Skyscraper wrote:

shamino wrote:

Getting annoyed with an MSI 875P Neo FIS2R motherboard. Thinking about throwing it out a window. Old forum discussions from 2003-04 suggest that was a popular course of action.

Do what I did, overclock a Prescott and see the VRMs burn!
Seriously, do not try that, the VRMs will burn.

I've definitely seen signs of that - it's amazing how much heat pours off this thing when a Prescott is used.

My problem was that a 2.6GHz/800FSB Northwood was running like a dog. I got so annoyed I dragged out a Dell GX270 board (i865G based) to compare. Sure enough, the GX270 was spanking the MSI with the same CPU and video card.
Prescott on the MSI performs well, in fact for H264 video playback I think it's superior.
But everything is frighteningly hot when that chip is installed. The northbridge, RAM, CPU, and VRM components all run 25-30C hotter with the Prescott. People joke about space heaters, but really, the heat emanating from this thing was unreal.
An oversized socket-7 heatsink I epoxied to the northbridge, *with a fan*, was measured at 70C+. Intel specs say the 875P dissipates 12W. Where's all the heat coming from? I think it must have been soaking up heat through the circuit traces.
Then there's the stories on the web, including yours, of boards self destructing with Prescotts, and reports that MSI actually disabled Prescott overclocking in later BIOS versions. Dell did something similar - they actually detect and *underclock* Prescotts if above a certain speed. That chip is scary.

The temps on this board are much healthier with a Northwood, but I couldn't get it to perform properly. This enthusiast overclocker board was getting it's ass kicked by a Dell. So for today's update, I finally figured out 2 things:
1) Two of my four Kingston HyperX "DDR400" memory modules aren't actually SPD programmed as DDR400. I think they must predate the official JEDEC spec, so they're detected as DDR333. The Dell BIOS made this more obvious.
The MSI is supposed to let you manually clock the RAM, but it ignores what it's told and just does it's own thing, often failing to POST entirely and needing a CMOS reset, at which point you have to start all over again. The MSI BIOS sucks. So I just removed those modules entirely.

2) Getting the RAM clocked up to DDR400 didn't actually make much difference. The real problem was that MSI needs me to use a BIOS option called "Load High Performance Defaults". Testing confirmed that this triggers some undocumented magic which dramatically improves the performance, so now it's on par with the Dell. I cannot find any user editable setting in the BIOS that explains the change, it's apparently a hidden setting. This is a quirky and frustrating board.

This weekend I am investigating how fast of a system makes sense for running Windows XP. I am at the same to trying out the socket 771 to socket 775 XEON mod as the Yorkfield 12M CPUs for socket 775 still cost an arm and a leg. I am also testing if the socket 775 still can keep up with Windows 7 gaming.

The conclusion so far is that you dont really need such a fast system for year 2002 - 2006 gaming. If you for some reason are using such a system as an XP box then at least 3dmark 2003 scales with faster video cards into infinity.

I still use XP on a Phenom2, but the most demanding game I play is from 2011.
For 2002-2006 games, I guess the main reason I can see for using an overpowered system is if heavy mods are a factor.

@popper; Yeah, the black one. It's a Pentium OverDrive 83MHz processor, but I have the turbo switch hooked into one of the BUS select jumpers so I can overclock without having to take the lid off - probably won't press it that often, especially as it has problems with Windows 95 when I turn that on.

It's not finished yet, but at present it has;
32MB FPDRAM
Aquarius MB-4DUPM-E Motherboard
4GB CF Card (I want four of these just because)
Pro Audio Spectrum Plus (Apparently it's a PCCD card compatible with that. Has an onboard amp and a speaker header which I am using)
SPEA Media FX (Like a shit version of the SoundScape S-2000, feeds a line out pins to the CD-IN on he Audio Spectrum)

Currently using the ViewPoint II video card posted earlier, possibly changing it out at a later date, given I can't get the MPEG side to do anything and it draws silly amounts of power.

This is to replace a string of failures, notably my old 486DX4-100 which I could never get working reliably, the 586 build that never really got of the ground, the Pentium 60/66 which is a pile of electronic feces and the revived 486DX4-100 which never performed that well in the real world most of the time and had stability issues... Starting to wonder if this one will go wrong, sort of has already though only to the extent it's been a pain in the ass to set up, honestly think the world doesn't want me to have a machine between the U5S-40 and the K5-PR166, which believe it or not, I need for compatibility reasons.

@HighTreason
Why is it a 486 MB you are using with a Pentium - Class CPU? (this is a very uncommon mix and makes it very interesting ...)
Is there also a technically reason or is it just fun to build and use an extraordinary setup?
What software will you use?

Sad but true i never was able to get any Pentium Overdrive CPU at a acceptable price point - they are rare.

Will you create another video with that machine?
_____

I got this NB, a Toshiba 210CS (dreadful display, but good condition), including a virus 🤣

I'm using that setup because I found the OverDrive does what I want better than the alternatives. A few games have problems producing sound on the faster K5 and lag with the slower 486 machines. One piece of software I want to run and have had troubles with is LameDuke as I enjoy playing with that immensely, though I may have to swap the Audio Spectrum out with a SB Pro for that, not sure as yet. A few adventure games also yield abnormal results with the K5, Realms of the Haunting seems to run best on machines in this range for example.

The OverDrive I got was quite cheap compared with most, I think I just happened to look at the right time. They do turn up occasionally. At the moment most of the ones on eBay seem to be around £30 after shipping, possibly more with import tax applied.

This machine will probably get a video when it is finished, though I don't know how far away having it completed is at the moment as there is a lot of work still to be done, not least of which involves re-installing the OS once I've finalized the hardware configuration, which will be a pain in the butt with that SoundScape clone as it exhibits a strong hatred for Windows 95.

That Satellite 210CS looks nice, seems like a more powerful version of the 410CS/CDT. I bet the passive matrix screen is fun though, pointer trails and ghosts... Virus? I'd be rumbled if something like that happened here as I don't run anti-virus on the older machines. I think I have a boot disk that got infected with Cascade somewhere though.

How much RAM is installed in that? Does it have the upgrade? What about the video card - is it the same C&T 65548 as the 410?

Sometimes 'retro activity' is a software job only (in fact very often). And sometimes that means: clean up viruses. The Toshiba came along with all the original software (i think nobody has ever touched this computer 'seriously' at all - according to it's condition 'outside') and with an ancient virus (called 'generic 1').

The reason i found this virus was the 'Toshiba Master Disk Creator'. a nice little programm, which generates Dos 6.22, Windows fW 3.11 and some Utility programms on FDD. Because i am trying to get my 486 working and in parallel a Pentium 75 (both using DOS and Win 3.11 / Win 95) i wanted to use this Disk Creator. And that's why i checked for viruses - just as a guess.

If you are using old hdds and floppys too that came with software from anywhere (not yourself) there might be a little chance to also invite a not allowed code to your party (i can write a book of it).

The 210CS came with standard configuration: TT80502120 (mobile Pentium 120), 256 KB Cache (i don't know for sure right now), 16MB RAM (no additional one as seen in 470CDT or 220CDS), a C&T 82c455 (1MB) video card and a ESS sound chip. I think it's the 410's predecessor.

Did you get your Overdrive form the US or UK?
And why the soundscape clone, as it will be 'pain in the butt' (and probably no drivers for w95)?

Assembled Fagear's SSI-2001 clone yesterday and some other cards. Now I just tried to clean them, but I'm having serious trouble removing this new flux I used. Apparently "no-clean flux" also means "impossible to clean flux"...

edit: Looks like turpentine and hot water did the trick! That was easier than I expected really, given that isopropanol barely did anything at all.

Ooooh... Shiny new ISA cards!

Rebuild a SIPP board to accept SIMM sticks.

http://i.imgur.com/bR2gkqa.jpg

Something I immediately regretted.

So, nope. Still don't see what the big deal is, but I told you I'd have another try. Oh, well, time to re-install Windows 95 so I can go back to using a card that actually works (In this case, a Virge).

Finished repairing and sanding a Dataphone. 1200 baud circa 1964, baby!

After all that I cleaned up the innards a little more and I was getting happy modulation at all rates up to 1200 baud.

Not too shabby a job NeXT.

Wow that plastic was DESTROYED. Not bad result though.

The people selling it showed me that it was from the start missing the front lip (which wasn't that hard to fix) but they shipped it assuming I was after it for parts..... 😠
It was like reassembling a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing. It's not perfect but I'm happy with the results, minus the missing nameplate.

Thought this might be interesting decided to post, coworker donated Amstrad PPC512DD, Dick Smith Electronics VZ300 and some old related books to me.

Spent an hour stuffing around with the amstrad just getting "Please Wait..." and a flashing cursor until I came across an old thread elsewhere talking about changing the dipswitches which fixed it. Previous owner must have used an external monitor. Prior to that I went out and bought 10 x C batteries to rule out the generic power supply I was using but they did the same thing. Also wasn't helped along by the fact I was using 1.44mb disks formatted to 720k and had no confidence they would work with these drives but they did(something something thin tracks?).

Working now though.

The problem now is that I'm overcome with the desire to connect it to an external CGA monitor of which I have none.

VZ300 is going to need a fair bit more love before that does anything interesting.

Maybe dismantle and soap is required.

I don't really touch stuff this old, my comfort zone is more 386/486/586 but it's interesting nonetheless.

jwt27 wrote:

Ooooh... Shiny new ISA cards! […]
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Ooooh... Shiny new ISA cards!

That soldering looks incredible. Drag soldering I suppose?

shock__ wrote:

That soldering looks incredible. Drag soldering I suppose?

Thanks! And yes, I used the normal drag soldering method, though I never add solder to the pins directly but just drown the board in flux and carry a small drop of tin on the iron.

In other news, I finally put my Amstrad CPC6128 back together this afternoon. Only to find out, the floppy drive still doesn't work...

I agree amazing soldering. Its hard to see a better job even in automated soldering. Atr least where i used to work.

Spent most of the day getting an Amstrad 2086 up and running and then messing around with it. I added the NEC V30 cpu which makes VGA Lemmings actually playable, replaced the dead HDD with a CF card/adapter and put in a Soundblaster Vibra 16 I had lying around. All in all everything works perfectly except for the Compaq monitor I was using which started to spark, make lots of pops and bangs and then gave out a ton of smoke before I turned it off.

Had another look at my 486 machine to see why it wouldn't boot. I was replacing components, memory, graphics etc and it wouldn't work at all. So decided to put it away again and put it all together and just tried a last test and it worked! 😒

Initially It couldn't find the hard disc, which was the first downfall of the machine to me putting it away (and then not posting). I did have windows 95 installed on it and that was working fine at the time, until i booted it once and the machine would just hang after the 2nd post screen just where the OS is loaded. This time however it said "Missing Operating System". But only after messing with the hard disc properties in the BIOS. 😊

It would still hang for a while until I changed things. However, it is back as it was originally and it works every time now. I had to format the drive (even though it looked like nothing was wrong with the contents) and I put OS/2 2.1. I will try Warp on it just for my own interest. But it was such a flakey machine that is now agreeing to work again. So odd. 🤣

Could be the cmos battery is getting low. Systems can do strange things when that happens.
I've got OS/2 v3 Warp on one of my 486s on my home network. It's an interesting OS.