I was trying to work on a couple of those without the tray edge on, think I must have spent half the time picking up screws and screwdrivers 🤣

Actually I kinda like working on those big old melamine cafeteria trays, especially for laptop disassembly, but I keep ending up having a couple of machines "waiting on a part" hogging them disassembled.... then when that finally turns up, or I remember and get back to it, the second it's clear, I immediately do the same thing again 🤣 ... I think I am gonna end up buying one of the racks they use for trays in a cafeteria or hospital and a bunch of trays.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-04-08, 23:28:

I was trying to work on a couple of those without the tray edge on, think I must have spent half the time picking up screws and screwdrivers 🤣

Actually I kinda like working on those big old melamine cafeteria trays, especially for laptop disassembly, but I keep ending up having a couple of machines "waiting on a part" hogging them disassembled.... then when that finally turns up, or I remember and get back to it, the second it's clear, I immediately do the same thing again 🤣 ... I think I am gonna end up buying one of the racks they use for trays in a cafeteria or hospital and a bunch of trays.

Doesn't sound a bad idea. I put stuff in big shoe boxes if I have to keep them disassembled. Piled.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-04-08, 23:28:

Actually I kinda like working on those big old melamine cafeteria trays, especially for laptop disassembly, but I keep ending up having a couple of machines "waiting on a part" hogging them disassembled.... then when that finally turns up, or I remember and get back to it, the second it's clear, I immediately do the same thing again 🤣 ... I think I am gonna end up buying one of the racks they use for trays in a cafeteria or hospital and a bunch of trays.

That is actually a fantastic idea! Would be so cool to have projects on dedicated shelves that could just be pulled out and worked on when convenient.

ubiq wrote on 2024-04-08, 22:13:

PcBytes wrote on 2024-04-08, 22:06:

Flashed a Maxdata OEM CUSL2 to retail and currently installing XP on a spare 15GB Quantum LCT15. Also running the MX460 I had re […]
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Flashed a Maxdata OEM CUSL2 to retail and currently installing XP on a spare 15GB Quantum LCT15. Also running the MX460 I had repaired a few pages back.

Love your workbench setup!! 😇

Thanks. That would be the temporary testbench - by temporary, that usually means a stability test from BIOS to Windows setup + Windows and drivers. Extensive tests usually run on my desk - I just disconnect my NF7 + 2500+ OC build (2300MHz from stock 2500 and 3200 speeds offered by ABIT) from there and connect whatever build I have to extensively test.

Currently I have installed the CUSL2 in place of the NF7. I had to replace the RAM sticks as I would get random freezes, and found out the board has the FSB OC'd to 160MHz. That explains why the 1000EB reported 1200 during POST. Neat, I didn't even expect it to be this solid on the OC.

AndrettiGTO wrote on 2024-04-08, 20:43:

acl wrote on 2024-04-08, 16:50:

Last Friday I received an am386 sx-40
I bought it untested so I needed some time to test everyhing…

Very nice, be sure and post updated pics after those pieces find a proper home! 😀

I would love to have a compact AT case but the closest thing I have is the case seen on the picture (ATX moded to accommodate an AT Socket 7 MB)
I have 5 or 6 systems in cases but all the other are stored "half assembled" and go to the test bench when needed. I have no room for another case 😃

Cut a hole in the top of a thin client to fit a 44-pin IDE cable and a 4-pin CD Audio cable through. This, paired with a PCI Solo-1 card gives OPL-3 sound (ESFM), SB Pro emulation and CD-ROM (IDE) access as well as CD-Audio access (analog) under DOS. The drive is a standard IDE laptop drive, the adapter is a "PA-CD2 Rev. A", and the enclosure was IIRC scavenged from a super cheap old-DVD-drive-refurbished-into-a-USB-DVD-Drive kind of thing. If you google for "USB 2.0 DVD Drive" and find one with a similar case and a USB Type B port on the back, chances are it's such a device, and you can remove the USB part and get a drive, enclosure and 44-pin IDE adapter all in one.

thp wrote on 2024-04-09, 17:35:

Cut a hole in the top of a thin client to fit a 44-pin IDE cable and a 4-pin CD Audio cable through. This, paired with a PCI Solo-1 card gives OPL-3 sound (ESFM), SB Pro emulation and CD-ROM (IDE) access as well as CD-Audio access (analog) under DOS. The drive is a standard IDE laptop drive, the adapter is a "PA-CD2 Rev. A", and the enclosure was IIRC scavenged from a super cheap old-DVD-drive-refurbished-into-a-USB-DVD-Drive kind of thing. If you google for "USB 2.0 DVD Drive" and find one with a similar case and a USB Type B port on the back, chances are it's such a device, and you can remove the USB part and get a drive, enclosure and 44-pin IDE adapter all in one.

That's an excellent hack!

I had a care package arrive today with a PSU, SB Live and 3Com network card to get my Athlon Classic build a bit more complete. I've put it together with a 700mhz T'Bird Slot A chip and a Voodoo3 3000 (AGP) and initial tests show it slightly out-performing my Slot 1 PIII 700mhz Coppermine/Voodoo2 SLI build. Not by a lot, but it definitely has an edge. Pretty much what I expected so far 😀

For the past couple of days I've been installing and setting up many games on my 486 DX2 66MHz PC. Something I've been meaning to get around to for the past couple of years.

Everything was going smoothly until I tried to setup a joystick and then I discovered that the GAME port on the Opti 82C930 sound card is misbehaving. Tried it with 4 different controllers and they all had the same problem. In Checkit the cursor was stuck over to the right and upon pressing right or down it would simply display joystick not present until those directions were released. Weirdly however, all 4 of my controllers would work perfectly in some games but then not in others, so no idea what was causing that issue.

So I decided to remove the Opti card and replace it with a Sound Blaster Vibra 16 with genuine OPL3 instead. Everything now working 100% correctly.

Oh, a lot in the last few weeks.
- Fixed a leaked battery on MSI's MS-4118. Honestly, not too bad
- Acquired required stuff for it
- Got it up and running using a 128MB DOM (dos 6.22) and 8MB of ram
Getting turbo, led-display etc working was another thing, but done. I still need to figure out the HDD-led. All outputs on the motherboard have been 5V, and the leds are not 5V ...
I will be setting up XT-IDE to use a larger hard drive. sub-1G CF-cards are a bit scarse ..
mTCP was quite easy to setup with the 3C509B.

There's been a Socket-A motherboard I wrote about, wrote that off (broken southbridge).

I gave up on the Epox VP3. Most likely the 5V that's been in all the wrong places has taken a lot of IC's to the grave - also I'm unable to source the AR7010 PWM-chip. I removed the Socket-7 socket. What a pain. Note to self, don't use TOO much desoldering solder. I spent quite a while cleaning pins with too much solder.

I took that socket, installed it on a Soltek SL-56D5 that's been a bit wonky. It had a bad socket I presume. I also readded the new caps, gave it a decent clean and reflowed the chipset. The board is a bit bent, so it will require some testing. Sometimes the FSB is 75MHz instead of 66MHz, but I think I got that fixed too by going through the solder joints for the clock-gen and selection DIPs.

Does ripping music CDs onto my computer count as a retro activity?
Been doing that a lot these days - more than anything else (haven't touched any of my PC builds / projects in a long time.) I acquired a ton of CDs since last year and still going through ripping them / listening to them. Lots of 90's and early 2k's stuff. Then the slow and painful process of tagging everything. :p (Yeah, I know auto-taggers exist, but I'm too particular about the format of the metadata / file info on each song, so I prefer to do things once and do them right the 1st time. In the comment section of the file, for example, I like to put the disc order # / publishing #, so that I know the file came from my own CDs and what to re-order, should I ever loose or damage the CD.)

Also, yesterday I opened up a Bestec ATX-1956d 200 Watt ATX power supply to make a list of all of the caps it's going to need and write down some of the part numbers / info on the PSU for future reference.
I used to make a lot of posts on BCN about the build quality of various PSUs (and I'll probably still continue to do so, or post it here too if anyone cares) but I just don't have as much time anymore.

momaka wrote on 2024-04-10, 12:22:

Does ripping music CDs onto my computer count as a retro activity?

Only if you have at most a 2x CD drive.

InTheStudy wrote on 2024-04-10, 13:46:

Only if you have at most a 2x CD drive.

Ah, dang it, the oldest I have I think is a Hitachi 1x DVD-ROM / 4x CD-ROM drive (Hitachi GCD-2500 ??) Not using it currently, though.

The computer I use the most often has a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive, Windows XP SP2, and WinAmp 5... so kinda-sorta retro-ish enough? 😁

Well it was a mainstream activity in the noughts but geeks were doing it in '97 so quite retro.

I remember single/double/quad CD drive speed was a thing. I guess because if the bit rate of the FMVs.

I don't recall it ever being an issue past 4X speed drives.

repaired my Asus P/I-p55TP4XEG
replaced the dead mosfet and voilà 😀

last thing to od ias the dallas hack

Nexxen wrote on 2024-04-10, 20:25:

repaired my Asus P/I-p55TP4XEG
replaced the dead mosfet and voilà 😀

last thing to od ias the dallas hack

Well done, how did you know the mosfet was dead?

Messed around with PICMG stuff. Confirmed that something is very, very wrong with my So478 board (completely shorts PSU). That goes on the 'projects' pile. Better news with my So479 board with Banias 1.6GHz though. After messing around a bit with power options (I didn't have the ATX-ACPI cable to link SBC power logic to the backplane, so had to jumper it to boot when PSU came on) it started working reliably. I'd expected it to have an i830GM chipset, but instead it has a i915GME chipset, which means USB2 instead of 1.1, GMA900 instead of Extreme Graphics and integrated SATA too. Only downside is that I wanted to run Win98SE on this, and although it's possible to get it running on a 900-series chipset (LoneRanger chipset drivers, then manually installing Win2k WDM GMA900 drivers) it's a bit of a pain. Also, GMA900 may be better than Extreme Graphics, it's not exactly Gf4Ti or R9700 territory.

Soo... I might change my plans for Win98SE system and use my nForce3 board instead, which would happily accept my Gf4Ti and is slightly easier to get running under Win98SE. HD audio won't work, but that's nothing an Audigy2 can't fix. Of course, nForce3 boards don't have ISA slots, so I can't use my Terratec EWS64XL in it. Need to think of a new plan for that as well 😜

zuldan wrote on 2024-04-10, 20:39:

Nexxen wrote on 2024-04-10, 20:25:

repaired my Asus P/I-p55TP4XEG
replaced the dead mosfet and voilà 😀

last thing to od ias the dallas hack

Well done, how did you know the mosfet was dead?

Being a single voltage board and finding only 0.xV on the 3.45 Vcore and Vio lines, it was quite easy to spot. I tested with a cpu to confirm bad voltage.
As it was only that it then POSTed and all was good.

momaka wrote on 2024-04-10, 12:22:

Does ripping music CDs onto my computer count as a retro activity?

Dude! That to me is not a retro activity at all. Hell, I wish Hardware Unboxed would review optical drives and include audio extraction benchmarks.
I buy CDs from garage sales all the time. It is such a cheap, fun way to discover or rediscover music. First thing I do when I get them home is pop 'em in the drive and rip them to NAS.

Stuck on a board, S7 single voltage.
No POST. Mosfet was busted here too but replacing it didn't make it.