Successfully configured newer MHz Turbo display holding reset button for a while, as instructed by the last post from this threat: MHz display pins

I really hated this display, because I never took enough time to research how to configure it. Now I like it the most, due to it's convenientiality (no jumpers whatsoever).

Well, I managed to get my Dreamcast up to almost modern standards. All I need is to add an unnecessary for me HDMI mod somewhere in there.

I found out the mother of all my retro issues.
This post is a [case study] for other people. I found some similar issues on the web, but nothing helped me. It's about yellow warnings in the Device Manager, regarding IDE controllers.

I have a lot of PC builds. I love to build them, think about the best parts to use, configure all the things. But often I had an issue: CD-ROM drive just didn't worked after fresh installation of Windows 95. And Windows 98.
I started to browse the web and found the solution. I found that I should open regedit and find and remove NOIDE entry. But I haven't got one.
Then I found that it may be because I need to install Intel PIIX drivers. I thought: ok, but I think Windows have it... But anyway I decided to install them. 🙈After that, my Device Manager looked like a big yellow sign. And I still ended with non-working CD drive.
I booted the W95 in safe mode, received some strange overreacted alert from Windows that 'boot record has been modified, in computer may be a virus'. Yeah, I've just installed the Windows, that's why it's modified. I removed all the drivers regarding IDE controllers, then booted to normal mode. It started to install all the drivers again but I still had this same issue.

I thought that's because the version of the Windows I had on original OEM discs (OSR2.1). I decided to just burn CD-R with other Windows 95 .iso found on the web. It doesn't helped. So for the first case I decided to do another trick: I've installed DOS 6.22, DOS CD-ROM drivers and THEN the Windows 95. Wow, I finally can use CD-ROM drive. But when I opened the Device Manager, I found that there's still some warnings and driver issues. But I don't give a sh*t - I had CD-ROM working on my lovely Pentium 166MMX. 😎

Some days later I built another monster with PII 300MHz. This time, with Windows 98se. And again: yellow warnings in the Device Manager, issues with IDE controllers, no CD drive working. What the hell.
I found out quickly that the original OEM CD doesn't boot the installer. I needed to use the floppy boot disc. It's something different than I remember: 10 years ago, my CD-R definitely booted the installer and it was totally painless. I decided to found the .iso on the web, burn it and try again. Maybe I have broken builds of Windows?
The new CD-R with Windows has booted the installer flawlessly without the floppy. And this time... wow, there wasn't any yellow signs or driver issues. Yeah, so it was definitely issue with the Windows CD. Mystery solved.

I used this burned Windows 98se CD for few builds in the meantime. Everything worked fine.

But this day has come: I needed to install Windows 95 again. 😒I remembered how painful experience it was but I decided to NOT install the DOS 6.22 at first. Maybe before it was some motherboard issue. Or IDE controller was broken on the board. Who cares.

Nope, I just had this same warnings again. And CD-ROM refused to work just after install. And the installer asked me for drivers. And I don't had possibility to load the drivers from CD, because Windows hasn't seen the drive. So I need to go do DOS, install the CD-ROM drivers and then... WTF. No way. I installed W95 a lot as a kid and it wasn't happened. It was not that painful. How possible is that I have second faulty motherboard or controller?

Remember the alert from the safe mode? This one about the boot record and virus. I totally downplayed that. Virus? I installed everything from the original mediums: floppy and CD. It can't be possible...
Anyway, who cares, after all this adventures I had I just decided to boot the popular Polish antivirus from the 90's - mks_vir. It fits on just one floppy and I just had it from the pile of floppies I bought.

Boom, virus has been found in RAM. Then this same virus has been found on the HDD. Then this same virus has been found on the floppy with mks_vir. 🤣.
Bingo. I decided to check the original Windows 98 boot disk floppy. Boom. Infected. It wasn't boot-protected at all. It came from the pile of floppies I bought.

So all the builds I had and I used some floppies on them were infected.

I forgot how virus has called. It's something like NOCMOS or REMOVECMOS or RESETBIOS. It was described by mks_vir antivirus as a trojan.

After I removed the virus by the mks_vir, it just started to work without issues.
Now I need to remove virus from ALL the builds I have, then I need to remove this virus from the floppies I use.

That was my painful story. 😁

TL;DR
1. Trust Windows alerts from time to time, especially about viruses
2. Check the floppies/CDs - they can ruin your Best Build In The World®
3. When you have drivers issues without reason, it really can be a virus

Thanks for reading!

seleryba wrote on 2020-03-17, 02:12:

I found out the mother of all my retro issues.

Interesting issue you had there seleryba. A few days ago I had similar problems, when I was installing Windows 98 SE on my SD card on Celeron 333 Mhz PC build. When finalizing instalation, the DVD rom stopped working (Windows didn't recognize it), causing all kinds of problems with not booting properly. In device maneger I had a yellow message not recognizing IDE 2 or something like that. I started thinking in what moment exactly the DVD rom stopped working. After a few unsuccessful instalations I found out, that the issue mostly began during Plug and play hardware detection in the final installation stages of Windows 98. So I removed my Creative ISA sound card and removed AGP Voodoo card, and placed a generic VGA PCI card instead. After that, the instalation went through. When Windows 98 SE was successfully installed, I replaced a generic PCI Card with my Voodoo one, and installed Creative ISA sound card.

Turbo -> wrote on 2020-03-17, 10:40:

After a few unsuccessful instalations I found out, that the issue mostly began after Plug and play hardware detection in the final installation stages of Windows 98.

... I had entirely forgotten about this. My dad's Pentium Pro was fussy about the order of installing hardware in W95. There was some card - perhaps networking?- that could not be added as an upgrade, but had to be there during the install.

It was one of those "special experiences" that Windows burned into memory, because I was doing a 'quick update' for him while he was visiting town.

Created two FMCB memory cards for my un-modded PS2 using the other modded PS2. Also prepared an USB stick to store game ISOs, since only one has a hard disk.

Did some more experimenting with an old PC-50X games console. Tried it through several TVs, VCRs & a DVD Recorder - nope, it's not having any of that, signal doesn't lock and even with manual tuning it simply does not output correctly. Guess I'm going to have to get hold of an old CRT TV and try it out on that. Not sure if the console is broken or if it's just a case that it really doesn't get along with modern TVs.

Also tested out a similar Pong-based console from the same era (Pong built-in, not Cartridge-based), which does display fine.

Finally installed my Aztech SG Waverider 32+.

Works very well, the output is very quiet in terms of noise (much better than ESS ES1869 or SB Pro 2.0), built-in wavetable is not brilliant but sounds very good in Doom and Theme Hospital.

It also has pin header for line out, I was able to connect it to the audio output on the front of the case.

Tried to resurrect my system from 2003, an Asus P42800 motherboard with a 2.XGHz P4. Powers up for about a half second, then back off. It's of the age that capacitor plague is the issue, but I am really not in the mood to tear it all apart, map the caps, order new ones, wait for them, pull the dead ones, and install the new ones. Maybe some time in the possibly distant future.

Built a PC with the Socket 3 PCI motherboard I found this weekend. Wanted to build a budget PC from 1996 - AMD 5x86, 16MB ram, Audician 32 (Yamaha ymf719), S3 Virge, Windows 95 (the original version w/o addons).

Doom and Duke3D run pretty well, Blood and Diablo feel choppy.

Will run some S3D games later to see if the OG "Deccelerrator" can make games run faster on a 133MHz 486.

derSammler wrote on 2020-03-17, 16:01:

Created two FMCB memory cards for my un-modded PS2 using the other modded PS2. Also prepared an USB stick to store game ISOs, since only one has a hard disk.

If you can, go with the SMB share for those games instead of the USB route. The PS2 only has USB 1.1 ports, which will make some games run worse than off disc.

Not possible, because it has no hard drive. And it has no hard drive because it has no network adapter. 😉

It's a backup PS2 only anyway, the main one has everything and can use SMB, USB, HDD, and burned discs.

I have 2 systems that can do SMB, USB, and HDD easily, the other 1 needs an adapter, and the one has network capabilities, but no HDD capability (slim model).

Working from home due to the whole Covid-19 situation. Needed to set up a lab for my work (certifying some networking devices). One of the most important bits was capturing traffic to and from them. Easiest way is a mirror/span port on a managed switch. I assumed my nice little Zyxel web-managed PoE switch could do that. I assumed wrong. So I needed an alternative. That meant dragging out one of my Cisco antiques, old enough to be on-topic here. I chose a Catalyst 2948G from 2007. When new it was loud, with old fans with worn-out bearings the sound was something else. At least it kept my children (also kept home from school) out of my work room for an hour or two. I'm generally familiar with Cisco IOS, but this beast runs Cisco CatOS. Conveniently, pretty much everything regarding password recovery (yep, of course I'd forgotten and failed to document whatever I'd originally done there), system configuration and actually setting the damned span port, was completely different to the way it's done in IOS. Actually it's all pretty straightforward once you figure out how - and now I know 😀

Today I was testing and trying to revive a couple of 1.44MB floppy drives I got for free. Both have the usual symptoms: the PC boots, tests for the floppy presence (the head moves a bit) and everything seems to be OK, however when inserting any disk, here comes General Failure and starts reading my disks. All of them. I tried the usual cleaning the drive inside, outside, cleaning the heads with alcohol, etc. to no avail. I think they are easy to fix, but no idea what to do or how to troubleshoot them properly (any ideas/tips are welcome). I'm sure the problem is the drives, since I connected a well-known working drive and it works perfectly, so the system I am using for testing, as well as the diskettes are OK. So far, all I know is that both motors on both drives work (the diskette spins, and the heads can move).

Started the first of what might turn out to be quite a few 'lockdown' builds (some virus thingy or other!), so was cleaning and prepping this board

Any takers for make & (system) model?

It needs slots 😁

aha2940 wrote on 2020-03-19, 01:56:

here comes General Failure and starts reading my disks. All of them. I tried the usual cleaning the drive inside, outside, cleaning the heads with alcohol, etc. to no avail.

That's nothing you can fix by cleaning. If it really says general failure, there's something wrong with the drive's hardware. If it has jumpers, check if they are correctly set to work in a PC. But I assume the problem lies in the heads being out of adjustment, which is the most common culprit for a cleaned and otherwise working drive failing to read disks. You can check this by formating a disk. If that works but the drive fails to read existing disks, re-adjustment of the heads is needed.

ShovelKnight wrote on 2020-03-17, 18:24:

Finally installed my Aztech SF Waverider 32+.

Works very well, the output is very quiet in terms of noise (much better than ESS ES1869 or SB Pro 2.0), built-in wavetable is not brilliant but sounds very good in Doom and Theme Hospital.

It also has pin header for line out, I was able to connect it to the audio output on the front of the case.

The Aztech Waverider 32 was my first wavetable enabled sound card, and it was a blast. My favourite game to play on it was Descent. I even think that sounds better than my roland modules, but that is "memory bias" for sure.

Rush of nostalgia after seeing this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxQpcw49RFs

Time to put my Waverider 32 back into service 😉

derSammler wrote on 2020-03-19, 07:42:

aha2940 wrote on 2020-03-19, 01:56:

here comes General Failure and starts reading my disks. All of them. I tried the usual cleaning the drive inside, outside, cleaning the heads with alcohol, etc. to no avail.

That's nothing you can fix by cleaning. If it really says general failure, there's something wrong with the drive's hardware. If it has jumpers, check if they are correctly set to work in a PC. But I assume the problem lies in the heads being out of adjustment, which is the most common culprit for a cleaned and otherwise working drive failing to read disks. You can check this by formating a disk. If that works but the drive fails to read existing disks, re-adjustment of the heads is needed.

I agree, I had an external floppy drive that could only read 1.44MB diskettes and not 720K diskettes. Turned out the heads were off center, attempted to adjust them and clean the heads, and still nothing. Some of my 1.44MB diskette drives do work without issues, except the one is very loud when reading from a diskette. Is it because the heads are sticking that could cause the floppy drive to sound very loud?