And so it begins... I brought the case for the Micron Millenia back in, so I'll be cleaning that up in the coming hours and then, hopefully, reassemble a working computer with minimal parts costs. I also salvaged the PSU out the the AST 8066. I cleaned it earlier and have yet to test it.

I modified the RTC last night. Did the "quick" job, because I learned last time, the 2032 is too large to fit next to the PCI connector and I had to angle the battery. This time I bored into the side and cut the battery lines and legged my way to the new battery from there.

I forgot, I harvested a floppy drive from the AST, too. I totally forgot I left it in there. I was hoping to fix that one, but it was far beyond repair.

I'm pretty much all together. I came into one bump. I forgot this case takes rails for the 5.25" bays. I was thinking about stealing them from the other one and installing a blank, but I think I will just make new ones.

I have a CDROM sitting on top right now, so I can continue. I just got done formatting (a Seagate 4.3GB) and am installing Windows 95, since the case has a fancy sticker for it. I've been skipping 95 since the trauma of growing up with it. 98 was so much better. This may be my only 95 computer.

The computer had an error at first when I tried installing, thinking my partition was invalid (probably was, was a used drive with freeDOS on it). I repartitioned and formatted it and then it was able to continue.

Hmmm. It just got "done" installing. It was at 100% when it had three different errors, then another one when it sent me back to the prompt. Not sure what happened there. I'll try again tomorrow, otherwise, back to 98, 🤣

I had an emergency dispatch for misfire on cyl6 on a RAM 5.7L... Going to need lifters and a cam. Ouch.

I continued work on the Micron and successfully installed Windows 95! It was the drive... In the BIOS, it didn't show up as the right capacity, but it was still a drive with the proper capacity in DOS. Strange how it got that far, but wouldn't take Windows. I went with a 2.1GB Maxtor and it was all the same until I got to the end of the installer, and it actually restarted and booted.

Now, I need drive rails. I stole the drive out of the other Micron, because the body on this one is nicer and while it was out, copied dimensions from the OG drive rails and printed out a few of these:

I just left a hole in front for a screw, so I can easily remove them and not break them every time. The OE ones have a plastic one-way clip on the and (squeeze to release).

I also cleaned the final part: the HSF.

Now I'm back and kinda forgot where I left off, so I'll power it up and see. Pretty sure I was just installing games, because it was all working.

Ah yes. I was at the part with no sound in Windows. Easy solution: install drivers, 🤣 Got that taken care of and I got sound in windows. I opened duke3d for a test, but resources don't match what I had setup in DOS, so no sound. Rebooting into DOS and setting the blaster let the sound happen.

I thought I had a video card issue, because there are persistent vertical stripes across the screen, sometimes more visible, like at the windows95 splash.

I switched to a CRT and they were gone. BUT, as a bonus, when I run keen4 from Windows, there is seizure-mode enabled:

This mask flashes at high frequency, seems like half of refresh rate. It doesn't do it in DOS. Maybe I need better driver for the CL? I'm using the one that came with windows. I have the driver disk that came with the card somewhere, so I'll give that a spin.

I tried the driver disc, nothing changed. No DOS apps in windows on this one, then. This one will be known as Hi-10, so I don't confuse them. The other one is now Hi-9.

I'll call it good, since it doesn't crash and everything works fine is DOS mode. I just put windows on because of the sticker, this is totally a fast DOS computer. I'll probably sculpt a boot menu/config/autoexec later.

I pulled the Hi-9 back out (again agian) to put a proper CDROM back in. I left it empty when I stole the drive for the Hi-10. I grabbed a few that might look the part, but decided on this 12X, because the yellowing almost matches perfectly AND it's almost as old as the computer.

Big issue I noticed only AFTER I had it mounted: The eject button was broken... and you know what else? This drive does NOT have an eject, BUT the tray DOES just pull out.

Not acceptable. I checked functionality and it was good (although, my CDROM driver takes a long time to load), so it's time to replace that button:

I had to open it all the way manually before it started operating normally again and now it works great! I'm just left wondering why my CDROM driver takes so much longer to load. I'll try other drivers, to see if maybe the driver is not liking the drive. Not too often I see that, but it happens sometimes with the TEAC_CDI driver I normally use.

Here's those two together:

With the Microns out of the way, I picked up this again to look at where I left off:

I needed cabling and a PSU. I have a few that I can choose from, but they're pretty damn dirty.

I will clean them all and inspect the goods before choosing. I'll be un-p4ifying whichever one I choose as well.

Got a lot to report today.

I've been working a big job, a hundred miles away. Here's the failure, if anyone is interested:

Now to computer related business:

First off, I only cleaned one power supply and got distracted testing it. Then I installed it into the MSI-6712.

Nothing unusual at all. Fired right up and was able to install windowsXP and played around with it for a while.

I set it aside last night to try to install Linux Mint on a computer, as I want to check it out. The motherboard (Gigabyte Z390 GamingX) will NOT boot from a SATA drive and Mint decided to install there, because it thought the leftover boot record on the spinner (I should have removed the partitions) was the live windows 10. It still boots 10 from nvme and can't even be given the option to boot from the drive with the boot-loader. Lame.

I'll reformat it and try again... BUT that will be later... I have to review the computer(s) I got from my brother this morning. Absolute barn-finds! Two mystery machines, one is revealed (and clean, untested), one yet to be. I'm in such suspense!

Here's the first unit I cleaned, since I knew I was going to be pretty easy.

It is a PowerSpec with ASUS P5G41C-M with a Core2Duo E7500 and a single 2GB stick of DDR2-800. Also inside were a WD500 GB HDD and a DVD multi drive.

It has a lot of corrosion from sitting in the barn, but it came pretty clean.

The thing is bone-stock as they come. Fire-starter PSU. Green stick. Onboard VGA. It's got it all. Absolutely nothing exciting. This next one, though... Oh boy. I've seen enough so far to know I'm excited.

(edit: ope, 🤣 duh, it's an ASUS)

I haven't gotten into the next one yet, but here's a sneak-peek (same peek I've taken)

It's a Gateway SELECT with a... K7?! So hyped for this one!

Gaah. I can't work on it now, but I'll get to it soon. I want to try to get Mint running on Jen so I can put her away and test the PowerSpec, so I can put THAT away.

Man that is one seriously wiped out cam lobe. How much metal is in that motor?

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2025-06-26, 00:08:

Man that is one seriously wiped out cam lobe. How much metal is in that motor?

Not much. I've seen this engine do this plenty of times and it usually means "replace engine" once it's apart and the extent of the damage is observed. The roller on the lifter was still intact, although the bearings were gone.

I opened the Gateway, but a little late, so I can't really clean anything. Looks all stock except for that HP CD writer and maybe the SCSI.

OH - OH - OH - O'REILLY...
Auto parts!

lord, thats deeply programmed...

I cleaned all the parts from the Gateway.

I've identified the motherboard: Gateway 4000594 and the GPU:A Voodoo3 1000.

The Sound card is a CT5803

It also has a nice Adaptec AHA-2906. I like having these around.

Lets not talk about the modem.

The CPU is the original 600Mhz that came with the system and had a pretty heavy-duty cooler on it. The screws for the heatsink were T8 and came out very easy. The whole thing popped open pretty easily, too. Under the heat spreader was a 650 labeled CPU.

I'm working on cleaning the PSU next and then the case. Hopefully, I can have this booted and running in a few hours. What mystery is within the drive? Will it boot 98? XP? Nothing? (that'd be lame) I absolutely love exploring old drives!

They kinda look like small heatsinks but they don't actually touch the mosfets. Unless they sink the heat out of the motherboard PCB itself

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2025-06-27, 00:40:

They kinda look like small heatsinks but they don't actually touch the mosfets. Unless they sink the heat out of the motherboard PCB itself

Would definitely fit the bill, especially since they are slotted probably for larger surface area ..

That's what I'm thinking

I asked my brother, too, he also thinks they are heatsinks. I've never seen them like that before. Neat!

I got most of the case cleaned up. I will do the PSU later, as I might not use it. 200W is a little weak. I'll see what's inside though, judge it better then.

I got the motherboard set-up with a known good PSU and the same memory it came with. I only added a known good AGP (SiS 6326) It powered on immediately when I flipped the switch and POSTed until it wanted CMOS/TIME etc. I set the time and restarted to reach a "no boot media" situation. I plugged in a few things. A known good floppy, the OE drive from the Gateway, and a CDROM I wanted to test.

I powered it on to a violent outburst of head clatter and irregular whining. Ope. Found the problem. Damn. The drive is bork'd.

I unplugged and replaced it with a similar sized drive (10GB) and started the format/win98 process. It's almost done formatting.

100% heatsinks.

its SUPER DUPER common to use just the huge ground plane of a motherboard as a giant heatsink. BUTT... That only goes so far. And since the mosfets are SMT not thru-hole, your options are limited. If you've ever wondered why its so hard to re-cap a modern (ish) motherboard without a 150W soldering iron? its because the ground plane is working as intended. ^.^