Oh, the joys of SCSI...

All I wanted to do was test a single 1GB SCSI-2 SE drive for basic functionality and bad sectors. So I got my more-or-less trusty Dawicontrol DC-974 card, stuck it in my Knoppix test system, connected the drive via a 50p flatcable with active terminator on the end and...
- system didn't get past POST. After much head-scratching turned out to be the bootROM on the SCSI card. Removed and re-seated it, then POST finised, ROM initialized and...
- Knoppix got to the penguin (initializing kernel) then hung. Damned Linux kernel decided that its disk order was different to that of BIOS or grub and that its root filesystem should be on the SCSI disk. Could probably fix with parameters in grub, but couldn't be bothered. Hooked up my Gotek and booted from that instead...
- despite SCSI BIOS initializing the drive as D:, no D:, no drive recognized by fdisk or gdisk either. Also drive making repetitive noises. Dead drive?
- if so all SCSI drives dead as a 24MB SCSI-1 drive and a 1.8GB SCA drive via SCA-50p adapter also failed. Dead cable?
- maybe, but if so my other 50p cable and other terminator were also dead as same behaviour. Dead controller?
- nope, with 50p-68p adapter and 68p cable to SCA adapter it did work fine.

So it looks like I have two dead cables and/or terminators here, and I still don't know if the drive works 🙁

Unfortunately my other SCSI controllers are a bit exotic (one EISA, the other a combi SCSI+IDE controller that hangs any system with other IDE controller). This evening I wanted to work on an EISA system anyway (that's why I wanted a known-good drive...), so if that works will see what that controller thinks of the situation...

A few hours ago I received an RGB Scart cable for my SNES. It was a cheap cable and had the expected poor reviews about it not working on a PAL SNES console. Sure enough it didn't work on my SNES, with the screen fading to near black after a couple of seconds.

Thankfully though the fix was pretty easy, just open up the Scart plug, snip off 4 capacitors and re-solder the cables to the pins. 10 minutes later, a fully working RGB Scart cable without having to pay crazy prices for "PAL compatible" ones.

Got the Amiga 500 & 1084S-D2 monitor booted up on my test bench. Some functionality is there at least. I am going to make a Gotek external floppy with a switch select so it can function as a boot floppy, and then I have to fix the monitor to get the green cathode ray functional again. Should just be a broken solder joint or a failed transistor. I have the repair manual, so it will just be a matter of working through the schematic. I currently don't have time to do that because I'm at work more than I'm home, so it will have to wait.

Worked on trying to repair some of the plastic damage to the FM-Townes computer. It's not going to be perfect but I'll be able to keep the thing mostly intact, though the CD-ROM door is mostly a lost cause. I can still have it there but it's never going to work as intended again.

Corona is revealing otherwise hidden poverty. I've been asked by an acquaintance to revive an old laptop for his granddaughter of 8. A guy was asking 90 euro, which they can't afford. So I have spent all evening reviving a 2009 AMD x2 laptop. With Ubuntu on a 120GB transcend ssd, a thoroughly cleaned cooler and newly applied thermal paste halving the cpu's heat, they're good to go, without charges, obviously.

Testing/repairing a couple of Acorn A4000s.

AlphaWing wrote on 2014-07-12, 17:54:

ElectricMonk wrote:

AlphaWing wrote:

I'd recommend Tiefighter for exclusive play... but thats just me. 😀

I can't wait to get that one working properly! I must've played it 3 times in a row, even with that crappy sound card that would "hang notes".

If LucasArts (now Disney) kept having to pump out Star Wars games, why not a TF2 or TF online?

Tiefighter II will never be

Based on the way the gaming industry has gone, I'm entirely okay with TIE Fighter never having a true sequel. I just hope the XWVM project does it justice to bring it into the modern age, because some of the screen tearing on LCD displays when running it through DOSbox is quite awful despite how wonderful the rest of the game is. It's still my favourite DOS game to date.

I know, I should have kept my CRT. I didn't know any better at the time.

Well, I did some more 286 tinkering, used DRIVPARM and some other utilities SETBPB35 B and while diagnostics see the drive as a 720K with the right sect/track info, I still cannot read or write anything to the floppy.

I'm getting pretty familiar with EDLIN at least. 😁

flupke11 wrote on 2020-04-22, 22:37:

Corona is revealing otherwise hidden poverty. I've been asked by an acquaintance to revive an old laptop for his granddaughter of 8. A guy was asking 90 euro, which they can't afford. So I have spent all evening reviving a 2009 AMD x2 laptop. With Ubuntu on a 120GB transcend ssd, a thoroughly cleaned cooler and newly applied thermal paste halving the cpu's heat, they're good to go, without charges, obviously.

90 Euros? I would have done it for a few beers and whatever parts I needed (if I had to buy them I mean). Hell that's what I did for my neighbour, he's the happy owner of a Dell Vostro now 😉

dionb wrote on 2020-04-22, 15:33:

Oh, the joys of SCSI...
So it looks like I have two dead cables and/or terminators here, and I still don't know if the drive works 🙁
Unfortunately my other SCSI controllers are a bit exotic (one EISA, the other a combi SCSI+IDE controller that hangs any system with other IDE controller).

I have kept a few odd ISA and PCI SCSI adapters around for just such testing. Adaptec 2940u and UW are very inexpensive still (IF you keep your eye open on ebay or get one from a friend who just bought a big lot of cards) they are worth keeping one each for testing or backup.

Jed118 wrote on 2020-04-23, 01:33:

flupke11 wrote on 2020-04-22, 22:37:

Corona is revealing otherwise hidden poverty. I've been asked by an acquaintance to revive an old laptop for his granddaughter of 8. A guy was asking 90 euro, which they can't afford. So I have spent all evening reviving a 2009 AMD x2 laptop. With Ubuntu on a 120GB transcend ssd, a thoroughly cleaned cooler and newly applied thermal paste halving the cpu's heat, they're good to go, without charges, obviously.

90 Euros? I would have done it for a few beers and whatever parts I needed (if I had to buy them I mean). Hell that's what I did for my neighbour, he's the happy owner of a Dell Vostro now 😉

Good jobs ! Great to hear about helping others.

Hah, so the culprit was found!

It seems that the 720k drive would read disks DIR command-wise, I'm guessing that's on the outer track of the bottom of the diskette because I was fiddling with the top head alignment (after of course cleaning them both with alcohol) to see if I could get lucky (as I have a few times in the past) and I discovered that if you unplug the top head from the control board, you can still get a DIR listing. I think the head itself is damaged as it had scrape marks on the back side where it was touching the enclosure cover. There was a dent that hit the head and it looks like it was working like that for a while as there's a fairly pronounced sanding mark on both the top of the head mechanism and the bottom of the case enclosure. I bet some dust got all up ins and is screwing with the head somehow, but it's not made out of a ferric material.... I dunno, I'll put it on the shelf in the low priority pile, just gonna toss a 1.44Mb at the 286 and call it done.

wiretap wrote on 2020-04-22, 19:36:

Got the Amiga 500 & 1084S-D2 monitor booted up on my test bench. Some functionality is there at least. I am going to make a Gote […]
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Got the Amiga 500 & 1084S-D2 monitor booted up on my test bench. Some functionality is there at least. I am going to make a Gotek external floppy with a switch select so it can function as a boot floppy, and then I have to fix the monitor to get the green cathode ray functional again. Should just be a broken solder joint or a failed transistor. I have the repair manual, so it will just be a matter of working through the schematic. I currently don't have time to do that because I'm at work more than I'm home, so it will have to wait.

There are very mint stuff at least the colours are 😀

Installed the DX4-120 in the 486 I'm rebuilding from my childhood, however, the turbo switch isn't functioning correctly (display shows 40MHz with the turbo light off and 120MHz with the turbo light on) according to test I'm doing with NSSI to see how fast it goes with the turbo turned off.

Horun wrote on 2020-04-23, 02:16:

dionb wrote on 2020-04-22, 15:33:

Oh, the joys of SCSI...
So it looks like I have two dead cables and/or terminators here, and I still don't know if the drive works 🙁
Unfortunately my other SCSI controllers are a bit exotic (one EISA, the other a combi SCSI+IDE controller that hangs any system with other IDE controller).

I have kept a few odd ISA and PCI SCSI adapters around for just such testing. Adaptec 2940u and UW are very inexpensive still (IF you keep your eye open on ebay or get one from a friend who just bought a big lot of cards) they are worth keeping one each for testing or backup.

I actually have an Adaptec 2940U2W *somewhere*, but wherever it is, it's hiding from me at the moment. Also should have an AHA-1542 but it's also AWOL. This weekend I actually have a few days home alone (in-laws out sailing, partner & children are going 'on holiday' to their house), was already intending to get a new set of shelves in the computer room sorted. When I move things from haphazard piles to those shelves I might find all the stuff I'm missing - like the PAS16 i wanted to use in a new build...

flupke11 wrote on 2020-04-22, 22:37:

Corona is revealing otherwise hidden poverty. I've been asked by an acquaintance to revive an old laptop for his granddaughter of 8. A guy was asking 90 euro, which they can't afford. So I have spent all evening reviving a 2009 AMD x2 laptop. With Ubuntu on a 120GB transcend ssd, a thoroughly cleaned cooler and newly applied thermal paste halving the cpu's heat, they're good to go, without charges, obviously.

Good jobs ! Great to hear about helping others.

Second that! Our skills are useful for more than just getting 30-year old games running 😀

I made this today:

you can find more details here

computerguy08 wrote on 2020-04-23, 10:25:

I made this today: […]
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I made this today:

you can find more details here

Incredibly amazing! Better than mine, which I improvised for an old Hackintosh and then abandoned for other reasons.

computerguy08 wrote on 2020-04-23, 10:25:

I made this today: […]
Show full quote

I made this today:

you can find more details here

Haha I have a 10 inch CRT that would go perfectly with that, as well as a server tray mini keyboard 😉

Nice case! Have contemplated doing a wooden case for ages, but never done it. You have 😀

Today working from home as usual, got kicked out of home office for a conf call, so had to do mine from the retro den. And if I was there anyway, I might as well do something with it. Turns out (surprise, surprise) my SE440BX-3 doesn't take too kindly to a Tualatin Celeron 1400A:

(fortunately my product manager is as much a geek as I am, he loved watching me at it, while the project manager we were both dealing with was shaking his head at the kind of people he had to work with 😜 )

Also confirmed an Oak Technologies ISA card was working fine, as was a Celeron 466. That means I now have two matched pairs for my BP6, but with 533MHz and 466MHz neither is exactly overclocking material. Need to find some C300A/333A for that.

Today I've spent hours trying to get SLI running with two Voodoo II's and it just doesn't work.
First I had just two of them: A Creative CT6670 and a PowerColor. Both of them work fine individually, but in SLI mode my screen just turns itself off and the computer locks up.

On the PowerColor I slightly twisted one of the chips when I tried to get a heatsink off - so I thought maybe that broke the SLI?

We all know where this is going - I bought a third Voodoo II. A Diamond Monster 3D.
Which has the same damn problem! No matter what combination of the three cards I use, no matter which PCI slots I use, the cards all work fine in single mode, but they fail in SLI mode.

So MAYBE both of my SLI cables are broken. I ordered two new ones now. If this doesn't work, I will sit in a corner and cry. Or buy another Voodoo.

Good news - the replacement t5720 motherboard arrived via UPS ground today, and it works. The thin client is back in operation.
Oddly enough, the working board has the green Sanyo capacitor replaced by a Chemicon KY...which is the exact capacitor that failed on my almost kaput t5720 board.

Bad news - the Jaton 338PCI-DX (nVidia Geforce 6200 PCI, 128MB version) in my possession (the one that used to be in my t5720) picked up some heat damage - artifacts on text mode/VGA and wouldn't load up with its drivers in WinXP or 98. This one needs to be replaced.

Ambivalent news - not sure if I should gun for another 338PCI-DX or go for the 338PCI-LX (the 256MB version). I don't think I want an FX5200 PCI card. I certainly don't want to throw much more money on the thin client than I already have...