Warlord wrote on 2023-06-07, 19:22:

acl wrote on 2023-06-07, 08:06:

A few years ago, i found a nice boxed Parhelia AGP 256MB. Full set accessories, docs and CDs for 40€ !!! But the item was locate […]
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A few years ago, i found a nice boxed Parhelia AGP 256MB. Full set accessories, docs and CDs for 40€ !!! But the item was located in Paris area, while i live in Britanny, several hours away.
No matter what i tried, the seller did not wanted to ship. And i tried HARD to convince him for weeks.
Nope. No way.
I had a small opportunity to setup a meeting during a business trip to Paris, but could not arrange that because of my super tight schedule.
Finally, after two months, i hired someone on TaskRabbit to buy the card in person and ship it !

This was not that expensive, with a grand total of around 100€ for the card + the pickup service + shipping but what a headache !
I asked to the person who picked up the card what the seller looked like and he confirmed that he was a bit eccentric.

I've got a nice Parhelia PCI-X from some medical scrap laying around in my basement. It's kinda mysterious in some way and unusual, I plan on slotting it as secondary card in my next build just for fun. Since I have one of those Supermicro boards with PCI-E and PCI-X. Forcing some older game to use the parhelia to render instead of the GTX 960 I plan on using as a main card could be problematic though, have to see If I can find some work arounds.

I always wanted to know if such cards are able to work in regular PCI slots.
PCI-x slots, of course, accept regular PCI cards.
The way around is sometimes possible, but the card must be designed to support it, and the motherboard needs to have a "cut" in the back of the PCI slot to physically accept a longer PCI-X card.

I have a 3Ware PCI-x Raid card that works grear in regular PCI slot, but I always wanted to try with a graphics card.

It works in a normal PCI slot, but the transfer speed will be 33mhz instead of 66mhz. At 66mhz though it souldn't be too shabby. Geforce 3 performanceish.

Trashbytes wrote on 2023-06-07, 02:36:

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-06-06, 23:04:

Yah, that's what has been said, it WAS liquid metal type stuff, phase change, but it's pumping itself out over time and leaving it dry.

Gallium based LM like the Thermal Grizzly stuff does this with desktop CPUs but it can take a good number of years, its odd that the PS5 and Xbox Series X would be suffering from it so soon. Not sure what the older consoles would have used but perhaps an earlier version of LM which isnt Gallium based.

Either way changing the TIM isnt too difficult .. getting into the consoles is the hard part... so many stupid security screws and shitty plastic tabs.

Hi there, I work at repair shop for a living and I go through at least 100 to 120 consoles in period of 5 years including my specialty on repairing cell phone and notebooks. Just did a HDMI port replacement on a PS5 digital edition today.

Totally false on Microsoft xbox one and xbox series using liquid metal. Microsoft only use phase change TIM. All of them used phase change TIM and TIM is hard consistancy, hard as cold butter. In other words the TIM film, and too thick, is already installed on the heatsink at heatsink manufacture and is shipped to the assembly shop where xbox consoles are put together. On first power on, TIM melts where silicon die is and excessive amount squeezes out and re-solidify. The key word on EXCESSIVE and solid. The TIM is solidly built up on heatsink and the APU package. Yes, package. Not just little. Even heatsink at the most hottest point, it is not hot enough to remelt rest of the TIM wedge. The die area eventually pumps out and air bubbles gets in between die and the heatsink due to this wedge keeping heatsink and die seperated. Happens as early as one year of use. I see this all the time when xbox one and xbox series comes in for cleaning or HDMI replacement.

If Microsoft used less TIM, then this is not a issue. Sony used soft, consistency of soft cheese when cold, of TIM of correct amount that only squeezes out a little around the die and performed better, this is only used in all PS4 models.

phase change TIM is defined as what I had mentioned in this link:
https://www.laird.com/products/thermal-interf … ls/phase-change

Partially true on dry spot of PS5 liquid metal, depends on orientation of the console. But the reality is if CPU die and heatsink pad is contaminated with anything or sticky stuff from the adhesive seal, which is a pressure sensitive adhesive not glue, every one that does had contamination on the surfaces causes liquid metal to recede. I had to clean both surfaces and rub liquid back onto them to wet them.

Cheers,

Bought this fun little oddity off Facebook Marketplace, it's one of these super compact Socket 7 PCs you see on YouTube sometimes. Somehow it has a K6-III in it?

EvieSigma wrote on 2023-06-07, 22:36:

Bought this fun little oddity off Facebook Marketplace, it's one of these super compact Socket 7 PCs you see on YouTube sometime […]
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Bought this fun little oddity off Facebook Marketplace, it's one of these super compact Socket 7 PCs you see on YouTube sometimes. Somehow it has a K6-III in it?

PXL_20230607_222404506.jpg

PXL_20230607_222419595.jpg

PXL_20230607_222733557.jpg

PXL_20230607_222928147.jpg

Yes, this is indeed very nice. Mission accomplished, medal earned 😀

EvieSigma wrote on 2023-06-07, 22:36:

Bought this fun little oddity off Facebook Marketplace, it's one of these super compact Socket 7 PCs you see on YouTube sometimes. Somehow it has a K6-III in it?

Looks like a brand new, unsold system stored in a warehouse for more than 20 years! That's an amazing find!

EvieSigma wrote on 2023-06-07, 22:36:

Bought this fun little oddity off Facebook Marketplace, it's one of these super compact Socket 7 PCs you see on YouTube sometime […]
Show full quote

Bought this fun little oddity off Facebook Marketplace, it's one of these super compact Socket 7 PCs you see on YouTube sometimes. Somehow it has a K6-III in it?

PXL_20230607_222404506.jpg

PXL_20230607_222419595.jpg

PXL_20230607_222733557.jpg

PXL_20230607_222928147.jpg

K6-III+ even. Score!

appiah4 wrote on 2023-05-31, 08:57:

When it rains, it pours. I always wanted more AT/286 era systems and a horizontal AT case. Managed to save these from getting scrapped, cost me about 15 bucks each. Olivetti has a NIC I can use to add XT-IDE, and the noname one comes with a Hercules adapter which I wanted. Double plus good.

Seller also had a mid tower AT case with a black glass front panel door but it had a cookie cutter PCChips M537 + Pentium MMX build in it so I begrudgingly passed. Shipping is expensive these days 🙄

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..

EvieSigma wrote on 2023-06-07, 22:36:

Bought this fun little oddity off Facebook Marketplace, it's one of these super compact Socket 7 PCs you see on YouTube sometime […]
Show full quote

Bought this fun little oddity off Facebook Marketplace, it's one of these super compact Socket 7 PCs you see on YouTube sometimes. Somehow it has a K6-III in it?

PXL_20230607_222404506.jpg

PXL_20230607_222419595.jpg

PXL_20230607_222733557.jpg

PXL_20230607_222928147.jpg

Small compact desktop , verry nice , even win95 compatible , and you can upgrade cpu. (agreed medal earned).
- Nice PETER386 *everything in it 's MAX , MAXSTOR , MAXPOWER ,MAX 386 cpu =)) was a maaaxx....

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

Got a Gateway2000 P5 166 big tower with matching keyboard. Unfortunately the case doesn't contain the orignal hardware anymore (maybe except for the PSU which has both, ATX and AT connectors) but was upgraded to an Athlon system with horrible looking caps on the mainboard. It also contains a Radeon 9500 Pro and an Adaptec AHA 2940W SCSI controller. That one was used for an external device, because the three internal HDs are all IDE.

The keyboard 'Gateway AnyKey' is somewhat uncommon and interesting because of the additional 12 F-Keys and it's ability to remap all keys to any other key and even key-macros in hardware without software required.
There's a video from Tech Tangents about it.

HanSolo wrote on 2023-06-08, 11:08:

Got a Gateway2000 P5 166 big tower with matching keyboard. Unfortunately the case doesn't contain the orignal hardware anymore (maybe except for the PSU which has both, ATX and AT connectors) but was upgraded to an Athlon system with horrible looking caps on the mainboard. It also contains a Radeon 9500 Pro and an Adaptec AHA 2940W SCSI controller. That one was used for an external device, because the three internal HDs are all IDE.

The keyboard 'Gateway AnyKey' is somewhat uncommon and interesting because of the additional 12 F-Keys and it's ability to remap all keys to any other key and even key-macros in hardware without software required.
There's a video from Tech Tangents about it.

I once had one of those, but it was a P-Pro. I can't even remember what happened to it.

And yes, anyone with an AnyKey keyboard should know how to clear the macros. When I did Gateway phone support that caused more than a few customers to call in for help.

EvieSigma wrote on 2023-06-07, 22:36:

Bought this fun little oddity off Facebook Marketplace, it's one of these super compact Socket 7 PCs you see on YouTube sometime […]
Show full quote

Bought this fun little oddity off Facebook Marketplace, it's one of these super compact Socket 7 PCs you see on YouTube sometimes. Somehow it has a K6-III in it?

PXL_20230607_222404506.jpg

PXL_20230607_222419595.jpg

PXL_20230607_222733557.jpg

PXL_20230607_222928147.jpg

Wild and cute. It's like a pre-ITX ITX. What is it pixel pushing with, Trident Blade?

edit: Aha, it's one of those mythical "Book PC" units. Maybe Amptron made it.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-06-08, 13:18:

edit: Aha, it's one of those mythical "Book PC" units. Maybe Amptron made it.

It's virtually identical to the i810-based one I have which is variously branded PCChips / ECS / Amptron.

Got a Proliant ML110
775 + P4 3.4 + DDR2

Nice and clean machine with heatpipes h/s.
Have to check if it can house a "C2D instead".

HanSolo wrote on 2023-06-08, 11:08:

Got a Gateway2000 P5 166 big tower with matching keyboard. Unfortunately the case doesn't contain the orignal hardware anymore (maybe except for the PSU which has both, ATX and AT connectors) but was upgraded to an Athlon system with horrible looking caps on the mainboard. It also contains a Radeon 9500 Pro and an Adaptec AHA 2940W SCSI controller. That one was used for an external device, because the three internal HDs are all IDE.

The keyboard 'Gateway AnyKey' is somewhat uncommon and interesting because of the additional 12 F-Keys and it's ability to remap all keys to any other key and even key-macros in hardware without software required.
There's a video from Tech Tangents about it.

very nice. interestng AnyKey with it too

if the athlon board is stable it migh be ok, unless those caps are actually bulging and leaking already

anyway - are you going to return it to p166 (ish) greatness?

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 […]
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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).

EvieSigma wrote on 2023-06-07, 22:36:

Bought this fun little oddity off Facebook Marketplace, it's one of these super compact Socket 7 PCs you see on YouTube sometime […]
Show full quote

Bought this fun little oddity off Facebook Marketplace, it's one of these super compact Socket 7 PCs you see on YouTube sometimes. Somehow it has a K6-III in it?

PXL_20230607_222404506.jpg

PXL_20230607_222419595.jpg

PXL_20230607_222733557.jpg

PXL_20230607_222928147.jpg

I recently saw one of those on my local Craigslist, but I just kept on scrolling because I need to get rid of things (in anticipation of moving to somewhere I can actually afford to live) not purchase more. But nice score.

I got this new old stock Microsoft wireless serial/ps2 mouse quite some time ago but hadn't had a chance to try it out properly. Turns out, it's a great mouse as long as you use a good mouse pad because if you don't you can't accurately position the mouse cursor. I think this might have been a problem with most, if not all, ball based mice back in the day. I do remember having a mouse pad on my desk but stopped using them when the light sensor mice started to appear. Luckily I was able to obtain a few good mouse pads, they are getting more difficult to find these days.

gerry wrote on 2023-06-08, 20:15:

very nice. interestng AnyKey with it too […]
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HanSolo wrote on 2023-06-08, 11:08:

Got a Gateway2000 P5 166 big tower with matching keyboard. Unfortunately the case doesn't contain the orignal hardware anymore (maybe except for the PSU which has both, ATX and AT connectors) but was upgraded to an Athlon system with horrible looking caps on the mainboard. It also contains a Radeon 9500 Pro and an Adaptec AHA 2940W SCSI controller. That one was used for an external device, because the three internal HDs are all IDE.

The keyboard 'Gateway AnyKey' is somewhat uncommon and interesting because of the additional 12 F-Keys and it's ability to remap all keys to any other key and even key-macros in hardware without software required.
There's a video from Tech Tangents about it.

very nice. interestng AnyKey with it too

if the athlon board is stable it migh be ok, unless those caps are actually bulging and leaking already

anyway - are you going to return it to p166 (ish) greatness?

I was thinking about it, but unfortunately that won't be in the near future. I would if I had the original board, but that seems to be somewhat exotic. This is what I found: link1, link2
And I don't see much sense in installing just 'any' P5-166 system in it because for real usage the case is simply too big and heavy