VOGONS


Reply 7700 of 27186, by Cyrix200+

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I have built a 'simple' retro workstation for data transfers, reading and writing 3.5" and 5.25" floppies etc.

Asus P2B-LS
Tualatin Celeron 1.4GHz on a Powerleap slotket
Plextor 40x CDROM & Plexwriter 4x2x24 CDR (SCSI)
Matrox G400
Windows 98 SE

Access to my retro software archive on my NAS via FTP.

Can anyone recommend a virus scanner for this machine? I want to use it to image/check/save all the floppies I have aquired during the years. Big chance there will be some virus on there somewhere.

When Vogonsdrivers is back up I will upload some of the stuff there.

1982 to 2001

Reply 7701 of 27186, by derSammler

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Wanted to get my Intel Neptune mainboard running, which sadly freezes after POST due to the shitty DALLAS chip having a flat battery... So spent an hour to desolder the DALLAS chip and install a socket instead.

IMG_20171231_100938581~2.jpg

Now have to break open the DALLAS and attach an external battery.

Last edited by derSammler on 2017-12-31, 14:01. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 7702 of 27186, by Cyrix200+

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derSammler wrote:

Wanted to get my Intel Neptune mainboard running, which sadly freezes after POST due to the shitty DALLAS chip having a flat battery... So spend an hour to desolder the DALLAS chip and install a socket instead.

IMG_20171231_100938581~2.jpg

Now have to break open the DALLAS and attach an external battery.

I have a pile of boards sitting around waiting for this...

1982 to 2001

Reply 7704 of 27186, by Deksor

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I'd prefer to struggle to fix some dallas battery rather than trying to fix varta battery leakage. When I bought my 286, I was so happy to see it had a dallas chip and not a varta battery ^^

Though soldering them to the board is a really stupid idea indeed

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 7705 of 27186, by Mister Xiado

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I've got a P66 system in magnificent shape, that lamentably has a Dallas chip so dead I cannot even install alternate video cards. I'll eventually have to remove it and modify it as well, but desoldering without that $350 gun is more a chore than the payoff would be worth.

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Reply 7706 of 27186, by derSammler

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Mister Xiado wrote:

but desoldering without that $350 gun is more a chore than the payoff would be worth.

I used hot air. My rework station cost about $100 and worked well for that. Had to clean the holes using a desoldering pump afterwards, which took some time. But all in all, it was easy.

Reply 7707 of 27186, by Cyrix200+

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derSammler wrote:

Then have fun. 😁

Doing the DALLAS isn't that problematic, but I really hate when the chip is soldered.

I know, I even have spare parts (sockets) and the tools lying around. But time, where to find time?!? Ah well, it will hapen someday. I have done two already!

1982 to 2001

Reply 7708 of 27186, by Cyrix200+

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Mister Xiado wrote:

I've got a P66 system in magnificent shape, that lamentably has a Dallas chip so dead I cannot even install alternate video cards. I'll eventually have to remove it and modify it as well, but desoldering without that $350 gun is more a chore than the payoff would be worth.

I have one like this one, cheap and works for me. Combine it with some desoldering braid and some patience and it should be an easy job.

You will need another iron to solder the socket back in.

1982 to 2001

Reply 7709 of 27186, by badmojo

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Deksor wrote:

I'd prefer to struggle to fix some dallas battery rather than trying to fix varta battery leakage. When I bought my 286, I was so happy to see it had a dallas chip and not a varta battery ^^

Though soldering them to the board is a really stupid idea indeed

Agreed, my 286 would have been long ago killed by acid if not for the Dallas chip. It’s soldered on but I managed to mod it in place - fiddley but possible.

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

Reply 7710 of 27186, by Wireless

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TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:
Wireless wrote:

Fitted a 400 Watt ATX PSU into a 4U Antec Rackmount, along with fitting the motherboard stand offs, and measuring whether I need ATX Power Extension Cables (I do), to fit a Socket 939 Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro SLI Mobo with AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ and 4GB RAM. Have most parts ready, Nvidia GT 710, Skystar 2 Sat Receiver Card, just waiting on a I/O Blanking Plate to arrive from the US before fitting.

What the he'll are you even building? Also I have my doubts if a video card that new will work on a first gen PCIe board.

Well, this is a Weather Satellite Data Receiver, using a USB Dongle for decryption of EUMETSAT MeteorSat Data, 24/7, to predict aurora formation for DX between 50MHz -146MHz. I have a Licence from OFCOM & EUMETSAT to receive these encrypted feeds.

It should run alright with the GT 710 since I have a virtually identical machine running Processing Software on the data saved by the machine I'm building, the only hardware differences being a Socket 939 Gigabyte GA-K8NXP SLI Mobo, minus the Skystar Card, which runs fine on soak test for the last week running Windows 7 Pro, running driver V388.71, I've had it running SETI@Home without any issues 100% CPUs 100% CPU Time, the CUDA Tasks seem to fly through in around 2 hours, where as each Core takes around 5 to 6 hours.

Neither machine will obviously run SETI or BOINC when they start looking at Weather Satellite Data, I'll uninstall them, but this set up is more than quick enough to handle the design purpose, and I had to buy a new video card as I have nothing newer than 15 years old in my parts bin. So I bought the oldest and cheapest PCI-E

Today I fitted the Processor Rackmount in the Cabinet, and prepared my work surface to start the build of the second machine.

In a couple of weeks I hope to have gathered the final parts to fit together a Windows 98SE Machine which I'm hoping to use to run an on-screen HF Receiver to scan 5MHz frequencies

Last edited by Wireless on 2018-01-01, 07:05. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 7711 of 27186, by TheAbandonwareGuy

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!

WELCOME TO 20 FUCKING 18 VOGONS!

Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone: https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c
I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction

Reply 7712 of 27186, by derSammler

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Tested and repaired another bunch of PCI graphics cards. Had to trash an Advance Logic ALG2301 unfortunately, since the video chip was dead. However, the RAM from that card went onto another one, a miro CRYSTAL 12SD PCI, which is Trio32 based and has full 2 MB RAM now. And that card is fast, very fast. 😁

Reply 7714 of 27186, by derSammler

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Since access to the video RAM is not direct, but indirect through the video chip. This was a bottleneck until AGP.

Fastest PCI card I found so far is the S3 Savage4 Pro PCI, which does 60 MB/s.

Reply 7715 of 27186, by TheAbandonwareGuy

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derSammler wrote:

Since access to the video RAM is not direct, but indirect through the video chip. This was a bottleneck until AGP.

Fastest PCI card I found so far is the S3 Savage4 Pro PCI, which does 60 MB/s.

What about the GeForce GT 520 PCI?

Cyb3rst0rms Retro Hardware Warzone: https://discord.gg/jK8uvR4c
I used to own over 160 graphics card, I've since recovered from graphics card addiction

Reply 7716 of 27186, by bjwil1991

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Had to re-install Windows 98SE a few times last night due to unforeseen cicrumstances with the ACPI BIOS driver causing issues (GPU conflicting with the ACPI BIOS driver for some reason), yet I cannot disable the ACPI in the BIOS since there is no option for the HP Pavilion 7955 (ASUS P4B-LA) motherboard BIOS.

I also attempted to create new profiles after re-installing Windows 98SE with no success mainly because I copied the files over to the appropriate profiles too early and forgot to reset the computer. Going to have to re-install Windows 98SE again when I get home by deleting the Windows directory entirely.

Discord: https://discord.gg/U5dJw7x
Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/retropcuser

Reply 7717 of 27186, by derSammler

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TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

What about the GeForce GT 520 PCI?

More modern cards (tested quite a few) tend to be slower, since they are optimized for 3D, not 2D. While I don't own a GeForce GT 520 PCI, similar cards from that era all maxed out at 50 MB/s. This is enough for 170 fps in 640x480 @ 8 bit, so this is fine anyway.

Reply 7718 of 27186, by derSammler

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Finished something I started quite a while ago: An ESS 1688 soundcard with Dreamblaster S1 and 128 MB DOM on primary IDE. Boots right into MS-DOS 6.22 with the sound card already set up. Perfect for a bridge-board Amiga or to quickly test a mainboard without having to attach floppy, harddisk, etc.