I have become the CDROM repair guru! #7 -

Tray operation was very rough and that band just spun spun spun...

You can even see it took on its own shape - Luckily I had bought a bag of assorted bands to fix a very tight Compaq 4/75CX floppy drive and had a ton left over.

My two year old of course wanted to touch the 40x CDROM during a Windows install - he was escorted out of the room in tears of protest. Leave him unattended and he'll eject and insert diskettes...

I greased up the gears and ran the drive open and closed a dozen or so times - so much smoother and quieter. Bearing grease from about 20 years ago, I bought it to re-do my first Hyundai Pony's bearings. Still half-full 😉

The rest of the night was spent preparing yet another 486 DX2/66 for eBay (that one, actually!) - I have 5 of them here. I don't think I had that many at once even back in the late 90s.

BetaC wrote on 2020-11-16, 22:45:

Today I learned that my 430HX board has no problems seeing and using drives that are over 8GB, so long and you don't use the board to format it. When formatting, it just can't see over 8GB for whatever reason.

Just make sure everything is OK when actually using the space above 8GB on this machine

Jed118 wrote on 2020-11-17, 05:39:

I have become the CDROM repair guru! #7 - […]
Show full quote

I have become the CDROM repair guru! #7 -

Tray operation was very rough and that band just spun spun spun...

You can even see it took on its own shape - Luckily I had bought a bag of assorted bands to fix a very tight Compaq 4/75CX floppy drive and had a ton left over.

My two year old of course wanted to touch the 40x CDROM during a Windows install - he was escorted out of the room in tears of protest. Leave him unattended and he'll eject and insert diskettes...

I greased up the gears and ran the drive open and closed a dozen or so times - so much smoother and quieter. Bearing grease from about 20 years ago, I bought it to re-do my first Hyundai Pony's bearings. Still half-full 😉

The rest of the night was spent preparing yet another 486 DX2/66 for eBay (that one, actually!) - I have 5 of them here. I don't think I had that many at once even back in the late 90s.

Are you sure this grease is safe for use in the precise equipment? Many automotive greases are a no-no in the computers and precision mechanics as they accumulate dust and may be petroleum based which may be harmful to some plastics. I generally use nothing but silicone grease, silicone oil and white lithium grease (one with ptfe also works very well).

HanJammer wrote on 2020-11-17, 09:19:

Jed118 wrote on 2020-11-17, 05:39:

I have become the CDROM repair guru! #7 - […]
Show full quote

I have become the CDROM repair guru! #7 -

Tray operation was very rough and that band just spun spun spun...

You can even see it took on its own shape - Luckily I had bought a bag of assorted bands to fix a very tight Compaq 4/75CX floppy drive and had a ton left over.

My two year old of course wanted to touch the 40x CDROM during a Windows install - he was escorted out of the room in tears of protest. Leave him unattended and he'll eject and insert diskettes...

I greased up the gears and ran the drive open and closed a dozen or so times - so much smoother and quieter. Bearing grease from about 20 years ago, I bought it to re-do my first Hyundai Pony's bearings. Still half-full 😉

The rest of the night was spent preparing yet another 486 DX2/66 for eBay (that one, actually!) - I have 5 of them here. I don't think I had that many at once even back in the late 90s.

Are you sure this grease is safe for use in the precise equipment? Many automotive greases are a no-no in the computers and precision mechanics as they accumulate dust and may be petroleum based which may be harmful to some plastics. I generally use nothing but silicone grease, silicone oil and white lithium grease (one with ptfe also works very well).

The stuff that was lining the tracks looked and smelled the same as the stuff I added. It looks like ABS plastic, and from my experience with it, it'll be fine. I'm willing to bet the band will snap or the laser fails long before the tray mechanism does - that and I'll be retired 😉 *edit and the machine too, hah.

BetaC wrote on 2020-11-16, 22:45:

Today I learned that my 430HX board has no problems seeing and using drives that are over 8GB, so long and you don't use the board to format it. When formatting, it just can't see over 8GB for whatever reason.

You might be able to find a patched BIOS for your board with full support for larger HDDs.

Played the retro hardware lottery and lost this time - bought a Commodore Plus/4 which arrived today and... it's dead, famous black screen. Getting packaged up and returned to the seller tomorrow. 🙁

I probably could have fixed it, but having no spare parts to hand would have meant this becoming a bit of a money pit, having to at least purchase a new CPU (6510 + 8510 adapter & custom kernal ROM) and possibly even a replacement TED chip or RAM. So back it goes and I'll try to buy another instead.

On that, I still haven't done anything with my semi-boxed like new condiiton VIC-20 that I got from the thrift store over the summer. I know it turns on, and that's it.

konc wrote on 2020-11-17, 08:14:

Just make sure everything is OK when actually using the space above 8GB on this machine

I will test that out once I have enough on there to fill past that, which will be a little bit from now.

TechieDude wrote on 2020-11-17, 15:30:

You might be able to find a patched BIOS for your board with full support for larger HDDs.

It's a SONY OEM AG430HX board, so I am not sure it will have any modified BIOSes. It was hell enough for me to find the update program to get me on to the .10.DD04 BIOS, which I have preserved now in case anyone else needs it.

Nothing special... reworked some old Labtech speakers and got MusicMatch working under WinXP on an old soc775 machine.
Not really very vintage (think the speakers, motheboard, etc are 2002 era) but was fun and it all works.
Did not take pictures of reworking the speakers but was nothing special...

Foo Fighters and Foreigner! You sure have good music taste

Connected my newly bought motherboard Abit - BH7, only to see if it works. It works.

That is a great sck 478 board

Thanks. The seller wanted 10 EUR for the board, processor and the heatsink, so it would actually be a sin not to buy it.

Wow that is a fantastic price and absolutely that would of been a sin to not buy it.

Finally attempted to discharge a CRT for repair and lived to tell the tale.

(Not encouraging anyone, please do a lot of research before attempting this)

I thought I might not hear the discharge but oh yeah got the crack/thud noise.

Finally got my Asus P5AD2-E Deluxe in the mail today. Got it cleaned, updated the BIOS, and installed Windows ME on an SSD for it.

With all onboard devices turned off, I managed to install drivers for all but one PCI USB device. That's right, all but one. Using the unofficial 82.69 Nvidia driver, I was able to get my 6800 Ultra PCIe to work under ME (runs 3DMark200 and Deus Ex just fine, although I did notice that my start menu was a bit glitched.

the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-11-18, 22:45:

Finally got my Asus P5AD2-E Deluxe in the mail today. Got it cleaned, updated the BIOS, and installed Windows ME on an SSD for i […]
Show full quote

Finally got my Asus P5AD2-E Deluxe in the mail today. Got it cleaned, updated the BIOS, and installed Windows ME on an SSD for it.

With all onboard devices turned off, I managed to install drivers for all but one PCI USB device. That's right, all but one. Using the unofficial 82.69 Nvidia driver, I was able to get my 6800 Ultra PCIe to work under ME (runs 3DMark200 and Deus Ex just fine, although I did notice that my start menu was a bit glitched.

What on earth is that game in the second pic?

kolderman wrote on 2020-11-18, 23:08:

the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-11-18, 22:45:

Finally got my Asus P5AD2-E Deluxe in the mail today. Got it cleaned, updated the BIOS, and installed Windows ME on an SSD for i […]
Show full quote

Finally got my Asus P5AD2-E Deluxe in the mail today. Got it cleaned, updated the BIOS, and installed Windows ME on an SSD for it.

With all onboard devices turned off, I managed to install drivers for all but one PCI USB device. That's right, all but one. Using the unofficial 82.69 Nvidia driver, I was able to get my 6800 Ultra PCIe to work under ME (runs 3DMark200 and Deus Ex just fine, although I did notice that my start menu was a bit glitched.

What on earth is that game in the second pic?

Do not mention the game, every time somebody does someone re-installs and plays through it again.

kolderman wrote on 2020-11-18, 23:08:

What on earth is that game in the second pic?

Deus Ex: GOTY Edition from GOG. Re-install it, it's fun. 😀

kolderman wrote on 2020-11-18, 23:08:

the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-11-18, 22:45:

Finally got my Asus P5AD2-E Deluxe in the mail today. Got it cleaned, updated the BIOS, and installed Windows ME on an SSD for i […]
Show full quote

Finally got my Asus P5AD2-E Deluxe in the mail today. Got it cleaned, updated the BIOS, and installed Windows ME on an SSD for it.

With all onboard devices turned off, I managed to install drivers for all but one PCI USB device. That's right, all but one. Using the unofficial 82.69 Nvidia driver, I was able to get my 6800 Ultra PCIe to work under ME (runs 3DMark200 and Deus Ex just fine, although I did notice that my start menu was a bit glitched.

What on earth is that game in the second pic?

Deus Ex - best game ever.