RandomStranger wrote on 2023-09-04, 07:03:

Wouldn't replacing only the plastic part be easier and faster?
I often harvest those from dead boards in case I need a replacement.

At the moment I'm using brand new IDE connectors for replacements, so this entails de-soldering the original.

Haven't tried salvaging any plastic housings from old boards. Not even sure if I have any dead boards at the moment to salvage from TBH.

Today I repaired a Cirrus Logic 5428 VLB video card.

The original card had a damaged crystal that was intermittently shorting out. I replace the replaced the crystal with a new one and it seems much more stable.

I bend a paperclip to retain this Matrox G400 heatsink on the P60.

PD2JK wrote on 2023-09-04, 16:53:

I bend a paperclip to retain this Matrox G400 heatsink on the P60.DSC_6001.JPG

The question everybody asks is what is on the G400 then? Geforce FX5800 Ultra cooler!? 🤔

Nice macgyver contraption!

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-09-04, 17:25:

PD2JK wrote on 2023-09-04, 16:53:

I bend a paperclip to retain this Matrox G400 heatsink on the P60.DSC_6001.JPG

The question everybody asks is what is on the G400 then? Geforce FX5800 Ultra cooler!? 🤔

Nice macgyver contraption!

Tnx! I used the memory chips from that G400 board to upgrade the memory on a MS-6168 V2 mainboard. With no luck so far... To answer your question, nothing since it's a donor card.

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-09-03, 10:06:

Today I almost didn't go to the monthly vintage market. It was heavily raining in the morning and last month almost no one was there to sell. Then I decided to check and in the worst case I had a walk. It was surprisingly big despite the weather. I got a bottle of wine, 1kg of dry smoked sausage and 2kg of cheese. Also a box of 5,25" floppies and an ASUS branded FX5600.
IMG_20230903_114418.jpg
Very dirty, probably got some water (not just now because of the rain). I don't know where it was stored, but I picked a grain of barley out of the heatsink. The fan doesn't run free if I spin with my finger. I'd give it a 10% chance that it works.

Cleaned and quickly tested the FX. It looks to be fine.

At least this wasn't a dud like the Ti4200 from 2(?) months ago. Even the fan is alright after some cleaning.

Though the GPU seems to be colcked a bit low. I the FX5600 supposed to be at 325MHz.

PD2JK wrote on 2023-09-04, 18:15:

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-09-04, 17:25:

PD2JK wrote on 2023-09-04, 16:53:

I bend a paperclip to retain this Matrox G400 heatsink on the P60.DSC_6001.JPG

The question everybody asks is what is on the G400 then? Geforce FX5800 Ultra cooler!? 🤔

Nice macgyver contraption!

Tnx! I used the memory chips from that G400 board to upgrade the memory on a MS-6168 V2 mainboard. With no luck so far... To answer your question, nothing since it's a donor card.

What memory chips did you use from the G400?

I really have to sort my collection before i have rooms full of stuff that doesnt work or i even dont know i have... Ok its too late for that, but at least i try to sort things 😁

Today was AST time.

Years ago i saved this AST Premium 286 from a recycler and i never even had a look at it.

It basically is in really great condition... underneath the sratches... and besides the broken power switch .... and the MFM HDD is missing.
No battery leakage because its external.
It came with a ATI 8-Bit VGA graphics card that i have never even seen before... thats a nice bonus.
The system works and has 1MB of ram, wich i will try to fill up to the max. I think i could even put in a second RAM card, but i have no hope to find one...

Does anybody know where i can get the plastic casing around the power switch? It seems to be a 1:1 clone of the IBM XT/AT powersupply.
I would even get it 3D printed if there are files available...
The switch is working, just the black plastic frame is broken.

Started tearing down this Pentium 4 system.

Unfortunately the entire case is physically warped. It's like it was crushed by something. Surprisingly nothing is broken, including any of the plastic bits. But the metal frame is definitely not straight.

Going to start trying to bend it back into shape. It's got some dents in a couple places, so time for some old-fashioned percussive maintenance. 😁

DerBaum wrote on 2023-09-04, 22:23:

Does anybody know where i can get the plastic casing around the power switch? It seems to be a 1:1 clone of the IBM XT/AT powersupply.
I would even get it 3D printed if there are files available...
The switch is working, just the black plastic frame is broken.

There's a 3D model of such a bezel for printing on Thingiverse.

Does Windows 7 count as retro yet? Steam thinks so.

Built a Win 7 machine for a project and tried to run some game benchmarks. Games that I have from GoG worked great as usual, but stuff like the OG version of Metro 2033, Skyrim and Rage is not on there. Steam states that there are still over 100 days of support left on Win7, but the downloads are broken - the connection always times out. Couldn't get it to work by copy-pasting the game files or by restoring backups.

Guess I'll have to turn to the old Jolly Roger for these games, which sucks since Metro 2033 version that can be found online does not come with an in-built benchmark and OG Rage has graphics settings missing.

Munx wrote on 2023-09-05, 08:17:

Does Windows 7 count as retro yet? Steam thinks so.

Not as much Steam, as Chromium.
Chromium dropped support for 7, and Steam (like most garbage PC "software" these days that are nothing but a packaged up web browser) heavily relies on it.

Munx wrote on 2023-09-05, 08:17:

Does Windows 7 count as retro yet? Steam thinks so.

To me it's only a nostalgia OS. It's EOL, no first or third party support (maybe some indirect support, as some software still just happens to run on it), but not old enough yet to be retro.

I also have something in plans on semi-modern hardware that's not big enough to be called project.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-09-04, 21:49:

PD2JK wrote on 2023-09-04, 18:15:

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-09-04, 17:25:

The question everybody asks is what is on the G400 then? Geforce FX5800 Ultra cooler!? 🤔

Nice macgyver contraption!

Tnx! I used the memory chips from that G400 board to upgrade the memory on a MS-6168 V2 mainboard. With no luck so far... To answer your question, nothing since it's a donor card.

What memory chips did you use from the G400?

Here's a picture. I used all 4 chips from a 16MB G400 card.
I think I still need to work on my soldering skills. I used soldering paste as user pentiumspeed recommended, but it seems that some leads don't really make contact here and there. Extra flux didn't help much. And too much soldering paste creates blobs. Too much heat destroys the chips and surrounding plastic components. The result for now is a distorted screen, typical severe video memory artifacts.
Sigh.

Daniël Oosterhuis wrote on 2023-09-05, 07:21:

There's a 3D model of such a bezel for printing on Thingiverse.

Awesome! Thanks a lot... I had not used the right keywords for my search.. Thanks again.

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-09-04, 19:51:

Cleaned and quickly tested the FX. It looks to be fine. IMG_20230904_213508.jpg At least this wasn't a dud like the Ti4200 from […]
Show full quote

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-09-03, 10:06:

Today I almost didn't go to the monthly vintage market. It was heavily raining in the morning and last month almost no one was there to sell. Then I decided to check and in the worst case I had a walk. It was surprisingly big despite the weather. I got a bottle of wine, 1kg of dry smoked sausage and 2kg of cheese. Also a box of 5,25" floppies and an ASUS branded FX5600.
IMG_20230903_114418.jpg
Very dirty, probably got some water (not just now because of the rain). I don't know where it was stored, but I picked a grain of barley out of the heatsink. The fan doesn't run free if I spin with my finger. I'd give it a 10% chance that it works.

Cleaned and quickly tested the FX. It looks to be fine.
IMG_20230904_213508.jpg
At least this wasn't a dud like the Ti4200 from 2(?) months ago. Even the fan is alright after some cleaning.

Though the GPU seems to be colcked a bit low. I the FX5600 supposed to be at 325MHz.

AGP 8x@disabled? What is it? AGP 4x (2x,1x) enabled or completely disabled, that means PCI only mod?

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-09-04, 22:24:

Started tearing down this Pentium 4 system.

Doing something similar: got a P4 from an e-waste recycler, asking me to test if any valuable component is working, and if I I'm interested in any of them I get a price cut.

The huge case is the heaviest consumer-grade computer case I've ever encountered; even heavier than a Gigabyte 3D Aurora. And both of them are as noisy as hair dryers.

The Asus P4C800 Deluxe is more messy than I thought: other than dusty, the rig has three HDD (two PATA and one SATA, with one PATA HDD unconnected and with bent pins), four unnecessary power extension cords, and an uninserted but screwed network card. The original owner seems to have half-baked DIY skills, including not deleting naughty personal files on the HDD.

Unfortunately the ELSA Fire GL X2 professional graphics card (equivalent to Radeon 9800 Pro) is defective with heavy artifacts. SB0220 Live! 5.1 Digital is nice, but I already have too many Sound Blaster cards.

There are more problems ahead; I'll start a new thread and ask for help.

Ydee wrote on 2023-09-05, 10:32:

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-09-04, 19:51:

Cleaned and quickly tested the FX. It looks to be fine. IMG_20230904_213508.jpg At least this wasn't a dud like the Ti4200 from […]
Show full quote

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-09-03, 10:06:

Today I almost didn't go to the monthly vintage market. It was heavily raining in the morning and last month almost no one was there to sell. Then I decided to check and in the worst case I had a walk. It was surprisingly big despite the weather. I got a bottle of wine, 1kg of dry smoked sausage and 2kg of cheese. Also a box of 5,25" floppies and an ASUS branded FX5600.
IMG_20230903_114418.jpg
Very dirty, probably got some water (not just now because of the rain). I don't know where it was stored, but I picked a grain of barley out of the heatsink. The fan doesn't run free if I spin with my finger. I'd give it a 10% chance that it works.

Cleaned and quickly tested the FX. It looks to be fine.
IMG_20230904_213508.jpg
At least this wasn't a dud like the Ti4200 from 2(?) months ago. Even the fan is alright after some cleaning.

Though the GPU seems to be colcked a bit low. I the FX5600 supposed to be at 325MHz.

AGP 8x@disabled? What is it? AGP 4x (2x,1x) enabled or completely disabled, that means PCI only mod?

It's a severely abused Windows 98 installation. I replaced everything several times since I installed it onto that CF card. Probably the motherboard drivers are in conflict with something.

I'm an idiot. Trying to install Vortex drivers. Why won't it work!?

Oh it's a Vortex 2, all this time I thought it was a Vortex 1.

PD2JK wrote on 2023-09-05, 15:05:

I'm an idiot. Trying to install Vortex drivers. Why won't it work!?

Oh it's a Vortex 2, all this time I thought it was a Vortex 1.

This reminds me from couple of weeks ago when I was putting a 486/PCI system together with Zida 4DPS (board has IO, floppy and IDE controllers integrated). I booted the system and noticed that floppy drive doesn't work. I checked cabling, all OK. Well, I guess this floppy drive is dead. I removed the floppy drive and wrote "BROKEN" with sharpie on it. I got a new floppy drive from my spares. I installed new floppy drive. I booted the system. Same thing, completely dead.

Then it occurred to me that floppy drive is probably disabled in the bios. And it was.