liqmat wrote:

Found the most likely cause of my 440BX mini fire. Looks like condensation buildup in the Slot 1 socket due to using canned air in a very humid environment. I usually use an air compressor for this reason, but none were available at the time. Really irks me I could be so absent minded about this and it's not exactly easy to get this exact mobo. So what I am probably going to do is just purchase an Intel Socket 370 board and just skip the whole Slotket and Slot 1 scenario now that the original mobo is a goner. Unfortunately, Gateway's motherboard port case cutouts are part of the case and not a removable panel so I will have to stick close to the Intel P-III mobo designs.

Dremel and a steel cutting bit? IO plate metal is usually pretty thin.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

liqmat wrote:

Found the most likely cause of my 440BX mini fire. Looks like condensation buildup in the Slot 1 socket due to using canned air in a very humid environment. I usually use an air compressor for this reason, but none were available at the time. Really irks me I could be so absent minded about this and it's not exactly easy to get this exact mobo. So what I am probably going to do is just purchase an Intel Socket 370 board and just skip the whole Slotket and Slot 1 scenario now that the original mobo is a goner. Unfortunately, Gateway's motherboard port case cutouts are part of the case and not a removable panel so I will have to stick close to the Intel P-III mobo designs.

Dremel and a steel cutting bit? IO plate metal is usually pretty thin.

Yeah. This particular case is a bit thicker than some I've worked with. Prepping the case for the Corsair SFX SF450 PSU I had to use a Dremel cut off wheel 540 as the 409 wheels I had on hand would just literally break apart after a few minutes on this case. Think I am done cutting for now. Luckily there are plenty of Intel board models that will fit this case nicely. What's harder to find are the Intel 440BX boards with on-board audio. If I get one without I'll just have the open holes in the back with no ports sticking through. My OCD has problems with that. The board I just fried (Gateway motherboard 4000485) had a decent Creative ES1373 chip in there.

In process of moving to a house I made a temporary HQ for my retro stuff in an unfinished part of the house. Used some old furniture that was left by the previous owner and finally I could empty the boxes that housed most of my boxed stuff - from hardware to software/games. Most were put in the storage when I bought them as I didn't have the space in my apartment corner. It looks nice to see everything out in the open 😁 I'll upload some photos tomorrow.

I moved like 20% of my stuff and already the space is running tight - OK, there is lots more space in the attic 😉

First I'll do the inventory and then moved what I don't need to the attic.

Not computer related at all.... Today I made lots of blueberry jam. This is just one of the glasses.
It is organic/natural (depends on were you come from), and I even used organic cane-sugar. 😜
Yeah.... The time for making jam, has arrived now. Going to be a busy time out in nature.

Tried to upgrade the graphics on my recently revived SS7 K6-2 system, only to discover that my PCI Nvidia TNT2 M64 card is apparently dead. Tried it on another system, confirmed dead, not even detected. 😐

I'm going to have to go with my spare Voodoo 3 2000 PCI card instead, but it first needs flashing back to a PC ROM as I last used it years back in my Beige Power Macintosh G3. I no longer own any Macs that need and/or support the Voodoo card, so the flashing is long overdue.

Today I beefed-up my Gateway system a little.

I have the ugliest graphics card with the ugliest box ever coming in the mail today for my Pentium II build.

WildW wrote:

Today I beefed-up my Gateway system a little. […]
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Today I beefed-up my Gateway system a little.

That totally just made my day!

llamaboy wrote:

I have the ugliest graphics card with the ugliest box ever coming in the mail today for my Pentium II build.

Diablotek 9800 Pro?

Well, since my Intel 440BX burned up I ended up getting this (Intel D815EEA). The price was great and the seller assured me it was tested by a tech and no bulging caps. The ports perfectly line up with my Gateway case and I have all the Intel drivers and last & latest BIOS ready to flash. Nice small upgrade. AGP 4x instead of the factory 440BX AGP 2x so the FX5900 should see a bump in speed and it also eliminates me needing a slotket for the P-III 850 so all will hopefully turn out well. No Gateway logo when I turn on the machine, but for $20 I could care less.

I looked around Ebay for my motherboard and the 4000485 is just not available and a complete Gateway 450 system like mine, well let's just say seller's have gone nutz crazy with prices. No thanks and good luck with that. I paid $20 for the entire system at a local store and some sellers want over $200 for a complete Gateway 450.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-Intel-A10380- … cvip=true&rt=nc

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

llamaboy wrote:

I have the ugliest graphics card with the ugliest box ever coming in the mail today for my Pentium II build.

Diablotek 9800 Pro?

Close-ish, 7500. It might just be because I'm not really fond of red PCBs.

Went to different thrift stores and I got the following today:

1. Yamaha PSS-460 Keyboard, and it's 99.9% functional, except for the B note key (the second B note key in the mid-left section) for $39.99
2. Apple Pro keyboard for my iMac G3/600 Graphite Edition ($3.95 and in great shape) <-- Been looking for one for ages since using a shortcut key to eject a CD or mounted flash drives is a pain as I had to guess what the combination key was
3. The Adventures of Wallace and Gromit on VHS (A Close Shave, The Wrong Trousers, and A Grand Day Out) <-- Rented this on DVD as a kid for $0.25
4. Tri-Pod for my Sony DCR-TRV260 HandyCam so that way I don't have to use either an unsteady surface to place the camera on, or hold the HandyCam for a period of time since my hand falls asleep easily for $2.99

The reason behind the keyboard was because of The 8-Bit Guy's video on YouTube entitled: Meet the little-known "Soundblaster" keyboards and I'm planning on doing some music on it from either MS-DOS games or songs by artist, such as Rick Astley.

Also getting some new potentiometers for my Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro and purchased a B note key for my keyboard since the one is loose and missing some pieces of plastic; I'm going to look at the rubber contact strip for any dust or debris that's causing the one key to not work, but everything else works with no issues.

FINALLY got win98 going on my K6-3+ system, though i wound up at a point where it was looking for a whole bunch of files and it couldn't find them, they seemed to be drivers, so i figured i'd resume the setup tomorrow.
Is it bad to stop the setup halfway through? It finished the initial wizard and was just looking for drivers and things. Or so it seemed. I'm using the oem bootable cd version of 98se btw.

Testing a lot of hardware to put up for sale, in order to get money for refurbishing and upgrading my Amiga600.
So far, I have successfully tested an AWE32, 8-Bit ET3000, a 440bx motherboard, CPU, Ram and an TNT2-Pro-AGP

liqmat wrote:

No Gateway logo when I turn on the machine, but for $20 I could care less.

Well, just FYI, you can insert a custom splash screen into the BIOS you want to flash. I did that with my D815EEA2 (now shows a nice 3dfx logo on boot-up), and it works on the D815EEA too. You can still have your Gateway logo if you want to...

WildW wrote:

Today I beefed-up my Gateway system a little. […]
Show full quote

Today I beefed-up my Gateway system a little.

Awww!

Made my day too 😁

voodoo5_6k wrote:

liqmat wrote:

No Gateway logo when I turn on the machine, but for $20 I could care less.

Well, just FYI, you can insert a custom splash screen into the BIOS you want to flash. I did that with my D815EEA2 (now shows a nice 3dfx logo on boot-up), and it works on the D815EEA too. You can still have your Gateway logo if you want to...

I know of the Intel splash tool, but I did not see the D815EEA listed as a supported board. What tool do you use? Thanks for the info.

liqmat wrote:

voodoo5_6k wrote:

liqmat wrote:

No Gateway logo when I turn on the machine, but for $20 I could care less.

Well, just FYI, you can insert a custom splash screen into the BIOS you want to flash. I did that with my D815EEA2 (now shows a nice 3dfx logo on boot-up), and it works on the D815EEA too. You can still have your Gateway logo if you want to...

I know of the Intel splash tool, but I did not see the D815EEA listed as a supported board. What tool do you use? Thanks for the info.

The D815EEA should definitely be supported, the custom splash screen is listed in the Technical Product Specification document from Intel. The tool required was included in Intel's original BIOS file package or the functionality is actually part of the flashing tool itself if I recall that correctly. Modify user space or something like that. You are somewhat limited in terms of color depth and resolution, but simple logos like e.g. 3dfx look very good. I can have look through my old files if you want. Do have a BIOS package with the flashing tool? Then there should be something in the readme.txt.

voodoo5_6k wrote:

I can have look through my old files if you want. Do have a BIOS package with the flashing tool? Then there should be something in the readme.txt.

Last BIOS update for the D815EEA:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/348 … -?product=81554

and this splash tool:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/18071

liqmat wrote:

Last BIOS update for the D815EEA: […]
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voodoo5_6k wrote:

I can have look through my old files if you want. Do have a BIOS package with the flashing tool? Then there should be something in the readme.txt.

Last BIOS update for the D815EEA:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/348 … -?product=81554

and this splash tool:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/18071

I had a look at the splash tool and it seems to be the one I had used. I don't remember the image resolution restriction (I'll have a closer look into my archive later), but after the processing through the splash tool you have to end up with a file that has a size of 4224 bytes or below, like stated somewhere in the readme. This file can then be added to the board using the flash utility (there is a specific option in that utility, something like modify user space or user area or whatever). Anything bigger didn't work on the D815EEA2. I'd assume that the D815EEA behaves the same. Later boards supported larger file sizes.