That stupid LGR video is the reason I started doing a build too ;-;

Melonking wrote:

That stupid LGR video is the reason I started doing a build too ;-;

It can be frustrating. I don't really have the spare parts to diagnose the problem I am having. As far I can tell if might be the motherboard or the video card or maybe something to do with the modern PSU/AT adapter combination. At least I do have my 486 Compaq (CDS 520).

One like this:

Melonking wrote:

That stupid LGR video is the reason I started doing a build too ;-;

Happens to us all at some point after seeing someone else show off something cool. Give it time and you will build a collection of your own plus if you keep checking eBay as well other places daily you can bag some nice rares before someone else does 😉

I did not realize you can still buy new AT PSUs on NewEgg. Ordered one to test with the board. If still no go I will try for a refund on the board.

rick12373 wrote:

I did not realize you can still buy new AT PSUs on NewEgg. Ordered one to test with the board. If still no go I will try for a refund on the board.

Holy Smokes! I just snagged one up before everyone on Vogons buys out all their inventory. 😀

Amazon also sells new Startech and Athena branded AT power supplies. I have a couple of those Startech PSUs and they seem OK, not award winning stuff but way more silent than my older units.

IIRC, Athena is a pretty sketchy "brand". Startech is usually overpriced, but it shouldn't be hazardous.

Picked up the Startech from Newegg for $35 shipped. It's going to be an emergency spare. Seems like a good price for a brand new AT PSU. Appreciate the heads-up rick12373!

clueless1 wrote:

Picked up the Startech from Newegg for $35 shipped. It's going to be an emergency spare. Seems like a good price for a brand new AT PSU. Appreciate the heads-up rick12373!

I didn't even bother looking to begin with because I assumed there would not be any. Just goes to show. I wish they had AT cases though...

rick12373 wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

Picked up the Startech from Newegg for $35 shipped. It's going to be an emergency spare. Seems like a good price for a brand new AT PSU. Appreciate the heads-up rick12373!

I didn't even bother looking to begin with because I assumed there would not be any. Just goes to show. I wish they had AT cases though...

Certainly would save a lot of money for some of us and the rest from having to get by with rust buckets.

Fantastic news! With the brand new Startech AT PSU the motherboard powers up. I had a feeling it was something to do with the power adapter/ATX PSU.

I can just attach the green ground wire from the PSU to anywhere metal on the case, right?

rick12373 wrote:

Fantastic news! With the brand new Startech AT PSU the motherboard powers up. I had a feeling it was something to do with the power adapter/ATX PSU.

Nice! Hope it's smooth sailing from now on. 😉

rick12373 wrote:

I can just attach the green ground wire from the PSU to anywhere metal on the case, right?

Yes. In my case I have that cable screwed to an unused mounting hole in the motherboard tray. After you attach the cable you can test for continuity between the ground terminal in the PSU plug and any exposed metal part in your case to check that it's properly grounded.

The next problem seems to be that my old Conner hard drive is no good. It worked the first time I powered up but now it tries to boot and gets stuck before DOS loads. I can here it spinning up and the stopping and then repeating. I have lots of old IDE hard drives but the smallest I have it 20GB which the BIOS only detects as 8MB. Is there a way to get a more modern hard drive to work?

* Edit

There are also some options in the BIOS such as "IDE Block Mode", "IDE LBA Mode" and "IDE 32-Bit Transfer". Would any of these be helpful in getting a new hard drive to work?

Am now messing about with overlay software for the hard drive...

So I am using a 40GB Samsung drive with Samsung Disk Manager 10.42. I followed Phil's guide which is really for the Seagate DiscWizard, but the software is very similar. I did not have a mouse connected at the time so had to use the keyboard to navigate the interface. When I rebooted it did not give me the option to press the space bar and just tried to boot from the hard disk and floppy. In his video he is using an 80GB drive and says to use Cylinders 1023, Heads 16 and Sectors 63. Would that be the same for my Samsung 40GB drive? I think I may have not exited the program correctly due to non having a mouse connected, I was unable to click on exit and had to press keys to try and navigate to the exit button. It did restart the computer but I think that maybe it did not work due to not exiting the program correctly? Will try again with a serial mouse tomorrow.

Wow, and I have thought that I am the only one who is super thrilled by Clint's videos. Glad that he surpassed 400k subs, he really deseves it. But now I am building PC too, but I don't have ANY spare 486 board, that one I have has really weird issues with IRQ channels since I can't move LPT to anything other then channel 5 or 7; so I am building Pentium MMX build, and it is coming out really nice!

Love seeing you guys build 486 systems. I have run a Pentium 100 for my single retro system, but Clint has me wanting to take out the 486SX-33 (I got in ...1993?) from storage and build that thing up as well. Been watching too much Clint and Phil, lately. My wife has no idea what the future might bring.

rick12373 - I am not familiar with the Samsung Disk Manager, but I used Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools 11.1 to get my Pentium 100 system to recognize drives > 8 GB. I didn't really bother with anything outside of auto/user settings in the BIOS and just let the tools handle it. I have also seen Phil's video and couldn't boot to the Seagate tools - therefore forcing me to use Data LIfeguard on my Seagate drive - and I got it up to the 40GB max size just fine. The software should have (it is is similar) pretty much handled everything for you. I believe I also didn't use a mouse and just leaned on TAB and the arrow keys to get me where I needed to be. How are things now?

krivulak - Do you need your LPT port? Can you disable it? What board are you using? What jumper settings are available on your mobo vs BIOS settings?

CkRtech wrote:

Do you need your LPT port? Can you disable it? What board are you using? What jumper settings are available on your mobo vs BIOS settings?

No, I don't need two LPT port, at the end I have only one physical port on case, but it cannot be disabled in BIOS. I tried to but it didn't care that I am trying to. But you put seed in my head because I don't know what jumpers are available on board. I have to look on that. Only I know is that I desoldered the old barrel type battery, bought new one and soldered it on modified CD audio cable (~30cm), which I plugged into ext battery. So in case it leaks worst case will be coroded case, but not any electronics.

Edit: Hmmm... The more I am thinking about that, the more I connect pieces of the riddle together. Conflict IRQ probably caused malfunctioning COM port, so that would be why mouse was not working, no matter what driver I tried. By the way, it is Octek Hippo OP.

I got the overlay software to work, although it made the hard drive size 500MB, but as the old Conner was 420MB I am happy with this for now.