Lukeno94 wrote:

boxpressed wrote:

I have one of those 20GB WD models. It makes a high-pitched noise as soon as it is powered up, and it never wanes. It sounds like cicadas. I can't stand it for very long, so I use the drive to clone fresh installs only.

A WD Protege 20GB remains the only desktop HDD I've ever seen fail in a system of mine.

I also have two of those and the sound they make is just horrible 😁 *srrreeeeeee*
I still want to Raid 0 them at some point 🤣

Arctic wrote:

Lukeno94 wrote:

boxpressed wrote:

I have one of those 20GB WD models. It makes a high-pitched noise as soon as it is powered up, and it never wanes. It sounds like cicadas. I can't stand it for very long, so I use the drive to clone fresh installs only.

A WD Protege 20GB remains the only desktop HDD I've ever seen fail in a system of mine.

I also have two of those and the sound they make is just horrible 😁 *srrreeeeeee*
I still want to Raid 0 them at some point 🤣

That was my idea! I'm planning to raid-0 the two 7200 rpm ones at least. I was hoping there were all 7200 rpm and I'd have a 3-disk matched raid-0 set for some of my computers, but no such luck 🙁 I might try em anyway, two 7200's + a 5400 might lead to some weird performance though.

In case anyone is interested in what my Protege sounded like when it died, there is this old video. That was when the P4 tower was new to me, and still in its original case with the PSU blocking the CPU fan.

My latest unexpected and unplanned but certainly not unwelcome acquisition. Got this for free as partial payment for helping set up a security camera system in a local mom-n-pop clothing store.

It needs some TLC though. Turning it on produces the BEAUTIFUL sound of a Seagate ST-251 spinning up and successfully passing its self-tests, but it won't boot. I presume it needs to be low-level formatted, but g=c800:5 isn't working, so I need to find a different way to LLF it. I presume there's a DOS utility I can run to do so, but I don't know which one is the "right" one.

Wow. Now that's awesome. What great shape that thing is in!

Love that 1-line alphanumeric LCD on the front! And that GoldStar monitor! 😁

Yeah, that monitor really fascinates me! It has a button on it labeled "TEXT" that toggles the display back and forth between color and monochrome orange. This is my first ever EGA monitor, was this a common feature on them? That alphanumeric display on the computer is also really interesting...it's a wonder more computers didn't take advantage of something like that, I could see it coming in very handy for no-video POST failures.

No, it certainly was not a common feature on EGA monitor to have the color/mono feature. I went through a couple dozen EGA's back in the 80's and only one had a feature like that. I remember thinking how strange it was and couldn't really fathom why anybody would ever use it (I was a teen at that point). I dont remember much about it other than it was a very odd graphite grey and had lots of "wheel" controls on the bottom of the screen.

That Wyse rig you got is awesome. I had a couple of those and loved them. You really got some awesome gear for your help. Good luck with the HDD and show some running pics or YouTube video once you restore it.

If you decide to sell that computer, please let me know. I've always loved that case and would love to get another one. There is also a WANG PC that was very similar to that and had a mirror like finish to the stainless steel on the inside. It was highly proprietary though and major mods to the case would have to be made to use anything else with it. That WYSE case brings back very fond memories of my 286 days. 😄

torindkflt wrote:

My latest unexpected and unplanned but certainly not unwelcome acquisition. Got this for free as partial payment for helping set […]
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My latest unexpected and unplanned but certainly not unwelcome acquisition. Got this for free as partial payment for helping set up a security camera system in a local mom-n-pop clothing store.

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It needs some TLC though. Turning it on produces the BEAUTIFUL sound of a Seagate ST-251 spinning up and successfully passing its self-tests, but it won't boot. I presume it needs to be low-level formatted, but g=c800:5 isn't working, so I need to find a different way to LLF it. I presume there's a DOS utility I can run to do so, but I don't know which one is the "right" one.

You need to check on the harddisk controller card on which bios adress it was set too.. If g=c800:5 didnt help, it may using a different bios memory address.
Otherwise using an Ontrack setting up diskette which would lead you to the bios rom on the controller card as well.

A Google search lead me to discover the drive controller card (DTC 5280-CR) doesn't have a built-in formatter, so debug is a dead end. I did find a Seagate formatting utility (SGATFMT4), and that worked dandy! 😀

Now I need to figure out what version of DOS to install on it. Before formatting the hard drive, I was just barely able to get enough of a DIR listing to determine it had DOS 5.0 and a version of Windows when I received it, but that's not period-accurate for a system from 1987. 3.3 is a better match, but 4.0 or 4.01 would also be plausible if it was built closer to the end of the model's active-selling lifespan. I also do not know off the top of my head if there was a WYSE-branded version of DOS that this would have shipped with. If so, I would prefer that.

Here is a thread about it from last year.

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showt … -286-Setup-Disk

There should be a few useful files there. I don't know why, but I remember have a heck of a time getting that LCD to be useful.

The two I used to have did not have a unique version of DOS. I do remember they had MSDOS 3.XX, but I put version 4.00 for some reason. I also installed an Apple IIE board (which lets the system run native Apple DOS and hook up apple disk drives, printers and display's), as well as a game blaster in each machines before I sold them at a computer show.

EDIT

I do remember that each system came with a faux leather bound binder with several 5 1/4" in each of them and a fairly thick set of manuals. Might be worth keeping an eye out for that.

A new ICP Vortex SCSI Controller for my P166 system:

That SCSI controller looks like a serious bit of kit!

I've never seen such a mean looking SCSI controller before. 🤣

Yeah, that thing is a tank! Reminds me of a Canopus video card with the fan and overall quality.

Thank you for your funny comments 🤣

I wonder what that connector behind the slot, that looks like a female IDE, is for.
As far as I know there is a INTeL i960 processor under that heatsink.
I wonder how good it will perform in the Pentium 166.

Creative 3D Blaster Banshee 4.99, Xfi Xtreme Music 4.99

boxed and sealed v3 3000 agp, 30 euro including the costs of sending it to me.

Geforce4 ti4200 64mb agp 1 euro at fleamarket.

Found at value village for 10$

Video S3 ViRGE/DX, Sound OP931-3DIS, HDD WD 26400, Modem jm6cr33br2 and the mobo is a AB-PX5