Finished my restoration and explore of my toshiba 4000CDT as well as remove a seriously leaky battery:

https://youtu.be/wf286ovgYRM

Can you cut away some of the plastic covering the batteries? It's hard to tell, but they look like they are in suspiciously good condition. If they leaked, you should see corrosion on the bartery cells.

I've experienced this same plague with laptops that I've repaired. It's really bizarre how it attacks the composite case material. I wonder what the chemical reaction is.

I would also suggest leaving a note of the battery information and tape it where the cells used to be. Cut the leads and leave the there for future repair as well. It's nice to retain the real-time clock, and I would appreciate these things if I ever purchased one of these second hand.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-04-14, 13:41:

Can you cut away some of the plastic covering the batteries? It's hard to tell, but they look like they are in suspiciously good condition. If they leaked, you should see corrosion on the bartery cells.

I've experienced this same plague with laptops that I've repaired. It's really bizarre how it attacks the composite case material. I wonder what the chemical reaction is.

I would also suggest leaving a note of the battery information and tape it where the cells used to be. Cut the leads and leave the there for future repair as well. It's nice to retain the real-time clock, and I would appreciate these things if I ever purchased one of these second hand.

It was quite interesting that the batteries themselves look so clean. I have owned this laptop for over 15 years and there is no chance they were changed in this time!

The RTC and bios settings are interestingly held also by the laptops own battery, which even now still lasts around 20minutes for use, perhaps a very long time while idle. I will see.

Here are some photos of the battery I replaced on my Toshiba laptop. I also had Sony laptops with similar batteries.

Replacing the NiMH CMOS battery in my Toshiba laptop

My Compaq LTE is the worst. It has a NiCd battery, for which there is no direct replacement.

Argh... I forgot how annoying it is to install Windows 2000 in dual boot without pre-partitioning the drive. I remembered to keep the USB flash drive disconnected, but I only created a C: partition. I installed 98, but then I wasn't paying attention during the Windows 2000 install as I was doing other things - I ended up with Windows 2000 installed on an E: drive.

I wiped out all 2K boot files on C: (except bootsect.dos), reformatted the D: drive (formerly E:), added bootsect.dos (for Windows 98 SE) back to the newly created boot.ini during reinstallation and everything is back to ham and eggs.

Dug out a 2nd newer Maxtor 120gb HDD to go in my P4. Dual 120gb and a 400gb for IDE plus a 32gb SSD for XP should be plenty for XP/Linux.

Have a Deep Cool Tessaract Iv been debating on putting my 8 core rig into off and on, currently in a 2010? Antec case. However I just found this PSU NIB someone gave me ages ago that is literally perfect for my P4 rig that is in a beige case. . .i guess the question is if a red GPU would clash with the blue?

ODwilly wrote on 2023-04-16, 07:42:

Have a Deep Cool Tessaract Iv been debating on putting my 8 core rig into off and on, currently in a 2010? Antec case. However I just found this PSU NIB someone gave me ages ago that is literally perfect for my P4 rig that is in a beige case. . .i guess the question is if a red GPU would clash with the blue?

I have that exact same power supply in my sons socket A system. It's a great unit I've owned it since new they are solidly built.

ODwilly wrote on 2023-04-16, 07:42:

Have a Deep Cool Tessaract Iv been debating on putting my 8 core rig into off and on, currently in a 2010? Antec case. However I just found this PSU NIB someone gave me ages ago that is literally perfect for my P4 rig that is in a beige case. . .i guess the question is if a red GPU would clash with the blue?

I would recommend a visual inspection of the capacitors inside of this power supply before you put it into service, even if it is NIB. There is always a chance of capacitor plague.

Also, brownie points for the Ultra brand. I miss TigerDirect.

Installed this Aztec sound card (AZT2320 chipset) on my 386SX build.

Initially, it was not detected (so I tried different fixes) but then I realized I did not insert it properly in the ISA slot 😓

Tested with Wolf3D: it works.

creepingnet wrote on 2021-12-20, 18:23:

LOL, yeah, I'm really winning the PC Chips "lottery" at this point, I've got 3 - a M912 in my second 486, the Moondog Tower, tha […]
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dionb wrote on 2021-12-19, 14:51:

Ah, that old train-wreck of a board - SiS 5591 AGP chipset ruined by adding an onboard SiS 6326 instead of just giving you an AG […]
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creepingnet wrote on 2021-12-18, 20:17:

Decided to go through the Super Socket 7 system and see if it works.....not really getting anything, not sure if it's because of […]
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Decided to go through the Super Socket 7 system and see if it works.....not really getting anything, not sure if it's because of the on-board video not having a connector and ignoring the PCI Video card, or if it's because the board has problems. Starting to wonder

[...]

PcChips M590
Super Socket 7, 3xPCI, 2x ISA, 2x DIMM, 2x 72 pin SIMM, on-board sound and video. I have the same unknown PCI Video card attached to this one as well as I don't have a connector for the on-board video header. It has an AMD K6-2 333MHz CPU in the socket, and 64MB of DIMM memory in both slots.

No Post, no beeps either. Not a lot of jumper settings either. AMIBIOS586D1

Ah, that old train-wreck of a board - SiS 5591 AGP chipset ruined by adding an onboard SiS 6326 instead of just giving you an AGP slot.

Two potential issues:
1) 5V/3.3V jumpers by the DIMMs. Silly because the DIMM slots are keyed for 3.3V only, but if these jumpers (J2A+B) are set incorrectly, bad things happen. Both need to be on 2-3
2) despite "PC100" labels all over the board, 5591 doesn't support 100MHz operation.

Assuming the VDIMM jumper isn't wrong, I'd suggest assuming BIOS EEPROM was dead/corrupt and flash a new one to see if that helps.

🤣, yeah, I'm really winning the PC Chips "lottery" at this point, I've got 3 - a M912 in my second 486, the Moondog Tower, that runs great and has a real Cache believe it or not. Then there's the dead M919 that never worked, that has a DX2 in it....tempted to buy a third DX4-100 AMD CPU since that seems to be what that board came with and I've read about voltage adapters acting up on those. Then there's this hot piece of crap - M590 - which I remember I bought one on E-bay years ago and sold it to someone because I just was not a fan of it TBH.

After some testing, I'm starting to think the board may be ok, but the problem is that I don't have the VGA Graphics connector for it. I only have an external PCI card to see with. The lights on the Diagnostic card seem to be doing what they are supposed to - Reset blinks on, then clears, and IRDY blinks on and clears on the first boot-up.

The M919 seems to have a stuck Reset line, so maybe if I can get it unstuck it will work. Other option is to burn a new Flash ROM for it, but I need to figure out what options I have to do that with at this point since I don't have an EEPROM burner (at least, not yet).

I'm going to see which board I can get to boot first and then probably sell the one that does not work to whoever can replace them. Also, I'm tempted to recap the M919. What I find odd about that one is it was sold at RE-PC to me as a working board but it never worked.

Did you ever get the m919 to work?

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-04-16, 16:01:

ODwilly wrote on 2023-04-16, 07:42:

Have a Deep Cool Tessaract Iv been debating on putting my 8 core rig into off and on, currently in a 2010? Antec case. However I just found this PSU NIB someone gave me ages ago that is literally perfect for my P4 rig that is in a beige case. . .i guess the question is if a red GPU would clash with the blue?

I would recommend a visual inspection of the capacitors inside of this power supply before you put it into service, even if it is NIB. There is always a chance of capacitor plague.

Also, brownie points for the Ultra brand. I miss TigerDirect.

They seem to have used different components on different versions, I popped this one open when I 1st got it and it is full of chemi-cons and good caps! My very 1sr run in with a used Ultra was full of blown Fuhjyuus

I've got an Ultra 550 I ran at max load (Crossfire and OCed X2, kinda system the experts would say 700W minimum for) for 2 years, it was gonna be temporary, first I was surprised it actually booted the hardware, then I was surprised it didn't crash on desktop, then I was surprised it didn't die benchmarking, then I was surprised it passed a 48 hour torture test, then I just abused the hell out of it for a couple of years, didn't kill it yet, caps don't look bulgy. I trust it more than some lower end Corsair/Coolermaster 550s I've got now. With that and another Ultra brand item, a cooler, holding up real well, I am missing Tiger Direct too now... though I still curse them for somehow never having K6-III in stock when I tried to order. (In those days though it was a couple of day lag between me seeing something I wanted, paying some cash into account, and moving a little from my other savings, making sure funds available, then trying to order by which time they sold out.)

edit: I particularly miss their boxing day sales, still using monitors etc I got then.

I still have several Ultra branded items, and run into them with other people's equipment periodically. Their house branded gear was often surprisingly good quality for the price.

Hello, i got two vintage motherboards. One of two have oily residues mixed with dust basically everywhere, so the brush and air compressed is not sufficient. This mobo needs some proper "shower" but i never did that, i have some WD40, but i read that even dish soap and a brush is sufficient ( even diliited alcohol with normal water then let the board dry for 48 hours ). Is the WD40 a proper solution ? Thanks

Mild dish soap like Joy Ultra or Dawn if it's really stuck on. Alcohol can also help, but you need the soap and water for rinsing anyways.

It sounds like flux residue from the wave soldering machine during manufacture. These chemicals are soluble in alcohol with some scrubbing, but try soap and water first.

WD40 will leave a really gross film of its own. It's meant for mechanical parts to prevent corrosion. I don't know why it's abused so much for other things that it's not even good at. Just use soap.

I somewhat unexpectedly fixed a GeForce3 Ti500 (or is it 550?) which was previously artifacting like crazy.

Still not sure what exactly did the trick, but I'm glad that it works now. 😁

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-04-19, 14:11:

WD40 will leave a really gross film of its own. It's meant for mechanical parts to prevent corrosion. I don't know why it's abused so much for other things that it's not even good at. Just use soap.

For the record, you might want to specify the "original" WD-40 as the brand also has "specialist contact cleaner" designed for PCB and other electronic devices.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-04-19, 14:11:

Mild dish soap like Joy Ultra or Dawn if it's really stuck on. Alcohol can also help, but you need the soap and water for rinsing anyways.

It sounds like flux residue from the wave soldering machine during manufacture. These chemicals are soluble in alcohol with some scrubbing, but try soap and water first.

WD40 will leave a really gross film of its own. It's meant for mechanical parts to prevent corrosion. I don't know why it's abused so much for other things that it's not even good at. Just use soap.

I tried, even with a brush....this misture it's sticky. I can rub it away with my finger, there is a film of grease all over the motherboard, i also tried with alcohol but nothing. I will leave everything as it is to avoid damages, but never mind!

I took my Amiga 1200 and C64C out on the terrace and sat in the sunny weather while I gave them both a good scrub with a solution of sugar soap and warm water. It really did a number on the rub-off stains the case had gotten from other object. The Amiga 1200 was really gunky after 20+ years in a basement.

Then I let them dry and after that, took the C64C indoors and played some Raid over Moscow.

Oh, and also won the bid for an Ultima III cloth map off ebay for my collection.