Re: Old Video Cards On New Systems (OVCONS)

Posted on 2021-06-10, 21:42

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I moderately upgraded the video card a couple times, it now has a GTX285 in it. That's why I stick to GTX280, which can be software undervolted and is reasonably quiet after that. I wish I had that model. Being able to software undervolt this card would be really nice. The variants of these cards …

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Re: Old Video Cards On New Systems (OVCONS)

Posted on 2021-06-10, 03:55

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My main PC is a socket AM3 machine that I built back when it's motherboard and CPU were new.. probably 2010. I moderately upgraded the video card a couple times, it now has a GTX285 in it. Powering up can be frustrating because this system occasionally trips the PSU's overcurrent protection when it …

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Re: Worst tips from tech support

Posted on 2021-06-08, 23:47

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

We had very unreliable cable internet with Suddenlink in rural California. For a few years though, when I called I'd be connected to some guy who knew what he was doing and would have an intelligent conversation with me to identify the problem. That was nice. Then it all changed and I started …

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Re: EA just removed several Need for Speed games from their digital platforms

Posted on 2021-06-05, 20:03

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

Different publisher but something similar happened to Test Drive Unlimited 1 and 2. That was Infogrames aka "Atari" which they bought the right to call themselves. I really wanted TDU1 but it was pulled from sale before I started using Steam. There was a very long period (probably a couple years) …

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Re: K6-2+ 500mhz CPU Cooler doesn't start spinning ?

Posted on 2021-05-30, 20:16

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Depending what you know about the history of the board, this damage could have been caused by a single bad fan. Sometimes they draw too much current when they go bad. Even if the board has separate transistors for each header, the failing fan sometimes gets moved around to "test" each header, …

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Re: 90's 10/100 ethernet switch

Posted on 2021-05-25, 21:42

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Going back to what I actually used as new in the late 90s - we had a consumer SMC Barricade 8(7?) port router that included a serial port for a shared external modem. It would autodial when somebody tried to use the internet. It might have also had an LPT port for a printer but I'm not sure. I …

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Re: 90's 10/100 ethernet switch

Posted on 2021-05-25, 21:37

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I used to use a Linksys EFAH24 10/100 hub, until I started upgrading some machines to GbE. It would sometimes lock up when it was cold, but once warmed up it worked well. If you're like me, you want to hook up a lot of connections but very few of them will be in use at one time so hub vs switch …

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Re: When publishers break software on purpose (Adobe in this case)

Posted on 2021-05-23, 03:22

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

Older appliances generally work a lot better than new ones, because older appliances are designed to do their job, while modern appliances use computers to figure how to avoid doing it in the name of "efficiency". Dishwashing machines don't wash dishes, nor do they dry them. Refrigerators don't keep …

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Re: V.90 or V.92 56k Serial Modem w/ DOS, WFW 3.11, Win98 support

Posted on 2021-05-21, 19:03

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In the rural area I just moved from (outskirts of an unincorporated area with about 2000+ homes), Cable was chronically awful. Cable was randomly losing service for hours every other day, sometimes for entire days, and then had a 2+ week long outage which is when many people (including us) finally …

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Re: Help with PSU Choice for XP Build

Posted on 2021-05-21, 04:05

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

AcBel API4FS06 (550W ) might be a cheap and quality option, but only if you don't mind modifying it. You'll need a source of 6pin power connectors to add to it. It's a great PSU from some Sun workstation, thousands of them got liquidated as NOS years ago so there's still a lot of new ones floating …

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Re: Help me diagnose an LCD

Posted on 2021-05-21, 03:10

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

this obviously isn't image rentention because then it would actually look like whatever was on there before - i don't think the taskbar is wavy like that and wraps around the corner. I've had image retention problems on 2 or 3 monitors and it had that same waviness. The effect isn't binary. But I …

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Re: Help me diagnose an LCD

Posted on 2021-05-20, 23:11

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Did the taskbar (or maybe that sidebar from Vista?) live on the right side of the screen before now? I've had a similar looking problem at the bottom of the screen on some monitors. I've also had it happen pretty easily on rarely used secondary monitors because of icons or programs that I left open …

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Re: GPU for 440BX machine with 133 MHz bus?

Posted on 2021-05-20, 23:00

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

The Geforce4 MX cards are among those I would have suggested, so I'm surprised you're having trouble with an MX440. In general I think cards in the NVidia Geforce2/3/4 range have been known to work well at 89MHz AGP. Cards I've used that way are Geforce2 MX, Geforce3, and Ti4200. My Radeon 9800 Pro …

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Re: Will my 440BX motherboard support Pentium III 600MHz CPU?

Posted on 2021-05-20, 10:08

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

SL43E is a cB0 stepping. I had good luck with those. Many years ago I ran two SL43E CPUs in separate machines at 800/133MHz with no problem. They both passed memtest86 at 840/140 at default voltage, which was enough to convince me they were solid for 133FSB so I didn't try any higher. What I don't …

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Re: Sleeper pc trend

Posted on 2021-05-20, 01:59

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

If I was building a new PC, I might use an old case just so I can have drive bays. Or so it can be housed in something that feels as substantial as the money I spent, instead of a plastic piece of junk. However I never had a window case. I could actually go for one of those on a retro PC.

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Re: Sapphire X1950 Pro AGP Died on the spot - ressurection possible?

Posted on 2021-05-19, 07:41

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I have a Sapphire X1950GT 256MB AGP, which I guess is the wimpier brother of your card. I think it's the same PCB. It has the same bank of MLCCs that you photographed, with 5 out of the 6 positions filled. I can confirm that all 6 of those cap positions are in parallel, including the one that's …

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Re: PS/2 Ports Dead (Again, Different MB)

Posted on 2021-05-19, 05:04

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Unrelated side note: Your board has a Coppermine capable voltage regulator (visible in your photo) so it will go down to 1.30V Vcore. Just in case you don't already know.

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Re: PS/2 Ports Dead (Again, Different MB)

Posted on 2021-05-19, 04:56

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This may be really inconvenient, but it might be worth removing the board and examining it closely to see if the PS/2 connector is still well soldered on every pin. Also try to assess the connector itself. These things can sometimes get broken pins or cracked solder joints due to their life of being …

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Re: When publishers break software on purpose (Adobe in this case)

Posted on 2021-05-18, 15:45

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

The activation scheme only exists for the benefit of the publisher, who does it to protect their copyright and ability to generate income from it. As such I don't categorize it as "product support". It's not a feature of the product itself, it's a padlock they chose to put on the outside of the door …

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Re: ABIT BH6, is it dead?

Posted on 2021-05-17, 23:24

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sorry for the string of quotes, just trying to keep the sequence of events organized: So I was told to update my BIOS, which then didn't work and the BIOS was totally borked with no way to enter it and requiring a recovery disk. I was later sent a floppy drive, 2 disks, and one cable. the floppy …

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