Robert B wrote:

...My original system was bought in '96 and I gave it away for free, around +/- 2005. With each passing year I was starting to regret more doing that 😁

I think a lot of us here did the same thing, so it seems to be a common thread among old computer enthusiasts.

Robert B wrote:

...Glorious 4MB RAM...

That was ridiculously little for 1996 🤣 My first PC was bought in December 1994, also with 4MB and before 1995 was over I had already upgraded it to 8MB because 4MB was just unbearable 😵 By 1996 it had 16MB and that was the last of the RAM upgrades for that particular PC.

I think we all get a little nostalgic once we get "older" 😁

I asked for 4MB 😁 The majority in my highschol class had 4MB so that was the norm, I guess. In '98 I got + 4MB of ram, the ESS1868, Stereo Speakers and an LG CD-ROM. This upgrade was also expensive.In highschool In our lab in '94 we only had Commodore 64, Robotron, some other PC clones and a Philips 286. You could still see some giant cabinets with tape drives and punched cards in a room next to the labs.

My second PC with 440BX+Celeron 366A also came with little RAM. I'll upload the seller leaflet tomorrow 😁 I found it last year 😁

I think there's a little more to it than nostalgia - there are certain eras which could be seen as "paradigm changers" specific to certain fields. The 486+/VGA timeframe was one of former mentioned specific to entertainment/visualization related technology - a quantum leap in connection with "bleeding edge" software like Doom & co. Todays ubiquitous PC power + huge cookie-cutter companies do not emit that kind of flaire in any way.

My first PC was a Pentim 60/8Mb machine from Vobis(February 1995) running Dos & OS/2. Starting up Doom, Warcraft, Blood and QTest/Quake on it was a blast beyond imagination. I remember many "depraved" 386 owners eyeing in disbelief how "smooth" some games would run on said machine. The best moments being two stoned friends who played Doom and Rise Of The Triad - all with head movement and full body maneuvers which nearly catapulted them out of their chairs.

Unfortunately, I too made the mistake of giving away this machine in 1998 for a mere 80$ when I got my P233MMX... looking back a harsh mistake as it was such a beautiful "tower of power" from a long forgotten company.

As promised this is the leaflet of my second PC.

5 October 1999

MSI 6154 motherboard - 440BX - Creative 128 Soundcard onboard - I still have the CD with drivers but I dont have the motherboard anymore
Celeron A 366 MHz - I this CPU in my stash 😁
SD-RAM 16-32 MB but I dont know fore sure
HDD Fujitsu 5400 RPM 8.4 GB - which I still own and is in good working condition
Mircoatx case - this case was great and I could remove the panel by releasing two plastic hooks at the back.

The video adapter was for a short time ATI RAGE IIC 4MB which was soon upgraded to a nVIDIA Vanta 8 MB which I still own 😁

I remember that I wanted a 7200 rpm HDD but I listened to what the seller said and settled on a 5400 rpm drive. In the end I regretted this choice...

I also wanted a 400 MHz Celeron A but I bought a 366 MHz Celeron A and later I regretted this too 😁 Oh well that's life 😁 You live and learn all the time 😁

I doubt it was 16MB. I've never seen a 16MB SDRAM DIMM, and it would have been even more ridiculously little in late 1999 than the 4MB in 1996. Even 32MB was terrible 😁 Was RAM that expensive where you live? My relatively cheap Pentium II from mid 1998 came with 64MB, which was ok at the time, but also upgraded to 128MB and then to 224MB at some point.

I don't think you need to call any Celeron above 300MHz Celeron A. That was used only on the 300MHz part to distinguish the new 128KB cache part from the older cacheless one.

Tomorrow if I have time I'll upload pictures with 16MB SD-RAM PC100 STICKS 😁 I assure you the prices for RAM in the 90's in my country were ridiculous 😁 Also the components were also waaaaayy to expensive. I still remember when I upgraded to 32MB or 64MB of RAM. The details are a little hazy...

https://www.ebay.com/p/Mt8lsdt264ag-662c1-Mic … mory/1528482379
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MT8LSDT264AG-662C1-Mi … y-/332216316616

Anyway these are just facts which shouldnt matter too much....

The shops that were selling hardware were few and so the prices were inflated. Also all the prices were in USD and this was ridiculous too 😁 My father paid around 800-1000USD for the 5x86 in '96. I dont remember the conversion rate.

You had to wait at least 2 weeks for delivery if you were lucky 😁 Also all the componets were imported so there was the matter of import taxes.....this feels so loooongggg time ago. I can't belive it....

The PIII-450 of my cousin came with only 32-64MB of RAM in 1999 and a SiS graphic adapter.....pretty lame if you ask me.....😁

L.E. I'm still debating if I should buy more HARDWARE - the amount I can muster is kind of scary 😁 so many hands trying to reach out (SAVE ME!!!) and my wallet of course 😁....what do you think? 😁

I leave you with a classic: Giorgio Moroder - Evolution (Miamix Edit) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9qmWLqbxzM / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8gT7_UkP-w&t=824s

Now I'm going to ride my road bike which of course is an OLD HORSE made of steel with new components 😁 I have it since 2001 (MADE IN JAPAN FTW!!!) and was manufactured in 1989/1990: RED WHITE AND BLACK!!! 😁 FTW!!!

3RD TIME (MAYBE) LUCKY? AOpen Aeolus GF4 Ti 4200 128MB AGP 8x

This is my third GF4 and I hope is in good working condition. It was bought today from the flea market.

The previous 4600 Ti and 4200 Ti I found, werent doing so well. The Asus GF4 4600 Ti was giving artifacts and the Leadtek GF 4200 Ti was missing a lot of ceramic capacitors and wasnt giving any signal to the monitor. What could you expect from dumpster diving? 😁

As usual, the AOpen will receive a full cleanup and will be returned to its former glory.

More NEXT WEEK!!!

A new GF4 RISES FROM ITS ASHES! AOpen Aeolus GF4 Ti 4200 128MB AGP 8x DVC128 (N8) VIVO

(whisper) I hope I'm not going to eat my words if in the end the graphic card wont be in good working condition 😁 For sure, a future test will clear this unknown. Regardless, I treated this GF4 as a GPU that is firing on all its cylinders 😁

As usual the card was dirty and lost its shine. I did my magic and sure enough it was returned to its former glory.

Arrival state

gallery: https://postimg.cc/gallery/i61bbl36/

Cleaning

The card was cleaned very well. I even cleaned all the screws. By using a cotton disk and a screwdriver each screw had its thread cleaned until it was shining. The card was also washed with isopropyl alcohol 99%.
This process doesnt require any presentation 😁 Talk about obsessions!

Artic MX-4 thermal paste was used on the graphic chip.

gallery: https://postimg.cc/gallery/l2oqg3nc/

Final results

Nothing more to add 😁 Smooth sailing all the way!!!

I keep my fingers crossed that the card will function as intended. I dont have a test bed set up yet.

gallery: https://postimg.cc/gallery/1lur10v42/

More later.

L.E.

3rd time LUCKY INDEED!

The 4200 Ti is purring like a kitten 😁. The fan is silent and runs great. Go figure !!! 😁

I wasnt going to take out of storage a motherboard with AGP 4x or AGP 8X so I used the PIII build. I was a little apprehensive to test an AGP 8x card in a 2x slot but after I quickly refreshed my knowledge with the help of Good Ol' internet 😁, I did it and I found that the AOpen Aeolus 4200 Ti is still going strong. Flawless victory!!!

http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html

In pictures, the 4200 Ti runs on the LuckyStar 6VABX2 VER. 2.0 motherboard + PIII 550MHz.

gallery: https://postimg.cc/gallery/1kt68aws8/

Today I made some tests with my new phone 😁

The Samsung Galaxy S4 used to take all the pictures in the thread was getting long in the tooth, loosing signal and stuff and I received a free Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016) from my carrier with a new contract.

At first I was afraid that the quality of the photographs was going to suffer but in the end all my worries were put to rest 😀 !!!

See for yourself. As usual I only take photos on sunny days to fully exploit the advantages they offer to my "budget" camera 😁

Tommorrow I'm going to the flea market to see what "the cat dragged in" 😁

More later.

gallery: https://postimg.cc/gallery/jgg1i56g/

This episode is plain and simple called: NOTHING SPECTACULAR. I'm sure you will agree with me, if not entirely, at least in part.

Here it goes 😁

The two graphic adapters I'm about to tell you about, aren't something extraordinary or eye catching, but they kept me busy for a few hours 😀

My last visit to the flea market ended with the purchase of a Leadtek WinFast A7600 GS TDH 256MB 128bit AGP graphic card and a Inno3D Tornado Geforce 2 MX400 - M400R12 64MB 64bit AGP graphic card, that's quite a mouthfull for a low end card 😁

So here I was with two cards which by some standards should've been left in the scrapheap 😁

The Leadtek was bought because it looked pretty clean. Some light dust and a few scratches here and there. I couldn't leave it to die so I gave it another lease of life, providing, of course that future testing will reveal that it is in good working condition. Otherwise it will be a clean good looking paper weight 😁 just like my dead Leadtek 6600GT.

The Inno3D was bought just for the name Inno3D. It reminds me of some nice cards back in the day. This card was absolutely disgusting! At first, the back label tricked me and I thought it was a 64 bit DDR card, but in the end I found out it is a 64 bit SDR card. I wiped the dirt from a VRAM module and tried to find some information by searching the codes. Tough LUCK!!! Who the F..K is SOLUTION?!?! So I said to myself how can I differentiate SDR and DDR without puting the card in a PC? EASY! Just count the contact points on one side of a SDR or DDR memory chip. The SDR IC has 27x2 contact points and the DDR should have at least 33x2 or more contact points on the PCB. Mistery solved: Inno3D has SDR and 64 bit - YUCK!!! How low can you get....

Regardless, what I own MUST BE SPOTLESS so I carried on with the cleaning process.

Steps:

1. Full disassembly.
2. Isopropyl alcohol 99% wash. Some paper laber labels were hurt in the process. Inno3D lost some text in translation but that's no big problem 😁
3. Cleaning of the fans and heatsinks.
4. Oiling of the fans.
5. Cleaning of the brackets.
6. Straightening of the bent heatsink fins on the 7600GS.
7. New Arctic MX-4 thermal grease and new Arctic heatpad for the 7600GS PCI-E/AGP bridge IC. Inno3D has a glued heatsink and it was left in place. The heatsink is croocked and one side is in the air.A 10/10 job! GG!!!
8. Final assembly.

You are familiar with the steps above and they dont need further clarification. I take my "work" very serious 😁

In the end both of the cards came out pretty well. As expected the Leadtek was better looking.

Note. The exposed die of the 7600 GS is chipped on all four corners due to the fact that when any kind of force is applied on the heatsink, it moves accordingly. Four sponge black squares were glued to the heatsink but they werent sufficient to prevent chipping. BAD DEISGN CHOICE!!! Anyway the damage is not terminal and future testing will reveal if the card is alive or not. The PCI-E/AGP bridge IC is not chipped at all.

This was a short account about two cards who were lucky enough to come into my little-big collection 😁

Arrival state:

gallery: https://postimg.cc/gallery/tn6j5iy8/

Cleaning:

gallery: https://postimg.cc/gallery/2siob7t6w/

Final results:

gallery: https://postimg.cc/gallery/1024r0i64/

More later.

P.S. This week I'll receive three graphic cards which should be quite pleasent to look at: A VIOLET violent thing, A smaller Ti and the original trinitrotoluene 😁 Sneak peek Thursday or Friday 😁

Robert B wrote:

So here I was with two cards which by some standards should've been left in the scrapheap 😁

Agreed about the GeForce2 MX, but the 7600GS should be a pretty good AGP card.

I agree the 7600GS is nice but a 7600GT would've been better 😁 anyway at the cost of 2.22 EUR, I got a bitchin' card if it will be in good working condition. At this date this is unknown. The MX400 will be tested soon in the PIII 550.

ya need to get yourself a nice 5:4 or 4:3 LCD (or CRT if you swing that way) monitor. Personally I can't stand playing 4:3 games on a widescreen monitor - that stretched image ticks me off.

I have a HP LP2065 and it is great. I would like a CRT but they are too BIG to fit in memory 😁

Re: Hello, World! :D - Robert B's PC builds - oogle away freely :)

FRESH DELIVERY!!!

The V1 has slight damage but I hope it can be repaired 😁

Full cleanup and other details later.

All the pieces will be photographed, cleaned and returned to their original glory!!!!

Laaaaaaaaaaaaadieeeeeeeeeeees and gentlemen!!! today was another of those glorious days!

I feel great!!! Today I received some great hardware:

* a V1 which was really something back in the day,
* a TNT which when it came out couldnt make us imagine how BIG nVIDIA will become, or that it will bring the demise of 3dfx, GREAT things sometimes have humble beginnings,
* a GF 3 Ti 200, a smaller Ti, but it still packs a punch
* a GF 2 Ti , sooooooo VIOLET and pretty rare.

Not all is sunshine and roses. One of the cards has some signs of damage. We will see later which one it is.

Before we tackle the main course may I suggest some appetizers?

This episode is called: "A Little bit of house cleaning"

So be it!

House clean....say what?!?! Have you lost your marbles? No. No, I'm not really talking about house cleaning, it's just a way to speak about my builds and my HW stash 😁 So, we get to the gist of the phrase. One of my finished builds was suffering of an unknown problem. The PIII-550 build was losing its BIOS settings once it was unplugged from the mains.

PIII-550MHz losing BIOS settings? NO WAY!!!

I tried:

* New CMOS/BIOS battery - NO DICE!
* Bending the contacts of the battery socket from the mainboard - NO DICE!

After several hours of searching on the internet I found a post which suggested the PSU might be the culprit.

The 235W JNC, which is more than 18 years old, to be the culprit?!?! 😁. NO WAY!!! I opened it, but I saw no sign of damage. The multimeter test during LOAD revealed great voltages. Hmmmm, then it might be the CapXcon caps for sure.

I went to a local company and bought a SH PSU with 1 year warranty HEC - 300W model HEC 300-TA-2WX - Bronze rating.

Yes, yes, I know I'm replacing a crappy PSU with a less crappy PSU, but it is vital that I know the PSU is the culprit before I invest in a better one. I went from CapXcon to TEAPO... not much of an upgrade. Regardless, the system wont run 24/7.

After I replaced the PSU, the PIII-550 build didnt lose its BIOS settings after it was disconnected from the mains. PROBLEM SOLVED! 😁

A tight fit!

The HEC PSU is very silent and has another advantage. It takes the heat produced by the CPU out of the case. The 12 cm fan is better placed than the 8 cm one form the JNC PSU. The SLOT CPUs have the nasty habbit to blow heat over the graphic card and into the top of the case. TALK ABOUT BAD DESIGN CHOICES!!!

I also tested the Inno3D MX-400 graphic card, which runs great. The poor man's Geforce 256 😁 - The fan is running great even after all these years of abuse.

Now we get to the part WITHOUT sunshine and roses.

The V1 which was the most important to me, came a little damaged:

a. One solid capacitor almost lost its head, not in translation, but literally - needs replacement
b. Minor damage to the contact pins, in the shape of the letter "Z", of the graphic chips - the damage is not terminal, and there are no signs of separation from the PCB or contact between them
c. Small scrathes on the PCB traces - the damage is not terminal

The V1 was tested by the owner and it run well even with the problems mentioned above.

All in all I call this V1 - Functional but without ALL CREWS REPORTING...for now...

The GF3 Ti 200 doesnt have the original fan but I believe I can make a better job I believe = I KNOW 4 SURE!!!

More later. Next comes the "recovery" of all the pacients!

Cast:

1. AOpen Geforce 2 Ti VX 64MB DDR AGP - GF2TiVX V64
2. Asus Geforce 3 Ti 200 - 64MB DDR AGP - V8200T2/64MB/(TVR) Rev. 1.00
3. Creative Riva TNT 16MB SDR AGP - CT6710
4. Diamond Monster 3D (3Dfx Voodoo 1) 4MB PCI - Rev.E

Robert B wrote:

The Inno3D was bought just for the name Inno3D. It reminds me of some nice cards back in the day. This card was absolutely disgu […]
Show full quote

The Inno3D was bought just for the name Inno3D. It reminds me of some nice cards back in the day. This card was absolutely disgusting! At first, the back label tricked me and I thought it was a 64 bit DDR card, but in the end I found out it is a 64 bit SDR card. I wiped the dirt from a VRAM module and tried to find some information by searching the codes. Tough LUCK!!! Who the F..K is SOLUTION?!?! So I said to myself how can I differentiate SDR and DDR without puting the card in a PC? EASY! Just count the contact points on one side of a SDR or DDR memory chip. The SDR IC has 27x2 contact points and the DDR should have at least 33x2 or more contact points on the PCB. Mistery solved: Inno3D has SDR and 64 bit - YUCK!!! How low can you get....

It seems I actually have the Inno3D Tornado Geforce 2 MX200....32MB SDRAM 😁 (yes I did count the pins on the memory chips...27x2/chip and mine were of an odd brand as well)
Not sure wether it's 64bit or 128bit (64bit seems to me to be the more likely of the 2) but the name does sound pretty cool 😜
Mine looks very similar to the one to the left, except that mine is shorter.

link to larger image

The Purple GF2 indeed looks fantastic! 😁
Definitely a keeper in my book 😁

@tetrium: That card makes us BROTHERS in ARMS 😁 ToooorRRRnnnnnadddddooooo!!! (echo echo echo) 😁 The PURPLE card is not for sale and I'm sure you dont want to hear THE NOT FOR SALE PRICE!!! 😁

Today I spent two hours with the repair of the damaged V1.

I watched a YouTube video and I saw there is no big deal with the soldering of an SMD capacitor. The hardest part is to remove such a capacitor because to do it right you would need a soldering station with a heat gun and I dont have one. Luckily my job was already done as the capacitor lost its head 😁 Besides the damaged capacitor another one was a little out of its normal position but because the shift was very small I decided to change it only if the V1 wouldnt work as intended.

I used a small soldering iron and in seconds I removed the damaged capacitor. Then I used solder wick to remove the leftover solder.

I searched a spare SMD 10uf 16V in my box-o-parts and other donor cards but I couldnt find one. So I went to a local electronics shop but they didnt have a capacitor either.

So I said to myself, instead of losing my time searching in the local shops, who only sell dodgy electrolytic capacitors, I should go to a repair center. So I went to the local SAMSUNG service center. I knew the people there were nice and I had a better chance to find what I was looking for.

I went to the repair center and I asked politely if they could help me. I talked to a gentleman and I said that I need a few SMD capacitors 10uf 16V. I said in exchange I would offer a good price. So after 5 minutes in which I heard a promising metalic rattle in a plastic container, the gentleman came back with two new capacitors 😁

WIN! WIN! WIN! I overpaid a little but now I know I have a reliable source for other components I might need.

20 mintes later the capacitor was resting neatly on the PCB.

First I put solder on one PAD, then I soldered one leg of the capacitor, then, after I saw that the position was good I soldered the other leg.

Problem solved!

I tested the V1 in the PIII-550 and it was identified correctly.

I didnt play a game with the V1 but I say it is OKAY! I'll run some demos at a later date.

Now I can focus on the other cards, as the damaged V1 took over all my thoughts!

I bought another liter of isopropyl alcohol 99% just to be sure I have enough for the task ahead.

Next will come the restoration of the other three "victims". 😁

More later.

gallery: https://postimg.cc/gallery/huyafb64/

Robert B wrote:

@tetrium: That card makes us BROTHERS in ARMS 😁 ToooorRRRnnnnnadddddooooo!!! (echo echo echo) 😁

You should try the vanta 😁
But the most slowest card I ever actually used, was the SiS 6326. It seemed that nothing could make that card run reasonably fast. Afaict this might be the slowest AGP card ever made 😜

Robert B wrote:

The PURPLE card is not for sale and I'm sure you dont want to hear THE NOT FOR SALE PRICE!!! 😁

And rightfully so!
My purple beauty is not for sale either! 😁

Tetrium wrote:

But the most slowest card I ever actually used, was the SiS 6326 ... Afaict this might be the slowest AGP card ever made 😜

Trident 3DImage 9750?

devius wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

But the most slowest card I ever actually used, was the SiS 6326 ... Afaict this might be the slowest AGP card ever made 😜

Trident 3DImage 9750?

Seems like a really good candidate 🤣
Not sure if I have one of those.

Maybe I should retry the 6326 at some time.