rick6 wrote:

Just to make clear, it was temperamental to get going, but it didn't post at all or was it just unstable? I usually do not endorse showering hardware, i always prefer to use a air compressor, but that's for cleaning. In your case i understand it was a last resort, and glady it worked! Maybe it had some conductive gunk somewere!

Looking foward to see that youtube video!

When I first got the board, I couldn't get it to POST. It would beep about the graphics card. Tried all sort of video cards, both PCIe slots, the usual. Even removed the BIOS chip and flashed it externally.

After the shower + dryer it still wouldn't work. I walked away, and some time later it POSTed the first time. It kept posting, installed Windows and 3DMark03. Machine shut down after running 3DMark03, which is usually power or temperature related. The fan was stuck, but still spinning, but likely at reduced speed. After I put that fan (see photo) ontop and also cleaned the sink and re-applied new paste it worked well. Ran 3DMark03 for 12 hours and then packed it all away like it was. Hopefully it will work when I need it again 😁

Today at local radio market i got something unusual(at least for me)
First one - GF2 mx400 as sticker says its made by Tiga Vision,at least it posts,gonna complete tests bit later (whats unusual? look at memory),gpu-z says its SDR

And second one is AMD Geode NX 1750,not sure what i'm gonna do with it but at first i need compatible via or sis chipset mobo for it 😕

Bought this two in the last week or so, I sold almost all my retro stuff but couldn't pass on this ones 😀
Still need to test the cards and the disks.

Nice! Ensoniq SS Elite and Audiotrix! Both rare as hell!

Indeed, good score on that one.

Every time you think you're going to stop, you always spot something like that and it sets you off again. It's probably worse, because if you hadn't stopped before, you would probably have seen it and been like "Gah, I have enough stuff already. It's too expensive anyway, pass."

b_rros wrote:

Bought this two in the last week or so, I sold almost all my retro stuff but couldn't pass on this ones :) Still need to test th […]
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Bought this two in the last week or so, I sold almost all my retro stuff but couldn't pass on this ones 😀
Still need to test the cards and the disks.

The Audiotrix has an awesome synthesizer but the SB pro compatibility is not very good, it does work but it's not perfect, the synths drums however are powerful, and it has options to trigger both opl3 and opl4 synths simultaneously and things like that. Make sure you check the demo midifiles in the diskettes.

rein_ein wrote:

Today at local radio market i got something unusual(at least for me) First one - GF2 mx400 as sticker says its made by Tiga Visi […]
Show full quote

Today at local radio market i got something unusual(at least for me)
First one - GF2 mx400 as sticker says its made by Tiga Vision,at least it posts,gonna complete tests bit later (whats unusual? look at memory),gpu-z says its SDR

Nice catch! I had no idea SDRAM was also made in BGA package. 😀
And the fan looks like AAvid which was used on Voodoo4/5.

A week ago I purchased an HP 13356A disk pack for a drive I own. It was $75 and somewhat local so I was willing to take a gamble given how the other two on ebay were $150+ and in the states.

It arrived looking cosmetically good but on further inspection one of the platter surfaces have seen a crash. Dammit!

CelGen wrote:

A week ago I purchased an HP 13356A disk pack for a drive I own. It was $75 and somewhat local so I was willing to take a gamble given how the other two on ebay were $150+ and in the states.

It arrived looking cosmetically good but on further inspection one of the platter surfaces have seen a crash. Dammit!

Thats unfortunate 😒

I have bought a "non booting but posting" 386 SX25 with dead battery. The "PC Tech" 386 system was included in a bundle with 7 other computers, two CRT screens, two nice keyboards, a cheap serial mouse and lots of old computer literature. The rest of the systems were less interesting with a Compaq K6-2 box as the second most interesting item, the newest system in the bundle was a Socket-775 box with a Gigabyte P35-DS3 motherboard. The price for the everything was ~100 euro including home delivery by car.

I was almost hoping the 386 motherboard would be seriously damaged by corrosion as I wanted this AT desktop case for a Socket-7 system but this was not to be. The system seems to be working perfectly but the (external) battery is indeed dead.

The new "PC Tech" 386SX-25 with 10MB (4+4+1+1) memory and a 106MB HDD.

The inside. The motherboard is an Elitegroup HM 386SX REV. 1.1

The Toshiba Trident TVGA 8900C 512KB video card.

The system running "Links The Challenge of Golf" which I found on the HDD. 😀

rein_ein wrote:

Today at local radio market i got something unusual(at least for me) First one - GF2 mx400 as sticker says its made by Tiga Visi […]
Show full quote

Today at local radio market i got something unusual(at least for me)
First one - GF2 mx400 as sticker says its made by Tiga Vision,at least it posts,gonna complete tests bit later (whats unusual? look at memory),gpu-z says its SDR

And second one is AMD Geode NX 1750,not sure what i'm gonna do with it but at first i need compatible via or sis chipset mobo for it 😕

I think the NX just need an Socket-A. Shame it was not the NX-2001.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geode_%28processor%29#Geode_NX

brostenen wrote:

I think the NX just need an Socket-A. Shame it was not the NX-2001.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geode_%28processor%29#Geode_NX

Mine came from dead ASUS Eee PC 1201K as i know.
Gooogling a bit found at cpu-upgrade chipset compatibility - SiS 741/VIA KT400A/SiS 741GX/VIA KT600/VIA KM266Pro
Can find VIA KT600 mobo for sure,idk Geode worth it or probably i better go search for some Athlon XP 😐

Nice 386 Skyscraper 😀

keropi wrote:

Nice 386 Skyscraper 😀

No kidding. It looks brand new! That is so cool...😀

keropi wrote:

Nice 386 Skyscraper 😀

clueless1 wrote:

No kidding. It looks brand new! That is so cool...😀

Thanks 😀

The system does indeed look almost new inside but the plastic front is a bit "yellowed".

The system seems to have lived a pretty uneventful life.

I do not know anything about the systems life history before the date 1992-10-15, perhaps it was sold that day or a few days earlier

The owner was deeply religious couple named B**** and H****** born around the time of WW2. I did not buy the system from the religious couple, it seems they got rid of the system late 2005 but nothing on the HDD has changed since that time as noone has been able to boot DOS because of the dead battery.

1992-10-15: The current DOS-installation was installed, Norton Commander and PCglobe aswell
1992-10-18: The first games were installed, PCMAN, Prince, Tetris and Yatzy.
1992-11-14: The games Fillers, Lemmings and Tetrille were added.
1992:11-24: Links The Challenge of Golf was installed.
1992-12-01: Windows 3.1 was installed.
...
Nothing except documents
...
1997-01-26: MS Office was installed (only Word 6.0 and Excel).
...
Late 1998: The battery dies but the owner knows how to set the HDD parameters, all documents from here on is dated the first days of Jan 1980.
...
Nothing except a few documents
...
From year 2000 and on there is perhaps one new Word document created every year.
...
2005-06-05. The date the last document was written, a dated letter to relatives overseas.
...
Later 2005: The system changed owner, the new owner could not get it to boot.
...
2016-01-12. I set the HDD parameters and the system boots again for the first time in over 10 years. 😀

I doubt this system has been powered on for more than a couple hundred hours in its lifetime.

Skyscraper wrote:

Thanks :) […]
Show full quote

keropi wrote:

Nice 386 Skyscraper 😀

clueless1 wrote:

No kidding. It looks brand new! That is so cool...😀

Thanks 😀

The system does indeed look almost new inside but the plastic front is a bit "yellowed".

The system seems to have lived a pretty uneventful life.

I do not know anything about the systems life history before the date 1992-10-15, perhaps it was sold that day or a few days earlier

The owner was deeply religious couple named B**** and H****** borne around the time of WW2. I did not buy the system from the religious couple, it seems they got rid of the system late 2005 but nothing on the HDD has changed since that time as noone has been able to boot DOS because of the dead battery.

1992-10-15: The current DOS-installation was installed, Norton Commander and PCglobe aswell
1992-10-18: The first games were installed, PCMAN, Prince, Tetris and Yatzy.
1992-11-14: The games Fillers, Lemmings and Tetrille were added.
1992:11-24: Links The Challenge of Golf was installed.
1992-12-01: Windows 3.1 was installed.
...
Nothing except documents
...
1997-01-26: MS Office was installed (only Word 6.0 and Excel).
...
Late 1998: The battery dies but the owner knows how to set the HDD parameters, all documents from here on is dated the first days of Jan 1980.
...
Nothing except a few documents
...
From year 2000 and on there is perhaps one new Word document created every year.
...
2005-06-05. The date the last document was written, a dated letter to relatives overseas.
...
Later 2005: The system changed owner, the new owner could not get it to boot.
...
2016-01-12. I set the HDD parameters and the system boots again for the first time in over 10 years. 😀

I doubt this system has been powered on for more than a couple hundred hours in its lifetime.

Wow...you're like a detective! 😁

Tetrium wrote:

Wow...you're like a detective! 😁

Normally I do a fresh install without snooping when I buy preowned systems but with these old machines there is less of a risk stumbeling over nasty pictures showing the previous owners "hot girlfriend" and such and you often find useful stuff and games you diddnt yet own. 😁

In Sweden when it comes to old computer programs you automagicly own everything installed on a system you buy, it's the sellers responsibility to make sure there is no warez on the computer as the buyer normally isnt qualified to judge such things 😜. I guess its best to add that this sadly isnt how it works with modern systems and programs, not even in Sweden.

Everything on this system seems legit anyhow as far as I can judge.

Nice bit of work, Skyscraper! That reminds me of when I picked up my Compaq Contura 3/25 a few days ago. The previous owners left several interesting documents, software, and, well, software remnants that I found interesting, so I decided to piece together a little timeline of what that system was used for throughout its life. For instance, in late '96/early '97 it seemed to have been used alongside one of these things in a lab, and it even still had the software for it loaded on the HDD. Seems like that was its last major use, as the dates seemed to jump from 1997 to 2005 - and then to 2016, when I got a hold of it. According to the eBay seller I purchased it from, it was in the hands of another vintage computer collector before they decided to sell it, along with several other vintage laptops, to the eBay seller. And it's still running its factory install of DOS 5.0/Windows 3.1 from 1992! 😎

Yeah.... That's true. That 386 looks so nice.
Can't get around that the plastic have gone yellow.

Skyscraper wrote:

Normally I do a fresh install without snooping when I buy preowned systems but with these old machines there is less of a risk stumbeling over nasty pictures showing the previous owners "hot girlfriend" and such and you often find useful stuff and games you diddnt yet own. 😁

In Sweden when it comes to old computer programs you automagicly own everything installed on a system you buy, it's the sellers responsibility to make sure there is no warez on the computer as the buyer normally isnt qualified to judge such things 😜. I guess its best to add that this sadly isnt how it works with modern systems and programs, not even in Sweden.

Everything on this system seems legit anyhow as far as I can judge.

Don't know the law here in Denmark, when it comes to buying a machine with pirated stuff.
On the other hand, who cares to sue for 90's and 80's software on a system, that are not on the internet?
Yeah... I just wipe the harddrive for every bit's and byte's, and get on with restoring it.
I allways check for stuff like the really gross illegal stuff, and if I find anything, I will report to police and child service.
Never found anything though.

brostenen wrote:

Don't know the law here in Denmark, when it comes to buying a machine with pirated stuff. On the other hand, who cares to sue fo […]
Show full quote

Skyscraper wrote:

Normally I do a fresh install without snooping when I buy preowned systems but with these old machines there is less of a risk stumbeling over nasty pictures showing the previous owners "hot girlfriend" and such and you often find useful stuff and games you diddnt yet own. 😁

In Sweden when it comes to old computer programs you automagicly own everything installed on a system you buy, it's the sellers responsibility to make sure there is no warez on the computer as the buyer normally isnt qualified to judge such things 😜. I guess its best to add that this sadly isnt how it works with modern systems and programs, not even in Sweden.

Everything on this system seems legit anyhow as far as I can judge.

Don't know the law here in Denmark, when it comes to buying a machine with pirated stuff.
On the other hand, who cares to sue for 90's and 80's software on a system, that are not on the internet?
Yeah... I just wipe the harddrive for every bit's and byte's, and get on with restoring it.
I allways check for stuff like the really gross illegal stuff, and if I find anything, I will report to police and child service.
Never found anything though.

Same here. I usually did check the content of the harddrives I found, mostly for software product keys and because of curiosity of what the computers were used for and to see if the harddrive would actually still boot in case the drive had bad sectors or other mechanical problems.
Never found anything illegal, except maybe for some nasty virus infested Windows installments only found some pics taken on some foreign holiday once or twice. I did find quite a bit of personal documents like lists of former jobs, but except for looking at these documents a single time, I couldn't care less about any of the private stuff that was on there and after I had extracted all useful data (usually just the product keys), I didn't even bother to copy the data digitally, I just wrote down any keys I found on a piece of paper and after that it was "format c:" right away! 😁

No idea why I wanted all those Windows 98 keys though, but it was still fun getting them 🤣! And the data I just wiped, as I had no intention to actually (ab)use the data on the computer the previous owner had dumped for me to have for free anyway 😁