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

Posted on 2016-08-03, 14:22

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thinking about a few tasks that I want some machine(s) to be set up to perform, and trying to figure out how to best allocate the available hardware to do them. Getting confused, then realizing that with the amount of PC hardware I have laying around, it's rather ridiculous for me to think I don't …

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Re: AOpen AX59Pro VIA MVP3 big issues with Nvidia cards

Posted on 2016-08-01, 14:37

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had a Tyan S1590 back then. For me the stability was fixed by using an older VIA 4-in-1 version and selecting an option during the install which effectively lowers the AGP speed to 1X. Anyway, it sounds like you've got this sorted out. Performance wise, I found that I got the best performance with …

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Re: Is anyone else running a celeron mendocino

Posted on 2016-08-01, 13:42

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've never used a Mendocino for very long, but I believe it's performance in 3D games generally beats the K6-3, and the K6-3 benefits from cards up to a Geforce2 MX or Geforce 256 in most resolutions, and maybe a Geforce2 GTS at high res. So I'd say the Mendocino can definitely use at least those …

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Re: Why would motherboard manufacturers remove the POST beep system?

Posted on 2016-07-31, 13:16

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by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

This is the first I've heard of this. Even without knowing the meaning of the beep codes, just the fact that it beeps at all narrows down the possible issues considerably. I would think it's a negligible cost to implement and they'd get a few less RMAs with the feature intact. If most of today's DIY …

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Re: Motherboard Asus P2B with coppermine or tualatin cpu?

Posted on 2016-07-31, 07:26

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had a bunch of P2B boards several years ago before I sold them. Lots of v1.10 boards have Coppermine capable VRMs, the only thing that keeps those boards from running Coppermines is the BIOS. Just use an older CPU to flash it and then it will work. The reason Asus said rev1.12 was required is …

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Re: Hello i am new and this is my retro PC

Posted on 2016-07-30, 16:05

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

it is reporting the motherboard wrong.... as an FIC it is not lol http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z172/mkubiak402/electronics/20160715_225034_zps1okrlhea.jpg That's funny.. I have an (actual) FIC PT-2200 and that detection isn't even close. The PT-2200 is an Intel 430HX Baby-AT board, different …

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Re: Is DSL Linux dead?

Posted on 2016-07-30, 11:22

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

Why are you concerned about disk partitioning and imaging on a pentium? It'll be radically slower than a modern box, and you'll be running 100Mb/s at best rather than gigabit upwards. I'd advise using parted rather than gparted. Any time you need to do disk recovery it's not unlikely you won't be …

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Re: Is DSL Linux dead?

Posted on 2016-07-29, 07:13

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

Recently I've been experimenting with possible linux distros to install on a Pentium DOS/Win9x machine. Not for everyday use but for system administration stuff, including repartitioning (gparted), disk imaging (dd), easy mounting of network shares (samba) and transferring files with the rest of …

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Re: Is DSL Linux dead?

Posted on 2016-07-28, 18:48

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

Recently I've been experimenting with possible linux distros to install on a Pentium DOS/Win9x machine. Not for everyday use but for system administration stuff, including repartitioning (gparted), disk imaging (dd), easy mounting of network shares (samba) and transferring files with the rest of the …

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Re: Could anyone recommend some pc games for girls?

Posted on 2016-07-28, 17:47

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

The Sims (I recall the first one being pretty clean, at least prior to expansions. As time went by the series got more "edgy" for the teenage crowd though.) Minecraft - put them in "peaceful" or even "creative" mode if necessary. Kids can get trapped in menus or the "talk" interface sometimes, this …

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Re: What is it worth on ebay? Sealed Box WD 6.4GB Hard Drive

Posted on 2016-07-28, 16:55

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

I haven't really paid attention to the prices of hard drives in that size range, but I suspect it's not old enough or have any rare characteristic that would make many people think of it as valuable. Being sealed makes it more interesting and means people will feel more assured that it's in good …

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Re: Help needed with booting slot1 boards with unsupported CPUs

Posted on 2016-07-28, 08:59

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Glad to hear it runs, that's excellent news. For long term monitoring of sensors I normally use Speedfan, but my experience with it has been on newer systems. I don't know how likely it is to support the sensors on a board from the Slot-1 era. If it does work then it can be set to sound an alarm or …

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Re: Slot 1 CAD Workstation

Posted on 2016-07-28, 02:42

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by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I haven't really looked but I think the easiest way to get a Slot-2 would be by buying an entire assembled brand name workstation. This adds a lot of shipping cost however unless you get lucky and find somebody nearby. The boards in these machines most likely won't integrate easily with a generic …

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Re: Slot 1 CAD Workstation

Posted on 2016-07-28, 02:35

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There are some cheap IBM Intellistation M Pro (03N2499) dual slot 1 motherboards out there. AGP, PCI and one ISA! IBM_Intellistation.jpg I have one of those boards. In fact I just got it out to compare with the picture and it looks like an exact match. Mine came out of an old M Pro Type 6889 440BX …

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IBM Intellistation M Pro 440BX dual slot-1 board (03N2499)

Posted on 2016-07-28, 02:24

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by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Scraphoarder posted about these recently. IBM 03N2499 motherboard, I have one which I removed from an IBM Intellistation M Pro Type 6889. These are old high dollar EATX workstation boards with nonstandard front panel wiring so they're a tough sell to somebody without the original chassis. They're …

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Re: What is your biggest Pentium 4 Collection?

Posted on 2016-07-21, 15:16

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

@up Have you considered 3,2GHz versions of Gallatin/Northwood/Prescott ? They are cheaper, should overclock that 200MHz no problem (to match 3,4GHz on top ones), and because of lower multi ("16") - they will score better than 3,4GHz versions at same frequency (at least in theory ;)). I've …

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Re: Where to track down Baby AT case

Posted on 2016-07-21, 07:25

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It's really frustrating that the paranoia about hard drives makes it so hard to buy old computers nowadays. The recyclers, manufacturers, and software publishers all benefit from seeing old computers taken out of circulation and destroyed so more new stuff can be sold, and it's easy for the …

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Re: What is your biggest Pentium 4 Collection?

Posted on 2016-07-21, 04:42

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I was looking through some old records of eBay purchases in years past and realized that I bought a lot more of my P4 CPUs as singles than I remembered. Some I don't even remember what I bought them for, but I guess it had to do with testing motherboards. I was reminded of a couple low end Northwood …

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Re: Ultima Underworld SB Pro instrument volume levels inconsistent

Posted on 2016-07-19, 12:37

by

by shamino

in DOS

in DOS

Interesting. I had the older SBPro back then and I remember noticing that the Underworld music sounded a bit messed up after I upgraded to an AWE32. Ever since then I don't think I ever heard it sound the way I thought it should, including in youtube videos and emulators. I guess this explains what …

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Re: What's the hardest part of building a retro rig for yourself?

Posted on 2016-07-19, 00:50

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I find that very interesting. I was already 23 years old when I got my first computer, a used AST 486SX/25. I'm pretty sure I gave it away to a friend, but I really can't remember what I did with it. Anyway, I wouldn't want to recreate it. It struggled with games even then. How do you feel about …

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