Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-04, 17:51:

That homemade test bench is adorable. How did you decide to raise the board up from the base? Did you add rubber bumpers or standoffs?

The base is made from 4 plynths (similar to the legs) that form a hollow square base. A thin layer of OSB board was then added as the base.
The legs are made long enough to elevate the base, with each leg having a felt pad (or rubber if you prefer) to stop it from scratching any surface.
Big thanks to my dad for that idea 😀

Decided as part of distracting myself so I don't finish The Great Catalog I would start "nailing down" systems to get them kind of off my mind. Had a radically wrong video card and no NIC in the Dell R450, so I swapped in a Creative TNT2 "Pro" (identification info is a little irregular but it seems faster than a regular TNT2) and a NIC and Win98 SE (found some fun incompatibilities with partition utilities and had to do several reboots to get it cleared so Win98 could repartition), just got USB working and got the driver packages for some components and the SBLive (Audigy drivers), lots more to go but I'm satisfied that, barring some radical failure in testing the hardware will work out okay. Stole the Maxtor 15Gb for my "small drives" box and used a 40Gb in it for now.

USB 1.0 sure is slow.

Have plans for some specific games from back in the day, themes, etc. Will not finish all that for a while but it's usable now instead of sitting there incomplete. Probably next up the AST Advantage P100 with the funky case or maybe slapping the DX4-100 in that pristine Gateway tower.

I will try to get un-distracted tomorrow, as I have something to put on eBay and a couple more things to put on FB Marketplace. I'm starting to get a pile together for a giveaway, no idea when I'll be able to get that rolling, but it won't be all at once so maybe that will start soon.

Despite having thoroughly recycled the *actually* impossible to shift or irreparably broken stuff, I keep finding new stuff for the pile (like the Zumax power supply - whose case I might actually re-use for a project, though as a PSU it's a no-go.

I’ve been on the hunt for a while for an excellent PCI or PCI-Express graphics card to pair with Windows 95 (both Retail and OSR2) and my Ivy Bridge overkill system. I haven’t had any luck with PCI-Express cards from either Nvidia or ATI because their Win 9x drivers just don’t work properly with Windows 95.

I want a card with DirectX 7 and 8 compliance as well as the ability to display at 1080p widescreen.

I found a lot of references to the Radeon 9200 and 9250 PCI cards working with Windows 95 and the Catalyst 3.4 drivers. I’d hate to buy yet another PCI graphics card without knowing for sure if it would work for the task (I’ve gotten quite a few PCI cards over the years that I discovered didn’t meet my needs). So, as I sat down to think about how much I wanted to spend on yet another PCI card, it hit me. I remembered that I had a Mobility Radeon 9000 (AGP, 64MB) in my IBM Thinkpad T42.

I fired up the Thinkpad and installed Windows 95 OSR2 onto its hard drive. While most of the computer’s hardware won’t work properly with Windows 95, Windows detected the graphics correctly using the Catalyst 3.4 drivers. I initially got a blank screen on the laptop’s LCD, but the display began to work for me once I attached my widescreen monitor to the external VGA port. This Mobility Radeon 9000 only seems to work properly with Windows 95 when I have an external monitor attached during bootup (it will display on both the LCD and external monitor simultaneously). Weird!

I then installed DirectX 8 and some benchmarks. I have to say, I’m impressed. A 1024x768x32 resolution got over 60 FPS at high details in 3DMark 2000. I think the AGP version of the Radeon 9000 can definitely game with Windows 95. I didn’t have any stability issues either.

3Dmark also offered to test at 1080p. It got a respectable 60 FPS average at low details in 1080p (32-bit), but averaged slightly less than 30 FPS at high details. Still, I got widescreen resolution that way. The Catalyst drivers don’t offer widescreen resolutions to Windows by default, but I enabled them by adding “1920,1080” registry keys to the 8, 16, and 32-bit color depth keys with defaults values for “60” Hz. That worked to add a widescreen choice to the Windows 95 display options.

I don’t know how much of a difference to expect between the PCI variant and the AGP one in the Thinkpad, but I feel a lot more confident about buying a PCI Radeon 9200 or 9250 knowing that the Windows 95 drivers work pretty darn well.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-04, 04:46:

That's great! Can you be tempted to add VMware integration as well?

Done https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/123 … 21b3cca99ea.mp4,
may open a new thread for it later this weekend. Compatibility is rather to be abysmal but at least it works with a couple popular games (like WarcraftII and SC2k).

Spend the last days testing mainboards and CPUs to sell them on Ebay. I need to reclaim space (and money).

CPUs:
3x 754
3x 939
5x AM2
3x AM3
3x 1155

Boards:
1x 754
1x 939
2x AM2
3x AM3

Sadly one CPU turned out to be dead. An Athlon 64 X2 6000+. But I have two more of those.
One AM3 board is partially dead. But I was already aware of that when I received it. Onboard LAN is dead. After further testing I noticed that the two PCIe x1 slots are also dead. Maybe this can be fixed somehow?
Three boards (1x AM2, 2x AM3) which did post many many months ago are no longer posting. One starts and immediately turns off. The other two stay on but don't post. Maybe they had some charge left in the caps when I did clean them? 😒 From now on I'll wait at least a week, like I do with PSUs.

Next step will be to test all the LGA775 CPUs and boards. I have more of them than the other sockets combined. 😮

I've always known about Diablo. At some point in the past, i got Diablo 2 and played that.

Well, yesterday, first time in my life, i started up original Diablo on my Pentium MMX retro machine. So far quite a nice game. Only thing i wish it would have is to scroll the dialog texts faster. It seems i can either skip it, or have to wait for the slow scrolling to get to the end - no way to speed up the scrolling speed...

And at right this moment, i have this running at the background: https://youtu.be/_JzfROUDsK0

I think I found out why the Dell Lattitude PPX won't turn on and just flashes its lights before shutting off. Its power regulation sub-board is missing a part. Can anybody tell what this is and take a guess at a suitable replacement? I marked the missing part with <<<<<

EDIT: did some testing. The smaller chip above it feeds into the left solder pad, and the right solder pad feeds out to those 3 larger components. Step down regulator? How bad of an idea would just bridging the pads be?.....

EDIT 2: Found some better pictures. Its a smaller, 150 rated version of whatever the larger square components are with 2 solder points instead of 4

EDIT 3: Its a 150UH SMD Power Choke Coil. Can I just replace it with any 150UH resistor or does it have to be a coil type?

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2022-04-06, 06:55:

I think I found out why the Dell Lattitude PPX won't turn on and just flashes its lights before shutting off. Its power regulati […]
Show full quote

I think I found out why the Dell Lattitude PPX won't turn on and just flashes its lights before shutting off. Its power regulation sub-board is missing a part. Can anybody tell what this is and take a guess at a suitable replacement? I marked the missing part with <<<<<

EDIT: did some testing. The smaller chip above it feeds into the left solder pad, and the right solder pad feeds out to those 3 larger components. Step down regulator? How bad of an idea would just bridging the pads be?.....

EDIT 2: Found some better pictures. Its a smaller, 150 rated version of whatever the larger square components are with 2 solder points instead of 4

EDIT 3: Its a 150UH SMD Power Choke Coil. Can I just replace it with any 150UH resistor or does it have to be a coil type?

If a choke coil is just a fancy resistor and you can find a normal resistor of the same resistance then I see no reason the normal resistor shouldn't work just as well, I guess its possible the choke is doing something extra but I doubt it.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2022-04-06, 06:55:

I think I found out why the Dell Lattitude PPX won't turn on and just flashes its lights before shutting off. Its power regulati […]
Show full quote

I think I found out why the Dell Lattitude PPX won't turn on and just flashes its lights before shutting off. Its power regulation sub-board is missing a part. Can anybody tell what this is and take a guess at a suitable replacement? I marked the missing part with <<<<<

EDIT: did some testing. The smaller chip above it feeds into the left solder pad, and the right solder pad feeds out to those 3 larger components. Step down regulator? How bad of an idea would just bridging the pads be?.....

EDIT 2: Found some better pictures. Its a smaller, 150 rated version of whatever the larger square components are with 2 solder points instead of 4

EDIT 3: Its a 150UH SMD Power Choke Coil. Can I just replace it with any 150UH resistor or does it have to be a coil type?

I wouldn't replace a choke (uH means it's a coil) with a resistor, as no idea what effect putting a different type of component would be. I would consider a different 150uH choke (or coil, it's the same thing) as the value is more important than the shape or size. A choke/coil will act differently for different frequencies and adjacent capacitance, a resistor isn't guaranteed to act the same. (that's pretty much the extent of what I remember from making crystal radios as a kid)

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-04-06, 04:17:

One AM3 board is partially dead. But I was already aware of that when I received it. Onboard LAN is dead. After further testing I noticed that the two PCIe x1 slots are also dead. Maybe this can be fixed somehow?

Is it an nForce board? Bumpgate-affected nForces are kind-of-known for dying a bit at a time. For what I've seen the network and the PCI bus are the first to go, assuming the board doesn't die outright.

debs3759 wrote on 2022-04-06, 17:23:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2022-04-06, 06:55:

I think I found out why the Dell Lattitude PPX won't turn on and just flashes its lights before shutting off. Its power regulati […]
Show full quote

I think I found out why the Dell Lattitude PPX won't turn on and just flashes its lights before shutting off. Its power regulation sub-board is missing a part. Can anybody tell what this is and take a guess at a suitable replacement? I marked the missing part with <<<<<

EDIT: did some testing. The smaller chip above it feeds into the left solder pad, and the right solder pad feeds out to those 3 larger components. Step down regulator? How bad of an idea would just bridging the pads be?.....

EDIT 2: Found some better pictures. Its a smaller, 150 rated version of whatever the larger square components are with 2 solder points instead of 4

EDIT 3: Its a 150UH SMD Power Choke Coil. Can I just replace it with any 150UH resistor or does it have to be a coil type?

I wouldn't replace a choke (uH means it's a coil) with a resistor, as no idea what effect putting a different type of component would be. I would consider a different 150uH choke (or coil, it's the same thing) as the value is more important than the shape or size. A choke/coil will act differently for different frequencies and adjacent capacitance, a resistor isn't guaranteed to act the same. (that's pretty much the extent of what I remember from making crystal radios as a kid)

My research says that basically a potted coil choke is just a really fancy really smooth resistor. Apparently the fluctuations of the output are ridiculously higher on a resistor. This being said I'm looking for a similar coil right now.

Much like how cylinders in an internal combustion engine are really just a fancy bean tin. If you slap four together maybe... oh wait, you don't play Orks in Warhammer do you? https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Orks#Ork_Technology

Today I checked all my 3.5" floppy disks, I found some new ones in the past 2 years I haven't checked, also the old ones I had but didn't use in the past 20-ish years. Found 30 completely unreadable, 105 readable disks and I have an unopened box of 10. Also found some old data, both (my own) personal and random company stuff.

Also added a CT1600 to my 386 machine.

Worked some more on a 90ies oriented C tutorial and Doom maps.
Other than that I sold some 486/586 stuff. Before it's collecting dust I rather had it make somebody else happy. I kept the P60/66 stuff and one 486 board.
I would not have sold the gear if I had the room to properly have system after system sitting in its own place(+chassis) and being connected to a "vintage super" LAN. My "dream" would be Doom and Quake Lans, each consisting of four 486s and four 586s with big CRTs. This is of course a pipe dream as it would take a huge basement to "dwell" in. On top of that... who would join in on the fun...?

amadeus777999 wrote on 2022-04-07, 10:27:

Worked some more on a 90ies oriented C tutorial and Doom maps.
Other than that I sold some 486/586 stuff. Before it's collecting dust I rather had it make somebody else happy. I kept the P60/66 stuff and one 486 board.
I would not have sold the gear if I had the room to properly have system after system sitting in its own place(+chassis) and being connected to a "vintage super" LAN. My "dream" would be Doom and Quake Lans, each consisting of four 486s and four 586s with big CRTs. This is of course a pipe dream as it would take a huge basement to "dwell" in. On top of that... who would join in on the fun...?

Getting enough people would actually be my main motivation to not go for a huge LAN, alongside it simply costing too much space.
I'd probably make use of tables and other furnitures that can be stored away in a way that they don't use up as much space (so I'd look for something foldable, if something like that even exists). I'd set up the LAN only when the LAN-party was actually planned for real if it was using 8 computers, but for the 3 I ended up using I just let the other 2 PCs as is since I don't really use that table for something else anyway (so I use a table with 3 monitors, but will typically use only one at a time).
In the end my LAN consisted of 3 PCs, with an optional spot for a 4th PC (like, for a laptop or something) as my router at the time had just 4 slots, this was sufficient for my needs.

andrea wrote on 2022-04-06, 17:30:

Is it an nForce board? Bumpgate-affected nForces are kind-of-known for dying a bit at a time. For what I've seen the network and the PCI bus are the first to go, assuming the board doesn't die outright.

Nope, AMD 870.
I'm pretty sure the moronic ex husband of my aunt shorted something. He used some kind of aluminium tape to seal off every port on the back that wasn't in use. I found tiny bits of it inside the case. Argh!

Today I continued my long journey and tested three 775 boards. If I continue at this speed, I'll be done with the boards somewhere next week. 😁

One board is giving me headaches. It's a Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4. It forgets the BIOS settings as soon as I flip the switch on the PSU. BIOS update didn't help. I assume it's a lose soldering point.
But it has another issue. The bottom one of the two bright orange SATA ports doesn't work properly. The upper one works fine. The four dark orange ones and the two purple ones as well. I did use this board to check two douzen HDDs. After I did some extensive testing on a 8TB HDD (which did take forever), the port stopped working properly. Needs forever to detect a drive. Anyone got an idea what might cause this?

Tetrium wrote on 2022-04-07, 12:21:

Getting enough people would actually be my main motivation to not go for a huge LAN, alongside it simply costing too much space. […]
Show full quote

amadeus777999 wrote on 2022-04-07, 10:27:

Worked some more on a 90ies oriented C tutorial and Doom maps.
Other than that I sold some 486/586 stuff. Before it's collecting dust I rather had it make somebody else happy. I kept the P60/66 stuff and one 486 board.
I would not have sold the gear if I had the room to properly have system after system sitting in its own place(+chassis) and being connected to a "vintage super" LAN. My "dream" would be Doom and Quake Lans, each consisting of four 486s and four 586s with big CRTs. This is of course a pipe dream as it would take a huge basement to "dwell" in. On top of that... who would join in on the fun...?

Getting enough people would actually be my main motivation to not go for a huge LAN, alongside it simply costing too much space.
I'd probably make use of tables and other furnitures that can be stored away in a way that they don't use up as much space (so I'd look for something foldable, if something like that even exists). I'd set up the LAN only when the LAN-party was actually planned for real if it was using 8 computers, but for the 3 I ended up using I just let the other 2 PCs as is since I don't really use that table for something else anyway (so I use a table with 3 monitors, but will typically use only one at a time).
In the end my LAN consisted of 3 PCs, with an optional spot for a 4th PC (like, for a laptop or something) as my router at the time had just 4 slots, this was sufficient for my needs.

Sweet - I miss those LAN sessions.
Even folks who weren't into computers really dug some of the matches that were had... it reminded me of having a band and playing in your garage with some spectators - loads of fun.

I don't think the Beige Powermac G3 is going to make it. I haven't figured out what went wrong, it started by not having video but chiming and apparently *not* booting, to just spinning the PSU fan with no light or chime. I tried various options involving the PRAM, PRAM battery, PSU, devices, RAM, reseating everything including the CPU... same.

Have to put it aside now and work on other stuff. Sad.

Decided I'm probably going to put a new drive controller in the R450, but not right now. Working on more modernish PCs in aid of selling them for gas and video card money.

Someone else went through their old floppies above, I did multiple boxes of 3.5's starting a few days ago. Rather amusingly the Bonus brand 1996 box of 25 was 100% good on surface tests, and the "Corporate Express" disks I found scattered on a thrift store shelf with no box had only one with bad sectors.

Sorting unsorted CDs including Forgotten Realms and LucasArts CDs I had on spindles or just randomly in CD binders. Normally feels good to get organized but I'm pretty tired today.

Still haven't decided what to work on next as the G3 ist kaput. After the 201x PCs to sell to internet randos.

It might be the capacitors reforming or some stressed solder joints settling due to thermal expansion. Or maybe it's just ghosts. I get this kind of behavior frequently with parts that I have received.

Has anyone else tested hardware that seems defective but comes back to life on it's own?

I did it! I finally did it!
Achievement unlocked:
Successfully brick a mainboard

Homepage was no longer online, so I had to rely on a 3rd party site. Seems like I got trolled.
But it's not the end of the world. Hirsch has a programmer and will unbrick it, next time he's around.
At least all my other boards have the latest BIOS now. Except a 440BX which I got recently. Have to undig my (only) Pentium II first.

Found one more damaged board. Floppy controller doesn't seem to work. Drive gets detected, but can't read or write anything.
Getting close to the end of the pile.