devius wrote on 2026-01-15, 12:34:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-01-14, 21:49:

Man... I think I got hosed on this one.

Why don't you just take the CPUs out and actually see what you have there?

I'm guessing you missed the part about the heatsinks being adhered to the processors? Why would I make a whole post with photos asking about this if they were easy to take off? 😋

I tried prying in every reasonable way possible without damaging the board, including using a heat gun to soften the adhesive and they do not budge. They are also blocking the levers on the sockets, so if the coolers don't come off I would have to yank them straight out of the locked sockets, which is really a bad idea.

Rather than destroy what is probably a (to me) useless pair of boards and old Pentiums, it makes far more sense to just be able to return them to the seller as-is if they don't match the description. Once I checked the thickness of the ceramic I realized that it was easy to tell they were definitely not K6 processors.

Sorry, I didn't understand that not being able to remove the heatsinks would prevent the removal from the socket as well.

Mandrew wrote on 2026-01-15, 16:47:

FINALLY a working 286 Octek board with PLCC socket and no acid damage.

Nice, that one looks familiar, like I had one pass through some years ago, be nice if it turns up. Got a suspicion it was the one I left behind in a move that had a 25mhz Harris on though.

*narrator's voice*

"The card was not PCI-E"

^^
I read it with the Stanley Parable voice.

Great score.

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-01-15, 18:44:

Nice, that one looks familiar, like I had one pass through some years ago, be nice if it turns up. Got a suspicion it was the one I left behind in a move that had a 25mhz Harris on though.

What could be the difference between this and the one on the retroweb with the U2 PAL populated?

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-01-14, 15:47:

Heh, yeah, I keep picking up laptops that only need $200 worth of parts to make them worth $100 in great shape. One thing that c […]
Show full quote

Heh, yeah, I keep picking up laptops that only need $200 worth of parts to make them worth $100 in great shape. One thing that can work for getting life out of them, is clipping battery voltage from an adjustable supply directly to battery +/- contacts in the battery bay with batt removed.

Not sure what you mean about the 760EL power plug, this is what I am seeing that it needs...

With 16V on it.

Unless you mean the plug into the adapter, which looks like it's going to be a standard "kettle cord" like is used on desktops.

Well most of these laptops needs more work than just battery like some screen replacements, repairs some cosmetics like cracks one tosh has a 40mb drive but it goes to power on and turns off loop so hdd is to to replace. About ibms noo they are using this type of plug 4 pin hexagonal. Anyway i will work on em after finishing current retropc's haul building win95 machine on s7 second on 486 win.3.11 dos and second 486. But Currently i'm wiring a board of 386 from cash terminal with amd 40mhz(have that board from 2 years).

Mandrew wrote on 2026-01-15, 19:13:

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-01-15, 18:44:

Nice, that one looks familiar, like I had one pass through some years ago, be nice if it turns up. Got a suspicion it was the one I left behind in a move that had a 25mhz Harris on though.

What could be the difference between this and the one on the retroweb with the U2 PAL populated?

Looking at some of the chips, one board is almost a year older. Could be that stuff was optimized so that one of three PALs could be left out? You could backup them with a programmer, the contents are very hard to come by.

PD2JK wrote on 2026-01-15, 19:30:

Mandrew wrote on 2026-01-15, 19:13:

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-01-15, 18:44:

Nice, that one looks familiar, like I had one pass through some years ago, be nice if it turns up. Got a suspicion it was the one I left behind in a move that had a 25mhz Harris on though.

What could be the difference between this and the one on the retroweb with the U2 PAL populated?

Looking at some of the chips, one board is almost a year older. Could be that stuff was optimized so that one of three PALs could be left out? You could backup them with a programmer, the contents are very hard to come by.

Could be cost optimised too, one year it was considered "workstation"y enough that they thought it better do some protected mode stuff super correctly for Xenix, then next year it's looking like low end budget that ppl only want for DOS and Wordperfect so cut stuff to save a buck.

Mandrew wrote on 2026-01-15, 19:13:

What could be the difference between this and the one on the retroweb with the U2 PAL populated?

No idea, but I can tell for sure that U12 PAL is not optional: Help with Octek Fox M 286 (broken chip)
😀

Today's on "are you nuts or completely nuts" purchase, this KT7A-RAID from Ukraine.

Can you spot what's wrong? 🤣

PcBytes wrote on Yesterday, 22:13:

Can you spot what's wrong? 🤣

Is it the missing heatsink? Or something else?

Shponglefan wrote on Yesterday, 22:52:

PcBytes wrote on Yesterday, 22:13:

Can you spot what's wrong? 🤣

Is it the missing heatsink? Or something else?

Something MORE important. Pertains to the CPU.

PcBytes wrote on Yesterday, 23:02:

Shponglefan wrote on Yesterday, 22:52:

PcBytes wrote on Yesterday, 22:13:

Can you spot what's wrong? 🤣

Is it the missing heatsink? Or something else?

Something MORE important. Pertains to the CPU.

Ah, missing voltage regulators chokes.

PcBytes wrote on Yesterday, 22:13:

Today's on "are you nuts or completely nuts" purchase, this KT7A-RAID from Ukraine. […]
Show full quote

Today's on "are you nuts or completely nuts" purchase, this KT7A-RAID from Ukraine.

Can you spot what's wrong? 🤣

Missing chokes? Also maybe some bad caps. Nice looking board, though. Should be do-able

Its missing the inductors next to the CPU socket. Also, the heatsink for the Northbridge is the kind with active cooling (fan header is close by) so don't run it without it.

Yeah, chokes and the NB cooler. Thankfully I kept the corpses of a KA7-100 and a VP6 (both which had dead northbridges) and I managed to source ALL the coils needed.

As for caps, I may either get a whole kit or do my own recap.

PcBytes wrote on Yesterday, 23:16:

Yeah, chokes and the NB cooler. Thankfully I kept the corpses of a KA7-100 and a VP6 (both which had dead northbridges) and I managed to source ALL the coils needed.

As for caps, I may either get a whole kit or do my own recap.

If it works you deserve a round of applause!

PcBytes wrote on Yesterday, 23:16:

Yeah, chokes and the NB cooler. Thankfully I kept the corpses of a KA7-100 and a VP6 (both which had dead northbridges) and I managed to source ALL the coils needed.

As for caps, I may either get a whole kit or do my own recap.

I keep old dead boards around for parts. Recently I got in a x99 motherboard missing 2 capacitors and an inductor on one corner that was sold as dead non-working. Replacing those parts from other boards made it work 100%. Capacitors are easy to knock off but I wonder what would cause a metal cased inductor to come off leaving the legs in the motherboard. The capacitors were just 6.3V 560's which are a common value on modern boards with polymer caps, but the R50 inductor wasn't as common, and I had to borrow it from a board with bent CPU socket pins (works except for some of the memory slots).

Anyway, I hope you replaced those inductors with the correct values (inductance AND amp rating).

Inductors are more or less solid copper wire.
Worth the 3 seconds to cut off.
Not worth the several hours to attack the rest of the copper.