retro games 100 wrote:

swaaye wrote:

http://www.thedachshundnetwork.com/vbb/images/smilies/3_21%20smileys/1228_sad_person_crying.gif […]
Show full quote

retro games 100 wrote:

my dismantled retro stock pile

To coin an American phrase, I am absolutely STOKED about restarting my retro testing. In an even bigger way than ever before. I'm just out of town at the moment. I'm 99% certain I'm all set for a January the 1st restart. I'm actually writing my new testing thread in notepad - I'm going to start with a Powerleap adapter, and then do a Vogons thread for every item I've got. My spreadsheet says 1300 items, but some are duplicates so it'll probably be about 500-700 posts over about a 12-18 month period. How exciting is that! 😳 😁

Sounds like you got yourself a job! 😁

I'm kinda the same in a way, always wanting to test everything that comes to my mind. But when I try to do everything, I do it at once and get no work done 🤣.

So now I try to do everything 1 step at a time. I'm almost done testing all the hardware I bought the last couple months and am contemplating doing a couple new builds...but where to start!?!

But as soon as I get going, I'll start posting in the SuperPi thread again, and while at it, tidy up the results a bit 😉

Tetrium wrote:

Sounds like you got yourself a job! 😁

😁
Eventually, I'll have these builds:

Dos
Dos
Win 3.1
Win 3.1
Win 95 (dx6 era)
Win 95 (dx6 era)
Win 98 (dx7 era)
Win 98 (dx7 era)
Win 98 (dx8 era)
Win 98 (dx8 era)
Win 98 (dx9 era)
XP (2001-02 era)
XP (03-04)
XP (05-06+)
Then forget Vista - move on to Win7...

Lots? Yes. Much of it not essential? Yes. Fun? Oh yes!!!

I plan on putting most of these builds inside simple cardboard containers, and stacking them on a shelf. When I want to use a particular system, I throw it all together on a test bench. I don't have room to actually build 14 machines. Besides, that would require 14 cases and 14 PSUs, etc, and I don't have that kind of money.

Edit: Here's the same list, with approximate CPU/speed configurations. The really fun part will be adding in all the different graphics and sound cards. I can't wait to get started.

Dos (486 SX-25)
Dos (486 DX-66)
Win 3.1 (P1-90)
Win 3.1 (P1-166)
Win 95 (P2-266)
Win 95 (P2-400)
Win 98 (P3-500)
Win 98 (P3-1000)
Win 98 (Athlon-1500)
Win 98 (XP-2000)
Win 98 (A64-3000)
XP (Intel 3000)
XP (Intel 3000)
XP (Intel 3000)

So, miracle of all miracles, here's an update, for other poor sods on the same quest.

Got an reply on my email, see below:

(I bow in awe - reply in just 1 single day!! who can say that about other support mails ...THOUGH, if they'd allowed for anonymous login as any normal ftp, this wouldn't 've been a problem to begin with, hmm....)

Dear User […]
Show full quote

Dear User

Please download the driver and Manual from ftp.epox.com

User name: epoxsupport

Password: epoxsupport

Best Regards

EPoX Tech/RMA Support

umm, sure, I finally get inside... but there is NO BIOS file for THIS mobo in there though.... at least I can't see it - neither in the correct mobo folder, nor in the BIOS one... 😵

* * *

As for the slightly off-topic posts of late, anything particular that makes the win95 machines worth it ? I'd be using win98, but same hardware... And why 2?

bestemor wrote:

As for the slightly off-topic posts of late, anything particular that makes the win95 machines worth it ? I'd be using win98, but same hardware... And why 2?

Oops, sorry for the off topic comments made above. Sometimes internet discussions can get like that. In fact, quite often! Why win95? I say why not! 😀 It's just for a bit of fun. Why 2 machines? Well, I can stuff each mobo out with opposing hardware (eg ATI vs nvidia vs Matrox - that kind of idea), and just race them against each other - just for fun. And the same goes for the sound devices - I can just experiment with different cards/devices and see how well various games sound and perform.

Re: Epox tech support. Email them back, and just specifically ask them for the latest BIOS file for your board.

Well, I'm speechless. That's quite the retro plan you have there. 😁

swaaye wrote:

Well, I'm speechless. That's quite the retro plan you have there. 😁

I'm even going to get a new digital camera, especially for the task! I'll join an online photo upload site, and upload better quality photos to it, rather than what I used to do in the past and cut all my pics down to about 100K in size because of the Vogons pic size limit. I'll take pics of every item I test. Plus I'm actually going to pay for a driverguide.com membership, so I can get access to all sorts of weird and wonderful old files from the past if I need them. Other plans include getting a good solder/desoldering station, and try my luck with that.

Re: new camera, this one seems OK -

http://fujifilm.co.uk/consumer/digital/digita … epix-av180/View (model AV180)

retro games 100 wrote:

:D Eventually, I'll have these builds: […]
Show full quote

Tetrium wrote:

Sounds like you got yourself a job! 😁

😁
Eventually, I'll have these builds:

Dos
Dos
Win 3.1
Win 3.1
Win 95 (dx6 era)
Win 95 (dx6 era)
Win 98 (dx7 era)
Win 98 (dx7 era)
Win 98 (dx8 era)
Win 98 (dx8 era)
Win 98 (dx9 era)
XP (2001-02 era)
XP (03-04)
XP (05-06+)
Then forget Vista - move on to Win7...

Lots? Yes. Much of it not essential? Yes. Fun? Oh yes!!!

I plan on putting most of these builds inside simple cardboard containers, and stacking them on a shelf. When I want to use a particular system, I throw it all together on a test bench. I don't have room to actually build 14 machines. Besides, that would require 14 cases and 14 PSUs, etc, and I don't have that kind of money.

Edit: Here's the same list, with approximate CPU/speed configurations. The really fun part will be adding in all the different graphics and sound cards. I can't wait to get started.

Dos (486 SX-25)
Dos (486 DX-66)
Win 3.1 (P1-90)
Win 3.1 (P1-166)
Win 95 (P2-266)
Win 95 (P2-400)
Win 98 (P3-500)
Win 98 (P3-1000)
Win 98 (Athlon-1500)
Win 98 (XP-2000)
Win 98 (A64-3000)
XP (Intel 3000)
XP (Intel 3000)
XP (Intel 3000)

🤣! Your plans at computer domination are somewhat equal to mine!!
My plans are as followed:

386 DX-33 without FPU (my only 386 board and since it's got no 387 socket I don't have a lot of options 😜 ) Will have SuperPi run on it for sure!
And I'll regret it for sure 🤣! Or maybe not 😜
Socket 3 AMD 5x86-133
Socket 3 Cyrix 5x86-100 (fastest cyrix part I got atm)
Socket 3 Intel POD-83
Socket 3 especially build around my IBM/Intel ActionMedia 2 card
Socket 4 P-60
Socket 5 P-133 or faster (haven't decided yet)
Socket 8 with either a PPro 200 or the POD-333. Will have either NT4 or 2K
Atleast 1 Socket 7 AT build, just for kicks, they aren't getting much love as it's either socket 3 or slot 1 😁
Socket 7 ATX SiS 5598 with a Cyrix M2 2.2V. Will have 98SE and only 64MB ram. Will be my standard pentium 1 class machine but with USB and fast windows performance...and a Cyrix! 😁
Super 7 K6-3+ with some 3dfx power 😀 (might build 2 maybe 3)
S370 440LX board with Celeron 400-500, which I consider 'The easy-man's super 7'. Roughly same performance as super 7 but most likely one of very few 440LX systems in existance.

S370 Tualeron OC'ed to about 1.7Ghz, will be dualboot between 9x and XP and will house a Voodoo 4 AGP. If I build 2 tualatins the second one will house either Voodoo 3 or perhaps a Radeon 9600...haven't decided yet.
S-A KT333 with a mobile XP yet to be decided. Will dualboot 9x and XP and build around a Voodoo 5 AGP
S478 with around 2.6 to 2.8 Ghz. Will have XP and will lend this hotty to a friend who recently moved out but has his Intel quadcore at his old house.
Will lend him this so he has a computer at both places and will be P4 because he's an Intel whore 🤣 😜
S423, for which I don't even have a motherboard yet 🙁
S754, will be build as a reserve lanparty rig
S939, will be my reserve-reserve lan party rig. Might swap with S754 rig depending on what gets build first
AM2...no idea what to do with this one, I only wanted the processor 😁
One of the last 3 rigs will house my stock AM3 heatsink that came with the AMD quadcore, it just looks so darn cool! (will replace fan, it's VERY loud!)

And I still need to rebuild my mother's craptastic P4 as it was crashing all the time.

I might run out of power supplies though...or cases...or harddrives. I'll see what I have once I get going 😁.

Tetrium, that's awesome! 😁 Hehe, friendly competition!

Here is the very last Epox 8KTA3(+)Pro mobo BIOS. It is a Beta BIOS, which was only available on email request to their tech support team. I believe it fully supports all T-Breds, and also does not report an XP-M Barton mobile CPU as "unknown". Its date is May 2003. (The final official BIOS is dated April 2003.)

Edit: I have renamed this file from .BIN to .TXT. Please rename this file back to .BIN -I have done this because I cannot upload a .BIN file to Vogons.

bestemor wrote:

if they'd allowed for anonymous login as any normal ftp, this wouldn't 've been a problem to begin with, hmm....

User name: epoxsupport
Password: epoxsupport

If I go to their website:

http://www.epox.com/article.asp?ID=1040

, and attempt to download a driver, I get the FTP access login window appear, and if I type in the user name and password given above, I get an access denied (code 550) error message.

I just get somekind of error in Dutch + telling me the page couldn't be reached.

Gah, they should take example of Asus and FIC for example. their old stuff is still up for grabs 😀

I love diggin up old downloads. It's a complete waste of time, but it is incredibly gratifying for some reason!

http://www.itclinic.ru/download/brands/epox/ep-8kta3pro/ 😁

Thank our brothers over in mother Russia!

But nothing for their socket 7 stuff 🙁

Well, I just need the flash utility now, I already got a patched bios file for it but I haven't got the slightest idea how I'm supposed to flash the bios file onto the bios 🙁

Another thing I'm working on for my Mega (and I do mean mega) test for 01/01/11 is to catalogue all of these useful download links, and get all the software downloaded.

Also, I mentioned in another thread about "Total Commander", the FTP program I used to successfully download stuff from the Epox server. I couldn't see any BIOS files, but luckily I've got the latest version which I uploaded to Vogons the other day for other people's benefit. And that's another thing I want to do - I want to upload useful stuff I find to driverguide (or some other place).

Maybe you should open yourself up one of those blog sites? Wordpress gone retro? If I was motivated.....

Driverguide is evil. They are too hard to access. The place is also jam packed with mysteriously-labeled file mess.

Try emailing EPOX tech support and tell them the name of the file you are looking for (8K203528.bin). They may still have it and can send it to you.

sliderider wrote:

Try emailing EPOX tech support and tell them the name of the file you are looking for (8K203528.bin). They may still have it and can send it to you.

Please see my post above, about 3/4ers of the way down this page. 😀

Yeah Driverguide is bad. I'll have a think about this.....

I got an EP-8KTA3Pro
but I need a manual and the latest bios. Where do I turn to? Amigaz, did you get the latest bios for the non raid version?

ux-3 wrote:

I got an EP-8KTA3Pro
but I need a manual and the latest bios. Where do I turn to? Amigaz, did you get the latest bios for the non raid version?

I got the EP-8KTA3Pro+

Email Epox and they'll email the BIOS for your board