I'm getting ready to expand the retro corner - this weekend my contractor friend is coming by to add an extra 10 sqft to the office at the expense of a column of dead space (I'll take pics later) so I am taking down all my games and diskettes and all my computers.

I will use this opportunity to add a 1x CDROM to my 386SX and perhaps finally do my grand 486 benchmark comparison (anything from an Intel SX 25 to an ODPR, with AMD, ITS, and TI processors for good measure) and record it to finally maybe release a new video. So many ideas, so many assignments and exams to study for though.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-11-19, 18:35:

Yes it does. Output rails […]
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RetroLizard wrote on 2020-11-19, 16:40:

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-11-19, 16:38:

I have 4 ultra Xconnect 500 watt psu's and they have been great since new. I use one of them with a socket A system and that system gets a ton of use from my son and it's rock solid stable.

Does it have any -5v rails?

Yes it does.
Output rails

5V 30 amps

3.3V 28amps

12V 34 amps

-5V .3 amps

-12V .8 amps

+5VSB 2amps

I hope that helps.

Looks like a good choice. How long have you been using it, out of curiosity?

That one I bought new in 2003 and it's worked perfectly the whole time. The others I got between 05 and 06 and haven't had any issues. The only thing and this is since new is the cables are a tad stiff but it's really a non-issue.

After integrating the PCI SATA1/UDMA 133 card in to my Socket 7 system, I am happy to report that even DOS 6.22 is booting faster now. It's almost night and day, despite my SD-IDE adapter not even getting close to 133MB/s.

the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-11-18, 22:45:

...although I did notice that my start menu was a bit glitched. https://i.imgur.com/PMMUGVO.jpg […]
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...although I did notice that my start menu was a bit glitched.

A one-time bug, or is it staying like this? I know there are a billion pieces of software to change the banner in the Start menu, and I think there's a pain in the butt way to do it, too. It's likely that configuration or the image itself are borked for some reason.

Mister Xiado wrote on 2020-11-19, 21:31:

the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-11-18, 22:45:

...although I did notice that my start menu was a bit glitched. https://i.imgur.com/PMMUGVO.jpg […]
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...although I did notice that my start menu was a bit glitched.

A one-time bug, or is it staying like this? I know there are a billion pieces of software to change the banner in the Start menu, and I think there's a pain in the butt way to do it, too. It's likely that configuration or the image itself are borked for some reason.

I restarted the system, it remained. Not sure what happened.

One last question: Can Slot 1 motherboards boot up with an ISA-type video card installed? Or do they only accept PCI/AGP?

Yay! received the processor card with 150MHz Pentium compaq # 169174-002 from ebay and that does boot up, getting loads of errors. I'll work through them when I get other items required.

Cheers,

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-11-19, 22:07:

One last question: Can Slot 1 motherboards boot up with an ISA-type video card installed? Or do they only accept PCI/AGP?

Some. it depends on the board manufacturer. But as a personal rule of thumb, if it has pci, use it. If it has agp, use that.

Picked up a 400MHz Thinkpad 240 from Japan (2640-43J) that went for less via Buyee. Found out that due to COVID-19 Japan Post suspended all SAL small airmail parcel to the US, and with the 2nd wave happening the suspension won’t be lifted any time soon - so instead of spending about 27 USD on shipping, I paid about 48 for DHL. Surface (SEA) mail wasn’t that much cheaper (35) and transit is quoted at nearly 2 months, while DHL can get it here in a few days (aiming for right after Thanksgiving?). I still have the 300MHz machine arriving from Surface mail from Japan, which will arrive before Christmas (I hope). Oh well, the plan is for the 300MHz machine to get Windows 2000SP4 while the 400Mhz will get OpenStep 4.2 (maybe?). I would probably put Win98 on it and see how well it performs on old school games.

Have to shop around for a hot air pencil to repair the T21(s).

The one PB450 board decided to throw the video RAM down from 2MB to 512KB for some odd reason. So I put in the other board I have and installed the ZIP RAM for the video card and all of the chips from the other board and got all 2MB video RAM. Might go buy some RAM ICs and replace the bad ones and see what happens. Never had onboard video RAM go bad on me.

I finished repairing a broken Voodoo5 today. I rescued it from getting turned into scrap.
See here. Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Theres another one that I found, but I'm not sure if I can repair it. There's some broken traces and I don't trust myself to not screw up. I may end up selling it. Maybe someone can get her humming.

I found both cards with no slot cover or heatsinks. I found similar Aavid fan/heatsinks online, but I wasn't satisfied with the heatsinks so I modified some typical chipset heatsinks instead. I feel that keeping the original fans maintains its authentic look. As for the slot cover, I found a replacement at the e-waste place I go to. Its not the original one but its close enough 😒. It sits a little too high, but I'm sure it'll do its job.

It completed the default 3Dmark2000 benchmark, but I wasn't really impressed with the score. Its not that far ahead of my Voodoo3 3000. Might be the cost of 32-bit color or 3Dmark2000 just not utilizing the 2nd chip? I use a Pentium II 450mhz on my testbench, maybe that might be holding it back?

Anyways, I'm the proud owner of a Voodoo5 now.

Nice job bringing that voodoo 5 back to life. That P2 might be holding that card back some. Do you have any faster slot 1 P3s to test with?

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-11-21, 00:57:

Nice job bringing that voodoo 5 back to life. That P2 might be holding that card back some. Do you have any faster slot 1 P3s to test with?

Yeah, I have a 1ghz slot 1 cpu, but the motherboard I use (Asus P3B-F) needs its Bios updated before I can use it.

I've been kinda sitting on this task for too long. Now is a good time for me to stop being lazy and update it already. 😐 I never updated a bios using floppies. So I've been kicking the can.

I know what you mean the first time I did it I was nervous myself. But it'll be worth it to use that 1ghz P3

RetroLizard wrote on 2020-11-19, 22:07:

One last question: Can Slot 1 motherboards boot up with an ISA-type video card installed? Or do they only accept PCI/AGP?

Yes. I generally go with the lowest form of slot for video if testing a board. Have yet to see a Slot 1 not boot up with a good ISA video card
(have never seen a Slot 1 with out an ISA slot but am sure there are some odd ball ones out there).
If you do not have an ISA card then a low end PCI card should work for booting up.
You may have to try the ISA card in a few slots but have never had an issue using the one closest to the memory slots.

I've started the long journey of playing The Elder Scrolls games, starting with Arena. I need to find a way to avoid using a CD, though, because the constant disk access is slowing things down.

Got a Jetway (J-Mark) 5TXC rev 2 from Ebay as not working for $30 AUD delivered including Pentium 200 MMX CPU.
A real bargain, has Intel TX chipset and support for 83mhz bus speeds and up to 4.5x multi.

Anyway it was dead, no post at all. I pulled the Bios chip and noticed pins 15 and 16 were corroded. Cleaned up the
socket pins as best as possible and cleaned the Chip pins with sandpaper, loaded the latest bios (in my eprom programmer) that I got from
the J-mark website in the Web archive and Walla! all working now.

Aublak wrote on 2020-11-21, 01:05:

I've been kinda sitting on this task for too long. Now is a good time for me to stop being lazy and update it already. 😐 I never updated a bios using floppies. So I've been kicking the can.

Don't fret. It's ez. Create a bootable DOS floppy disk (from 9x works), throw onto the disk Asus's AFUDOS utility or whatever they want you to update the BIOS with, along with the new BIOS file, run

1afudos.exe /iNAMEOFROM.ROM

from the DOS prompt, and boom, you have yourself a new BIOS flashed.

Besides, I think most boards from the 90s have removable BIOS chips. If anything goes wrong you can remove the chip and manually flash it using a TL866II programmer from China. I can confirm, it's wonderful.

Today I received the ASUS P5A that I bought earlier this week: Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

It turned out to be in fact a revision 1.03, so there shouldn't be any issues with the K6-2+ CPUs. Although it looks like it has been tossed around quite a bit (several scratches on the back side of the PCB, some bent pins, etc.) it is in a good overall shape. The CPU it came with turned out to be a K6-2 500 MHz, not bad at all. After trying a few different RAM sticks and graphics cards, it POSTed just fine!
So although I haven't done any further testing and it still refuses to POST with a Voodoo 3 3000 AGP, I'd already call it a success.

Maybe later tonight I'll upgrade it to the latest beta BIOS and play around with a K6-2+ CPU a bit.