zuldan wrote on 2024-03-28, 10:13:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-28, 09:44:

I bough one of my Unicorn Motherboards today, a Epox EP-MVP3G5 Super 7 motherboard with a full fat 2Mb of L2 Cache . The board h […]
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I bough one of my Unicorn Motherboards today, a Epox EP-MVP3G5 Super 7 motherboard with a full fat 2Mb of L2 Cache . The board has been tested by the seller who is a retro collector themselves with some rather rare parts and I have bought parts from them before.

Been hunting for this board for a number of years now and this is the first I have seen for sale, I think it deserves to be paired up with a modded K6-2+ 577 to K6-3+ 600 I have and possibly a Voodoo4 4500 or 5500. (I might throw a non modded K6-2+ 577 in there at 600 and see which one performs better with the 2Mb L2)

About the only blemish I see is some socket discolouration, seller says its likely from Ozone being produced by the nearby VRM coil components browning the socket plastic and doesn't affect the board at all, I have no reason to doubt this as it seems plausible.

Epox EP-MVP3G5.jpg

Such a lovely rare board.

You lucky bugger. I didn’t see this on eBay today. Where did you find this beauty?

I have it saved as a saved search and its never popped once in the five years Ive had it saved and then bam it pops at 3am from a seller I have bought other rare parts from out of Germany (Seller is a great Guy). I didn't even care what the price was and just bought it honestly the Voodoo5 cost me more than this board did.

Totally worth it to have this board, not often you ever see 2Mb of L2 on a Super 7, should have good AGP compatibility too so it may even run the ATI Fury MAXX *yeah not likely that GPU only likes a handful of boards

InTheStudy wrote on 2024-03-27, 23:57:

Honestly a better bet anyway even if the OG PSU was universal. A brand new PSU will be smaller, lighter, quieter, more energy ef […]
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schlang wrote on 2024-03-27, 21:07:

MU2000 from Japan. I can't find a voltage transformer for the 100V so I'm just gonna buy another 12V 2A psu.

Honestly a better bet anyway even if the OG PSU was universal. A brand new PSU will be smaller, lighter, quieter, more energy efficient and less likely to blow up on you. Same reason I didn't try to get original PSU's for my MU-50 or UA-100.

Also, very cool! Do you have SmartMedia cards for it?

Speaking of my MU-50, that's one in your mountain right? With a 32, 55 and an 88VL?

Gonna keep both the MU's, or swap out the older one?

Thanks, yes thats a 32, 55, 55mk2 and mu50. I just bought a 8x stereo mixer so they all stay, my recent additions are 88pro (see my last post in this thread) and now the mu2000. My MIDI collection is complete now, once I get the PSU ai will upgrade the mu2000 to mu2000ex firmware

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-28, 10:17:

zuldan wrote on 2024-03-28, 10:13:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-28, 09:44:

I bough one of my Unicorn Motherboards today, a Epox EP-MVP3G5 Super 7 motherboard with a full fat 2Mb of L2 Cache . The board h […]
Show full quote

I bough one of my Unicorn Motherboards today, a Epox EP-MVP3G5 Super 7 motherboard with a full fat 2Mb of L2 Cache . The board has been tested by the seller who is a retro collector themselves with some rather rare parts and I have bought parts from them before.

Been hunting for this board for a number of years now and this is the first I have seen for sale, I think it deserves to be paired up with a modded K6-2+ 577 to K6-3+ 600 I have and possibly a Voodoo4 4500 or 5500. (I might throw a non modded K6-2+ 577 in there at 600 and see which one performs better with the 2Mb L2)

About the only blemish I see is some socket discolouration, seller says its likely from Ozone being produced by the nearby VRM coil components browning the socket plastic and doesn't affect the board at all, I have no reason to doubt this as it seems plausible.

Epox EP-MVP3G5.jpg

Such a lovely rare board.

You lucky bugger. I didn’t see this on eBay today. Where did you find this beauty?

I have it saved as a saved search and its never popped once in the five years Ive had it saved and then bam it pops at 3am from a seller I have bought other rare parts from out of Germany (Seller is a great Guy). I didn't even care what the price was and just bought it honestly the Voodoo5 cost me more than this board did.

Totally worth it to have this board, not often you ever see 2Mb of L2 on a Super 7, should have good AGP compatibility too so it may even run the ATI Fury MAXX *yeah not likely that GPU only likes a handful of boards

I sold mine last year complete in the box for half of this amount on eBay. It was listed there for couple of weeks before someone snapped it.
There is also the NMC 5VX2 which is exactly the same board.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-28, 10:17:

zuldan wrote on 2024-03-28, 10:13:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-28, 09:44:

I bough one of my Unicorn Motherboards today, a Epox EP-MVP3G5 Super 7 motherboard with a full fat 2Mb of L2 Cache . The board h […]
Show full quote

I bough one of my Unicorn Motherboards today, a Epox EP-MVP3G5 Super 7 motherboard with a full fat 2Mb of L2 Cache . The board has been tested by the seller who is a retro collector themselves with some rather rare parts and I have bought parts from them before.

Been hunting for this board for a number of years now and this is the first I have seen for sale, I think it deserves to be paired up with a modded K6-2+ 577 to K6-3+ 600 I have and possibly a Voodoo4 4500 or 5500. (I might throw a non modded K6-2+ 577 in there at 600 and see which one performs better with the 2Mb L2)

About the only blemish I see is some socket discolouration, seller says its likely from Ozone being produced by the nearby VRM coil components browning the socket plastic and doesn't affect the board at all, I have no reason to doubt this as it seems plausible.

Epox EP-MVP3G5.jpg

Such a lovely rare board.

You lucky bugger. I didn’t see this on eBay today. Where did you find this beauty?

I have it saved as a saved search and its never popped once in the five years Ive had it saved and then bam it pops at 3am from a seller I have bought other rare parts from out of Germany (Seller is a great Guy). I didn't even care what the price was and just bought it honestly the Voodoo5 cost me more than this board did.

Totally worth it to have this board, not often you ever see 2Mb of L2 on a Super 7, should have good AGP compatibility too so it may even run the ATI Fury MAXX *yeah not likely that GPU only likes a handful of boards

I sold mine last year complete in the box for half of this amount on eBay. It was listed there for couple of weeks before someone snapped it.
There is also the NMC 5VX2 which is exactly the same board.

frankmonk wrote on 2024-03-28, 12:31:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-28, 10:17:

zuldan wrote on 2024-03-28, 10:13:

You lucky bugger. I didn’t see this on eBay today. Where did you find this beauty?

I have it saved as a saved search and its never popped once in the five years Ive had it saved and then bam it pops at 3am from a seller I have bought other rare parts from out of Germany (Seller is a great Guy). I didn't even care what the price was and just bought it honestly the Voodoo5 cost me more than this board did.

Totally worth it to have this board, not often you ever see 2Mb of L2 on a Super 7, should have good AGP compatibility too so it may even run the ATI Fury MAXX *yeah not likely that GPU only likes a handful of boards

I sold mine last year complete in the box for half of this amount on eBay. It was listed there for couple of weeks before someone snapped it.
There is also the NMC 5VX2 which is exactly the same board.

Never heard of the NMC board, im guessing its about as easy to find as the Epox version, and yeah I've missed a number of things because the eBay notification system is tardy or simply doesn't notify me.
I do check my saved searches manually but thats oviously not something I do all the time, that person who bought yours got a good deal I cant be upset at missing that auction though I have the board now so I can put that saved search to rest and wait for my others to pop.

Like the mythical Coppermine-T 1.133, not sure ill ever see a 1.133 that isnt Tualatin based but the hunt is part of the fun.

The good old eyeball is what gets me any deals. That lot I just got, if it was listed with Radeon HD2400Pro PCI in the title, it would have come up first on a "lowest price plus shipping" search for that card, or quite high on list for any PCI graphics. Might even have come up quite high for the Audigy with model specified. Anything listed exactly as a collector would list it, gets picked up by collectors eBay search notifications or by their external sniping programs. So gets snapped up quick if the price is within sight of reasonable... or just sits if it's insane. Ditto with the lot of CPU I got the other week, fully spelled out in the title the Phenom II 955 Blk would have put it two or three down the "lowest with shipping" list and there was only about $5 in the spread. But I don't get hyperfocussed on one thing, a number of other audio cards and CPU "would do" if I saw those at decent price instead. I do have some specific things in my head, but have other fish to fry while the aged premium steak isn't on sale.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-28, 13:59:

The good old eyeball is what gets me any deals. That lot I just got, if it was listed with Radeon HD2400Pro PCI in the title, it would have come up first on a "lowest price plus shipping" search for that card, or quite high on list for any PCI graphics. Might even have come up quite high for the Audigy with model specified. Anything listed exactly as a collector would list it, gets picked up by collectors eBay search notifications or by their external sniping programs. So gets snapped up quick if the price is within sight of reasonable... or just sits if it's insane. Ditto with the lot of CPU I got the other week, fully spelled out in the title the Phenom II 955 Blk would have put it two or three down the "lowest with shipping" list and there was only about $5 in the spread. But I don't get hyperfocussed on one thing, a number of other audio cards and CPU "would do" if I saw those at decent price instead. I do have some specific things in my head, but have other fish to fry while the aged premium steak isn't on sale.

I only bother with Unicorn hunting now, I have the normal parts I want but a rare fluro pink Unicorn is always fun to go hunting for.

Tho I am dabbling is restoring a few laptops, not sure if its worth doing that but they do resell rather nicely to help pay for the Unicorn hunting trips.

For me anything goes. In fact, I make a personal "how fast can you achieve their asking price" challenge to myself. Sold a lot of stuff prior to getting down sick, and all the cash went towards paying for the Soltek I posted earlier. (the one with the Ame Watson wallpaper)

A bonus to this is sometimes people will also have free stuff to rid! Just on the day I sold my DTK PRM-27I E0 (the one from Laplus Deskstar thread, expect a rebuild with a different BX board soon!), the chap who picked up the kit also gave me two PCs and a nice 15 incher LG Studioworks 563N.

I seem to have a magnet stuck up my arse to attract laptops at pocket change prices that would be worth a hundred or so as long as I spent $200 in parts. 🤣
I am wary of getting cheap parts machines intentionally though or I feel like I have doubled the problem, since could probably get most of them "mostly working"

But yeah, unicorns are the best sport.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-28, 14:24:

I seem to have a magnet stuck up my arse to attract laptops at pocket change prices that would be worth a hundred or so as long as I spent $200 in parts. 🤣
I am wary of getting cheap parts machines intentionally though or I feel like I have doubled the problem, since could probably get most of them "mostly working"

But yeah, unicorns are the best sport.

One day I will bag my Rainbow Puke Unicorn ...

My latest laptop is a rather nice Acer Aspire 5552G with the Phenom II X4 N970, HD 6650 and a 15 inch HD panel that is nice and bright, it needs a few bits but they are pretty cheap at 20 bucks each, paid 40 for the laptop so in it for less than 100 AUD so far, it'll clean up real nice too. Honestly I really like this little laptop, it runs a bit hot and eats the battery but its got spring in its step and is rather snappy with its SSD, its specs are rather reasonable for its age and it can handle Win10 if needed.

Perhaps Ill keep this one for my work bench research machine, its fun to use and that's a rare thing for me to say about a laptop.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-03-28, 14:21:

For me anything goes. In fact, I make a personal "how fast can you achieve their asking price" challenge to myself. Sold a lot of stuff prior to getting down sick, and all the cash went towards paying for the Soltek I posted earlier. (the one with the Ame Watson wallpaper)

A bonus to this is sometimes people will also have free stuff to rid! Just on the day I sold my DTK PRM-27I E0 (the one from Laplus Deskstar thread, expect a rebuild with a different BX board soon!), the chap who picked up the kit also gave me two PCs and a nice 15 incher LG Studioworks 563N.

I could take that approach I guess, there's an MPU401 board that could buy me a voodoo 5, though having it here, I feel kind of obliged to mess around with it to see what it will do before I let go of it. I am also unclear on my desire to get a V5 because I have half a dozen cards from the same year that outperform it, and many more of course from the years after. Dunno whether to go the other way and get a V1 because I've got 2s and 3s and a banshee in the middle.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-28, 14:32:

One day I will bag my Rainbow Puke Unicorn ... […]
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BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-28, 14:24:

I seem to have a magnet stuck up my arse to attract laptops at pocket change prices that would be worth a hundred or so as long as I spent $200 in parts. 🤣
I am wary of getting cheap parts machines intentionally though or I feel like I have doubled the problem, since could probably get most of them "mostly working"

But yeah, unicorns are the best sport.

One day I will bag my Rainbow Puke Unicorn ...

My latest laptop is a rather nice Acer Aspire 5552G with the Phenom II X4 N970, HD 6650 and a 15 inch HD panel that is nice and bright, it needs a few bits but they are pretty cheap at 20 bucks each, paid 40 for the laptop so in it for less than 100 AUD so far, it'll clean up real nice too. Honestly I really like this little laptop, it runs a bit hot and eats the battery but its got spring in its step and is rather snappy with its SSD, its specs are rather reasonable for its age and it can handle Win10 if needed.

Perhaps Ill keep this one for my work bench research machine, its fun to use and that's a rare thing for me to say about a laptop.

I got a little ripper I feel that way about too Re: Bought this (Modern) hardware today the more I use it the more I like it, it is scooting along with 8GB RAM and that SSD now. Also got the next model up CPU for it, which was about $2 worth of that CPU lot I mentioned above, which is so minor a bump I'm not really in a hurry to do unless I'm into it for other reasons. The CPU boosts high willingly, and it's just butter smooth on any video, must have great hardware codec support. All this one needed was the RAM and SSD really and I had those on hand.

Have completely ignored a latitude I got that has higher theoretical potential thus far, that one is quite clean and together also, I kinda have doubts about whether the GPU is behaving right, (dual with intel onboard) it's got a messed up install on it, and not sure whether it's got a hardware problem, so been poking around at it trying to get more info before I tear into it. Have a quad i7 standing by for it too... will probably post in modern activity when it gets the full treatment.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-28, 14:55:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-28, 14:32:

One day I will bag my Rainbow Puke Unicorn ... […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-28, 14:24:

I seem to have a magnet stuck up my arse to attract laptops at pocket change prices that would be worth a hundred or so as long as I spent $200 in parts. 🤣
I am wary of getting cheap parts machines intentionally though or I feel like I have doubled the problem, since could probably get most of them "mostly working"

But yeah, unicorns are the best sport.

One day I will bag my Rainbow Puke Unicorn ...

My latest laptop is a rather nice Acer Aspire 5552G with the Phenom II X4 N970, HD 6650 and a 15 inch HD panel that is nice and bright, it needs a few bits but they are pretty cheap at 20 bucks each, paid 40 for the laptop so in it for less than 100 AUD so far, it'll clean up real nice too. Honestly I really like this little laptop, it runs a bit hot and eats the battery but its got spring in its step and is rather snappy with its SSD, its specs are rather reasonable for its age and it can handle Win10 if needed.

Perhaps Ill keep this one for my work bench research machine, its fun to use and that's a rare thing for me to say about a laptop.

I got a little ripper I feel that way about too Re: Bought this (Modern) hardware today the more I use it the more I like it, it is scooting along with 8GB RAM and that SSD now. Also got the next model up CPU for it, which was about $2 worth of that CPU lot I mentioned above, which is so minor a bump I'm not really in a hurry to do unless I'm into it for other reasons. The CPU boosts high willingly, and it's just butter smooth on any video, must have great hardware codec support. All this one needed was the RAM and SSD really and I had those on hand.

Have completely ignored a latitude I got that has higher theoretical potential thus far, that one is quite clean and together also, I kinda have doubts about whether the GPU is behaving right, (dual with intel onboard) it's got a messed up install on it, and not sure whether it's got a hardware problem, so been poking around at it trying to get more info before I tear into it. Have a quad i7 standing by for it too... will probably post in modern activity when it gets the full treatment.

I actually have a rather modern lappy tho technically its a tablet with external GPU (Its a Surface Book 2 with a 1060 in the base), its an ok machine and nice to use but it lacks something that this little Aspire has.

Perhaps Im just built for older hardware 😁

I got into retro computing just over a year ago, and def got a little spendy on the ole 'Bay. A little too quick draw on the "Buy It Now" button, and not enough patience to wait for a good deal on things I was looking for. I've put a hard stop to that now, and will probably flip the switch and start selling some of the stuff I didn't really need.

Just need to keep telling myself that I've got more than enough stuff to keep me busy for quite a while! (I'll keep scouting for a good mid-90s AT mid-tower though.. so few for sale, and none at a reasonable price + shipping)

(Hmm, I'd also like a period-correct mid-90s optical drive. Maybe something like the old NEC Multispin I used to have...)

(Also, probably a VLB I/O card)

Dunno where you are in Canada, but retroland Ontario seems to be everything east of Oshawa, always seeing complete systems and cases listed out that way, kinda goes into the Anglo areas of of west Quebec too..... and for all I know the Francophones too but don't look at French ads, apart from the odd ordinateur tres vieux which might sneak through.

Difficult country for it, clusters in the big cites, a lot of ppl seem to be dumping everything every 5 years and moving out west or back east... like friggin' yoyos.

Many “yo-yos” are affected by the bouncing economy and their need to continue providing.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-28, 19:50:

Dunno where you are in Canada, but retroland Ontario seems to be everything east of Oshawa, always seeing complete systems and cases listed out that way, kinda goes into the Anglo areas of of west Quebec too..... and for all I know the Francophones too but don't look at French ads, apart from the odd ordinateur tres vieux which might sneak through.

Difficult country for it, clusters in the big cites, a lot of ppl seem to be dumping everything every 5 years and moving out west or back east... like friggin' yoyos.

Yeah, unfortunately I'm about as far west as you can get, and not near enough to Vancouver for that to be local. And yeah I'm an Ontario transplant, heh.

I also agree that sometimes it helps to look for things that have been mislabeled often by sellers who don’t know a lot about the item. My voodoo 3 is pci but was listed as agp, got it for like $70. Likewise my mu90 was listed as like an mu50, got it for around 90.

I am one of the people who has watches on various eBay items, but I only get notifications in the morning, so if you’re fast you’ll beat people like me to the punch.

Most recent retro hardware purchase: one of those xfi live drive things. The last model they made of those. I also bought a couple of Sony crt tvs, the entire gold box series in boxes, and some other pc games in boxes but that’s not retro hardware. Still thought you guys might enjoy it 😀

Just picked up this Cube. Seems to be in really nice condition. Only minor scratches, that probably can be polished off. One USB port is missing the plastic part in the center. Looks like normal off-the-shelf part, so it might be possible to replace for cheap.

Bigger headache is the missing power adapter. It needs 28V/205W, and has some funky connector, so that's going to cost. Original PSUs are insanely priced, so those are not an option.

CrFr wrote on 2024-03-29, 13:11:

Bigger headache is the missing power adapter. It needs 28V/205W, and has some funky connector, so that's going to cost. Original PSUs are insanely priced, so those are not an option.

Are you on team "preserve originality at all costs", or team "preserve functionality over originality"? Because from five minutes of reading, you could power this from a 90W USB-C adapter (obviously by replacing the internal power conversion circuitry) without any issue - if you don't try to run passthrough power to an external display; which is what the extra 120 odd watts were for.

I did a little quick googling, and there were rumours of readily available generic PSU's with the right voltage and pinout, but I didn't verify the data so I'm not going to cite them. Easy enough to find if you wanted to read up and do the research yourself on whether it would work!

Have to confess - if I had a service manual for it. I'd probably be building a complete replacement PSU module for Popcorn (yes, I named my synth) . I might well ask the technician to identify the internal voltages while doing the repair, now that I'm thinking about it. Could be useful. Should be going to him next week.