ubiq wrote on 2024-02-12, 02:11:

Thanks! This sort of repair is obviously 100% outside my range of knowledge/comfort zone. I'll have a close read of that thread […]
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PcBytes wrote on 2024-02-11, 08:17:

MSI - that's a ferrite bead, not cap.

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-02-11, 03:50:

ubiq wrote on 2024-02-11, 00:16:

I saw one of those poor caps glow white hot before it died. Oh well, thankfully it seems that the only thing affected was the on-board USB. I've yet to attempt SMC repair - this might be a decent opportunity. Anyone able to identify what caps I need to get? 😅

its not a cap, exact same accident with a fix: Blown SMD components on Motherboard - any tips?

Thanks! This sort of repair is obviously 100% outside my range of knowledge/comfort zone. I'll have a close read of that thread and see if I can figure it out.

(One key thing I noticed already is - don't be an idiot and assume any 2x5 IDC USB header is going to have a standard USB 2.0 header pinout 😓)

I caught that before catastrophe with another MSI board, USB header on that, each row is flipped with respect to each other, so I guess MSI supplied cable it doesn't matter which way round you plug in, other common cables, no way is right, unless you only plug it in the left hand row, to the right side of the holes, hanging half off.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-02-12, 06:57:

Oh, that's gonna be a nice build! I have the exact same setup, that I'm on the look for slotkets for. My p2b-ds is rev 1.05, but […]
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ubiq wrote on 2024-02-11, 00:16:

Also, I was really excited to get a matching Coppermine-supporting slocket, hoping to get dual slockets going in my ASUS P2B-DS, but no such luck.
IMG_0600.jpeg

It recognizes either CPU in either slot, but won't POST with them both in, regardless of the "dual cpu" jumper setting on the slockets. Not sure what the issue might be. ☹️

Oh, that's gonna be a nice build! I have the exact same setup, that I'm on the look for slotkets for. My p2b-ds is rev 1.05, but clock generator for 133/150 fsb is very close to my mailbox according to tracking. I've also succeeded in sourcing 4 sticks of BX compatible 256MiB modules for unlimited power ... 😁
I'm excited to hear what you learn about those slotkets, so I can use that experience. You may even want to make a separate thread?

[Edit] This thread is on page 1337 now ... 😁

My P2B-DS is also a rev 1.05, which I think means it doesn't natively support 133MHz FSB right? I'm sticking with 2 * 256 DIMMs because I figure that's enough, and I hear BX boards have issues with 4 sticks (and sometime even 3).

Anyway, no time like the present, gonna do the N33 mod on my slockets! Time to bust out my newb soldering skills and do my first bodges:

Looks like I managed to not short any pins, so I'll call that a win.

And....

Hahaha, yessss

Lookin good! 😎👍

Now you "only" have to test for stability! Congratulations 😀

ubiq wrote on 2024-02-12, 18:22:

I'm sticking with 2 * 256 DIMMs because I figure that's enough, and I hear BX boards have issues with 4 sticks (and sometime even 3).

I can confirm that I have also experienced an issue with some 440LX/BX boards and too many sticks or too much memory. I think that this is less of an issue with the number of sticks as it is the number of sticks at a certain density. For example, 256MB*3 might be unstable but 128MB*3 or even 256MB*2 would be stable. I have not performed any testing to investigate this further.

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-02-12, 21:56:

ubiq wrote on 2024-02-12, 18:22:

I'm sticking with 2 * 256 DIMMs because I figure that's enough, and I hear BX boards have issues with 4 sticks (and sometime even 3).

I can confirm that I have also experienced an issue with some 440LX/BX boards and too many sticks or too much memory. I think that this is less of an issue with the number of sticks as it is the number of sticks at a certain density. For example, 256MB*3 might be unstable but 128MB*3 or even 256MB*2 would be stable. I have not performed any testing to investigate this further.

this isnt the chipset's fault. Its the company that made the board.

the "server grade" stuff from companies like Tyan and Supermicro are rock solid, even with a full memory slots. The same goes for the high end consumer companies. Case in point, Asus and the P3B-F.

This doesnt take into account the sheer AGE of all these parts.

Four 256MB registered sticks run fine on my P2B-LS.

440BX boards should probably have buffer chips in order to use 4 sticks of RAM. A good example of this is the ABIT BX6r2. Unfortunately, these chips weren't cheap and they take up a lot of real estate on a motherboard, so most manufacturers cheaped out and didn't include them.

smtkr wrote on 2024-02-13, 01:20:

440BX boards should probably have buffer chips in order to use 4 sticks of RAM. A good example of this is the ABIT BX6r2. Unfortunately, these chips weren't cheap and they take up a lot of real estate on a motherboard, so most manufacturers cheaped out and didn't include them.

I also remember seeing BX boards placing those buffers between 3 DIMM slots and the 4th, perhaps adhering to Intel specification to the letter.

ubiq wrote on 2024-02-12, 18:22:

My P2B-DS is also a rev 1.05, which I think means it doesn't natively support 133MHz FSB right? I'm sticking with 2 * 256 DIMMs […]
Show full quote

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-02-12, 06:57:

Oh, that's gonna be a nice build! I have the exact same setup, that I'm on the look for slotkets for. My p2b-ds is rev 1.05, but […]
Show full quote

ubiq wrote on 2024-02-11, 00:16:

Also, I was really excited to get a matching Coppermine-supporting slocket, hoping to get dual slockets going in my ASUS P2B-DS, but no such luck.
IMG_0600.jpeg

It recognizes either CPU in either slot, but won't POST with them both in, regardless of the "dual cpu" jumper setting on the slockets. Not sure what the issue might be. ☹️

Oh, that's gonna be a nice build! I have the exact same setup, that I'm on the look for slotkets for. My p2b-ds is rev 1.05, but clock generator for 133/150 fsb is very close to my mailbox according to tracking. I've also succeeded in sourcing 4 sticks of BX compatible 256MiB modules for unlimited power ... 😁
I'm excited to hear what you learn about those slotkets, so I can use that experience. You may even want to make a separate thread?

[Edit] This thread is on page 1337 now ... 😁

My P2B-DS is also a rev 1.05, which I think means it doesn't natively support 133MHz FSB right? I'm sticking with 2 * 256 DIMMs because I figure that's enough, and I hear BX boards have issues with 4 sticks (and sometime even 3).

Anyway, no time like the present, gonna do the N33 mod on my slockets! Time to bust out my newb soldering skills and do my first bodges:
IMG_0672.jpeg
Looks like I managed to not short any pins, so I'll call that a win.

And....
IMG_0675.jpeg

Hahaha, yessss
IMG_0676.jpeg

Lookin good! 😎👍

Nice !

I've been messing around with my old Sound Blaster PCI 128 and found out that it actually has SPDIF output.

The green jack can switch between analog and digital output using a setting in the drivers. You need to use a mono 3.5mm to RCA adapter, plug that into the green jack, and then connect the adapter to your standard coaxial SPDIF cable. Seems to be working fine so far.

Just finished drilling holes and running hidden wires so that all exposed metal bits on my "home-made from scrap lumber and the odd bit of corrugated metal strapping" desk (except the screw heads... so far) are grounded for easy static dissipation (and wrist-strap clipping) without it looking any different.

EDIT: Oops. Forgot the drawer rails I used for a keyboard tray. Something to fix in a bit.

ubiq wrote on 2024-02-12, 18:22:

My P2B-DS is also a rev 1.05, which I think means it doesn't natively support 133MHz FSB right? I'm sticking with 2 * 256 DIMMs […]
Show full quote

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-02-12, 06:57:

Oh, that's gonna be a nice build! I have the exact same setup, that I'm on the look for slotkets for. My p2b-ds is rev 1.05, but […]
Show full quote

ubiq wrote on 2024-02-11, 00:16:

Also, I was really excited to get a matching Coppermine-supporting slocket, hoping to get dual slockets going in my ASUS P2B-DS, but no such luck.
IMG_0600.jpeg

It recognizes either CPU in either slot, but won't POST with them both in, regardless of the "dual cpu" jumper setting on the slockets. Not sure what the issue might be. ☹️

Oh, that's gonna be a nice build! I have the exact same setup, that I'm on the look for slotkets for. My p2b-ds is rev 1.05, but clock generator for 133/150 fsb is very close to my mailbox according to tracking. I've also succeeded in sourcing 4 sticks of BX compatible 256MiB modules for unlimited power ... 😁
I'm excited to hear what you learn about those slotkets, so I can use that experience. You may even want to make a separate thread?

[Edit] This thread is on page 1337 now ... 😁

My P2B-DS is also a rev 1.05, which I think means it doesn't natively support 133MHz FSB right? I'm sticking with 2 * 256 DIMMs because I figure that's enough, and I hear BX boards have issues with 4 sticks (and sometime even 3).

Anyway, no time like the present, gonna do the N33 mod on my slockets! Time to bust out my newb soldering skills and do my first bodges:
IMG_0672.jpeg
Looks like I managed to not short any pins, so I'll call that a win.

And....
IMG_0675.jpeg

Hahaha, yessss
IMG_0676.jpeg

Lookin good! 😎👍

Is that really what it takes? I need to find 2 identical slotkets ASAP 😁

Changed the fan for this power supply and I'm very happy with it, except the noise which is around 40dB. So I put a buck DC/DC converter between the fan and the power socket. Now it work at 7V.

Finally got around to moving my XT-IDE ROM to a 3c509b ISA ethernet card for my 486 machine. Bricked the card by making it report the ROM at C0000 and caused a conflict with my VGA card BIOS(TIL the VGA BIOS is at C0000) that caused the machine to beep for "error reading/writing VGA BIOS memory." Revived it by bridging the (E1) test pads on the board to ignore the stupid eeprom settings I set. Freed up an ISA slot.

2 pieces arrived over past few days - Am486 DX2-80 V8T and VLB SuperIO card.

Back in a days I jumped from low end ISA only 486 to Am5X86 system with PCI. I had no experience with VLB. I was slightlu afraid reading horror stories about potential instabilities with 33+ Mhz bus speeds with multiple VLB cards installed...
So far no dual VLB card issues with 40Mhz FSB and all BIOS timings maxed out. Only problem - SuperIO could not detect CF Card in closest VLB slot.
Can anyone suggest good stress test suite in DOS?

Another observation is that AMD V8T CPU is not detected by any program as "AuthenticAMD" i have with my Am5x86. NSSI freaks out and crashes on CPU id check. Rest of the dosbench suite programs reporting as generic 486.
CF on VLB is monster. Coretest score jumped a lot thanks to going from isa 8Mhz to 40Mhz VLB interface 1376 -> 2768
Edit: I was hoping to get cooler passive CPU when I went for 3V Am486. My thermal camera shows indeed mid 40C temp compared to i486DX2-66 I have however that little bugger next CPU socket is glowing hot now since it has to convert 5V - 3V. Oh well you win some and lose some...

vutt wrote on 2024-02-14, 19:42:

Another observation is that AMD V8T CPU is not detected by any program as "AuthenticAMD" i have with my Am5x86. NSSI freaks out and crashes on CPU id check. Rest of the dosbench suite programs reporting as generic 486.

That's because it doesn't have the CPUID instruction, so on regular hardware it's not possible to determine the manufacturer.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-02-13, 17:10:

ubiq wrote on 2024-02-12, 18:22:

My P2B-DS is also a rev 1.05, which I think means it doesn't natively support 133MHz FSB right? I'm sticking with 2 * 256 DIMMs […]
Show full quote

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-02-12, 06:57:

Oh, that's gonna be a nice build! I have the exact same setup, that I'm on the look for slotkets for. My p2b-ds is rev 1.05, but clock generator for 133/150 fsb is very close to my mailbox according to tracking. I've also succeeded in sourcing 4 sticks of BX compatible 256MiB modules for unlimited power ... 😁
I'm excited to hear what you learn about those slotkets, so I can use that experience. You may even want to make a separate thread?

[Edit] This thread is on page 1337 now ... 😁

My P2B-DS is also a rev 1.05, which I think means it doesn't natively support 133MHz FSB right? I'm sticking with 2 * 256 DIMMs because I figure that's enough, and I hear BX boards have issues with 4 sticks (and sometime even 3).

Anyway, no time like the present, gonna do the N33 mod on my slockets! Time to bust out my newb soldering skills and do my first bodges:
IMG_0672.jpeg
Looks like I managed to not short any pins, so I'll call that a win.

And....
IMG_0675.jpeg

Hahaha, yessss
IMG_0676.jpeg

Lookin good! 😎👍

Is that really what it takes? I need to find 2 identical slotkets ASAP 😁

Yup, pretty much. Just connect N33 from the socket to B75 on the slot connector. I used this 20-year-old japanese post which shows that you can connect N33 to the Single/Dual jumper on my slockets. There's a link at the bottom that shows it done on other slockets. Oh, and this assumes your slockets already support coppermine cpus.

It almost seemed too easy, actually! Makes me want to look at Tualatin mods....

Bought this badboy for £14 😁
I'm expecting under mx200 performance and severe texture issues... might make a video of the battle of the terrible pci cards: Radeon 7000 vs. SiS 315e.

Just received the Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.3 disc I ordered. At the moment, I'm waiting for a USB stick to write so I can work around the senile DVD drive in my hand-me-down 2010 iMac and I'll see if it accepts the retail version of what it shipped with as a way to set up a 10.13/10.6.3 multi-boot or if the retail DVD's only good for setting up multi-boot on the 2009 Macbook that originally came with 10.6.1.

EDIT: Looks like it gets stuck at the apple logo screen for the iMac, whether I copy it to a USB stick or pull out my USB DVD-Rewriter too boot off of. I guess I need to track down the matching grey disc (or possibly a newer 10.6 retail disc if one exists) if I want a boot option old enough to run Rosetta as well as the usual stuff that requires an Intel mac but doesn't work on something as new as 10.13.

EDIT 2: But, as expected, it booted and installed without issue on the Macbook.

ssokolow wrote on 2024-02-15, 23:23:

Just received the Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.3 disc I ordered. At the moment, I'm waiting for a USB stick to write so I can work around the senile DVD drive in my hand-me-down 2010 iMac and I'll see if it accepts the retail version of what it shipped with as a way to set up a 10.13/10.6.3 multi-boot or if the retail DVD's only good for setting up multi-boot on the 2009 Macbook that originally came with 10.6.1.

I put X 10.0 up to 10.13 on an external drive with both firewire and USB 2.0 for later machines that don't have FW. IDE HDD inside but still great.
All versions at a superspeed. This is a feature I love.