VOGONS


First post, by bjwil1991

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Bought a good, used Cybernet Elite-4i Zero-Footprint-PC for $14.99 + tax at a local thrift store yesterday. It's got a bit of cosmetic issues (crack on the palm rest in the vicinity of the FDD/memory card reader area and small, scoring on the plastic in the Cybernet logo area) and a missing plastic piece that goes in the spot where a floppy drive or memory card reader would be installed, plus, some marker is left on the casing, but I almost got all of it off.

System before the cleaning

UKtpTuLl.jpg

System after the small cleaning

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Inside

QZITjo6l.jpg

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Replaced the clock battery and made changes in the BIOS (time, date, settings for the FDD, and so on). Will it boot?

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It lives! And it booted pretty darn quick as well.

System specs:
80GB Western Digital
CD-ROM drive
Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz --> frosting on the cake
2GB DDR --> toppings on the cake
Intel Graphics (yuck) --> crap, but better than the Intel Extreme GPU, might get a PCI riser card and install a GeForce 6200 PCI inside.

Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon being installed

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Rating: 4.5/5

Missing FDD and internal modem, but I can possibly source parts and I think I can fit an IBM ThinkPad 380D floppy drive inside, yet I need the ribbon cable for the drive itself or I can take the ribbon off of my Pavilion N3350 laptop and install the FDD and see how it goes. As for the modem, I'm either deciding on getting an external modem (which will be better anyway) or get a PCI riser card and install a PCI modem. That, and AC'97 audio isn't the best at all, but, it's better than nothing and the integrated speakers are pretty cool.

Future plans would be to turn this computer into a Dial-Up server for older machines that only has a modem and no expansion for an Ethernet card.

Video of the system in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbNKEw7Wyb8

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

Reply 1 of 6, by stamasd

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Very cool find. But maybe I'm blind - I don't see where a PCI riser would go.

(edit) yup I'm blind now I see it.

I have a full case of PCI connectors NOS, if you need one (or a few) to make a custom riser just ask.

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 2 of 6, by bjwil1991

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I've never used a Cybernet system before and I cannot remember or find anything in the manual if the PCI riser card would interfere with the CD drive, but, I think I can find something.

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

Reply 3 of 6, by stamasd

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If you could find something like this flexible PCI riser slot extender ribbon cable adapter expansion card that has female connectors at both ends, that would be ideal. I didn't find any.

Last edited by Stiletto on 2020-03-02, 06:40. Edited 1 time in total.

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 4 of 6, by bjwil1991

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Well, I was cleaning the thermal compound off of the heatsink and the CPU pins got bent. Got it on almost all the way, and one pin broke. I tried to use another P4 processor and it will not power on at all.

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

Reply 5 of 6, by Horun

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Broke a pin on a 478 cpu ? Hmm a little bit too brutal on the cleaning ? ISO 99% softens every heat sink compound and have never broken any pins using it. Did have one old box a male cat pissed all over and some got on the socket which ate a few pins on pentium cpu.

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 6 of 6, by bjwil1991

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Some of the pins got bent because the heatsink would not come off and the CPU was stuck to it. I was careful, until I kept getting distracted and almost lost my marbles. I put in a Pentium 4 CPU from a Dell Dimension 4550 and it still won't turn on. Either the motherboard is done for or the internal PSU is gone.

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