Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-08-03, 11:13

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today the mailman brought me a few hard disks. - 4,3GB WDC 14300, 1999. This seems like the only one that is fragile :p - 6,8 GB Samsung SV0682D, 2000 - 8,4GB WDC 28400, 1999. big brother of the first one 😀 Now there rises another problem: which computers to put them in? Need some more I guess 😉

---

Re: 486 cache & CPU upgrade questions

Posted on 2020-08-03, 10:21

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Don't know exactly what chips you'd need, should be any "regular" ones. but I'd take a look at AliExpress. I got some 256x1 chips there for my 286 and they work just fine :) so I expect cache chips to be ok too. About the CPU: Have you benchmarked this one side by side with your other 486 with the …

---

Re: Tips for thrifting 486 parts?

Posted on 2020-08-03, 09:53

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What chinny said exactly. Especially take a close look at smd components, check for broken legs or indication they may be pushed down (which can indicate internal damage to the chip) Tantalum capacitors should be standing right up, or all bent the same direction. If they are bent unevenly or not all …

---

Re: Master/Slave IDE problem on 386DX with Vitex I/O card and Conner CFS425A HDD

Posted on 2020-08-02, 19:35

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Been there too, came a long way as well. My 386 DX 40 runs a Conner 170MB drive and there is no way of running it along with the CDROM drive on three same IDE channel. I use a soundcard with IDE now.

---

Re: CDROM not recognized in DOS after a SOFT reset but works fine after a HARD POWER OFF reset. Any ideas?

Posted on 2020-08-02, 19:21

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Few thoughts came up. Will a regular hard disk/CF card be detected as secondary master? What if you set the CDROM as secondary slave? Will it be recognised then? Perhaps with a hard disk as primary if your bios does not accept a slave drive without master. What if you set an extra delay for …

---

Re: Windows 98 & DOS Graphics

Posted on 2020-08-02, 13:13

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Is the cpu Coppermine or tualatin? Anyways, I think the gf4 ti 4600 or 4800 will be a great choice. Fast, Windows drivers can still be pretty low version ( =lower CPU impact) and support is great. Also vesa is supported very well, although not as good as the slower TNT(2) and gf2. If you go voodoo, …

---

Re: Help with faulty(?) Pentium MMX Processor

Posted on 2020-07-31, 22:48

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

What controller cards so you have in your system? Can you remove any non vital ones? It may be CPU related. Could you reseat the CPU for 30 more times? Any dust or rust should be gone then, to make sure your contacts are ok. Also try to reseat cache (if possible on your board) and reseat your …

---

Re: Long Wait before Computer posts? Can't remember if this is normal for a 486

Posted on 2020-07-31, 17:57

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This may cause the delay... The motherboard may be re-checking over and over which CPU is used, but fail to identify it. Mentioning 100MHz down not mean the CPU is running at this speed. The bios simply may not be programmed to correctly report the speed. No Intel dx4 was intended to run at more …

---

Re: How important is a PCI graphics card in a 486?

Posted on 2020-07-30, 11:08

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

(...) But a card like a Matrox Millennium PCI with WRAM on a late 486 would be something I hope to see build sometime to see how well that card should help the cpu working in a "heavy" o.s. like Win95. My PCI 486 has one. It is working like a champion in dos and Windows 3.11 now. The Intel Ninja …

---

Re: Best isa gpu?

Posted on 2020-07-30, 10:07

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In my opinion, the words "GUI" and "ISA" can only exist in a sentence when choosing between them. For usability I'd go for at least VLB or PCI (or something EISA? Opti bus? Never used them). On the other hand, the best ISA cards with GUI support I used are the S3 928 and cirrus 542x. So about the …

---

Re: Is there any way to use all the space on a hard drive larger than 2gb on MS-DOS 6.22?

Posted on 2020-07-29, 22:08

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Large hard drives and DOS: DOS 7.x is the way to go. I believe PC DOS 7 and up do support fat32 as well, and are dedicated DOS, not linked to win 9x. Not tested myself but these should be able to install windows 3.1x without hassle. To get a good DOS 7.x install I did this: - boot any pc of VM with …

---

Re: The VOGONS Experience

Posted on 2020-07-28, 21:18

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sounds a little bit different from my... Lets say the story of a friend. :P But there's are quite a few similarities. A long time ago my father have me his first computer: an IBM model 30. I liked it. Played with it a lot. Still got it. From there he kept me feeding new stuff that got obsolete at …

---

Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-07-28, 18:20

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This Soyo Super Socket 7 board which looks like new: Should be a nice board! What CPU did you get with it? Well, the CPU is from another movie... a Pentium-S 100 Mhz. (And I had a K6-2+ 550Mhz (with 128K on chip cache) I gave it for free....) Meanwhile I tested the board - everything works fine... …

---

Re: Recommendations need it (Win98 build)

Posted on 2020-07-27, 20:42

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The Athlon will certainly be overpowered for win 98 gaming. That's a good thing, as it will run everything you'll throw at it. At least if you can find the needed drivers for the chipset. Pair that with a high end AGP card like the ATI 9800 (or 9600/9700) and you'll be ok. Otherwise I'd stick with …

---

Re: PSU voltage low but in spec?

Posted on 2020-07-26, 23:13

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I could look if there are some pods present if the voltages will drop to much with more load. Just hooking upa few more hard disks will do the trick :) About the ripple: I don't have anything pointing that way as I didn't notice any instability. It ran fine through the tests. Also I don't have the …

---

Re: PSU voltage low but in spec?

Posted on 2020-07-26, 22:30

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Voltage on my multimeter varied between 11.69 and 11.73 volts. The lower voltage was when something happened, ie when system post was going on, when switching from 2D to 3D with 3Dmark. But recovered soon. I'll test again some time and attach some extra drivers to see what happens.

---

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

Posted on 2020-07-26, 21:08

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Tested a bunch of PSU units to see if they still work... 6 ATX units working 1 ATX unit broken (suspect it already) 2 AT units working 3 AT units broken (2 suspected, one surprise). 1 Tulip PC Compact 2 unit working 1 weird form factor AT compatible unit working 1 PS/2 model 30 8086 PSU working …

---

PSU voltage low but in spec?

Posted on 2020-07-26, 19:51

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today I took some time to test my spare power supplies that I didn't test in the past three years. Just a basic check with this hardware: - motherboard Asus Medion 2001 - Celly 733 - 128MB pc100 (was on top of the stack) - TNT2 N - Some random hard disk (Excelstor) Among the 6 tested PSU units was …

---

Re: Your favorite retro socket/platform

Posted on 2020-07-25, 22:50

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

1) Socket 1/2/3 486 for sure. You just gotta love VLB and it's quirks. 2) super 7. Taking the underdog from AMD to bully Intel slot 1 is fun! 3) dip40 8088 / V20 turbo XT. Just to overcome and stretch the limitations is pure satisfaction. 4) any 286/386, just fun to work with :) 5) socket 370. …

---

Re: IBM 5150, correct period considerations and more

Posted on 2020-07-25, 14:28

by

by waterbeesje

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

With the ems i mean expanded memory, on another ISA adapter card to upgrade memory above 640kB. There are lots of internet pages that describe it better than I can, for example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanded_memory#EMS There are ISA adapter cards that allow a 286 or 386 CPU to work on pc …

---