Ozzuneoj wrote:

I just picked this interesting little guy up for less than $9 shipped: […]
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I just picked this interesting little guy up for less than $9 shipped:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Packard-Bell- … =p2047675.l2557

The attachment SGBXII.jpg is no longer available

As far as I can tell, it is a Packard Bell branded 8-bit ISA Aztech Sound Galaxy BXII sound card. It isn't in perfect condition, but they don't seem terribly common, and it makes a nice cheap addition to my collection. This would be only the third 8bit sound card I have come across (along with my CT1350B and Midiman MM401). The volume knob and the YM3812-F OPL2 chip are pretty cool. 😎

Does anyone know anything else about these? I can't find much information on them, other than that some have had success installing CT1350B drivers for them (which, incidentally, I have original floppies of). I know the SB 2.0 doesn't do MIDI over its Gameport, but would these cards be capable of doing it? Are there any 8-bit midi+pcm cards that can? Its just something I've been curious about...

I recognized your sound card, so I had a look at mine and mine is a bit different.

Apparently you have one of the chips socketed while mine is soldered to the PCB.
I can't read the markings on your socketed chip, but my soldered chip had the following markings (they are a bit hard to read, so may contain some slight errors),
MHS
cAVS AZTDSP36 (the "c" is the copyright symbol)
S-80C51FASM
cINTEL 80,82 ("c" is copyright symbol again)
9309 (this looks to be a date code)

Your bottom-left chip with the Packard Bell sticker on it, is unstickered on mine and this chip has the following markings,
AZTECH
AZTSB0792-U07 (0792 is probably another date code)

JAPAN
9305P5005 (lots of date codes on the chip 🤣).

Yours probably is a similar chip, so if you want you can probably leave the original sticker on.

Your Yahama chip (in the middle above the jumpers) appears to have a slightly more recent date code of 9315 where mine reads 9302, followed by EAIB (can't read yours).

You have "Made in Singapore" in the top left where mine has "ASSB in Singapore" in the top middle (directly above that row of 6 very tiny resistors) and all of your caps and all of your tiny resistors are also on my card.

I know I stripped this card from an old system by my own hands and mine still has the original sound cable attached to the white socket, I think it's best if I take a pic so you know the wiring 😀.

My jumperblock appears to be the same, but the jumpers on mine are set up a bit differently (I never changed these so this is how it was extracted from its original system).
They are (from left to right) J2 2-3 J1 1-2 and IRQ7 (the IRQ jumper is probably kinda irrelevant for you to know though).

The long resistor-whateverthingy on your card is black where mine is blue (it's the one directly to the right and then slightly lower to the Yamaha chip in the middle).

Last but not least: Bottom left mine has a stciker with the part number, it reads "I38-SGBX21", so it's indeed some form of Sound Galaxy!

Pic to come (cellphone, but it's the best that I can do right now).

edit: Forgot to take a look at the back of the card as this usually also reveals interesting bits of info.

The date code in the PCB is 1293 and it has another date code printed in white font (almost looks like it's painted with a very fine paintbrush) 9319.

Theres also in the PCB the following: 50-0SC6AZ-2S-5

edit: Added some pics

I had to cut some stuff from the pics as it was kinda reflecting everywhere 😵

Hope this helps 😀.

chose007 wrote:

stamasd wrote:

🤣 tell me about it. I am putting together a socket423 build right now, and I'll be limited to 2GHz. Unless I somehow find one of those socket423-to-478-adapter-with-builtin-voltage-converter (made from unobtainium) in which case I might reach 2.8GHz. 🙁

Never heart about converter with voltage regulation. I own clean converter from 478 to 423 but you still limited by Willamete core so cant use NW to it.

Apparently back in 2002 there were couple of adapters made that had a voltage converter on-board, similar to those socket 370 Tualatin adapters.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/processor … ards,520-4.html
http://www.geek.com/chips/socket-423-to-socke … -for-50-547612/

Those would allow 400MHz FSB Northwood chips to be used in Socket 423 motherboards. Been looking for one for some time, but I have never seen one on sale anywhere. They must not have sold well and there probably aren't many of them around.

stamasd wrote:

Those would allow 400MHz FSB Northwood chips to be used in Socket 423 motherboards. Been looking for one for some time, but I have never seen one on sale anywhere. They must not have sold well and there probably aren't many of them around.

Wouldn't it be easier to just get a socket 478 motherboard instead?

devius wrote:

stamasd wrote:

Those would allow 400MHz FSB Northwood chips to be used in Socket 423 motherboards. Been looking for one for some time, but I have never seen one on sale anywhere. They must not have sold well and there probably aren't many of them around.

Wouldn't it be easier to just get a socket 478 motherboard instead?

Well at the time, people had invested in socket423 and it was expensive to toss that whole system and switch to a socket478 instead.

And I have my reasons to want a socket423 system... one being that those were the last systems (as far as I can tell) that would occasionally have a SB-link header... 😀

Just bought this strange VLB card for 10USD. Suppose it's some TSENG ET4000 - Cardex 9209 VLB VGA Card - Tseng ET4000/W32 specifically (not sure - FCC suggests it's a Gainward).

Any thougts? Is it any good? 😀

Bought this funny little tower as well for my 486 build:

^Wow nice case!

Scored a Quadro 4500 X2 yesterday for $43 shipped.

My NV1 arrived today!

Now to have some fun...

Gone a bit bonkers recently and been buying non stop. Awaiting lots of deliveries but 2 notable ones are managing to bag a Voodoo3 2000 PCI and a BFG 7950GX2 😀

I love buying joblots as I find a great thrill going through all the cards and seeing what you get and what works! 😎

Sutekh94 wrote:

My NV1 arrived today! […]
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My NV1 arrived today!

Now to have some fun...

Was that the one for 19.99 dollars?
Nice find!

If you ever want to trade it, I would be interested 😀

My "Korean Guy" Tualatin 1400-S arrived today. 8 Days from S.Korea to UK not bad.

Mr_ppp wrote:

Gone a bit bonkers recently and been buying non stop. Awaiting lots of deliveries but 2 notable ones are managing to bag a Voodoo3 2000 PCI and a BFG 7950GX2 😀

I love buying joblots as I find a great thrill going through all the cards and seeing what you get and what works! 😎

We seem to have similar buying profiles. Two of my most recent acquisitions were a V3-3000 and a BFG 7800 (AGP). 😀

tikoellner wrote:

Bought this funny little tower as well for my 486 build: http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii603/tikoellner/6232798025_zpswt9r […]
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Bought this funny little tower as well for my 486 build:

I really like this case, looks like the goofy but lovable friend all of us have.

Bancho wrote:

My "Korean Guy" Tualatin 1400-S arrived today. 8 Days from S.Korea to UK not bad. […]
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My "Korean Guy" Tualatin 1400-S arrived today. 8 Days from S.Korea to UK not bad.

Good luck, I bought a few and they did not work on anything

Jade Falcon wrote:

Good luck, I bought a few and they did not work on anything

Mine worked fine on my Asus CUSL2-M. Booted first time. Updated my build thread with details.

My latest eBay buy, an Asus A8N-SLI Premium; nothing too rare or really retro but it's perhaps the best 939 desktop motherboard available and it was a 1€ bid (+postage, of course 🤣 ) including an Athlon 3500+ Venice core. It's in very good shape, works perfectly and in fact it looks barely used.

Recently happened in to a combo listing totally at random one night. I just decided.. type it in to ebay, and low and behold, there it was.. and at a decent price.

Don't have it in my paws yet, seller's really slow to send it. But basically it's an AthlonXP motherboard, unknown processor, full-copper with fan heatsink and a Geforce3 Ti500 all for $43 shipped.

I have no idea what processor I'll get with it.. the motherboard does support up to 400-FSB Bartons.. maybe I'll be lucky.

Admittedly the only thing I want out of the listing though is the video card, the rest I don't care much for.

Looks like one of the nicer Ti500's too with DVI and svideo out.

Original listing was here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/131827742396?_trksid= … K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Not the best photos so not entirely sure exactly what I'm getting. Part of the fun/mystery of ebay though. 😀

A man on a forum said, he found some old computer in the attics of his country cottage - I bought it and it happened to be the IBM PC 5150, even not the XT) IT even had an HDD drive) ... I wonder is there any reason to keep it, as it has only 256kb memmory - is it too smal to run anything... Or maybe to search for a memmory expansion card))

Here are pictures in high resulution - https://yadi.sk/d/mq73726us9zDB

My fathers 386 SX 16 MHz (an Octek motherboard I believe) had this case. It fills me with nostalgia!

tikoellner wrote:

Just bought this strange VLB card for 10USD. Suppose it's some TSENG ET4000 - Cardex 9209 VLB VGA Card - Tseng ET4000/W32 specif […]
Show full quote

Just bought this strange VLB card for 10USD. Suppose it's some TSENG ET4000 - Cardex 9209 VLB VGA Card - Tseng ET4000/W32 specifically (not sure - FCC suggests it's a Gainward).

...

Any thougts? Is it any good? 😀

Bought this funny little tower as well for my 486 build:

@Cyrix200+

did your fathers case had this mhz display as well? I just have some doubts if it's a genuine design or some add-on by the previous owner.

Yes, it was exactly like this one! Yellow MHz display (ours said '16' of course). I have seen it once before on Vogons, lemme check if I can find it.