16:24

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I have an idea for the future PCMIDI cards: laptop PCMCIA MPU-401 clones. Mightn't be a good idea, however, finding the Roland SC-55 PCMCIA card is rare and costs more than what it was back then. Oh this... This so much, I would freaking love to get one given that I'm obligated to collect retro …

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Re: Deskpro XL 590 restoration - questions

Posted on 2019-10-24, 16:17

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah agreed, using IDE drives on a machine with SCSI seems like of a waste, and despite popular belief, SCSI isn't that hard to understand once you get the basics: Each device in a SCSI chain must have its own ID (avoid ID 7 as it is often used by the SCSI host adapter/card), that means you can't …

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Re: SIV support for 386/486/586 class + Alpha CPUs and 3dfx + S3 + Matrox + old ATI + NVidia GPUs - Help needed with testing

Posted on 2019-10-24, 14:11

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah it's a bit strange, there are indeed two DIMMs, it ain't a big deal since I intended to swap them for 256mB DIMMs anyways. EDIT: Even AIDA32 (version 3.93 from 2004) reports only one.

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Re: SIV support for 386/486/586 class + Alpha CPUs and 3dfx + S3 + Matrox + old ATI + NVidia GPUs - Help needed with testing

Posted on 2019-10-24, 12:59

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So here we go, the DIMMs are both reported to be made by Infineon (which would be correct, as the chips on them were all Infineon-branded).

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Re: SIV support for 386/486/586 class + Alpha CPUs and 3dfx + S3 + Matrox + old ATI + NVidia GPUs - Help needed with testing

Posted on 2019-10-23, 20:47

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have not seen any other Xe3s other than GCs or GEs, so truth be told, I have no idea what the GF could have used (be it a Coppermine or Tuala)

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Re: SIV support for 386/486/586 class + Alpha CPUs and 3dfx + S3 + Matrox + old ATI + NVidia GPUs - Help needed with testing

Posted on 2019-10-23, 17:40

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I haven't really messed with the DIMMs yet (well as a starter, this laptop isn't exactly the easiest to work on, but I've seen way, way, way worse thankfully), they're still the original ones that came with the machine, although I swapped them (DIMM 1 in slot 2 and DIMM 2 in slot 1),when I got the …

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Re: SIV support for 386/486/586 class + Alpha CPUs and 3dfx + S3 + Matrox + old ATI + NVidia GPUs - Help needed with testing

Posted on 2019-10-23, 12:10

by

by Vynix

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think I figured out why Win2K kept getting corrupted... So, as you may not know, the battery is dead and therefore I am obligated to let my laptop plugged in... Well it turned out that the outlet the laptop was plugged into had a fault, and if I bumped slightly the AC adapter, the laptop would …

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