I have a few SECC2 processors that did not boot on initial testing, this reminds me to go back and check them out sometime..

I opened up a broken Iomega Ditto 5Gb tape, found a break, dismantled the innards, rewound everything and put it back together, recovering 20 year old data without a single file lost.

Yeah, editing the vid of that now 😉

X-clamp does work very well. What does them in is meltable thermal compound is applied too much during manufacture of xboxes and PS4 consoles and when this settles to certain thickess, squeezing out excess when hot enough but to a point APU couldn't melt all of it so compound stayed cold and hard, in-compressible, around the APU's package periphery holding up the heatsink like mortar while thermal compound starts to decompose and form air voids between heatsink and APU's die, also thermal decomposed (thermal compound discoloured) . Results APU slightly running too hot for long time.

The motherboard stays FLAT on the bottom pressed metal preformed chassis but center of this heatsink and studs are machined in a way is correct will not warp the board, where middle of X-clamp presses against will press APU against heatsink's. Works very well. PS4 is done same way, supported by many locations keeps board flat and has spring bar with two or four screws (early) and does not suffer same way. Again PS4 had same melt-able thermal compound best replaced with thermal compound in a grease form.

Original thermal compound comes in hard form thick pad *pre-applied* to heatsink that get melted out to proper thickness but problem is way too much! People throught this got dried out, not in this case! I see this often on notebooks also.

Best way is replace the original melt-able thermal compound and use high performance thermal compound in a grease form in thin layer applied to APU or CPU or silicon die surface only before re-assembling heatsink.

Cheers,

I installed Windows ME on one of my PCs just because I had never used it, I jumped from Win98SE to Windows XP directly. After installing it and installing the drivers mostly without issue, the machine completely froze when installing the USB 2.0 drivers. Sigh. Funny enough, Win98SE does the same on this board (Intel D845) but Windows XP works perfect, so I don't think the hardware has any issue, it's all about Win98/ME USB support.

kolderman wrote on 2020-05-01, 09:16:

Finished Duke 3D atomic for the first time I think. Boy the stadium level is easier once you realize you can jump onto the ledge!

Duke 3D atomic ends when you kill the Queen at the end of the 4th episode, the stadium is the end of the 3rd episode, or the original Duke3D 1.3d. Anyway, cool that you made it, it's a fine game.

I went thru all my Creative and Media Vision sound cards and made a list of what I have. Yeah after a 10 hour work day that is all could do. Now enjoying a few beers and reading thru the topics here 😁

Fixed an LCD monitor I haven't used in a while (video board had dirty contacts and after spraying the contact cleaner on the board, everything works). Wish I had a CRT monitor since 1024x768 @ 87Hz is not working with my LCD monitor or even make an adapter to force it to 60Hz.

Disassembled my Compaq to give it a cleaning and managed to cut my finger on some plastic casing on the modem. Got angry and cut away half the plastic.
0/10 would not do again.

bjwil1991 wrote on 2020-05-02, 04:01:

Fixed an LCD monitor I haven't used in a while (video board had dirty contacts and after spraying the contact cleaner on the board, everything works). Wish I had a CRT monitor since 1024x768 @ 87Hz is not working with my LCD monitor or even make an adapter to force it to 60Hz.

I am not sure I understand, most LCDs operate natively at 60Hz, why would you need to force it to run at 60Hz (or an adapter for that matter) ?

Because the CL-GD5428 runs at only 87Hz for the resolution of 1024x768. I believe it's because the chips were only meant for CRT displays. I get an out of sync message and it shows the V sync as 87.1Hz on the display. Might install the drivers for the monitor and see if that clears that out.

aha2940 wrote on 2020-05-02, 02:04:

kolderman wrote on 2020-05-01, 09:16:

Finished Duke 3D atomic for the first time I think. Boy the stadium level is easier once you realize you can jump onto the ledge!

Duke 3D atomic ends when you kill the Queen at the end of the 4th episode, the stadium is the end of the 3rd episode, or the original Duke3D 1.3d. Anyway, cool that you made it, it's a fine game.

Oops. I should have realized that. Just started the Birth now 😁

Cleaned and fixed two Playstations, both SCPH-5502.

Installed a Modchip in the first one and re-calibrated the laser.

The second one needs a replacement laser. Have one that works, but does not physically fit inside, since it's for the 750x.

Sitting at work waiting to be called for my coronavirus test, so I soldered up some stuff for my Amiga 500. Floppy boot selector, gamepad/joystick adapter, and added some headers to a Gotek so I can easily jumper to flash it.

Edit, annnnd I just realized I accidentally have the two tiny surface mount resistors swapped on the boot selector. 🤣 Back to soldering..

derSammler wrote on 2020-05-02, 10:36:

Cleaned and fixed two Playstations, both SCPH-5502.

I remember when I found two of these in the trash about 20 years ag0 - apparently someone's lava lamp exploded all over them, everything was covered in waxy oil. After a cleanup 7 out of 8 controllers worked and I managed to get a working PS out of the two - I had to use the reading mechanism from one on the other, and that required modifying the case with a file. From the sale of the 5 controllers to Cash Converters, I was able to buy and have a mod chip installed, with money left over.

That Playstation only ever saw Gran Turismo II in it 😉 Hundreds of hours....

I played some Unreal today. I noticed that despite owning this game original since 1999, I have never completed it. I completed Half-life several times, Quake and Quake 2 even more times, RTCW a couple times but never Unreal. And I have never even played the expansion "Return to Na Pali". I'll try to fix both.

So I made the decision to modify my Biostar M5ATA to take the k6-3 400mhz.

On paper it was made to sound easy but if you see the jumpers for scale this was a tiny chip and an even smaller leg. I first used some desoldering braid to try and loosen the leg followed by sliding a tiny blade under it while tapping the soldering iron on the leg. I managed to loosen it off but coudnt tell if it was still making a connection or in some cases even touching the pins either side. I figured I had already done enough damage so made sure to clear the pin from bridging the others and then just cut the trace instead...

Now to power it on, I powered it on with no add in cards at first just in case things got sparky, all seemed good tho so time to connect some VGA and see what the bios thinks about it (if it even posts)

Big success! a post! and the worlds slowest MMX! I wasnt concerned about that as the guide said the bios would not know what it was dealing with but would work anyway.

Windows knows what is up!

The only benchmark that I could get my hands on in a hurry.
From comparing a few other results online it seems to be in the right ballpark!

Cant wait to put this system together now using the new case. Going to do a fresh install of windows and fit a bigger CF card as 1gb is limiting for a 400mhz system.

Sorted most of my ram. I won't need anymore soon.

wiretap wrote on 2020-05-02, 14:18:

Sitting at work waiting to be called for my coronavirus test, so I soldered up some stuff for my Amiga 500. Floppy boot selector […]
Show full quote

Sitting at work waiting to be called for my coronavirus test, so I soldered up some stuff for my Amiga 500. Floppy boot selector, gamepad/joystick adapter, and added some headers to a Gotek so I can easily jumper to flash it.

Edit, annnnd I just realized I accidentally have the two tiny surface mount resistors swapped on the boot selector. 🤣 Back to soldering..

What does that Gampad/Joystick adapter do? I always plug my Mega Drive joypads directly to the ports..

Mega Drive pads can cause damage, because they don't fully follow the Atari standard. On a C64 for example, you'll kill the SID chip if you just connect it. That adapter protects from that and also allows configuring the two fire buttons you wish to use.

derSammler wrote on 2020-05-02, 19:07:

Mega Drive pads can cause damage, because they don't fully follow the Atari standard. On a C64 for example, you'll kill the SID chip if you just connect it. That adapter protects from that and also allows configuring the two fire buttons you wish to use.

I thought this was only an issue on C64 boards, and only if you use the Start (or Select?) button?

derSammler wrote on 2020-05-02, 10:36:

The second one needs a replacement laser. Have one that works, but does not physically fit inside, since it's for the 750x.

I just managed to fix the broken laser. There was a piece of broken plastic stuck at the end of one rail, causing the end-sensor not to get pushed in. 😀