Hello!
putting order in the house I found a lot of "old" hardware (link to the photo album)

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AgxFrlHsc5x41NVfkzCzgvGqd4_GLQ 😊

I wonder if I have a chance to build a "modern" MS-DOS only PC at (almost) zero costs? no chance for the audio I suppose, but what about the GPUs?

Thank you! 😁

appiah4 wrote:

Bought this card because it was on sale for $1.50 and looked interesting. The only cards with this kind of dual feature connectors that I know of are the Banshee and i740. My bet is on Banshee. Does anyone know what this card really is?

Looks most like a version of the Gainward CardExpert 740 (possibly OEM without the additional chip / two TV-Out ports, tho the pads are still visible)

https://web.archive.org/web/19981205055554/ht … /intel/i740.htm

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

Bought this card because it was on sale for $1.50 and looked interesting. The only cards with this kind of dual feature connectors that I know of are the Banshee and i740. My bet is on Banshee. Does anyone know what this card really is?

Looks most like a version of the Gainward CardExpert 740 (possibly OEM without the additional chip / two TV-Out ports, tho the pads are still visible)

https://web.archive.org/web/19981205055554/ht … /intel/i740.htm

Yeah looks like that is indeed the case. Why did it have to be the one card I really did not need at all. 🤣

Wow, it looks so much like a Permedia 2. I can definitely relate to the facepalm feeling of buying a card (or an entire lot of junk for one item) that at first looks like something really interesting, only to find later that it wasn't what I'd thought.

Funny, I've seen several i740 based cards that looked extremely similar to other (more interesting) cards. For example, from this page, the Diamond Stealth G460 looks like it should be some variant of a V550 TNT or V770 TNT2. The G460 is still a neat, less common i740 to find, but still...

Or, I have a QDI Legend i740 that looks very similar to the one on the page above, except it has SGRAM! This makes it look almost identical to a much rarer and more interesting Rendition Verite V2200! How confusing! 🤣

Thankfully, today, I got a box in the mail that contained something that I saw in a picture... and I was correct. 😀

Has anyone else ever come across a Voodoo 3 3000 with a black heatsink? It is exactly the same style as other 3000 models, but it is black. I've only seen a couple posts on the internet mentioning such a card. It seems pretty rare.

Scored this motherboard today! It's a Yang An YA-1. It has Vesa AND EISA! I have never seen an EISA motherboard before, and am excited to get this working. Unfourtunately, it has some quite serious corrosion due to the battery leaking on the board. It obliterated most of the traces in the vicinity, and will require serious reconstruction. I started on the trace repair, but only got through a small amount today. Most people wouldn't bother to save a board this far gone, but I take it as a challenge!

Ozzuneoj wrote:

Has anyone else ever come across a Voodoo 3 3000 with a black heatsink? It is exactly the same style as other 3000 models, but it is black. I've only seen a couple posts on the internet mentioning such a card. It seems pretty rare.

Yes, I think Dell had such card in some of their system. It's indeed rare, I have about 50 V3 3000 cards, only one with black heatsink.

RaverX wrote:

I have about 50 V3 3000 cards

That must be the reason why they are so pricey 😀

I have Dell V3 3000, mine has silver heatsink just like any V3 3000... but lacks TV-OUT.
Black heatsink is common on V3 3500 TV but on V3 3000 it is definitely rare.

Picked up two mystery boxes today. Was quite far out in my guess as to what was in them, but not unhappy in the end. See what you would expect in these two:

Sort of looks like an early 486 tower doesn't it? In retrospect the CDRom drive was a giveaway that all was not what it seems...

Can you say "generic Pentuim 3"? As it turns out: not.

Inside the ATX miditower:

Asus SP98AGP-X... so the most high-end SiS 5591 board out there - not that that's saying much. SiS' somewhat flawed entry into the "Super" So7 stakes. Was supposed to do 100MHz FSB, but generally wasn't stable over 90MHz and Asus didn't certify CPUs over 66MHz to play it safe... Playing it less safe, there's a modded BIOS for this board for K6Plus CPUs. As I have a few of those I intend to see how that goes. In any event, with a K6-3+-500 known to top 600MHz, CPU won't be the limiting factor.

Current CPU is less ambitious, a K6/266AFR. 32MB RAM and an S3 Stealth 3D 4000 (Virge/GX2) says "low-end Windows 98 system", but one with decent components. Case supports that impression. Unimaginative U-profile thing, but nice rolled edges. Apart from that interesting combo of 56k modem and an ISDN adapter, and a Maxtor 30GB HDD (almost certainly a later upgrade, in 1998/1999 10GB would have been huge).

And the other one?

That's no 486! Instead it's a P166 (non-MMX) on an Epox P55-VX board with 32MB RAM and a Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 (Virge) with 2MB upgradeable to 4MB. Which sort of begs the question why on earth this person chose to upgrade from this P166 (on an MMX/K6-capable board) to a K6/266 with otherwise pretty much identical specs... nice extra: the original CT1740 Sound Blaster 16 in all its noisy (and dusty) glory. Probably that was a holdover from whatever older system was originally built in this case.

One weird thing though:

What on earth is this? All four wires lead to the PSU, so my best guess would be a heath robinson fan controller for the PSU fan, complete with temperature sensor.

My Roland CT-32 just arrived in the mail...

Better replace the power supply, it only supplies 300 mA, while the MT-32 needs a 650 mA power supply (shown on your second photo).

dkarguth wrote:

Scored this motherboard today! It's a Yang An YA-1. It has Vesa AND EISA! I have never seen an EISA motherboard before, and am excited to get this working. Unfourtunately, it has some quite serious corrosion due to the battery leaking on the board. It obliterated most of the traces in the vicinity, and will require serious reconstruction. I started on the trace repair, but only got through a small amount today. Most people wouldn't bother to save a board this far gone, but I take it as a challenge!

Nice board, let us know if you get it running.

The wires you are using seem to fit perfectly. What is the specification / diameter? Like to order the same 😉

dionb wrote:

Picked up two mystery boxes today. Was quite far out in my guess as to what was in them, but not unhappy in the end. See what yo […]
Show full quote

Picked up two mystery boxes today. Was quite far out in my guess as to what was in them, but not unhappy in the end. See what you would expect in these two:

Sort of looks like an early 486 tower doesn't it? In retrospect the CDRom drive was a giveaway that all was not what it seems...

What if you need two 3.5'' disk drives? 😊

Those CD-ROM drives look very low end. I wouldn't put an original CD in either of them.

Anyway nice finds. Over here it's as dry as the desert currently.

dionb wrote:

Picked up two mystery boxes today. Was quite far out in my guess as to what was in them, but not unhappy in the end. See what yo […]
Show full quote

Picked up two mystery boxes today. Was quite far out in my guess as to what was in them, but not unhappy in the end. See what you would expect in these two:

Sort of looks like an early 486 tower doesn't it? In retrospect the CDRom drive was a giveaway that all was not what it seems...

Can you say "generic Pentuim 3"? As it turns out: not.

Inside the ATX miditower:

Asus SP98AGP-X... so the most high-end SiS 5591 board out there - not that that's saying much. SiS' somewhat flawed entry into the "Super" So7 stakes. Was supposed to do 100MHz FSB, but generally wasn't stable over 90MHz and Asus didn't certify CPUs over 66MHz to play it safe... Playing it less safe, there's a modded BIOS for this board for K6Plus CPUs. As I have a few of those I intend to see how that goes. In any event, with a K6-3+-500 known to top 600MHz, CPU won't be the limiting factor.

Current CPU is less ambitious, a K6/266AFR. 32MB RAM and an S3 Stealth 3D 4000 (Virge/GX2) says "low-end Windows 98 system", but one with decent components. Case supports that impression. Unimaginative U-profile thing, but nice rolled edges. Apart from that interesting combo of 56k modem and an ISDN adapter, and a Maxtor 30GB HDD (almost certainly a later upgrade, in 1998/1999 10GB would have been huge).

And the other one?

That's no 486! Instead it's a P166 (non-MMX) on an Epox P55-VX board with 32MB RAM and a Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 (Virge) with 2MB upgradeable to 4MB. Which sort of begs the question why on earth this person chose to upgrade from this P166 (on an MMX/K6-capable board) to a K6/266 with otherwise pretty much identical specs... nice extra: the original CT1740 Sound Blaster 16 in all its noisy (and dusty) glory. Probably that was a holdover from whatever older system was originally built in this case.

One weird thing though:

What on earth is this? All four wires lead to the PSU, so my best guess would be a heath robinson fan controller for the PSU fan, complete with temperature sensor.

Very nice! Been searching high and low for a SiS ss7 board with agp slot... if it works and you want to sell it, let me know. I found one version (forgot the brand) and it is in storage right now because it is missing some parts and hopefully I get it working one day. But the Asus version I really like. Can you try an unmodded Tillamook on that board please if you have one?

meljor wrote:

[...]

Very nice! Been searching high and low for a SiS ss7 board with agp slot... if it works and you want to sell it, let me know. I found one version (forgot the brand) and it is in storage right now because it is missing some parts and hopefully I get it working one day. But the Asus version I really like. Can you try an unmodded Tillamook on that board please if you have one?

Will see tomorrow (if I have time...) if it's working, will then try with P266MMX Tillamook as well while I'm at it. After that... who knows, but I have too much stuff here already, so you might be in luck 😉

One of these online, the other day.

I have 2 of those cases, both house Windows 98SE builds.

dionb wrote:

That's no 486! Instead it's a P166 (non-MMX)

I gotta say i've seen way more Socket7/Pentium boards in these type of cases than 486es. Most of the time with a P133, sometimes a 233MMX. I suspect they might've been more popular as cheap bargain cases for budget systems during the Pentium era compared to when they were new in the 486 era.

dionb wrote:

One weird thing though: https://tweakers.net/ext/f/hc8zyOvjvVJRXyyjuTJ1IXkU/full.jpg What on earth is this? All four wires lead […]
Show full quote

One weird thing though:

What on earth is this? All four wires lead to the PSU, so my best guess would be a heath robinson fan controller for the PSU fan, complete with temperature sensor.

Well, that's the ugliest thing I've seen this week.

gdjacobs wrote:

Well, that's the ugliest thing I've seen this week.

what? You don't have mirrors in your home?

^.^

I'd like to find out what it is though? Can we get a good pic of the backside and list of the parts so someone can hack up a schematic?