shamino wrote:

A long time ago I picked up a Dell 2000fp (very old 1600x1200 IPS monitor) at a thrift store.

I have a Dell 2000FP monitor. It's a solid one to use for old machines. 😀

Finally made some time to tinker with the Tyan S2507T dual Pentium 3 setup today.

Good news is with a beefy old PSU for all the 5v and 3.3v amps, it seems to run like a champ!

Not as good news, still not sure why my 600w Enermax PSU won't turn on after recapping, but since this 450w unit definitely works I'm going to try recapping it before wrapping up this rig project.

I am in the search for a Dell 2001fp (pre-2004 model) my self. Because it can take a 15khz signal. It is for my Amiga's.

brostenen wrote:

I am in the search for a Dell 2001fp (pre-2004 model) my self. Because it can take a 15khz signal. It is for my Amiga's.

Dell U2414 can also do that.

I tried to re-house my Athlon64 system last night. It did not go well... 🙁

I was messing with SONY FA-P1 external PCMCIA FDD drive. Got it for $10 on ebay.
It worked finally. In DOS it requires SS and CS + dedicated driver that I found online. I'm attaching the drivers just in case.

appiah4 wrote:

brostenen wrote:

I am in the search for a Dell 2001fp (pre-2004 model) my self. Because it can take a 15khz signal. It is for my Amiga's.

Dell U2414 can also do that.

I tried to re-house my Athlon64 system last night. It did not go well... 🙁

I have been snooping around on 15khz wiki. No mention of an U2414, only U2410 and ST2410.

Somehow "I'm just gonna do some quick tweaks to my K6-2 system" has turned into a 3-day grind of benchmarking the CRAP out of all my spare socket 7 chips. So much benchmarking...

xjas wrote:

Somehow "I'm just gonna do some quick tweaks to my K6-2 system" has turned into a 3-day grind of benchmarking the CRAP out of all my spare socket 7 chips. So much benchmarking...

20191209_132147.jpg

It gets overwhelming after a while.
1-2 years ago I was keeping a spreadsheet with tests I was running on a super-7 board, but eventually I was getting burned out, about the same time that I was finding little flaws with how I was testing stuff. I never even got to the more interesting video cards.

Last night I spend about *3 hours* fighting with the boot order on a 1998 HP Kayak. That thing has the most frustrating, clunky, slow BIOS and boot procedure of any PC I've ever used. If I could lift it I'd throw it out a window.
After 5 minutes of pre-flight theatrics on every reset, it persistently kept booting to the damn hard drive. I think I have *finally* gotten it to actually give priority to the LS120 and CDROM. Still can't boot the Win98 install CD, but I think it's because the disc is dirty. It did at least boot to a different CD so I think the boot order madness is finally fixed.
It's amazing how you can waste so much time on something so stupid.

xjas wrote:

Somehow "I'm just gonna do some quick tweaks to my K6-2 system" has turned into a 3-day grind of benchmarking the CRAP out of all my spare socket 7 chips. So much benchmarking...

20191209_132147.jpg

Oops, it turns out I was finished this little project last night already & didn't realize it. 😜 This board doesn't support 75MHz CPUs so the K5 & P54c are out (the K5 POSTs at 90MHz but freezes before getting into Windows), the 6x86 is an earlier revision that the manual specifically says is incompatible (tried it anyway - I get a Windows protection error around the same point the K5 locks up), and the VIA C3 is socket 370. Derp.

Now to go resistor-mod the board...

shamino wrote:

It gets overwhelming after a while.
1-2 years ago I was keeping a spreadsheet with tests I was running on a super-7 board, but eventually I was getting burned out, about the same time that I was finding little flaws with how I was testing stuff. I never even got to the more interesting video cards.

Did you say "gigantic sheet of benchmarks?" Because I think I heard somebody say "gigantic sheet of benchmarks"...

shamino wrote:

It's amazing how you can waste so much time on something so stupid.

Eheheheh... heh heh... heh.

Learned what to look for and successfully got ACHI storage driver slipped in via F6 install of XP 32bit on a Optiplex 990 (my lucky donation) with i7 2600 and 2TB HD.
Got drivers in except realtek driver does not leave WDM drivers files for the next reboot "found new hardware" thing failed.
Was thinking about putting in x-fi PCI card from my audio card collection after disabling the onboard audio IC. Intent was playing older games that works on XP 32 bit.

Only have room for 1 slot full length video card or short length 2 slot card on this motherboard design otherwise I would have to buy either HP 8300 CMT or Z220. These two HP models supports either sandy and Ivy bridge processors) just to have full length 2 slot video card support and supports XP 32 as well. Power supply thing is not a problem for me, I have developed a way to do this.

Cheers,

shamino wrote:

Last night I spend about *3 hours* fighting with the boot order on a 1998 HP Kayak. That thing has the most frustrating, clunky, slow BIOS and boot procedure of any PC I've ever used. If I could lift it I'd throw it out a window.
After 5 minutes of pre-flight theatrics on every reset, it persistently kept booting to the damn hard drive. I think I have *finally* gotten it to actually give priority to the LS120 and CDROM. Still can't boot the Win98 install CD, but I think it's because the disc is dirty. It did at least boot to a different CD so I think the boot order madness is finally fixed.
It's amazing how you can waste so much time on something so stupid.

If you do somehow manage to lift it high enough to throw it out a window let me know your address and which window, so I can park my pick-up in the correct place to catch it and speed off with it.

I spent most of my weekend reorganizing my office and turning my server rack into something far more presentable. Pretty sure I was moments away from being trapped behind it every time I tried to remove a rear-mounted bracket. Regardless, it's more organized, there is a proper rack-mounted PSU in the bottom of it, and all my audio hardware is inside. This let me clear the desk so it's nothing but the main computers, the main monitors, keyboard, mouse, headphones, and some coasters. There, I have a proper desk! Now I just need to get another rack, use those extra shelves to build a better solution for all my game consoles, fix some wiring in my primary DOS machine, and a million other little things.

xjas wrote:

shamino wrote:

It's amazing how you can waste so much time on something so stupid.

Eheheheh... heh heh... heh.

Why, yes, I was watching my Beavis & Butthead DVD's while I was doing all this!

Horun wrote:

Ok thanks, yeah I would not save the board either, was hoping a Intel 848 or 865 chipset :p

One should opt for 875 if they are building a 478 system. But that's just me.

I've written the script for my next Youtube video, about the Superdisk LS120 😀

Finished modding my Atari 800 XL today. The Covox has a nice 3.5" output jack now. 😀

This might sound funny but a while ago I was playing Hyper Dimension Neptunia rebirth 3 on Windows 2000, only to give up because it was crashing every time when Plutia first transforms. The commonly stated fix for this on 32-bit Windows is to boot with the /3GB switch as I mentioned in this thread /3GB switch on 32-bit Windows but that doesn't fix the problem on Win2000 Pro. Then today I suddenly had a thought. Could there be some back channel trick to reduce the game's memory footprint? It turns out that there is... I temporarily lowered the resolution from 1600x900 to 640x360 and that apparantly freed up juuuust enough space to get past that sequence without the game crashing 🤣

shamino wrote:

Last night I spend about *3 hours* fighting with the boot order on a 1998 HP Kayak. That thing has the most frustrating, clunky, slow BIOS and boot procedure of any PC I've ever used. If I could lift it I'd throw it out a window.
After 5 minutes of pre-flight theatrics on every reset, it persistently kept booting to the damn hard drive. I think I have *finally* gotten it to actually give priority to the LS120 and CDROM. Still can't boot the Win98 install CD, but I think it's because the disc is dirty. It did at least boot to a different CD so I think the boot order madness is finally fixed.
It's amazing how you can waste so much time on something so stupid.

With a computer that old you may need to take it apart, check and clean every component. I remember my 4 speed CD-ROM being picky with cds made with a burner in another pc btw.

Received an Atari 2600 Jr. & a bunch of games today and set about testing it:

Of all the 2nd hand systems I've bought in the past, this thing just about tops it for how pristine and in good condition it is. Aside from some slight dust, this thing is practically brand new, not a scratch or scuff on it, I'm very impressed!

As you can expect, it's all working great and I now finally have a real Atari 2600 to add to my collection. Going to save it until Christmas Day to play it though, as it was a Christmas present from the family, I'm traditional like that. 🤣

Next year at some point I plan to get an SD Flash Catridge for it, but the 12 games I have so far should suffice in the meantime.

So here's a fun one. Picked up an Aopen MX46-533V socket 478 universal AGP motherboard, having the SIS 651 chipset. Popped in a P4 3.06 HT, and hyperthreading is working, but figured I'd update the bios anyways, since it came with some mystery R1.02TR bios that wasn't even listed on the Aopen website.

Downloaded the latest bios, and surprise! The bios flasher insists that my board is some mystery Aopen MX46U2-CN, and refuses to flash the new bios. Tried several older bios downloads, and the same problem. Searching the web, seems like I have a board that never existed, even though it says MX46-533V right on it.

Eventually figured I'd force a flash or make it die trying. The POST screen said it had Award Bios, so I downloaded Award Winflash, and forced it to flash all the bios blocks. To my relief, the process went without a hickup, and after a reboot I'm now running an official bios, which has some extra features like fan control.

And here's the mugshot of the culprit.
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