"Buck or two plus" has been having some classic style ball friendly pads in Canada

Bought a Quadro M4000 for a future build I am working on, its roughly equivalent to a GTX970 but with 8Gb of Vram and a single slot design. Also found Windows XP drivers for it .. not sure how XP will handle 8Gb of VRam but itll be damn amusing seeing the GPU have as much memory as the main system does !

I did want a more powerful card for this build but the 980ti and Titan X are still in silly price territory for secondhand cards and this Quadro was 150 bucks AUD (~100 Freedom Dollars). It also maintains XP compatibility which I also wanted as the build will be using a 4 bay hot swap SSD setup to run multiple setups with XP32 being one of them.

Might also look at the Quadro M6000 as a Titan X replacement if the prices remain stupid, the M6000 goes for ~230 AUD right now which is about half the cost of a Titan X at ~500 AUD ..the Quadro also has a 24Gb version which would be even more amusing under XP.

And yeah I know they are not really gaming cards but will no doubt still be able to run anything from the late XP period with little issue.

On a different note I ran across this little nugget of a CPU a Athlon 64 X2 6400+ BE ADX6400IAA6CZ for ~100AUD (~66 USD) and just had to have it, at this price its worth grabbing as they generally go for a lot more and are rather rare. Got just the rig for it too, itll be a nice upgrade for the A64 5000+ 6CS model in it.

appiah4 wrote on 2023-06-08, 05:22:

So I peeked into the horizontal desktop case, thinking it would be a 286 since it had what seems to be a very compact hercules graphics adapter marked GW-400 (Gainward I guess?) But it turned out to be a completely undocumented 386SX board labeled PETER-386SX. (Paging theretroweb guys..)

It seems to be derived from this PETER-286 but it is marked PETER-386SX and has a UMC chipset. No simm slots for RAM, some sipps and sockets.The sockets are filled, appears to be configured for 1MB (?) currently. It has an integrated Intel 386SX-20. The PC seems to be thrown together in 1992 or thereabouts so all of that checks out. It is the most 286-like mainboard I came across though. Not sure who would buy this in 1992 when a proper 286 was half the price and just as fast..

I will take it out, clean it, photograph it and if needed repair it. I will then replace it with a proper 286-16 and finally retire my 386SX-20 build that has been masquarading as a 286 for so long..

I have been slowly parting out the desktop build for cleaning and repairs and this beast of a PSU turned out..

Is this an XT psu and what is it doing in a 386sx build? I never before came across this kind of psu form factor before. I guess this was an 8086/88 that later got upgraded? That woulf explain the cheap Winbond Hercules card in it - they probably did not upgrade the video card. Smh..

appiah4 wrote on 2023-06-09, 05:47:

appiah4 wrote on 2023-06-08, 05:22:

So I peeked into the horizontal desktop case, thinking it would be a 286 since it had what seems to be a very compact hercules graphics adapter marked GW-400 (Gainward I guess?) But it turned out to be a completely undocumented 386SX board labeled PETER-386SX. (Paging theretroweb guys..)

It seems to be derived from this PETER-286 but it is marked PETER-386SX and has a UMC chipset. No simm slots for RAM, some sipps and sockets.The sockets are filled, appears to be configured for 1MB (?) currently. It has an integrated Intel 386SX-20. The PC seems to be thrown together in 1992 or thereabouts so all of that checks out. It is the most 286-like mainboard I came across though. Not sure who would buy this in 1992 when a proper 286 was half the price and just as fast..

I will take it out, clean it, photograph it and if needed repair it. I will then replace it with a proper 286-16 and finally retire my 386SX-20 build that has been masquarading as a 286 for so long..

I have been slowly parting out the desktop build for cleaning and repairs and this beast of a PSU turned out..

Is this an XT psu and what is it doing in a 386sx build? I never before came across this kind of psu form factor before. I guess this was an 8086/88 that later got upgraded? That woulf explain the cheap Winbond Hercules card in it - they probably did not upgrade the video card. Smh..

Thats not a PSU its a TANK ! cleverly disguised as a PSU .. perhaps its a new KGB undercover tank.

tauro wrote on 2023-06-08, 21:40:

Building a very fast P3 machine (Tualatin) with 1 gig of RAM is not really the best option. I'm telling you from experience. Mot […]
Show full quote

shevalier wrote on 2023-06-02, 13:08:

But there was hope that it was these memory sticks that had the correct organization, because I they were get from the two-socke […]
Show full quote

dionb wrote on 2023-06-02, 11:40:

BX does max 128Mb per 16Mx8 chip (note the lower-case b for bit), so yes, to get 1GB you specifically need 4 256MB DIMMs with 16 chips each.

But there was hope that it was these memory sticks that had the correct organization, because I they were get from the two-socket Tualatin.
Apparently it was a motherboard on some kind of Server Works chipset.
I have 4 IBM branded 256 MB sticks.
But there are 2 from Infineon, 1 from Hunix and 1 from Micron.
All together they are poorly detected by CUBX at 3.3V. (((

Building a very fast P3 machine (Tualatin) with 1 gig of RAM is not really the best option. I'm telling you from experience.
Motherboards that support 4 memory modules are not easy to come by, expensive, and either 768 or 1024 MB are way too much for a computer of that generation. They're too fast for DOS gaming and you'll have to resort to CPU throttling and you'll probably get into compatibility problems.

For an all-round build, a late Pentium MMX or K6-2 is probably the best option. 128MB of RAM is plenty.

Anything that needs a faster CPU or more ram is already modern (XP and newer territory).

Which means that i815 boards are really adequate in terms of memory amount. And who wouldn't want an i815 board for a Tualatin 😀

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-06-09, 06:36:

tauro wrote on 2023-06-08, 21:40:

Building a very fast P3 machine (Tualatin) with 1 gig of RAM is not really the best option. I'm telling you from experience. Mot […]
Show full quote

shevalier wrote on 2023-06-02, 13:08:

But there was hope that it was these memory sticks that had the correct organization, because I they were get from the two-socke […]
Show full quote

But there was hope that it was these memory sticks that had the correct organization, because I they were get from the two-socket Tualatin.
Apparently it was a motherboard on some kind of Server Works chipset.
I have 4 IBM branded 256 MB sticks.
But there are 2 from Infineon, 1 from Hunix and 1 from Micron.
All together they are poorly detected by CUBX at 3.3V. (((

Building a very fast P3 machine (Tualatin) with 1 gig of RAM is not really the best option. I'm telling you from experience.
Motherboards that support 4 memory modules are not easy to come by, expensive, and either 768 or 1024 MB are way too much for a computer of that generation. They're too fast for DOS gaming and you'll have to resort to CPU throttling and you'll probably get into compatibility problems.

For an all-round build, a late Pentium MMX or K6-2 is probably the best option. 128MB of RAM is plenty.

Anything that needs a faster CPU or more ram is already modern (XP and newer territory).

Which means that i815 boards are really adequate in terms of memory amount. And who wouldn't want an i815 board for a Tualatin 😀

Someone who has a SiS 635T board instead !

appiah4 wrote on 2023-06-09, 05:47:

Is this an XT psu and what is it doing in a 386sx build? I never before came across this kind of psu form factor before. I guess this was an 8086/88 that later got upgraded? That woulf explain the cheap Winbond Hercules card in it - they probably did not upgrade the video card. Smh..

No, XT PSUs are different, I would say that one is closer to a PSU from an AT (5170) but still there are some differences so it's probably a custom form factor. It reminds me of the type of PSUs you often see in those giant full AT style towers.

TheMobRules wrote on 2023-06-09, 08:28:

appiah4 wrote on 2023-06-09, 05:47:

Is this an XT psu and what is it doing in a 386sx build? I never before came across this kind of psu form factor before. I guess this was an 8086/88 that later got upgraded? That woulf explain the cheap Winbond Hercules card in it - they probably did not upgrade the video card. Smh..

No, XT PSUs are different, I would say that one is closer to a PSU from an AT (5170) but still there are some differences so it's probably a custom form factor. It reminds me of the type of PSUs you often see in those giant full AT style towers.

Let's hope it still works then 🤣

That said, it looks like a regular AT PSU would also fit into the system. The only issue being, this case has no AT Power switch and instead the PSU has its own rocker power switch on the side.. That means with a regular AT (or ATX to AT) solution, I would also have to juryrig a power switch in the same location.

Which could be a fun project, really.

I think it was late 80s that the more familiar AT PSU format started appearing, along with minitowers and the compact desktop cases. Those big 5170-ish types hung around just into the 90s, in larger format desktops still and the prev mentioned full AT full towers. I have an early 486 built for CAD in a larger format case with the huge PSU and BRS (Big Red Switch)

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-06-09, 06:36:

tauro wrote on 2023-06-08, 21:40:

Building a very fast P3 machine (Tualatin) with 1 gig of RAM is not really the best option. I'm telling you from experience. Mot […]
Show full quote

shevalier wrote on 2023-06-02, 13:08:

But there was hope that it was these memory sticks that had the correct organization, because I they were get from the two-socke […]
Show full quote

But there was hope that it was these memory sticks that had the correct organization, because I they were get from the two-socket Tualatin.
Apparently it was a motherboard on some kind of Server Works chipset.
I have 4 IBM branded 256 MB sticks.
But there are 2 from Infineon, 1 from Hunix and 1 from Micron.
All together they are poorly detected by CUBX at 3.3V. (((

Building a very fast P3 machine (Tualatin) with 1 gig of RAM is not really the best option. I'm telling you from experience.
Motherboards that support 4 memory modules are not easy to come by, expensive, and either 768 or 1024 MB are way too much for a computer of that generation. They're too fast for DOS gaming and you'll have to resort to CPU throttling and you'll probably get into compatibility problems.

For an all-round build, a late Pentium MMX or K6-2 is probably the best option. 128MB of RAM is plenty.

Anything that needs a faster CPU or more ram is already modern (XP and newer territory).

Which means that i815 boards are really adequate in terms of memory amount. And who wouldn't want an i815 board for a Tualatin 😀

Agreed! I pursued the 1 gig Tualatin dream... but my experience has shown me that 512 MB is more than enough for that generation.

The i815 is more mature and stable, and you don't have to chase the elusive 256MB compatible modules. Nevertheless the i440BX is a bit faster than the i815. But if you need something faster than a 1GHz Coppermine... it's probably not the best build for DOS usage.

I had to underclock my 1.2GHz Tualatin Celeron from 1.6GHz at stock voltage (133MHz Bus) down to 800MHz (66MHz Bus) because too many DOS games didn't work, especially the sound, and disabling the L1/L2 cache made things too slow and created other problems.

My next build will probably be a K6-2, which provides a lot of versatility and can be underclocked in many ways, coupled with a Voodoo 3 for DOS and Windows 95/98 specific software/games.

And then run anything newer on a Socket 775 C2D with XP.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-09, 06:59:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-06-09, 06:36:

tauro wrote on 2023-06-08, 21:40:

Building a very fast P3 machine (Tualatin) with 1 gig of RAM is not really the best option. I'm telling you from experience. Mot […]
Show full quote

Building a very fast P3 machine (Tualatin) with 1 gig of RAM is not really the best option. I'm telling you from experience.
Motherboards that support 4 memory modules are not easy to come by, expensive, and either 768 or 1024 MB are way too much for a computer of that generation. They're too fast for DOS gaming and you'll have to resort to CPU throttling and you'll probably get into compatibility problems.

For an all-round build, a late Pentium MMX or K6-2 is probably the best option. 128MB of RAM is plenty.

Anything that needs a faster CPU or more ram is already modern (XP and newer territory).

Which means that i815 boards are really adequate in terms of memory amount. And who wouldn't want an i815 board for a Tualatin 😀

Someone who has a SiS 635T board instead !

You are probably right. But if you are not using DOS, why not go with a Socket 775 motherboard? You can run Windows 7 and XP if needed. Some also have drivers for Windows 98.

FPM 64MB & two 32MB memory modules for a 486. I wasn't sure if it would take a 64MB module, but it turns it to be fine.
Adaptec AHA-2940 HBA w/ZuluSCSI disk/optical emulator (w/16GB microSD for the same 486.
VisionTek Ti4200 because I don't have a 128MB version.

All working fine.

appiah4 wrote on 2023-06-09, 05:47:

appiah4 wrote on 2023-06-08, 05:22:

So I peeked into the horizontal desktop case, thinking it would be a 286 since it had what seems to be a very compact hercules graphics adapter marked GW-400 (Gainward I guess?) But it turned out to be a completely undocumented 386SX board labeled PETER-386SX. (Paging theretroweb guys..)

It seems to be derived from this PETER-286 but it is marked PETER-386SX and has a UMC chipset. No simm slots for RAM, some sipps and sockets.The sockets are filled, appears to be configured for 1MB (?) currently. It has an integrated Intel 386SX-20. The PC seems to be thrown together in 1992 or thereabouts so all of that checks out. It is the most 286-like mainboard I came across though. Not sure who would buy this in 1992 when a proper 286 was half the price and just as fast..

I will take it out, clean it, photograph it and if needed repair it. I will then replace it with a proper 286-16 and finally retire my 386SX-20 build that has been masquarading as a 286 for so long..

I have been slowly parting out the desktop build for cleaning and repairs and this beast of a PSU turned out..

Is this an XT psu and what is it doing in a 386sx build? I never before came across this kind of psu form factor before. I guess this was an 8086/88 that later got upgraded? That woulf explain the cheap Winbond Hercules card in it - they probably did not upgrade the video card. Smh..

Aand this thing is pretty dead. I turn it on, even the fan doesn't spin. I added a CD-ROM and a mainboars as load, still no go. No voltage on 12V or 5V rains Just some curious very slight whine and occasional crackling from within.

The fuse is not blown. It was incredibly dusty inside though. I opened it up and gave it a good wash. Hope to take some photos and start a troubkeshooting thread tomorrow..

PcBytes wrote on 2023-06-08, 10:25:

Another nice GPU today. 7900GTX 512MB, King Kong edition.

Hehey , nice . maybe it's one of my old cards. I use to have the king kong editions(2x) back in the they when they where new(or up to 1 year old).

So in today's outing I grabbed a box of RAM for $10, stoked and slightly bummed, as I was hoping to find some slightly bigger DDR3 in it, but still made out like a bandit on the DDR2 and DDR, it had 13 2GB DDR3 sticks, 2 2GB DDR2, 21 1GB DDR2 sticks, 10 1GB DDR, and a mini PCIe broadcom wifi. But been having trouble scratching up 2GB DDR2s, and I would maybe have ended up paying $10 per stick for those. However, they are the "Vogons's favorite" /s OCZ sticks. 4 of the 1GB are also OCZ. The 2x2GB are Fatal1ty 6400, 2x1GB of SpecOps 6400, and 2x1GB of "Vista upgrade" edition.

Anyway, that should completely "flood" my DDR2 systems for the foreseeable future and my DDR systems. Though.... anyone know where to get DDR2 and DDR3 "SIMM stackers/trees" from? 🤣

Also grabbed 2 VIA USB PCI cards, an iogear mini-keyboard/maxi-remote, an extra USB IDE/SATA device, and a network cable tester. That was about $20 for all that.

I was in two minds whether this was retro or modern, but more than half the RAM was DDR2 and DDR, and it's not like DDR3 is so so modern now we're at DDR5.

Got excited when I spotted a graphics card box ... HD5450 yawn... I got 2x 6450 and a 7450 I think I'm good.

Weird thing... last night I was pondering my best hit rate for sale selection, what was it in common about the neighborhoods where I was finding PC hardware most often... I decided it broke down to about 60% being in subdivisions/neighborhoods where there were circles and crescents, often being on said circle or cres, about 30% being in "country", houses just outside of town, and 10% being indefinably random, old neighborhoods, new, apartments, whatever... So picked first group of sales to visit, a street sale, on a crescent, BOOYAH.. one dude with the table full of tech bits where I got the RAM and SATA/IDE and keyboard, then 3 doors down, guy had 3 system units for sale... not anything I wanted though, P4 thinkcenter, two core2 class, nothing interesting looking in them for graphics/sound etc and cases didn't hit any buttons, so passed, but holy crap, talk about confirmation bias 🤣

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-09, 04:38:

On a different note I ran across this little nugget of a CPU a Athlon 64 X2 6400+ BE ADX6400IAA6CZ for ~100AUD (~66 USD) and just had to have it, at this price its worth grabbing as they generally go for a lot more and are rather rare. Got just the rig for it too, itll be a nice upgrade for the A64 5000+ 6CS model in it.

Athlon 64 X2 6400+ BE.jpg

that must about about as fast as AM2 gets for raw speed, good for the games back in the late 2000's though i think a bit power hungry

Any DDR4 ecc in the lot BitWrangler? , I am w8ting for my next big machine (monday) and I looking for some donations 😁(maybe) of cpu , gpu , and ddr4 ecc

L.E. How are things in California Repo Man11 ?

Meatball wrote on 2023-06-10, 00:41:

[...]
Adaptec AHA-2940 HBA w/ZuluSCSI disk/optical emulator (w/16GB microSD for the same 486.
[...]

Would be really interesting to have your review on using the zuluscsi with pc and how it works out 😀

gerry wrote on 2023-06-10, 20:39:

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-09, 04:38:

On a different note I ran across this little nugget of a CPU a Athlon 64 X2 6400+ BE ADX6400IAA6CZ for ~100AUD (~66 USD) and just had to have it, at this price its worth grabbing as they generally go for a lot more and are rather rare. Got just the rig for it too, itll be a nice upgrade for the A64 5000+ 6CS model in it.

Athlon 64 X2 6400+ BE.jpg

that must about about as fast as AM2 gets for raw speed, good for the games back in the late 2000's though i think a bit power hungry

Yah they are 125W ... plus if you push them... best to use on boards that have 140 or 150 limit. I think it's glory days were in 2007 when it briefly had the dual core performance crown over the early conroe 65nm despite being 90nm, which didn't last long until Intel released E6850 Though even sub 2ghz conroes were getting pushed way over 3Ghz... and there were high high hopes yet for AMDs 65nm... which kind of fizzled. It was still a brute for raw single core on less advanced code for about 5 years, i.e. ran most games well. Problem with Am2 though.. is you can get some of the later AM2+ parts working in it... so it's kind of orphaned as "best" of only pure AM2 when AM2 can be stretched to Phenom. Kind of how the "best" for socket 2 is DX2-66... apart from it isn't when you can get overdrives and dx4s etc working with interposers.

The build I have in mind for my 6400 is gonna be an "only theoretical overlap" between 6400 discontinued and HD4870 preorder, with crossfire 4870s on an MSI board.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-06-10, 22:22:

gerry wrote on 2023-06-10, 20:39:

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-09, 04:38:

On a different note I ran across this little nugget of a CPU a Athlon 64 X2 6400+ BE ADX6400IAA6CZ for ~100AUD (~66 USD) and just had to have it, at this price its worth grabbing as they generally go for a lot more and are rather rare. Got just the rig for it too, itll be a nice upgrade for the A64 5000+ 6CS model in it.

Athlon 64 X2 6400+ BE.jpg

that must about about as fast as AM2 gets for raw speed, good for the games back in the late 2000's though i think a bit power hungry

Yah they are 125W ... plus if you push them... best to use on boards that have 140 or 150 limit. I think it's glory days were in 2007 when it briefly had the dual core performance crown over the early conroe 65nm despite being 90nm, which didn't last long until Intel released E6850 Though even sub 2ghz conroes were getting pushed way over 3Ghz... and there were high high hopes yet for AMDs 65nm... which kind of fizzled. It was still a brute for raw single core on less advanced code for about 5 years, i.e. ran most games well. Problem with Am2 though.. is you can get some of the later AM2+ parts working in it... so it's kind of orphaned as "best" of only pure AM2 when AM2 can be stretched to Phenom. Kind of how the "best" for socket 2 is DX2-66... apart from it isn't when you can get overdrives and dx4s etc working with interposers.

The build I have in mind for my 6400 is gonna be an "only theoretical overlap" between 6400 discontinued and HD4870 preorder, with crossfire 4870s on an MSI board.

I have a 4870x2 in mind for this CPU or a pair of 4890s and I have a decent board that like you said could take an AM2+ CPU but already have that era covered with my old 1100T rig.

I do wonder how hot and hungry this chip can be at 3.2Ghz it seems like it should be already pushing the roof right out of the box.

keropi wrote on 2023-06-10, 20:52:

Meatball wrote on 2023-06-10, 00:41:

[...]
Adaptec AHA-2940 HBA w/ZuluSCSI disk/optical emulator (w/16GB microSD for the same 486.
[...]

Would be really interesting to have your review on using the zuluscsi with pc and how it works out 😀

When I can put everything together, sure I'll let you know the experience. At a high level, it works out of the box. I plugged in the preformatted FAT32 16GB SD micro card, reset the HBA to defaults, and SCSI disk presented to OS immediately. I didn't test the virtual CD functions, yet.