DarthSun wrote on 2024-09-09, 21:21:

Today's work: Voodoo2 Single 3DM99 World Record. Thoroughly succeeded. I have been holding SLI for a long, Single failed but now […]
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Today's work: Voodoo2 Single 3DM99 World Record. Thoroughly succeeded.
I have been holding SLI for a long, Single failed but now I stew there
Current record: 4016
My run:

Sweet card! Early to late 90s A-Trend products are the best!

Finished recap of my MS-6163.

Is that a custom BIOS? I've never seen one show monitors during POST like that.

smtkr wrote on 2024-09-14, 16:37:

Is that a custom BIOS? I've never seen one show monitors during POST like that.

Not at all. Fresh stock MSI BIOS from the TRW page, latest release because my 1000EB was showing up as " :00EB "

I finally got around to putting my floppy disk drives into a proper case: --- sorry for the focus, i had a few beers during assembly and it looked okay at the time

Oh and this is the tape drive I removed from the AWESOME looking IBM inspired external chassis:

I'll probably replace that tape drive image - I really had one too many that night. - but if you have a use for this particular tape drive, shoot me a PM.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-09-14, 15:49:

Finished recap of my MS-6163.

very nice, that should keep it going for a nice long time

dominusprog wrote on 2024-09-14, 11:20:

DarthSun wrote on 2024-09-09, 21:21:

Today's work: Voodoo2 Single 3DM99 World Record. Thoroughly succeeded. I have been holding SLI for a long, Single failed but now […]
Show full quote

Today's work: Voodoo2 Single 3DM99 World Record. Thoroughly succeeded.
I have been holding SLI for a long, Single failed but now I stew there
Current record: 4016
My run:

Sweet card! Early to late 90s A-Trend products are the best!

You may be right, well run high peak tuning, with this card.

Can absolutely agree to the HOTAS for flightsims! You won't find something better! Check out for the upgrades done by some guys. Incredible precisition by using magnetic position-sensors to the usually installed
potentiometers! Will check my links and if I find it, I can sent it to you - considered, you're interested...

Have you ever thought using GameBoy cartridge cases as CPU containers? Check this out!

I think I noticed that a decade back, but other than buying games and tossing the game didn't find a good source for the cases.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-09-15, 18:28:

I think I noticed that a decade back, but other than buying games and tossing the game didn't find a good source for the cases.

I got mine from aliexpress. The price was about 10€ for 25pc. (Right now the same offer is ~12,5€ for 25pc)

GigAHerZ wrote on 2024-09-15, 18:20:

Have you ever thought using GameBoy cartridge cases as CPU containers? Check this out!

i do this, also use game gear cases, but wrap them in tissue first.

dormcat wrote on 2024-09-10, 20:46:

Not sure if this counts: browsing back issues of PC Magazine (Feb. 1982 to Jan. 2009) with Google Books. It's more than a digital library but a museum. 👏 As a foreigner it's particularly interesting to see a service or product popular in US / North America but completely unheard of locally.

i also like reading old computer magazines, i dont go as far back as the 80's only 1990-2010, tho recently i have been watching "The Computer Chronicles" on youtube from the 1980's, as far as i knew that was just the age of microcomputers powered by zilog Z80's, turns out they had some advanced stuff for the time, alot more advanced than my 80's computers which was an amstrad cpc and 6128k.

GigAHerZ wrote on 2024-09-15, 18:20:

Have you ever thought using GameBoy cartridge cases as CPU containers? Check this out!

Are those pieces of black paper/tape meant for preventing pins scratching cases?

I did some cleanup and zip ties on my P4P 800/6800 Ultra/3.2 Prescott @ 3.6 GHz/ Thermaltake V5 case. I recently finished Doom3 for the first time on my 939 system and I'm going for my second time on this system, which is period correct for a high end 2004 system (other than the SSD). With the resolution at 1024x768 and the settings on high it delivers 57 FPS on the Doom 3 timedemo, which is good enough for me. I would have been very happy to have this system in 2004, but I was too poor. Yesterday's high end machine is today's trash - the case, power supply, and motherboard were all free. I did have to replace all of the 6.3 volt 1500 microfarad caps on the P4P, I think I paid about $15.00 for 6800 (it was in a parts bundle purchased for $50.00). I bought the Akasa card cooler for the 6800 for $40.00 shipped, so that's the most expensive part.

This weekend, I reballed the PCI Creative Blaster 3DFX Voodoo Banshee a colleague gave me to try and fix.
The card had artifacting issues on cold boots, that would slowly fade as the chip got hot.

Once properly hot, Glide games worked just fine (starting them while the card was still artifacting would result in garbage output and crashing), but to me that indicated poor solder connections under the chip.
With how poorly these chips were cooled with piddly little heatsinks (the PCB had significant discoloration on the area of the PCB under the chip), I guess the PCB has been bent from the large temperature swings, causing cracked solder balls that expand and reconnect due to thermal expansion when the IC gets hot.

I did attempt a simple reflow before this, but that resulted in fully corrupted graphics in the BIOS, so that didn't do the trick.
I also tried a cheap Chinese replacement chip, but once soldered on, it didn't even get hot and had no output, so it's either a fake or already dead.

So, I pulled that chip back off, and practiced reballing it as the chips I've been reballing before were all ceramic BGA chips (PowerPC processors) rather than plastic BGA chips, which are susceptible to popcorning if not handled correctly.
After that went well, I finally went ahead and reballed the original IC, and soldered it back onto the card.

An initial test, after giving the PCI edge connector a good clean, results in a clean picure in the BIOS, free of artifacts.
I've still got to test Glide games, but this is a very good sign already.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-09-16, 02:03:

I did some cleanup and zip ties on my P4P 800/6800 Ultra/3.2 Prescott @ 3.6 GHz/ Thermaltake V5 case. I recently finished Doom3 for the first time on my 939 system and I'm going for my second time on this system, which is period correct for a high end 2004 system (other than the SSD). With the resolution at 1024x768 and the settings on high it delivers 57 FPS on the Doom 3 timedemo, which is good enough for me. I would have been very happy to have this system in 2004, but I was too poor. Yesterday's high end machine is today's trash - the case, power supply, and motherboard were all free. I did have to replace all of the 6.3 volt 1500 microfarad caps on the P4P, I think I paid about $15.00 for 6800 (it was in a parts bundle purchased for $50.00). I bought the Akasa card cooler for the 6800 for $40.00 shipped, so that's the most expensive part.

that definitely has a 2004 dream machine spec and performance! great that its from parts free and cheap, thats part of the joy - creating something that seemed out of reach at the time

This ECS UM8810P AIO 2.1 has cold boot problems, after pressing the reset button 20 times, I get a POST screen. The diagnostic card hangs at a few different POST codes, so that's not much for a help. So I decided to do a full recap, even though my Peak ESR70 meter says the caps are all good.

Now off to Deoxit every IC and socket this board has...

Edit: Yay it works flawlessly. No cold boot problems anymore, and the Am5x86 is running steady at 160MHz (4 x 40).
With 512kB 15ns L2 cache and a Trident 9440 it reaches these scores:
Speedsys: 57.98
Doom high detail: 45.88

Feel free to comment of course.

PD2JK wrote on 2024-09-16, 09:19:

This ECS UM8810P AIO 2.1 has cold boot problems, after pressing the reset button 20 times, I get a POST screen. The diagnostic c […]
Show full quote

This ECS UM8810P AIO 2.1 has cold boot problems, after pressing the reset button 20 times, I get a POST screen. The diagnostic card hangs at a few different POST codes, so that's not much for a help. So I decided to do a full recap, even though my Peak ESR70 meter says the caps are all good.

Now off to Deoxit every IC and socket this board has...

Edit: Yay it works flawlessly. No cold boot problems anymore, and the Am5x86 is running steady at 160MHz (4 x 40).
With 512kB 15ns L2 cache and a Trident 9440 it reaches these scores:
Speedsys: 57.98
Doom high detail: 45.88

Feel free to comment of course.

does this mean it might not have been the caps? its still a nice future proofing job either way.

gerry wrote on 2024-09-16, 14:25:

PD2JK wrote on 2024-09-16, 09:19:

Feel free to comment of course.

does this mean it might not have been the caps? its still a nice future proofing job either way.

Yes that is possible. I've tested a few old ones and they were still good. But I was on the job anyway, so I figured to replace them anyway.