NyLan wrote on 2022-08-03, 12:36:

Fixed "some" pins on a 486 Dx4-100 I just bought […]
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Fixed "some" pins on a 486 Dx4-100 I just bought

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Oh man that poor cpu. Your straightening job looks perfect what's your secret?

It's not that long but need to take your time ! 😆
I mainly use a mechanical pencil because the hole for the lead is almost the same size as the processor pins... and a small scalpel when the pins are too close together.

Yes! I can fixed hundreds of bent pins like this. The Mechanical pencil trick works perfectly.

It's especially effective because you can move the opening up and down the pin to tweak it just where you want it.

adalbert wrote on 2022-07-24, 14:20:

Documenting all of the repairs and fixes that I have done to Toshiba T3200SXC (re-designed PSU, LCD adapter, speaker, wireless connectivity), once I'm happy with the results I will post them to the open source thread, but current files/schematics are here. I also made a short video with the repair overview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXoOnAgggJo

t3200sxc_.jpg

Also had some fun with 3D-printing PCB etching masks for the power supply for that computer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdvfGcdTSuA

That's such an awesome repair and your video going over the top level is great to see so far, I'm looking forward to the rest of the series 😀
Your method for making up a PCB is a really interesting way to do it, I like that this method includes soldermask and I don't think I've seen a 3d printer used for PCB making like that before. I'm tempted to try that for myself sometime.

I'm keen to see how you got the screen working too, I think I've seen a similar / related post on VCF - I ran into the same problem with looking into a new screen for my Libretto 70CT, with it only using 4 bits per colour channel instead of the more common 6/8 bits per channel.

Certainly not any miracle work like others perform around here, but I saved this Asus V9280 AGP 8x Ti4200 64MB from the "recycle bin." I bought this on eBay some while back for $28.00/shipped from Ukraine. The seller advertised and demonstrated it worked, but it was missing a capacitor. When it arrived to me, it no longer worked (They packed it just fine). I did try to replace the missing capacitor, but the card still didn't work. I didn't ask for a refund because it was a gamble. Usually I win, but not this time, so it seemed.

Anyway, I put if off to the side to attend to later. Today, I searched through a small pile of my broken cards for another capacitor after comparing the Ti4200 to a working one online (I'm guessing the first time I misidentified the correct capacitor to use). The donor MX420 (shown) graciously gave up the part. A short time later, the Ti4200 was back in business. No image, 2D, or 3D problems. Clocks report 252MHz/512MHz. Passed 3DMark 2001SE fine (as shown; defaults used at 1024x768 32-bit color on an Intel D815EEA using a PIII@1GHz/133MHz), passed the "Turok" test where I turn up all candy to maximum w/vsync@181fps, and the card plays DOS/Terminator SkyNET hi-res mode 640x480 with no issues.

A good day.

Guess what CPU I have installed today on my favorite splash screen socket 478 motherboard.

Does anybody have a copy of the old FlashROM utility for flashing ATI AGP video cards? I can't find a copy of it anywhere, seems a newer program by the same name has replaced it, but that version doesn't appear to have any supports for flashing VGA bios.

Nevermind, for anyone who has the same question in the future: https://www.techpowerup.com/download/ati-flashrom/ link working as of 2022

Spent some time trying to max out the memory on my ASUS K7M sporting an Argon 600MHz
Pretty much all my 256Mb sticks work in single on it.
When I run 2 sticks it gives memory errors with something like 50% or my sticcks.
And with 3 sticks I only found one brand that worked, regular old Kingston.

And funny thing, most 1 stick and working 2 stick combos gave me about 180-190MB/s mem speed according to Memtest.
But when populating with 2 or 3 of the Kingston sticks I get about 220MB/s.
My MB is new enough to have the "Super bypass" function working and enabled in BIOS, so presumably its enabled.
And I did not touch memory timings between tests, they were all maxed out for stability.

In any case, incredibly picky motherboard when it comes to RAM it seems.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2022-08-06, 21:25:

Does anybody have a copy of the old FlashROM utility for flashing ATI AGP video cards? I can't find a copy of it anywhere, seems a newer program by the same name has replaced it, but that version doesn't appear to have any supports for flashing VGA bios.

Nevermind, for anyone who has the same question in the future: https://www.techpowerup.com/download/ati-flashrom/ link working as of 2022

So a quick follow up to this:

Apparently ATIFlash/Flashrom under DOS cannot see a Mac 9800 Pro to flash it. Does anybody know if there is a tool that would allow me to reflash it? I have no AGP Macs.

I thought uniflash was meant to do it, but it's been years since I screwed around with it.

I have been trying to focus on just cleaning up and organizing all of my electronics gear, old and new, as my spaces are getting overrun with "stuff." I feel like once I get everything organized, I'll have more room to play around with stuff so I can just sit down and either play with my old hardware, or test newly acquired components more easily, without having to shuffle things around, which becomes a deterrent. It's not fun, but necessary, and I'd like to just be able to fire up an old PC and enjoy some games from eras past without having to think about all the crap piled up around me.

There is a listing on ebay at the moment for an exact same PC I had in 1999, same model serial too. ATi rage pro onboard, AMD K6-2 exact same monitor LG 775N. Sad to say its a six hour round trip so wont be able to buy it. Never again, same config 🙁 The only difference were the speakers, I had cheap labtec at the time...
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175371351035

Today I'm testing again as a main low end low power config the E-350 APU itx board I bought lately and no matter what, the cooling system of this mainboard is quite a problem.. also the bios itself would have needed a different fan management logic too considering that it would surpass any highest fan temperature setting anyway without the fan running and it's a very compact chipset like fan running at 7000rpm which make a noise like the FX 5800 Ultra. I think I might decrease its voltage because it's simply too much. The temperatures remains around 60°C but the noise produced is quite stressing.
Maybe running the fan @ 5v might increase a bit temps but save my patience on this board.

Edit: decreased the voltage fan with a modified psu molex adapter and running it @ 5v decreased like 70% of the fan noise and monitoring temperatures they still seems to be around 65-75°C more variable.. I'd need a bigger fan but the heatsink design is quite bad with too much metal removed and few points left for the heatsink to keep it fixed to it. At the plug the board ask for 20 to 30 watts, on the board the heat produced is like a Pentium 4...

Been out of the youtube thing for a while but decided to try a little something to get back into it.

Just a quick video taking a look at a PC I recently picked up.

https://youtu.be/pH6dmD27qfY

Brawndo wrote on 2022-08-07, 06:04:

I have been trying to focus on just cleaning up and organizing all of my electronics gear, old and new, as my spaces are getting overrun with "stuff." I feel like once I get everything organized, I'll have more room to play around with stuff so I can just sit down and either play with my old hardware, or test newly acquired components more easily, without having to shuffle things around, which becomes a deterrent. It's not fun, but necessary, and I'd like to just be able to fire up an old PC and enjoy some games from eras past without having to think about all the crap piled up around me.

Organizing seems to be the permanent status of my retro hobby space.

I do find having 1 or 2 rigs that are "done" and just hooked up with a KVM at all times helps. This way I have my test bench space for messing with random stuff, but can flip right to a solid complete build and get baseline info or simply play.

Meatball wrote on 2022-08-06, 01:02:

Certainly not any miracle work like others perform around here, but I saved this Asus V9280 AGP 8x Ti4200 64MB from the "recycle bin." I bought this on eBay some while back for $28.00/shipped from Ukraine. The seller advertised and demonstrated it worked, but it was missing a capacitor. When it arrived to me, it no longer worked (They packed it just fine). I did try to replace the missing capacitor, but the card still didn't work. I didn't ask for a refund because it was a gamble. Usually I win, but not this time, so it seemed.

Anyway, I put if off to the side to attend to later. Today, I searched through a small pile of my broken cards for another capacitor after comparing the Ti4200 to a working one online (I'm guessing the first time I misidentified the correct capacitor to use). The donor MX420 (shown) graciously gave up the part. A short time later, the Ti4200 was back in business. No image, 2D, or 3D problems. Clocks report 252MHz/512MHz. Passed 3DMark 2001SE fine (as shown; defaults used at 1024x768 32-bit color on an Intel D815EEA using a PIII@1GHz/133MHz), passed the "Turok" test where I turn up all candy to maximum w/vsync@181fps, and the card plays DOS/Terminator SkyNET hi-res mode 640x480 with no issues.

A good day.

Interesting: Asus seems to have dropped a rather large cap from the Ti4200 AGP4x to AGP 8x variant: labeled C2301, right next to the one you repaired.
I recently fixed an AGP4x 64MB (V8420) which was missing a handful of SMD caps but also C2267. That's why I immediately thought C2301 would be still missing on your card. But apparently it was never there on the V9280. At least according to the pics in the net.

Brawndo wrote on 2022-08-07, 06:04:

I have been trying to focus on just cleaning up and organizing all of my electronics gear, old and new, as my spaces are getting overrun with "stuff." I feel like once I get everything organized, I'll have more room to play around with stuff so I can just sit down and either play with my old hardware, or test newly acquired components more easily, without having to shuffle things around, which becomes a deterrent. It's not fun, but necessary, and I'd like to just be able to fire up an old PC and enjoy some games from eras past without having to think about all the crap piled up around me.

I do this all the time, then the newly created space I quickly fill up with more stuff! Ah well, as long as were are happy. 😀

Getting ready to have some Tualafun with what appears to be the Queen of 440BX boards.

V20 and 8087 were ordered for the Tandy 1000A on Friday. I decided to skip on the SmartWatch+ because the price went up, and it's not really a necessity, especially when I have SNTP on the Tandy already to set the date and time from the atomic clock.

Reinstalled some of the bigger games on the Tandy, mostly to see what improvement (if any) that V20 and 8087 will make on the one's that work, and see if I can get some others working that suddenly stopped with this HDD Reload (Ultima 5, Ultima 6) and maybe even Castlevania which has Tandy drivers but somehow is not displaying anything.

Also ran TopBench, going to bench it before and ofter mods and see where it sits.

creepingnet wrote on 2022-08-08, 15:13:

V20 and 8087 were ordered for the Tandy 1000A on Friday. I decided to skip on the SmartWatch+ because the price went up, and it's not really a necessity, especially when I have SNTP on the Tandy already to set the date and time from the atomic clock.

Reinstalled some of the bigger games on the Tandy, mostly to see what improvement (if any) that V20 and 8087 will make on the one's that work, and see if I can get some others working that suddenly stopped with this HDD Reload (Ultima 5, Ultima 6) and maybe even Castlevania which has Tandy drivers but somehow is not displaying anything.

Also ran TopBench, going to bench it before and ofter mods and see where it sits.

V20 is supposed to be faster at the same speed (how is that a valid English statement?). Better ipc (or should that be less clocks per instruction?) and extra instructions.