Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-12-13, 22:43:

I picked up a Dell Studio XPS 435T/9000 at my local thrift store that, thankfully, has no silly policy about not selling computers. They said $40.00, I offered $30.00, they said "Sold!" This thing is built like a tank! I actually put it on a scale because I had to know, and it weighs forty pounds; it's a computer that can double as workout equipment. Socket 1366, i7 920, twelve gigabytes of DDR3, a GTX 260 (an unusual OEM version that has 1.7 gigabytes of DDR3), an SB0880 X-Fi, a wireless N card, a DVD RW, and a Blu Ray RW. I decided to buy it because the X-Fi alone goes for about $30.00 on Ebay.

Everything works, though of course the hard drive is old and slow and the Windows 7 installation is badly in need of being formatted.

Had one of these at work about 10 years ago, used for CAD 2D/3D drawings. Solid machine never gave me problems despite being a Dell.
The "stock" graphics card was a Radeon HD variant but can't recall the exact model.

buckeye wrote on 2022-12-14, 18:02:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-12-13, 22:43:

I picked up a Dell Studio XPS 435T/9000 at my local thrift store that, thankfully, has no silly policy about not selling computers. They said $40.00, I offered $30.00, they said "Sold!" This thing is built like a tank! I actually put it on a scale because I had to know, and it weighs forty pounds; it's a computer that can double as workout equipment. Socket 1366, i7 920, twelve gigabytes of DDR3, a GTX 260 (an unusual OEM version that has 1.7 gigabytes of DDR3), an SB0880 X-Fi, a wireless N card, a DVD RW, and a Blu Ray RW. I decided to buy it because the X-Fi alone goes for about $30.00 on Ebay.

Everything works, though of course the hard drive is old and slow and the Windows 7 installation is badly in need of being formatted.

Had one of these at work about 10 years ago, used for CAD 2D/3D drawings. Solid machine never gave me problems despite being a Dell.
The "stock" graphics card was a Radeon HD variant but can't recall the exact model.

The video drivers offered for the 435T/9000 indicate that the video card options were: HD 3450 HD 3650 HD 4350 HD 4670 HD 5450 HD 5770 HD5870 GT220 GTX 260
The service tag on mine indicates that it came with the GTX 260.

Cosmic wrote on 2022-12-14, 16:57:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-12-14, 12:49:

Veeb0rg wrote on 2022-12-14, 08:14:

Any null modem cable and a terminal program with transfer protocols will work.

I dont have a null modem cable or the inclination to make one, this was a fiver and will last far longer than anything I could rig up.

That's pretty interesting, I've never used a LapLink / null-printer cable. I'm the other way around and use a null-modem cable all the time, especially with my PCEngines router. Might have to grab one of these and test it out, especially if it's faster as Wikipedia says it is.

I tried dumping a Thinkpad 760E's 2GB HDD over serial once, to avoid breaking it out of it's proprietary plastic shell. I calculated it would take a minimum of 22 days at 9800 baud and it failed a few minutes later anyway, 🤣.

Connection over parallel port is a lot faster than over serial. I used that quite often and if i remember correctly the transfer rate was around 80 KByte/sec. And parallel cables are also supported by DOS' interlnk/intersrv so you can use the remote harddisk as if it were a local one.

Also works with older windowses Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) so you can use DOS plip drivers and get an interwebnet pipe from a more connected windoze box.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-12-14, 17:27:

There is also a USB to USB Laplink cable too, its proprietary but you can get them on the bay fairly cheap, I'm thinking of grabbing one as yet another way to move files around. Serial Laplink really isn't designed for backing up large HDDs but rather backing up the important files. (2Gb was fairly large back in the day)

I like options that don't require effort on my part to deploy, might be a bit slower but the time saved is worth it, the bonus in using a Laplink setup is that I can also test the serial ports with it.

You can also exploit USB sharing functionality built into some KVMs, plug a flash drive into shared USB port, dump stuff from one side, suck it out from the other, without repeated manual plugging.

There's plenty of options, but the best - and supported by both vintage and modern machines - is LAN.
So, in order to be on-topic:

I've recently aquired a bunch of various NICs, from 8-bit ISA (both Arcnet and 10 Mbps Ethernet) to PCI-X Gigabit Ethernet.

I think I had switchable ARCnet cards once, SMC?? they were supposed to be faster in Arcnet mode or allow longer segments or something. Didn't really notice the benefit with only two of them, so they got used in 10base2 mode when I had 3 and 4 machines up.

I'm batting 1.000 on buying second-hand GPUs so far. The GTX 285 was a dud and now the MX 440-8x that arrived today looks faulty. Tried it in two different motherboards ( P2B and A7N8XX ) and it does the same thing. 20 seconds of being fine, then vertical stripes with corrupted ASCII text. Tried it once with an extra fan aimed right at the card and I got almost a full minute of normal behavior before it glitched out, which kinda confirms my suspicions of a thermal problem somewhere on the card.

Now another return hassle to deal with. And with this luck, the Auzen Forte that's supposed to be here this weekend will also be defective.

Ydee wrote on 2022-12-11, 09:39:

It won't be that simple: the same hw was sold as Inspiron and Latitude (which I have, see pic). The P4-M (mine at 1.8GHz) heats […]
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It won't be that simple: the same hw was sold as Inspiron and Latitude (which I have, see pic). The P4-M (mine at 1.8GHz) heats terribly, so I recommend replacing the original aluminium foil between the CPU and the radiator and replacing it with a decent thermal paste. The CPU is cooled short heatpipe with a few thin ribs and those 2 small fans are annoyingly noisy.

There were 2 types of power supplies with a compatible connectors: PA-6 and PA-9. The first one handles 70W (for use with P3 models like C810) and if you use it with the P4-M, it won't run at full frequency, but only in safe mode. For the P4-M, you need a PA-9 type with 90W power.

Dell does not provide a driver for the GF4MX440 Go graphics card for W98(SE) - it does not provide any support at all for this OS, the laptop was designed for WXP. The generic driver for GF4MX440 can't be installed, maybe it will if the INF file is edited and the Dell string ID is added - I haven't tried.

The modular FDDs can be replaced with a second battery or CD/DVD drive, they are identical to the lower C6xx series.

Dock station for use with PA-9 is model PRX.

So I got the power adapter today (PA-9) and the laptop works! It's a P4 1.6 Ghz, 1 GB + 128 MB RAM, GeForce2 Go GPU (for which I did find a Win9x driver), no HDD unfortunately, but that can obviously be replaced. The biggest issue is the battery, as there appears to be no new replacements available, and I'm not going to waste money on a used battery considering they're all likely end of life due to age. So I need to either look into the possibility of rebuilding the battery pack or just find an alternate portable power source for when I'm not near a power outlet. It would be unfortunate to have to be tethered to a wall outlet anytime I want to use it, but I guess that's not terrible considering the limited use it will receive and I likely won't ever travel with it.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-12-14, 02:25:

Cosmic wrote on 2022-12-14, 01:27:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-12-13, 22:43:

I picked up a Dell ...

Wow, it has triple channel memory in six slots. That's pretty interesting to see. Based on the parts inside it seems like someone used it for a while and kept upgrading it. Nice find!

I tried to test play a Blu Ray, but it notified me that the monitor I have it attached to isn't HDCP compliant. That took me back to when I bought a Blu Ray drive for my system years ago only to be notified my 20" Viewsonic monitor wasn't HDCP compliant, so I had to buy a newer one. This worked out well for my cousin since I gave it to her (she still had a CRT monitor).

Me curious, what program did you use to actually play that blu-ray movie ?

bestemor wrote on 2022-12-15, 10:55:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-12-14, 02:25:

Cosmic wrote on 2022-12-14, 01:27:

Wow, it has triple channel memory in six slots. That's pretty interesting to see. Based on the parts inside it seems like someone used it for a while and kept upgrading it. Nice find!

I tried to test play a Blu Ray, but it notified me that the monitor I have it attached to isn't HDCP compliant. That took me back to when I bought a Blu Ray drive for my system years ago only to be notified my 20" Viewsonic monitor wasn't HDCP compliant, so I had to buy a newer one. This worked out well for my cousin since I gave it to her (she still had a CRT monitor).

Me curious, what program did you use to actually play that blu-ray movie ?

Power DVD.

I already had a V550 driver CD and kept my eyes open to find a matching graphics card. Recently I found one for an acceptable price. It'll probably replace the Millennium II in my Pentium II build.

Also picked up an EtherLink XL networking card. I think it'll go in my Pentium MMX build.

Told myself that I wouldn't bring home any more old computers, and then I saw this (yellowed) beige Enlight case at a thrift store. ..
Socket A Asus A7V333 motherboard, unknown CPU, what I think is a GeForce 2MX video card.
Now to see if any of it works!

My paranoia about hipsters running prices on fairly day to day shit up running rampant, I've started ordering more late AGP and early PCIe era cards.

Grabbed a XFX 7600GT 256MB PCIe for $16 and a Quadro 3450 (GeForce 6800GS spec) for $9.

I still need to open my wallet for a GeForce FX5700 and a Radeon R6 DDR. Need to source AGP 6600 and 6600GTs too. Finish out the GeForce 7000 series and MAYBE find a 2nd 6800GT so I have an SLI pair. I've just accepted certain cards aren't happening at reasonable (under $100) prices at this point (9800XT, X850 AGP, G5900 Ultra/XT) and I've decided I have similar enough cards I can live without. I may or may not grab GF2 Ti/Pro variants. I already have a GTS and an Ultra, I can downclock the Ultra if I need to get performance specs for a Ti. Still need to source a Radeon 8500 (Normal, not the underclocked TV out version) which is going to be fun.

At any rate, I'm very glad I basically vacuumed up GPUs the last half decade or so, and I'm especially glad I fanboy'd nVIDIA and prioritized grabbing their stuff first because ATI cards are much more under control in terms of pricing currently.

On the plus side, NVIDIA Fermi based cards are getting into "purchase for fun" prices now. GTX 590s and 690s are going for under $100. Def going to pick one of each up at some point.

I found a GTX 570 3 slot Asus card for $30 and passed it on to a fellow for $40 awhile back with an extra FX 8350 setup. He seemed to really enjoy it. The 570 isn't quite the monster the 580 and 90 is but the 1.5?gb doesn't hurt.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2022-12-16, 05:30:

My paranoia about hipsters running prices on fairly day to day shit up running rampant, I've started ordering more late AGP and early PCIe era cards.

reason why i stopped collecting. I only pick up stuff thats off their radar now. they only know what theyre told, so theres still plenty of good stufff they dont know about.

Do you believe in Christmas miracles? I was not sure, but now know, that sometimes they happen.
Just got nice working Voodoo 5 5500 from a local Bulgarian seller for the price of two cigarette packs.

Brawndo wrote on 2022-12-15, 04:43:

So I got the power adapter today (PA-9) and the laptop works! It's a P4 1.6 Ghz, 1 GB + 128 MB RAM, GeForce2 Go GPU (for which I did find a Win9x driver), no HDD unfortunately, but that can obviously be replaced. The biggest issue is the battery, as there appears to be no new replacements available, and I'm not going to waste money on a used battery considering they're all likely end of life due to age. So I need to either look into the possibility of rebuilding the battery pack or just find an alternate portable power source for when I'm not near a power outlet. It would be unfortunate to have to be tethered to a wall outlet anytime I want to use it, but I guess that's not terrible considering the limited use it will receive and I likely won't ever travel with it.

An interesting combination, the GeForce2 Go was in the C810 with the PIII, but it's pin-compatible with both the GF4MX/4200Ti and the Radeon 7500 used in C840 and Inspiron, so it can be changed across models.
The C810 has drivers for WinME (and therefore W98SE), so GF2 Go is no problem to use in W98SE.

Rebuilding batteries won't be easy, with a memory circuit in the battery that monitors and stores data on aging and decreasing battery capacity. Simply replacing the battery cells will not help, it is necessary to reset this memory too. I once found an article on the internet about it, describing the principle and functions of the monitoring and control circuit and the way it resets after replacing the batteries, but it was a long time ago (the laptop is from 2001) and I'm afraid I won't find it again.
Anyway, for some big travel, this machine with its batteries are a hell of a lot heavier.

DundyTheCroc wrote on 2022-12-16, 10:58:

Do you believe in Christmas miracles? I was not sure, but now know, that sometimes they happen.
Just got nice working Voodoo 5 5500 from a local Bulgarian seller for the price of two cigarette packs.
5500.jpg

I'm guessing cigarette packs cost less than $250 USD where you are, so nice find!!! 😁

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2022-12-16, 05:30:

On the plus side, NVIDIA Fermi based cards are getting into "purchase for fun" prices now. GTX 590s and 690s are going for under $100. Def going to pick one of each up at some point.

Yeah, the change in the GPU market over the past year has been absolutely astounding. A GTX 970 was going for ~$250 like a year ago because of the lack of affordable GPUs. A 680 or 770 would be well into the $150 range, despite it's age. A 1060 was something like $300 or more at one point in 2021 or early 2022 I believe...

Now, I'm seeing GTX 970, RX570, 580 etc. frequently in the $75 range, or even less. This has brought the price of even older cards like the Fermi and Kepler down even further, like you said. During the worst part of the shortage I picked up a really nice EVGA GTX 770 2GB for $40, which at the time was an excellent price, but at this point I never managed to get it into a system to resell for basic gaming and it is probably worth about that much or less now. Oh well. Will make a killer GPU for my old 2500K system if I ever decide to turn that into an overpowered Windows XP rig. Could drop a PCI Voodoo 5 5500 and a Vortex 2 in there for some stupid 98SE\XP dual boot action as well. 🤣