debs3759 wrote on 2023-07-18, 15:30:

Wow, I'm surprised that XP can still be activated by any method 😀

To be honest - as was I ... Wonder if it's some embedded version, that makes it "activatable" I was also kind of surprised it was an automated thing: 🤣:

debs3759 wrote on 2023-07-18, 15:30:

Wow, I'm surprised that XP can still be activated by any method 😀

Yeah, even via phone: https://youtu.be/O9xfQNAHsJE

Used this method to activate XP on my P4 build 🙂

PcBytes wrote on 2023-07-17, 11:27:

Been restoring a few of the items from yesterday's haul. https://www.vogons.org/download/file.php?mode=view&id=168693 […]
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Been restoring a few of the items from yesterday's haul.

On a side note: anybody know how to fix a Latitude C610 that WILL NOT read any hard drive you install in it?

yes , first try and change the connector-adapter , second clean properly connector , 3rd reflow the connector , 4th check for any burned out resistors(or stuff) on the trace from hdd controller to hdd connector - And don't forget the 3V battery + bios settings + hdd jumper.

Installed Novell Netware 4.11 to replace etherdfs
It work fine, it's fast.

For the DOS client there is a shim to emulate a packet drivers too so the other stuff that require packet drivers still work including etherdfs.

Playing with the logo data area on my PR440FX!

Also found FreeDOS can't get EMS working on this or my P3 dual board due to so much rom address space being used, nvidia geforce 3 and quadro4 seem to be the main culprits.

Ricimer wrote on 2023-07-20, 18:54:

Playing with the logo data area on my PR440FX! […]
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Playing with the logo data area on my PR440FX!

Also found FreeDOS can't get EMS working on this or my P3 dual board due to so much rom address space being used, nvidia geforce 3 and quadro4 seem to be the main culprits.

Needless to say, I'm interested.
What tools did you use to unpack, repack and modify the bios?
I ws thinking about it just today! 😀

Nexxen wrote on 2023-07-20, 19:52:

Needless to say, I'm interested.
What tools did you use to unpack, repack and modify the bios?
I ws thinking about it just today! 😀

The iflash utility for the intel bios has a user data flash area option that contains the logo image. There is a tool and instructions for creating the file to flash into this area. If you run iflash.exe without any parameters is shows a menu with which area to flash.

Scan user flash area has to be on in bios setting too.

I found LOGO_UTL.EXE from a Vogons post by PC Hoarder Patrol, couldn't find anything on archive.org anywhere. Re: Need drivers for Intel DK440LX motherboard.

Saved this V7700 GF2 GTS with a Matrox G400 heatsink and Noctua fan.

PD2JK wrote on 2023-07-22, 17:17:

Saved this V7700 GF2 GTS with a Matrox G400 heatsink and Noctua fan.
DSC_4860.JPG

Franken

PD2JK wrote on 2023-07-22, 17:17:

Saved this V7700 GF2 GTS with a Matrox G400 heatsink and Noctua fan.
DSC_4860.JPG

The wood screws really complete the look

Yes it's really something. It has never been this cool 'n quiet™. And the G400 was dead anyway.

Completed my "new" Windows XP box

Nice purple ECS motherboard with a Pentium 4 HT 3.0 GHz Northwood CPU, 1 GB of SDRAM, Nvidia 6600 GT AGP and a SB Audigy 2 ZS.

I made this build around this gorgeous NIB case I found nearby. It has 2x USB 2.0, audio in/out and a firewire in the side panel. So the Audigy 2 was a must for enable the firewire port.
Then I bought from china seller the audio cable for the Audigy custom header.

KME CX-6059 is the brand and model of that case. I have one, though mine stores an Athlon 64 x2 4600+ skt 939 build w/ a 8800GTX (yes, the Tyrannosaurus Rex sized 8800GTX) and 4GB worth of DDR400, running Vista SP2.

It's a fantastic case, the handlebar is very firm. Perfect for a LAN party "portable" computer.

Added an AWE64 Gold to my Pentium 133 build. This completes my favorite trifecta of Pentium era soundcards for this build: Gravis UltraSound Extreme, Roland SCC-1, and AWE64.

Nice, I'll have to try something like that at some point (though I have no roland card or real GuS). What's the resource management like, is it using the original software or something like unisound?

I bought an untested NEC Versa V/50 laptop the other week which had essentially destroyed its hinge, not plural, it only has a right hinge, the left just holds it in place:

It has no power supply which was stated in the auction, but it didn't state that no hard drive was included. This NEC needs a special caddy and the pinout is unknown, there are a couple of them on ebay but they cost 5x what I paid for this computer, no thanks.

The power supply part is relatively easy - I got an NEC Versa 4000C recently too and in the service manual for that it's got the dock pinout listed.
Ground was easy to find, just see which pin beeps against a port's metal shield. To find positive I ran a multimeter in beep mode across the dock pins. In the service manual the pins it beeped with match up where it's got "12v-sys" compared to "12v-charge" on the other possible pin.
Cut up some LCD inverter plugs since they're a good fit for this size of pin and decently conductive, jammed them in and now I have a PSU adapter:

To repair the hinge / LCD panel corner, which had broken up into 5 pieces and destroyed every screw mount; thankfully enough plastic was still attached that it could be repaired by:

1. Superglue the parts in the way they fit best
2. Melt some metal pins / staples into the plastic with a soldering iron (with ventilation, heating superglue makes bad fumes). Did this on front & back
3. Using a wedge tip on the soldering iron, melted some shapes into the flat areas on the inside, all around the broken bits. My thinking is that this gives much more texture for epoxy to grip onto.
4. Taped off where epoxy shouldn't go, then poured on epoxy to the inside of the LCD panel corner and installed the LCD hinge bits
5. Put some tape over the clip corner of the front facia and installed that so the epoxy would set around where that clip goes and the display still goes together nicely later
6. For where the hinge attaches to the top case I first got some longer screws (this laptop uses m3) and put some extra threaded inserts onto the longer screw, then melted that all into where the hinge plate used to screw into
7. Taped off and blutack/taped an area for epoxy go in the hinge area of the top case, then poured in epoxy around where the screws were
8. Once that had partially hardened I took the screws out and flattened the area where the hinge plate screws to
9. There was one standoff for the topcase that had sheared off where the top surface was accessible and not part of the palm-rest, so I melted in a threaded insert to that post. Then melted a hole through the top-case where that mounts and put in a countersunk screw

Creepingnet's post on VCF made me aware that the hinge is so tight that it probably destroyed that plastic, so I loosened the hinge off slightly with some pliers and washed out the original grease stuff with some PTFE lubricant. It's a little floppy but the plastic now feels decently solid so it's operable and the screen works okay in this state.

I discovered that it could boot and the screen was good, but what to do with no fixed disk? It has an NEC floppy drive which is a really early and nice direct-drive floppy, no bad belts! And the system can boot off that, so I've set up DOS 6.22 with PCMCIA services on a floppy disk and I have a PCMCIA ATA flash card that is otherwise not used:

This method actually works surprisingly well, DOS refuses to install on it through the installer - but Windows 3.1 will happily install onto whatever drive you point it to. It very likely would not be able to run Windows 95 though.
There's still one free PCMCIA slot so getting files on and off is easy, so I'm not sure I'll actually bother trying to get the hard drive caddy for it.

It can run Windows 3.11, and even ran DOOM but it has no soundcard (yet??) and with only 4mb of RAM, DooM must've been running from the Windows swap-file 😀

One problem I do have is that the screen is sometimes flickering quite badly and that doesn't seem to be the backlight, but seems to change depending on what the computer's running, it's bad in DOS but looks fine in Windows. Weird, I wonder if it's capacitor related?

I recently got a Compaq 32x CD-ROM inside an AT case I took a gamble on. The drive door was stuck and it had issues reading discs. I serviced it quite a bit over the weekend, and although the tray is still really loud when it ejects, it now works 100%. I can now replace the ugly DVD-ROM in my Compaq Deskpro EN-SFF with the CD-ROM it deserves 😎

Removed Power-on password from an IBM G41 Laptop, booted the installed Win2000 and of course, ran 3DMark2001 🤣

Celeron D 325 (2.53 GHz), 256 MiB DDR, Intel Extreme Graphics; 1943 3DMarks

Replaced the not so period correct Mitsumi CR-48XTCE with an even less period correct LG GDA-4120B in my 386 build since the Mitsumi had more and more trouble reading even pressed CDs.

The LG works flawlessly and I can better fine-tune it with CDBQ (the Mitsumi would only let me slow it down to 4x, the LG allowed for 8x)

H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-07-24, 10:31:

Removed Power-on password from an IBM G41 Laptop, booted the installed Win2000 and of course, ran 3DMark2001 🤣

Celeron D 325 (2.53 GHz), 256 MiB DDR, Intel Extreme Graphics; 1943 3DMarks

That's not extremely bad.