Re: If you own a Sony VAIO PCG-Fxxx series laptop, inspect it for corrosion as soon as possible!

Posted on Yesterday, 19:24

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I pulled out my Sony VAIO PCG-560K this week and found that it wouldn't boot. This is after playing on it recently, when it had been working just fine. I was inspecting the memory last week and thought that maybe I didn't reseat it right, so I popped them out and back in, but it still wouldn't boot. …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2025-04-12, 14:40

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'll have to check my collection, but I think I may have this particularly absurd PCI card that I bought years ago out of morbid curiosity.

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Re: The Soundblaster DSP project

Posted on 2025-04-12, 14:39

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Somehow I missed this thread for the past nine years. Since it is 54 pages long, can someone link whatever the most relevant (and up to date) posts are if someone wants to take a stab at this? Some questions I hope to find answers to: Are there any downsides to upgrading any specific models to any …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2025-04-11, 23:48

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by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The early 90s was the wild west of OEM board partners, with some very eyebrow raising results. I miss those times and their little surprises.

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2025-04-11, 19:18

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by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have lots of things in bins with decomposing rubber coating. I know how difficult it is to remove this stuff and I'm kind of putting it off. I wish there was a plastic-safe solvent that these things could just be dumped into. But they really do require mechanical effort to remove.

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2025-04-11, 16:14

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I used a fish tank thermometer to test first, then heated up some salon care peroxide on my coffee maker's hot plate to retrobright a few key caps. My Mr. Coffee gets to the perfect temperature without modification this way. I raised the caps a little bit off of the bottom and used a small, thick, …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2025-04-11, 11:19

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Retrobrighting can be accelerated by applying heat. Soaking isn't enough.

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Re: MK1869 and MK1869 XTREME : new soundcards with ESS1869 and ES690 or Interwave chips

Posted on 2025-04-10, 22:39

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by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I would say that this variant of the Doom soundtrack in FM with the guitar is the most "correct" to my ears. Very close to or the same as the original Yamaha OPL chip. I did notice that the cymbals do sound a bit different though, although not terrible by any means.

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Re: MK1869 and MK1869 XTREME : new soundcards with ESS1869 and ES690 or Interwave chips

Posted on 2025-04-10, 02:24

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Is the PCMIDI interface for this card compatible with the daughter board from my original Orpheus I?

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Re: MK1869 and MK1869 XTREME : new soundcards with ESS1869 and ES690 or Interwave chips

Posted on 2025-04-09, 18:57

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I had to wait a day before sending payment. I assumed that this was the cause for delay in that I missed the first round of shipments. I've bought several other cards from Keropi, and didn't give it a second thought that it hadn't arrived yet. It's only been a week and is shipping internationally …

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Re: MK1869 and MK1869 XTREME : new soundcards with ESS1869 and ES690 or Interwave chips

Posted on 2025-04-09, 17:12

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

keropi wrote on 2025-04-09, 12:54: anyone that did not receive his tracking number you may send me a PM here or use the contact form and I will send it over 😀 Hi there, Keropi. I have yet to receive a tracking number. Payment was sent on April 1st. 👍

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2025-04-08, 23:43

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by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sniped a Quadro4 750XGL for $50. Seemed like a good price, given the current market for GeForce 4 Ti series cards. I was surprised that there were no other competing bids at the close of the auction, other than the initial bid from a few days ago. Filename Screenshot_20250408-193615_eBay.jpg File …

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Re: PCI sound cards and Chipsets from various manufacturers...

Posted on 2025-04-07, 04:34

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by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

This card is Plug 'n Play. Reserving IRQs is generally something that is only needed for ISA cards. I believe that PCI cards need the IRQ to be "available" for it to be assigned correctly. You choose the IRQ through the driver configuration files. I think that by reserving IRQ 5 in the BIOS, you're …

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Re: ATi RagePro OpenGL files

Posted on 2025-04-07, 04:31

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by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Do you use ESS ES1968 or ES1978 in your RetroPC and what audio driver version? It had to be some strange bug in the Quake benchmark, the 40 FPS were repeated, but after turning off the computer, never again reached 40 FPS, I have not tried it for a long time, I remember many problems with the sound …

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Re: PCI sound cards and Chipsets from various manufacturers...

Posted on 2025-04-05, 13:12

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Did you try IRQ 7 instead?

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Re: PowerVR Fun Thread

Posted on 2025-04-04, 17:55

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Although not strictly necessary, the PCX2 chip runs very hot and benefits from the addition of a heatsink and/or fan.

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Re: PCI sound cards and Chipsets from various manufacturers...

Posted on 2025-03-30, 15:53

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Try disabling the USB 2.0 ports, if that is an option, and see if that fixes the problem. It's always best to turn off everything that isn't needed in the BIOS to maximize DOS resources. Especially on newer boards where PnP BIOS configuration cannot be disabled, all of these extra features are …

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Re: PCI sound cards and Chipsets from various manufacturers...

Posted on 2025-03-30, 06:41

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

My best guess is a resource conflict. Possibly with USB 2.0 ports, which seems to be very common with DOS memory problems on "newer" boards.

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Re: PCI sound cards and Chipsets from various manufacturers...

Posted on 2025-03-25, 11:44

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

There's no way to dedicate IRQ for PCI cards. It's meant for reserving them to non-PnP ISA cards. Hope you are referring to the above with your board as the boards with which I was able to get solo 1 work properly all had the BIOS option to assign an IRQ to a particular PCI slot. Even another KT133 …

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Re: Orpheus II soundcard thread *** LT board now available ***

Posted on 2025-03-22, 16:46

by

by Kahenraz

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

While in safe mode, you can also "reserve" resources for ISA devices from the device manager to force Windows to use something different, if it keeps allocating something that you don't want it to.

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