Congrats on your 386 build, Murugan. Somehow, it's the other way around for me - I'm able to find decent AT cases, but all the 5.25 drives and CD-Roms look like crap. Using Mitsumi optical drives in my older builds as well, proved to be very reliable after cleaning. Curious if your 8x is able to read CDRs and RWs, though.

Thx 0kool
I pretty much make my builds from the huge parts lot I bought a year or 2 ago (+ from some systems along the way). This one is not different. Didn't try a CDR, only an original CD-ROM that read perfectly ofc 😀

EDIT: just finished my future daily driver AKA my 386 dreammachine. Finally!!!

Motherboard: haven't found the exact type and maker yet sorry (if it even documented...) but chipset is Macronix mx83c306afc mx83c305afc
CPU: AMD386DX-40 soldered, no FPU (yet) and LED display set to the correct speeds of course :p
RAM: 8MB
GPU: Tseng ET4000AX
Sound: CT1600 + MPU-401 from Keropi/Marmes to use with my MT-32
HD: 1GB SD card
Drives: Gotek and 1.2MB 5 1/4" (working) + 52X Creative CD-ROM
OS: DOS 6.22

Made a boot disk for checking, testing, and looking for bugs on certain CPUs, as well as accessing the CD-ROM drive on either an IDE interface or a proprietary CD interface, such as on a sound card, and creating/formatting a fixed disk (FAT16/FAT32).

Murugan wrote:

Thx 0kool I pretty much make my builds from the huge parts lot I bought a year or 2 ago (+ from some systems along the way). Thi […]
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Thx 0kool
I pretty much make my builds from the huge parts lot I bought a year or 2 ago (+ from some systems along the way). This one is not different. Didn't try a CDR, only an original CD-ROM that read perfectly ofc 😀

EDIT: just finished my future daily driver AKA my 386 dreammachine. Finally!!!

Motherboard: haven't found the exact type and maker yet sorry (if it even documented...) but chipset is Macronix mx83c306afc mx83c305afc
CPU: AMD386DX-40 soldered, no FPU (yet) and LED display set to the correct speeds of course :p
RAM: 8MB
GPU: Tseng ET4000AX
Sound: CT1600 + MPU-401 from Keropi/Marmes to use with my MT-32
HD: 1GB SD card
Drives: Gotek and 1.2MB 5 1/4" (working) + 52X Creative CD-ROM
OS: DOS 6.22
<snip>

I like that case, and the overall look of the system!

Thanks. It's the first tower I ever had and it just needed a light cleaning. This was my main goal since a year or so and I finally figured out where I wanted to go with it. I wanted to go all original but I have so many original PC's that I chose to make my life a bit easier here with the SD and Gotek. But yes, I miss all the retro sounds now :p

BTW does anyone have an explanation for the FPU data in my Landmark screenshot?

A few minor things..

I got this Slot-A Athlon with a Slot-A motherboard recently but the cooler was rather messed up and lacked fans.. So I sat down and straightened the fins, found matching 50mm fans for it and sourced appropriate bolts. Result:

I also had a 486 motherboard that lacks a 0R 8P4R Resistor network for cache size selection.. These parts are impossible to source now, so after looking around for a solution on how to jury-rig one, I finally did this:

Hoping it works.

As you may have read in another topic I made yesterday, I tried to migrate my (Windows 98) Pentium 233 to an SSD drive, replacing my old and noisy 80GB Seagate that emitted a very annoying high pitched whine that even my headphones couldn't block.

To be honest, I expected the PC to not even recognize the drive - I remember having a lot of headaches in the 90's getting my motherboard to even detect large modern drives. I had bought a cheap SATA-to-IDE controller off Aliexpress, hooked up the FAT32 formatted SSD to the CD drive cables and ... it detected it. Windows 98 (installed on my old drive) showed an empty 120GB drive. Success!

But ... this PC is also used for later DOS games and when I inserted my standard boot disk, the system froze for over 5 minutes when ending config.sys before it would continue. The moment I try to access the SSD drive, it froze. Believing it couldn't handle the large partition, I partitioned it to 8GB & 112GB. The 8GB partition (1st partition) worked fine and I installed Windows 98 without any hitch (after cloning the old drive failed to make it bootable I should add). Again, booting Windows 98: no problem. Booting to DOS: freezing. I spent two hours pulling the drive, hooking it up to my Windows 10, resizing the partition, plugging it back in ... and nothing worked. Even a tiny 2GB partition would freeze the PC.

Next step was to just give up on a second partition and to make the most out of the first. Reason the first was 8GB, was because I could do a straight clone from the original drive. The clone that for some reason failed even though it was a sector-by-sector clone. So I did Tabula Rasa: got rid of all partitions and started to test the drive against the boot disk with just a single partition. This way I found that 32GB is the maximum size the boot disk can handle without freezing.

Reinstalling Windows 98, overwriting the install with a backup from my original drive and voila! My PC now fully runs off an SSD of which it can use about 25%. Still, 32GB is plenty for a Windows 98 machine I'd say.

Long story short: was it worth it? Well, yes. 6 hours of searching but it works now. Finding the limitations were a test of patience but for €25 I now have a silent, durable and fast 32GB drive for a 24 year old PC. Not bad I'd say considering the hard drive is by far the weakest component of PC's that old (with perhaps the exception of the PSU). You do lose the nostalgic clicking noises when reading but the high pitched metallic whine I won't miss ...

I had some issues with the AmigaOS 3.1.4 installation disks. They were recieved with corrupt data. After I had contacted the seller, they send me ADF files of all disks through email. I formatted the floppy disks in workbench, tested the surface with D-Copy (went 100% through on all 6 disks), rewrote the disks using the ADF files, and retested the disks with D-Copy once more. Now they are working 100% without any error's. I have an idea that the postal service, eighter had some magnet close to the package or they x-rayed the package. Fear of terror seems to be so freaking populair these days. Well... Big thanks to the seller, for providing me with the ADF files.

EDIT:
I wrote the seller at 3am, and the ADF files ticked in at around 8am. That is less than 6 hours, and way better support than any Microsoft or Apple reseller. This is how support is supposed to be like. No questions asked, just a long support answer and ADF files attached to the mail. Smooooth sailing. 😜

I love my MCE2VGA 😀

Been playing around with mono modes on an ATi Small Wonder (CGA+Hercules). With Hercules the difference between analog and TTL mono is striking; TTL is crisp and clear, analog is downright fuzzy, although it looks fine if you switch to CGA (i.e. low-res) output. Of course, this is outputting to a high-end Iiyama Diamondtron CRT. If I hook up an old NEC Character Display to the card's RCA analog out, it looks more than acceptable.

Of course now I have a dilemma with my Olivetti M240. It comes with an (analog) mono monitor, but for some reason the card in it is a Paradise EGA. Should I stick with the original or use the MCE2VGA to enjoy nice EGA?

In order to preserve the life of my Voodoo2 collection for a little while longer, I decided to build my own accelerator coolers using some brand new Zalman ZM-F2 fans and some diy-bracket kits.
I didn't want to stick heatsinks to the chips and ruin the aesthetics of the card. Therefore, this seemed to be the next best (or better) thing.

They were pretty easy to set up and install. I added a SATA powered 3-pin switch hub for the multiple fans (and case fans), which also helps to regulate the fan speed.
I also made a custom SLI belt from a floppy ribbon cable to span the distance between the two cards.
It turned out pretty well. The fans are almost silent and produce quite a large amount of cold airflow directly onto the cards.

Just did some cable management in my VLB DX4 project

I recently purchased an Socket 4 Pentium 66 to replace my Pentium 60 with hopes of fixing the machine (froze after a few minutes and would not power on until cold)
So I replaced it and to my surprise it worked fine. Which gave me a "reason" to put together a twin to it. I had another identical motherboard but with 133MHZ overdrive instead. And among my junk in my cellar I had the same model of chassis as the first machine. Chassis are the cheapest pieces of crap but the only empty AT ones I had, the rivets randomly comes of when lifting it, the metal warps really easy and has stupid sharp edges.
Motherboard mounted

Some testing

Working turbo 😀

And the two together, not done yet.

The goal is to have the cpu being the only difference. Both have 16mb ram and S3 Virge DX 4mb.

Played around with OTVDM which lets you run 16-bit programs on 64-bit Windows. More info here https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

Testing many components tonight. Setup a makeshift mid 90s Windows 98 open air gaming rig. Playing a terrible pinball game called 3D Pinball Express, but has classic software rendered 3D graphics going on. The physics in the game are laughable.

Specs in the photo:

NOS DTK PRM-0076I P-II motherboard w/ latest v1.07 BIOS
NOS Pentium II MMX 300MHz CPU
NOS ATI Rage IIc PCI graphics card
Used Sound Blaster Vibra 16 CT2940
Used 64MB RAM
Used Seagate Medalist Pro 6.4GB ST36451A IDE HDD
NOS Acer 640A-241 40X IDE CD-ROM drive
Used Teac 3½" floppy drive
Used DTK 300W PSU

Are you planning to test Voodoo cards on this? Because that Rage II.. 😁

Upgraded the slow 30gb Quantum in my 98 sig rig to a 80gb WD Caviar SE

Also took a pic of my hdd collection minus a 9.1gb Seagate Medalist Pro 9140

I did some extensive testing on my Amiga500, that I soldered in new Ram chip's. In order to upgrade the onboard memory, from 512k to 1024k. With the trapdoor memory, it is getting 2mb Chip Ram. Yup. Totally overkill. Though I ram into one tiny issue. There is an old Danish game, called Guldkorn Ekspressen, in were you drive a steamtrain in order to pick up the cereal corn. And then add honney and finally dump the loads into the cardboard box. After the upgrade, half of the sounds are missing. I have no clue, if it is because the game expect Fast Ram or Slow Ram. My guess is that the game requires Slow Ram. I have not found any other games, that have this issue.

I installed a Kickstart 2.0 version 37.350 and to my surprise, the machine will boot almost any of the games that require Kick 1.3 on a standard Amiga 500. I think this is a sweetspot. Using the latest Amiga600 kickstart on an Amiga500-Plus. Rainbow Island works, and a lot of other 1.3 games.

Then I have been looking at PC bridge boards for Amiga500. There is a board, that have 640k ram, CGA/EGA/VGA feature and NEC V30 CPU. And I am really qurious as to how this is working. Imagine an Amiga500, that can play 1984-1987 Dos games as well. This must be the perfect 80's gaming platform.

So I improved my cable management, it looks even cleaner now 😁

Deksor wrote:

So I improved my cable management, it looks even cleaner now 😁

Still room for improvement though - I'd route those IDE & floppy flatcables under the motherboard instead of over it for starters.

There's no room underneath, it's a desktop tower and the plate where the board sits on can't be removed ...