OK ..this works ..but you first have to create a bootable /s floppy ..
load it first then access cd drive..
read the readme in the zip.
rgds
VS

Another OS gap filled in my laptop collection..
I had an HP Compaq NX7400 in the loft which still fitted with its original hard drive ..
The OS was destroyed totally ..as the hard drive was faulty ..(damaged sectors)
Luckilly the restore partition was still intact..and managed to image & transfer this to a working 80gb hard drive and activate it to do a full system restore of Windows Vista Business.

Vipersan wrote:

Thanks Ian .. Trying an idea myself today .. No thermal paste involved as yet ..but a copper piece cut as in the photo ..which I […]
Show full quote

Thanks Ian ..
Trying an idea myself today ..
No thermal paste involved as yet ..but a copper piece cut as in the photo ..which I'm hoping will transfer heat up to the steel drive frame..
no anchor point below the cpu so left a curled section which hopefully will act as a spring so that the keyboard itself provides some downward force when fitted ..
and there is room on top of the plate above the cpu...for aluminium fins (a proper low profile heatsink ) to be glued.
rgds
VS

What goes into that socket next to the CPU?
What about this idea; copper plate, heatsink on top of 486... then, using small pieces of foam double-sided tape on the 4 corners, attach a low-profile fan to the 387 co-processor? With a slight gap caused by the foam tape offset, it should still draw heat off the CPU.
Or, depending on what that socket is for, the same thing could be done there, instead. Air flowing through the case has to be better than no air flow, yes?

The dual pcmcia / ISA kit I snagged from the USA arrived yesterday so spent most of last night fitting the ISA card in the 16 bit T5200 slot ...hooking up the dual pcmcia interface ..and getting the CF installed Win95 to recognise it ..
Then came the task of Xircom drivers for the credit card adapter ..
Much floppy shuffling ..and several drivers tested ..but eventually it went in.
Luckilly the later version of Win95 natively supports pcmcia (cardbus).
I now have access to my network with the T5200 ..so in theory I _could_ install version 5.5 of IE ..and get on the net.
but having such resticted aspect ratio (not even 800x600) would there be any point as chances are I could only see the google web page with severe restrictions.
nonetheless ..I feel it is an achievement worth noting.
rgds
VS

After several hours of trying I cannot get the T5200 to work with the Panasonic pcmcia sound card ..
I guess ..if I want sound I'm going to have to use an ISA sound card in the 8 bit slot ..
Not that I have one.
cest la vie

having given up with the pcmcia sound card ..I spotted a Zida SCV6 Vibra 16XV 8bit ISA Sound Card.
untested on fleabay for £20 delivered.
Took the plunge and grabbed it.
just hope I can find drivers for it.
Maybe this will solve my no sound issue.
This hobby is a bottomless pit for spending.

🤣

Ok ..given up on the Panasonic PCMCIA sound card/cd drive combo..
..and decided to use the dual pcmcia reader for network adapter & CD drive access only.
To that end successfully installed the Sony PCGA-CD51/A instead..
This along with the Xircom credit card network adapter gives the T5200 access to the outside world beyond floppy disk.
Fingers crossed the 8 bit sound card I found on fleabay...will cater for the lack of audio.
we shall see..
rgds
VS

Vipersan wrote:

After several hours of trying I cannot get the T5200 to work with the Panasonic pcmcia sound card .. I guess ..if I want sound I […]
Show full quote

After several hours of trying I cannot get the T5200 to work with the Panasonic pcmcia sound card ..
I guess ..if I want sound I'm going to have to use an ISA sound card in the 8 bit slot ..
Not that I have one.
cest la vie

the ESS 1688 sound card I bought on ebay just arrived (picking it up as soon as I finish typing).
I'll let you know if it works in my 8 bit slot on my T5200.

Hamby wrote:

Vipersan wrote:

After several hours of trying I cannot get the T5200 to work with the Panasonic pcmcia sound card .. I guess ..if I want sound I […]
Show full quote

After several hours of trying I cannot get the T5200 to work with the Panasonic pcmcia sound card ..
I guess ..if I want sound I'm going to have to use an ISA sound card in the 8 bit slot ..
Not that I have one.
cest la vie

the ESS 1688 sound card I bought on ebay just arrived (picking it up as soon as I finish typing).
I'll let you know if it works in my 8 bit slot on my T5200.

Thanks Hamby ...
all this just to make an old lappy designed for dos or at best win3.1 work after 1995..
🤣

Vipersan wrote:

Thanks Hamby ...
all this just to make an old lappy designed for dos or at best win3.1 work after 1995..
🤣

🤣 I know. I've already spent 3 times what I was "willing" to spend on this.
But, my dream was gas-plasma display, sound card and network adapter.
(and I still have to get that wireless adapter...)
The ESS1688F card is much shorter than my 8-bit soundblaster C1350... close to 2 inches, I'd say. I followed the traces, and the 2nd part of the edge card seems to only connect to the IDE connector. So I'm hoping I can get it to work as a soundcard in the 8-bit slot. I was originally going to try an ESS 1689F, but then someone suggested the 1688 might work better. It has jumpers for setting IRQ and DMA, and whether the IDE connector is on or off, as well as a jumper to toggle the joystick/midi port.

I'll see if I can get some pics of it tonight. Maybe try installing it tomorrow after I do the major upgrade (CF card, battery, roms, etc)

Here is a pic of the one I ordered..
small enough ..I hope
🤣

Currently building Win95 yet again ..
This time on an actual hard drive ..but not a full sized.
Thought I'd see if there was enough space to squeeze in a 2.5 inch 20gb laptop drive ..and also ..the dual pcmcia interface unit ..
see pics attached.

Vipersan wrote:

Here is a pic of the one I ordered..
small enough ..I hope
🤣

yeah, that one ought to work.
Certainly plenty small enough; smaller than mine.

Not often we brag about it being small eh ?
🤣
😀

Vipersan wrote:

Not often we brag about it being small eh ?
🤣
😀

🤣

I pulled a cpu fan off of an old ATI video card. It is about the same height as the 486 heatsink IanB sent me, But the fan pulls out of the surrounding "cage". I was wondering if I could just stick the fan (in its cage) on the CPU by itself, and get better heat dissipation than the heat sink alone, or if I could stick the fan to the heatsink (still doubles the height...). Or, as I suggested before, attach the fan either on the 387 or on that empty socket next to the CPU.

but, how much power does it draw? The power wires are pretty thin, and I'm not sure where I would attach them (and I still don't have a soldering iron).

Does it say anywhere on the fan what voltage it uses ?
either 5v or 12v I would think.
If 2 wires only then no feedback control .
Assuming it is only 2 wires and you can establish the working voltage ..then I would think the needed supply could be got easily enough from the power molex plug to the hard drive..
In line breakout supply connectors for fans on molex can be easily obtained..
such as this one.

Okay, I opened up my T5200...

The battery is a Toshiba, but it has some kind of a resistor attached to it.
I'll be replacing it with a single 2032 button battery.

So... I guess I should get back to upgrading it. If it weren't for the CF drive replacement, I wouldn't have to take any more of the machine apart... wish me luck... 😕 😢

Hamby wrote:

The "empty socket" I'd seen in a picture was the socket for the 387... I took the chip to the left of the CPU to be the 387. So what is that chip to the left of the CPU?

The chip to the left of the CPU is the cache controller and the chip to the right is the optional 387 maths co-processor and you already have that fitted plus 8MB of RAM which is a great starting point! The 387 should be compatible with the replacement CPU so you just need to fit the new CPU, the CF card, the battery and and any ISA cards and you're good to go!

If you want to pickup power for a fan, I would use a power splitter from the HD power cable like Vipersan suggested.

The empty SIMM socket on the right of the RAM board is for a parity SIMM when used with larger 8MB SIMM pairs as they couldn't fit all the chips in the available space on the SIMMs. The 2MB SIMM pairs used smaller chips so the parity chips could be fitted directly to the SIMMs which meant the extra slot wasn't required for them.

Vipersan wrote:

Here is a pic of the one I ordered..
small enough ..I hope
🤣

Short soundcards like that should work in the 8 bit slot but you must make sure they are configured to use interrupt and DMA resources that are available on the 8 bit slot and not ones on the 16 bit extension. Also if you are installing windows 95 you will have to disable plug and play for that card and manually configure it as it may hang trying to test the missing resources on the 16 bit part of the card.

Well...

I installed everything... it does the memory test... and just stops there.
I do a ctrl-alt-del, and it flashes the bios notice then blank screen with the underscore cursor showing.
It was too fast for me to read what it said 🙁

How do I get into the bios now that the CMOS is battery-backed?

Oh well. I didn't expect it to be trouble-free...

Oops, almost forgot... I installed the low 5.3 rom.
Hoping that's the problem.