Well, I got new cables, had to set the ULTRA DMA mode to 3 because 4 or 5 wouldn't let me boot with the shielded 80-wire cables, got modern Linux working... aaand then broke it trying to install a desktop environment.
now Alpine Linux can't even see the motherboard's builtin ethernet controller, let alone the wifi card, the gpu isn't being properly detected and is still in 1024x768 mode (I mean that's kinda for the better), etc.

I think I'm gonna give up on Linux for this system for the time being, and just put Vista on it instead.

Some more retro BASIC stuff by me:

110 KEY 1, "SEND"
220 KEY 2, "QUIT"
330 ON KEY(1) GOSUB 190
440 ON KEY(2) GOSUB 230
550 KEY(1) ON
660 KEY(2) ON
770 KEY ON
880 CLS
990 OPEN "COM1:9600,N,8,1,BIN,CS0,DS0" AS #1
10100 ON COM(1) GOSUB 140
11110 COM(1) ON
12120 PRINT "Wait for data from Telnet (Port 2323)..."
13130 GOTO 130
14140 IF LOC(1) = 0 THEN RETURN
15150 B$ = INPUT$(1, #1)
16160 PRINT B$;
17170 RETURN
18180 COM(1) OFF: CLOSE #1: END
19190 LINE INPUT "Enter data to send: "; I$
20200 IF LEN(I$) > 0 THEN PRINT #1, I$;
21210 RETURN
22220 END
23230 RETURN 220

I figured out how to use the ON COM statement. I don't have any old hardware to try this on but it does connect to telnet client in Windows.

https://github.com/PeterSwinkels/COM-port-cli … asic-/tree/main

VanillaFairy wrote on 2026-07-02, 19:28:

I think I'm gonna give up on Linux for this system for the time being, and just put Vista on it instead.

Welp, the original "vista won't boot at all" issue from my CFcard days (a week ago) is back!
Same with Plop Boot Manager not working if I flash its image directly to the SSD, just like with the CF card.... there's probably a better way to put plop onto it, but I can't exactly check.

So I guess now my options are A: get a USB floppy drive, because this motherboard seemingly supports those, B: get a USB floppy drive emulator if those even exist, C: get an actual floppy drive as well as those two or D: get an actually working DVD-RW drive to put into it, and just. hope that it actually works.

VanillaFairy wrote on 2026-07-02, 21:36:

... So I guess now my options are A: get a USB floppy drive, because this motherboard seemingly supports those, B: get a USB floppy drive emulator if those even exist, C: get an actual floppy drive as well as those two or D: get an actually working DVD-RW drive to put into it, and just. hope that it actually works.

Do you have a CD/DVD at all on the system? Almost all OSs can install from optical.

Btw, if there's a reason you specifically need to boot a floppy - I just made a little tool that allows ImageDisk users who don't have a DOS system to make a bootable CD/DVD image from the stand-alone boot floppy image - and it "looks" like a (write protected) A: floppy when it boots.

It can in fact turn any 1.44m floppy .IMG into a bootable .ISO - if this could be helpful, I could clean it up a little and make it available to others.
(but obviously you would need a working optical writer)

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-07-02, 23:41:

Do you have a CD/DVD at all on the system? Almost all OSs can install from optical.

Nope, and that's about the source of 100% of my issues. The disk drive is either dead or just doesn't support DVD-R disks.
I've even tried bringing back those CF cards and flashing the installer to those, which seemed to work until I got past the disk-selection part and got "Windows could not determine if this computer contains a valid system volume".

...it then cancelled the install entirely. It did this 3 times, each attempt at installing being painfully slow given it was booting the installer off a CF card, before I gave up because it's now almost 1 am.

I fixed a bug and cleaned up the program a bit:

110 ON COM(1) GOSUB 140
220 ON KEY(1) GOSUB 170
330 ON KEY(2) GOSUB 210
440 COM(1) ON
550 KEY 1, "SEND"
660 KEY 2, "QUIT"
770 KEY(1) ON
880 KEY(2) ON
990 KEY ON
10100 CLS
11110 OPEN "COM1:9600,N,8,1,BIN,CS0,DS0" AS #1
12120 PRINT "Waiting for data from COM port #1..."
13130 GOTO 130
14140 B$ = INPUT$(1, #1)
15150 PRINT B$;
16160 RETURN
17170 LINE INPUT "Enter data to send: "; I$
18180 IF LEN(I$) > 0 THEN PRINT #1, I$;
19190 RETURN
20200 COM(1) OFF: CLOSE #1: END
21210 RETURN 200

Please see my previous post in this thread a few posts back for more info. 😀

VanillaFairy wrote on 2026-07-02, 23:47:

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-07-02, 23:41:

Do you have a CD/DVD at all on the system? Almost all OSs can install from optical.

Nope, and that's about the source of 100% of my issues. The disk drive is either dead or just doesn't support DVD-R disks. ...

I spent an hour kicking myself the other day - I couldn't get a DVD-R to boot on one of my old DOS systems (P3 which I knew could boot from optical) ... but it's literally been years since I did that, and eventually realized that the drive in it is a CD ... *NOT* a DVD ... once I burned the system I was trying to boot to the right media (fortunately it fit), all worked as expected.

I see some local computer stores (Ottawa Canada) still list internal DVD drives on their web sites... but I think they all showed "out of stock". There are still quite a few USB Optical drives available (locally and Amazon etc. very cheap) if your system supports it, this might be a good way to get an optical drive.

Also, if system supports USB boot - you might be able to use RuFus to make a bootable stick from a DVD (or even FLoppy) image.

Lastly - if you have other system(s), you might be able to borrow a drive from (or hit up friends 😀 ) long enough to install - this would get into the whole IDE<>SATA issue, both systems would have to be able to connect the same drive type. (big advantage to hoarding old computers - you've got lots of parts to move around - for some reason wife doesn't always see it that way! 😀 )

Try Value Village, many times I went there many times they have optical drives. I like LG the best.

Cheers,

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-07-03, 22:21:

I spent an hour kicking myself the other day - I couldn't get a DVD-R to boot on one of my old DOS systems (P3 which I knew could boot from optical) ... but it's literally been years since I did that, and eventually realized that the drive in it is a CD ... *NOT* a DVD ... once I burned the system I was trying to boot to the right media (fortunately it fit), all worked as expected.

It is a DVD drive, but it might not support DVD-Rs even if it does work... the DVD logo is on the front-

I see some local computer stores (Ottawa Canada) still list internal DVD drives on their web sites... but I think they all showed "out of stock". There are still quite a few USB Optical drives available (locally and Amazon etc. very cheap) if your system supports it, this might be a good way to get an optical drive.

There aren't really any local stores here in the UK with internal IDE DVD drives, and my system doesn't support USB booting from anything but a USB floppy drive or zip drive of all things.

Also, if system supports USB boot - you might be able to use RuFus to make a bootable stick from a DVD (or even FLoppy) image.

Yeahhh, no USB booting unfortunately... I already have a Ventoy USB from my main rig

Lastly - if you have other system(s), you might be able to borrow a drive from (or hit up friends 😀 ) long enough to install - this would get into the whole IDE<>SATA issue, both systems would have to be able to connect the same drive type. (big advantage to hoarding old computers - you've got lots of parts to move around - for some reason wife doesn't always see it that way! 😀 )

I don't have any unfortunately, the only other old computer I have has SATA ports and a dead motherboard with dead caps.
Though I have tried just using a VM on my main modern system, but Vista refused to boot if the image was copied from the VM to another system. it'd get to the boot manager, and then fail and then say it can't boot

I have managed to find a DVD-RW drive on eBay for cheap enough...

VanillaFairy wrote on 2026-07-04, 08:08:

my system doesn't support USB booting from anything but a USB floppy drive or zip drive of all things.

Some boards can boot USB sticks as zip drives, though. Use Rmprepusb for Windows, select appropriate bootloader (Windows/DOS/Linux), additional options: fat16 (fat32 might also work, not tested), boot as zip, force LBA calls. Prepare drive, connect it and boot it as USB ZIP. You can, for example, write the MS-DOS bootloader to it and copy the DOS boot floppy files to the stick, and it will boot just like a floppy to an A: prompt.

asdf53 wrote on 2026-07-04, 08:31:

Some boards can boot USB sticks as zip drives, though. Use Rmprepusb for Windows, select appropriate bootloader (Windows/DOS/Linux), additional options: fat16 (fat32 might also work, not tested), boot as zip, force LBA calls. Prepare drive, connect it and boot it as USB ZIP. You can, for example, write the MS-DOS bootloader to it and copy the DOS boot floppy files to the stick, and it will boot just like a floppy to an A: prompt.

Gave this a good try, unfortunately either my motherboard isn't one of these or it didn't like the USB I got (a sandisk one that's about 128gb in size)

VanillaFairy wrote on 2026-07-04, 19:15:

Gave this a good try, unfortunately either my motherboard isn't one of these or it didn't like the USB I got (a sandisk one that's about 128gb in size)

Try limiting the drive size in Rmprepusb to 500 MB or so, some older boards can't see large drives. Also try the "boot as FDD" option and then boot it as USB floppy.

Haven't tried booting it as a floppy since I'm getting tired and I'd rather wait just for the IDE DVD-RW drive I have on the way to arrive, but I tried setting it to 500MiB and it still won't boot...
To be fair I wouldn't be surprised if part of the issue was me using a USB keyboard, but I don't have any PS/2 keyboards to try with anyway.

Selling vintage CPUs and finding out they've been used for gold recovery is depressing.

Dan386DX wrote on Yesterday, 01:46:

Selling vintage CPUs and finding out they've been used for gold recovery is depressing.

Depending what kind of vintage. CPUs rarely break, while everything else (other than RAM) does.
At some point you are bound to end up with tons of low-end Celeron crap and absolutely no good use for. Recycling them for materials seems the correct choice.

So in my quest to torture my Athlon XP-M 2400 I got to the point where my power supply said "no" and turned off.. Well.. it got a little warm.

12V conversion of my A7N8X is now inbound.

Picture has been taken a couple of minutes after the shutdown.

tehsiggi wrote on Yesterday, 19:18:

So in my quest to torture my Athlon XP-M 2400 I got to the point where my power supply said "no" and turned off.. Well.. it got a little warm.

12V conversion of my A7N8X is now inbound.

What was the procedure to do 12V conversion on this board?

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on Yesterday, 20:08:

tehsiggi wrote on Yesterday, 19:18:

So in my quest to torture my Athlon XP-M 2400 I got to the point where my power supply said "no" and turned off.. Well.. it got a little warm.

12V conversion of my A7N8X is now inbound.

What was the procedure to do 12V conversion on this board?

Cheers,

Replacement of the input caps for the CPU VRM with 16V types and removal of the input filter indictor. It connects the input side of the CPU VRM to the 5V rail. With the inductor removed you can inject 12V. I'll post some pictures once some parts have arrived.

Same procedure on ASrock K7S8X.

I figured out that the overclocking already pulls 26,5A from the 5V rail for the whole board, not even running an operating system. Oops.

tehsiggi wrote on Yesterday, 20:29:

Replacement of the input caps for the CPU VRM with 16V types and removal of the input filter indictor. It connects the input side of the CPU VRM to the 5V rail. With the inductor removed you can inject 12V. I'll post some pictures once some parts have arrived.

Same procedure on ASrock K7S8X.

I figured out that the overclocking already pulls 26,5A from the 5V rail for the whole board, not even running an operating system. Oops.

I doubt I would ever do anything like that, but I find the idea totally fascinating. I'd love to see pictures and read about how you do it.

How thoroughly have setups like this been tested? Are there any long-term negatives to doing this aside from the usual stress of overclocking on the CPU?

tehsiggi wrote on Yesterday, 19:18:

Picture has been taken a couple of minutes after the shutdown.

Ouch! What make/model PSU is that?