Re: A tale of two PSUs

Posted on 2016-01-31, 04:46

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Too bad for me the mainboard was basically the only other interesting part in this untested system, good thing it was only €10 to begin with lol Try out the motherboard with a known working powersupply. Chances are if it boots to the bios the motherboard is fine, then just to make sure I like to …

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Re: Anyone recognise this Socket 3 board?

Posted on 2016-01-31, 04:43

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

^^ Good stuff... I managed to get the board to POST, and the BIOS string actually reveals it to be: PC Chips M921 http://motherboards.mbarron.net/models/486pci/m921.htm m921p.jpg These boards look so similar. And the board does indeed have fake L2 cache! Sorry to have kept you waiting, as I was …

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Re: Anyone recognise this Socket 3 board?

Posted on 2016-01-31, 03:14

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks to some hints here, I think I've tracked the board down to be: SYL8884PCI http://motherboards.mbarron.net/models/486pci/syl8884.htm page1.jpg page2.jpg Still don't know who made it... Soyo? I should actually have this board, but iirc mine did come with real cache chips which were socketed I …

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Re: Sticking with XP a smart move?

Posted on 2016-01-31, 03:12

by

by Tetrium

in Milliways

in Milliways

My comment about taking away user control "because users are stupid" was just a flippant way of characterizing the design philosophy behind modern OSes. I know most people aren't complete computer geeks and don't want to be, so they're happy to have somebody looking over their shoulder. For my own …

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Re: A tale of two PSUs

Posted on 2016-01-31, 03:06

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Any idea whether it's possible to visually spot motherboard 5Vsb damage? It is sometimes visually evident by shinny spots or pits on the chipset. Anything that looks like melting or popping happened inside the package. It's nowhere near 100% though. The southbridge seemed to look normal. The …

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Re: PSU - bust the myth

Posted on 2016-01-31, 02:50

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

But the table with the PSU brands here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-psu-brands,3762-4.html how can I download them? Maybe I'm just not seeing something but I can't click the table (it's a pic but it seems to just be the thumbnail without a link to the really big table), help? : …

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Re: Anyone recognise this Socket 3 board?

Posted on 2016-01-31, 02:40

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

tayyare wrote: The soldered "writeback"(!) cache chips look like very much to PCChips fake cache chips. The board might ve PCChips? http://redhill.net.au/b/b-bad.html#fakecache Well spotted. The cache chips seem to be soldered too. A shame really, the board would seem to be very nice otherwise

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Re: RAID with ISA Hard Drive Controllers

Posted on 2016-01-31, 01:49

by

by Tetrium

in Milliways

in Milliways

I'm not 100% sure about the IRQ, but depending on operating system support, devices should be able to share an IRQ without any problems (when the IRQ is triggered, the drivers have to know it is shared and remember to check which device is responsible for the interrupt.) The problem is that IDE …

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Re: PSU - bust the myth

Posted on 2016-01-31, 01:47

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

gdjacobs wrote: Indy = Independently regulated, adjusting one voltage output (12V for instance) does not necessarily change the 5V or 3.3V supply voltage DC-DC = switch mode step down (buck) converters are used to create the 5V and 3.3V outputs from the 12V supply Thanks. Learned something new …

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Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2016-01-31, 01:46

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

It's not era correct but that was never my primary concern since it is cobbled together. I'm looking out for a vintage case but I haven't found one that I like yet locally and eBay is way too expensive right now with the Canadian dollar stuck in a bottomless pit. I had tons of problems at first but …

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Re: A tale of two PSUs

Posted on 2016-01-31, 01:15

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

^ Can't see much but doesn't look too bad (save for crappy Crapxons). The oozing cap is on +5VSB, don't use this PSU without recapping, it may nuke the mobo . That's not good, it may indicate the board that came out of the same system this PSU was part of, may already be dead. But oh well. Any idea …

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Re: PSU - bust the myth

Posted on 2016-01-31, 01:10

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

... one of the problems is the way modern PSUs have trouble supplying lots of 5v while 12v is barely getting used ... Only if the PSU in cuestion is group regulated (cheaper). When it's independent (Indy) regulation, or DC-DC, they can deal with unbalanced loads (like heavy draw from +5V while …

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Re: Floppy disk archaeology tips

Posted on 2016-01-31, 00:36

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Those are some good tips, thanks for sharing! 😀 nforce4max wrote: This is why I want one of those floppy emulators 😵 But those floppy emulators don't make that special fuzzy-inducing coffee grinder noise, right? 😢

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

Posted on 2016-01-31, 00:30

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Even now, when each of my mice that I use on my main rig dies for whatever reason. I always replace it with the result of a lengthy search for a nice right handed mouse that still works. Standard (not gaming) right handed mice are something I think should still be produced, and cheaply, not as a …

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Re: RIP ST34342A

Posted on 2016-01-31, 00:24

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Errius wrote: What's the smallest commercially released SATA drive? When it concerns the traditional harddrive with platters, I'd say this might turn out to be a laptop drive

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Re: PC100 M747 - The bane of my existence

Posted on 2016-01-30, 20:31

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Now if only this board would support the VIA C3, this would appear to make this board an excellent slowdown candidate 😁

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Re: PSU - bust the myth

Posted on 2016-01-30, 20:28

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

386SX wrote: Thank. I have found some v2.1 psu with 48A on 5V, new but very cheap and very very light (with thin cables too...). I don't know if it's more dangerous to use an older one or these one... Which exact PSU is it?

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Re: Will you ever build a Win7 retro PC?

Posted on 2016-01-30, 20:10

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My age scale for PC's (for Year 2016) : Cutting Edge - Anything with AVX support (Skylake is Bleeding Edge :happy:) Modern PC's (Nehalem/Phenom and newer without AVX), Classic PC's (Core 2 Duo/AM2 and newer), Retro PC's (All Pentium 4's and D's with Socket 939/754 + Socket 370/Socket A), Vintage …

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Re: PSU - bust the myth

Posted on 2016-01-30, 19:55

by

by Tetrium

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

But even new high end, high power psu, don't have enough 5V wattage? I mean I've seen some 20A capable 650W psu when old 300W had more so I was thinking if you buy a 1000W psu they usually have or not enough 5V anyway? Iirc, this has been discussed here on Vogons even recently and one of the …

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Re: RAID with ISA Hard Drive Controllers

Posted on 2016-01-30, 19:47

by

by Tetrium

in Milliways

in Milliways

Yeah, well this was supposed to be on that Supermicro board which I can't find the drivers for. It has an ISA slot. Can you get into Windows and get an Internet connection? On Win2K or better you should be able to run one of those stupid driver finder tools like Driver Booster if it's really tough. …

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