cyclone3d wrote:

Back in the day, I had a thing that was supposed to help overclocking socket 7 CPUs. Basically, you slid it on the CPU pins before putting the CPU in the socket. All it was was a thin plate with a bunch of extra smd capacitors on it. Guessing it was supposed to help make the power going to the CPU cleaner. Not sure if it actually helped or not.

If it had power to it the it was probably a peltier cooler.
I remember those being sold for that back then. (With a lot of hype.)

Guessing it was supposed to help make the power going to the CPU cleaner.

Looks like a separate VRM, probably with voltage jumpers somewhere. I think you can fit Pentium MMX or AMD K6-2 into motherboard without split-rail voltage (430FX) with this thing.

PCBONEZ wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

Back in the day, I had a thing that was supposed to help overclocking socket 7 CPUs. Basically, you slid it on the CPU pins before putting the CPU in the socket. All it was was a thin plate with a bunch of extra smd capacitors on it. Guessing it was supposed to help make the power going to the CPU cleaner. Not sure if it actually helped or not.

If it had power to it the it was probably a peltier cooler.
I remember those being sold for that back then. (With a lot of hype.)

No, the old thing I had wasn't a peltier. I still have a 30w peltier that I was using back then. A 30w peltier is too powerful for an AMD K6-2 BTW. It will ice the CPU and a few inches of the board all around the CPU.

It was literally a very thin circuit board with smd capacitors in the middle where the CPU pins weren't that you slid onto the CPU pins before you inserted into the socket. I got rid of it the lat time I took it off a CPU because it got messed up. Kinda wish I would have kept it.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

Guessing it was supposed to help make the power going to the CPU cleaner.

Looks like a separate VRM, probably with voltage jumpers somewhere. I think you can fit Pentium MMX or AMD K6-2 into motherboard without split-rail voltage (430FX) with this thing.

That would be interesting.. though it does say it can handle pushing 22 amps through it. The box claims it is for sokcet 7 and super socket 7 so I am guessing it is mainly meant to supply extra amperage for motherboards that can't handle what the CPU needs.

I wonder if it could also be a potential "fix" for boards where the CPU power circuit is faulty.

cyclone3d wrote:

No, the old thing I had wasn't a peltier. I still have a 30w peltier that I was using back then. A 30w peltier is too powerful for an AMD K6-2 BTW. It will ice the CPU and a few inches of the board all around the CPU.

It was literally a very thin circuit board with smd capacitors in the middle where the CPU pins weren't that you slid onto the CPU pins before you inserted into the socket. I got rid of it the lat time I took it off a CPU because it got messed up. Kinda wish I would have kept it.

Interesting. I don't recall ever seeing something like that.
Did it have any form of electrical connection at all?

xjas wrote:

^^ Interesting, that looks exactly like this Gigabyte board. Yours has a few more caps (hope they're not GSC, heh) but there are blank solder pads in those locations on the Gigabyte. What was it marketed as?

Same VIA chipset with the 82C686B southbridge, naturally, so hopefully it has the DOS-compatible sound options in the BIOS. If not you can probably flash it to the Gigabyte one.

Thanks for looking that up xjas, saved me some time. Used the Gigabyte GA-6VTXE motherboard manual to setup the front panel pins properly. 🤣 Yeah, that is the exact same board layout ripped off from Gigabyte with a few tweaks here and there, but hey, it's factory new and I am pretty stoked about that. As far as the caps quality, could care less. I am ordering about three of the boards and if some caps go over the next few years, I replace them. Not too worried about it. Although, I have had some cheap caps last me over a decade and some quality caps go within months. Of course, that is usually the exception and not the norm, but I really don't get too worked up about it.

Bought a couple of boards and cards at junk prices, seller genuinely didn't test anything.. One of the things in the lot was this Voodoo 3 card:

I can slap on a suitable cooler on it and try to see if it works, but from the potato photo I believe the crystal to the left of the GPU is loose? How hard would that be to replace?

Also, anyone know what make/model this Socket 370 board may be? Just got it because it looks like an i815 with integrated audio and sound, in mATX form factor, so might make a decent small Win98 build some day..

Also, still trying to figure out the make/model of this 486 board I am expecting in the mail.. real cache? fake cache?

cyclone3d wrote:

@Artex. Very nice. Now I am sure I should have bought a house with a basement. […]
Show full quote

@Artex. Very nice. Now I am sure I should have bought a house with a basement.

Edit: I have this bizarre item on the way.

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Back in the day, I had a thing that was supposed to help overclocking socket 7 CPUs. Basically, you slid it on the CPU pins before putting the CPU in the socket. All it was was a thin plate with a bunch of extra smd capacitors on it. Guessing it was supposed to help make the power going to the CPU cleaner. Not sure if it actually helped or not.

BOO! you were the one bidding against me! I wanted it for my ibm model 95. 🙁

its ok though. I didn't have the cash to continue.

I picked up this PSU with no idea whether it works or not. Any way to test it without plugging it into a board?

I could not pass up this unique looking CD drive. Sadly, it looks as though it might require a specific sound card to work properly. I will research it more when I finish my current project. It also has something rattling in it which I believe to be a ball bearing from the slider.

twilliamc wrote:

I picked up this PSU with no idea whether it works or not. Any way to test it without plugging it into a board?

Pin PS_ON to ground and run it through a battery of testing (ripple, regulation, transient; whatever you have equipment for). You may require some resistive load to stabilize the supply.

gdjacobs wrote:

You may require some resistive load to stabilize the supply.

I keep some busted HDD's (bad sectors but still spin fine) around for that.
.

I hadn't thought of that. Great idea.

That's an AT PSU (you can see the power switch in the photo), so there's no need to trigger PS_ON. Just plug some (non-critical) HDDs in and turn it on.

SW-SSG wrote:

That's an AT PSU (you can see the power switch in the photo), so there's no need to trigger PS_ON. Just plug some (non-critical) HDDs in and turn it on.

Load may still be needed.
It's a Bestec so a fire extinguisher might be handy. [JK]
.

SW-SSG wrote:

That's an AT PSU (you can see the power switch in the photo), so there's no need to trigger PS_ON. Just plug some (non-critical) HDDs in and turn it on.

Busted. I didn't even really look at the picture. Serves me right for assuming.

Bestec supplies aren't all terrible. Those flawed 250W 12e jobs with the obsolete SB topology and shit secondary caps were not exemplary of their entire run, unlike true purveyors of gutless wonders. Even on the bad units, the performance on other rails wasn't that horrible. Of course, that didn't matter considering the way the SB rail tended to overshoot and nuke out the south bridge.

gdjacobs wrote:

SW-SSG wrote:

That's an AT PSU (you can see the power switch in the photo), so there's no need to trigger PS_ON. Just plug some (non-critical) HDDs in and turn it on.

Busted. I didn't even really look at the picture. Serves me right for assuming.

Bestec supplies aren't all terrible. Those flawed 250W 12e jobs with the obsolete SB topology and shit secondary caps were not exemplary of their entire run, unlike true purveyors of gutless wonders. Even on the bad units, the performance on other rails wasn't that horrible. Of course, that didn't matter considering the way the SB rail tended to overshoot and nuke out the south bridge.

That's why the [JK] there at the end.
The chipset blowing Bestec problem children were ATX anyway.

As I recall the problem wasn't exclusive to 250W and rev 12e though.
Those just got the most press because they were widely used in HP/Compaq, eMachines, Gateway.......

twilliamc wrote:

I picked up this PSU with no idea whether it works or not. Any way to test it without plugging it into a board?

Oh nice. I recapped almost that exact model last year. It powers a 486DX2-66 now.

Replaced the fan, too. That old sucker was pretty darn loud.

PCBONEZ wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

No, the old thing I had wasn't a peltier. I still have a 30w peltier that I was using back then. A 30w peltier is too powerful for an AMD K6-2 BTW. It will ice the CPU and a few inches of the board all around the CPU.

It was literally a very thin circuit board with smd capacitors in the middle where the CPU pins weren't that you slid onto the CPU pins before you inserted into the socket. I got rid of it the lat time I took it off a CPU because it got messed up. Kinda wish I would have kept it.

Interesting. I don't recall ever seeing something like that.
Did it have any form of electrical connection at all?

Just with some of the CPU pins. There was no external power connection.

cyclone3d wrote:

PCBONEZ wrote:

cyclone3d wrote:

No, the old thing I had wasn't a peltier. I still have a 30w peltier that I was using back then. A 30w peltier is too powerful for an AMD K6-2 BTW. It will ice the CPU and a few inches of the board all around the CPU.

It was literally a very thin circuit board with smd capacitors in the middle where the CPU pins weren't that you slid onto the CPU pins before you inserted into the socket. I got rid of it the lat time I took it off a CPU because it got messed up. Kinda wish I would have kept it.

Interesting. I don't recall ever seeing something like that.
Did it have any form of electrical connection at all?

Just with some of the CPU pins. There was no external power connection.

That's what I meant, or was guessing.
Sounds like it tapped the CPU pins for power/ground and added additional filter caps.
I would be the same idea as adding more caps in the bottom of the socket or on bottom side of the CPU for newer CPUs.
Odd way to implement it and (barring extreme overclocking) probably not necessary but they weren't totally nuts.
.

Some new stuff I got today 😀

Canopus Spectra 8400

Canopus Spectra 5400

Leadtek Winfast S3 Virge GX2