VOGONS


Reply 20 of 38, by luckybob

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yea, If I had to do it all over again, and I had the money, I'd get one of these: http://www.meanwellusa.com/webapp/product/sea … px?prod=RSD-150

That's why I'm running maybe 750ma through a device that the chinese claim is 3A capable. ( https://www.ebay.com/itm/372184564787 ) I did a load test at 2A and they barely got warm to the touch, so I figured I was safe.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 21 of 38, by Woolie Wool

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I just installed a PC speaker piezo unit since the case has no full PC speaker nor a place to put one. It's a pretty pitiful beep but it's the only beep I'm going to get.

Speaking of stuff that plugs into the front panel, my case has a single pin PWR LED cable but the motherboard header has three pins. There is another connector called GND but I have no idea if it grounds the power LED or where to put it if it does.

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Reply 24 of 38, by Woolie Wool

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Blzut3 told me how to get it working, I had to skip a pin and put GND in on the far left pin. Now the power LED glows a rather un-retro and out of place blue, and extremely brightly too. It's so bright that it washes out the color of the HDD LED! Would that I were more handy so I could replace it with a more appropriate green LED...

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Reply 25 of 38, by Woolie Wool

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N3hkyxTh.jpg
5.25" drive installed. It took a lot of cable seating and reseating to get the zodiac signs in alignment such that both drives would work properly. I like the soft ticking sound of a 5.25" drive, it's quieter and less abrasive than 3.5" read sounds.

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Reply 26 of 38, by Woolie Wool

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rLa0p1kl.jpg
After a solid month of frustration trying to get the Yamaha/Genius OPL3-SAx to work under DOS (first by itself, and then as an MPU-401 supporting a Creative SB Live!), I bought the card I should have been using from the start: a Sound Blaster AWE64 Value CT4520. It worked perfectly right out of the box and the computer is now a fully operational DOS gaming machine! The AWE64 also slid into the ISA slot quickly and easily, unlike the Yamaha, which requires considerable force to insert and pliers to remove (you will bend the bracket). A shame about having to live with CQM but if I have to choose between hardware OPL and hardware Sound Canvas MIDI, OPL loses.

The motherboard USB controller appears to be completely buggered so I'm going to have to get a PCI USB 2.0 card for Windows. My workplace used to have a few of them but they had a big purge of old hardware late last year.

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Reply 27 of 38, by Woolie Wool

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I tried installing an AMD Athlon XP Thoroughbred 2100+ and I slipped with the screwdriver and scratched the board. No OS more advanced than DOS will boot anymore. So now I need a replacement board.

I could go with another KT133A board, but I'm wondering if I'd be better off with a Pentium 4 due to SSE2 and a saner heatsink design. How would a P4 board with an ISA slot compare to KT133A options?

...well now I restored fail-safe settings in the CMOS and it works again. It's corrupted its CMOS before. I should probably still replace the board, but not now. Jesus Christ this thing drives me up the wall with its inability to decide whether or not it works.

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Reply 28 of 38, by gdjacobs

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You can use a socket A board with through holes, bolts, and a backing plate. This was the way it was done for truly high performance (and high mass) socket A coolers, back in the day.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 31 of 38, by Woolie Wool

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I ended up buying a Zalman 5000S. The 7000 looks a bit small to me. Also it looks like the Wraith Spire cooler on my Ryzen machine, which is absolutely outstanding for a stock heat sink.

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Reply 33 of 38, by Woolie Wool

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Oh, boy, I'm going to have to pull the motherboard to install the Zalman cooler because the back side panel is riveted shut. Why did they do this? Why? Why? Why?!

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Reply 34 of 38, by luckybob

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Because fuck you, thats why.

Also, the 7000 is not small. And I can't seem to find anything on the 5000s. pics?

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 35 of 38, by Woolie Wool

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Zalman 5000S:

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It looks tall and rather narrow, which is a good thing because there's a lot of vertical space in my case but the CPU is right up against the PSU so there is little horizontal clearance.

In other news, I successfully installed the Thoroughbred CPU with the help of an assistant more dexterous than me to manage the clips. The old Thunderbird was bare metal on the heat sink, with almost no thermal grease left. With it gone and the Thoroughbred and the Startech cooler installed, I'm getting massive performance improvements in CPU-bound games (with the FX 5900, that's basically all of them 😁). Doom 3 was formerly utterly unplayable but now runs acceptably at high quality 1024x768, and I'm thinking of trying 1600x1200. Qbism's extremely demanding software renderer for Quake II with colored lighting now runs at a solid 70 fps at 640x480 with no significant slowdowns. I got it all the way up to 1733 MHz without the need for a wire or paint mod, which I thought was impossible. It's even (slightly) quieter now. With the use of Thermal Grizzly Aeronaut thermal paste, temperatures are down from 55 C to 38C at idle and rise only very slowly under a stress test instead of shooting up and holding at 85 C.

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CPU-Z screenshot

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Whatever cable management this PC once had is now gone.

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Reply 36 of 38, by KCompRoom2000

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Not sure if you noticed, but the update notice on the first post reads 3/24/2016 when it's actually 3/24/2018 (I know, just pointing out the obvious).

Once again, I like where this is heading.

Reply 37 of 38, by Woolie Wool

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The thermal paste is really so good I don't think I need a through-hole cooler. The computer just does not get hot.

KCompRoom2000 wrote:

Not sure if you noticed, but the update notice on the first post reads 3/24/2016 when it's actually 3/24/2018 (I know, just pointing out the obvious).

I think that's my brain trying to make me forget that Donald Trump is president.

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Reply 38 of 38, by matze79

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I usually recap older supplys for Sockel A Systems.

Its pretty hard to obtain a good Power Supply for them 😒

I like this build very much 😀 specially the case you choose.

https://www.retrokits.de - blog, retro projects, hdd clicker, diy soundcards etc
https://www.retroianer.de - german retro computer board