Re: Motherboard modding -- Replacing frequency generators

Posted on 2015-06-12, 01:10

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'll be curious to hear whether this works out. Some years ago I got to reading about some clock generators that support smoothly changing clock rates without crashing the system. Some were even programmable using a device programmer, but I didn't really understand the parameters. I thought it would …

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Re: Phoronix tests P4

Posted on 2015-06-11, 11:32

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think what I must have been remembering was this "P4 vs Atom" article: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/atom-d510 … ettop,2649.html It's older than I thought, and it wasn't comparing the P4 to more powerful modern chips, just the Atom.

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Re: Phoronix tests P4

Posted on 2015-06-11, 00:47

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There was a similar highly publicized article like this at I think TomsHardware or something like that. I don't remember there ever being such fascination with comparing newer CPUs against the P3 or P2 when they got old, but the P4 draws a lot of these types of comparisons for some reason. The P4 …

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Re: New parts ordered

Posted on 2015-06-10, 13:24

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I got them both in, I was right they sent me an ultra not a GTS, but on another note my 7800GS works great. I snooze I lose. I spent some time watching for a 7800GS AGP around maybe 6 months ago but they were too expensive for me. At one point I paid $20 for a 7 6 00GS AGP that needed caps …

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Re: Fastest Windows XP ,plain, SP1, SP3 ?

Posted on 2015-06-10, 13:11

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I remember that for quite a long time, floating point instructions could easily be made optional with a simple setting in a C compiler. The compiled code would detect if an FPU existed, and if it didn't, an integer based codepath was used. The programmer didn't have to write it, it was done by the …

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Re: K6-3 and Cacheable Ram

Posted on 2015-06-10, 12:16

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Weird shit happens if you install RAM modules that aren't supported, just because it boots does not mean it works. It should be tested regardless of whether the book says it works, in case it has a similar performance issue as the board that I mentioned (which has the same chipset). Owner's manuals …

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Re: K6-3 and Cacheable Ram

Posted on 2015-06-09, 16:24

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bench it just to make sure. I tried installing some 256MB modules on a Tyan VIA MVP3 board and found that while it ran, it became very slow for some reason. The difference was immediately obvious in memtest86. I can only assume that the BIOS was doing something strange in response to the amount of …

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Re: Fastest Windows XP ,plain, SP1, SP3 ?

Posted on 2015-06-07, 00:19

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I use a Tualatin 1.4GHz with Win2k SP4 and it's still slow on most web sites. It runs Firefox 5 with noScript, but as soon as some scripts have to be enabled, it gets slow. It's limited to 512MB RAM but I don't think that's the most pressing problem. The onboard graphics are basic Intel junk. Flash …

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Re: Games with dual OPL2 support for stereo FM?

Posted on 2015-06-06, 11:41

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

I've had a CT1330(A?) since new, but I almost never noticed games making use of it. I think the most fun I got out of the "Pro" features was from playing with the better PCM recording/playback abilities, not so much in games. It seemed to me like the setup screens for many DOS games would include …

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Re: New parts ordered

Posted on 2015-06-05, 13:27

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

candle_86 wrote: well it seems they sent me a Geforce 2 Ultra not a GTS Bonus! I've still never held a GTS in my hands. I had an MX in the day, and by luck I got an Ultra in a bulk lot some years ago. The mainstream GTS has eluded me. Is that 7800GS an AGP card? If so, $15 is an amazing deal for …

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Re: Windows 10 upgrade plans?

Posted on 2015-06-04, 14:08

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by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

Nope. I don't even have Windows 7. Haven't needed it yet. Each version of Windows seems to take the Microsoft-Nanny mentality to another level. I don't need or want to give Microsoft more access to my PC, nor do I want them getting in the way of what I choose to do with it myself. It's my computer, …

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Re: Athlon 850 vs Athlon 1400

Posted on 2015-06-03, 04:20

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The 1.4GHz TBird has some amount of interest going for it just because it's the fastest chip using that core. For $3 I wouldn't blink at buying it, but the gas driving down there is a bigger variable than the $3. CPUs take no space to store.

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Re: Potentially very bad - in the near future you might not own your own car/PC/etc

Posted on 2015-06-03, 01:15

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by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

I'm glad I live in an area where rust isn't much of an issue. The car I drive every day is almost 30 years old, and as long as it doesn't rust, there's no reason it can't last forever. At this point, everything about the car is well known, documented, and fixable by anybody with enough motivation to …

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Re: Asus P2B-DS Build

Posted on 2015-06-02, 08:00

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by shamino

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Be careful with that Albatron Ti4600. I've had 2 Albatron Ti4200 cards with that same heatsink/fan. On one of them, the fan seized up, luckily no harm was done before it was replaced. On the other, one of the push pins eventually came loose. The heatsink lost contact and the card was ruined. So my …

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Re: Lowest system you tried for everyday main PC

Posted on 2015-06-01, 00:52

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by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For some daily office tasks, I use a Compaq Deskpro EN with a 1.4GHz Tualatin running Win2k.

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Hard drive Access Time vs Partition Size experiment

Posted on 2015-05-31, 14:43

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

I'm not really sure if this is the right forum section, but since it has general application to any PC, not just old ones, I decided to put it here. Recently I was doing a simple performance test on a new hard drive. Then I decided to do some tests with reduced capacities. Although I've seen a lot …

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Re: Was there ever a non-upgrade non-OEM Win95 retail CD?

Posted on 2015-05-31, 12:12

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

IMAG0184.JPG Retail Win95 upgrade cds had dark blue lettering and the back ground image is the same only shaded light blue in colour. Same product code and part no. as shown above in shaminos picture. I've got two of these cds and the diskette copy. It's odd about the different colors of the discs. …

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Re: Question about mobo

Posted on 2015-05-30, 01:13

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you don't want to replace caps then I suggest looking at Asus or Intel boards. They used quality caps. If you get a board that had cheap caps installed at the factory, they might be okay on the day you buy the board, but they still won't be trustworthy.

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Re: My Geforce 2 Heatsink Attachment

Posted on 2015-05-30, 00:39

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

hey it overclocks now, got the core from 175 to 225, granted on a K6-3 it means nothing but still lol It might not even matter with a faster CPU. The limitation on these cards was really the RAM speed. 225MHz is pretty good though, I think more often people took them to about 200-210MHz or so, but …

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Re: My Geforce 2 Heatsink Attachment

Posted on 2015-05-29, 14:10

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

candle_86 wrote: what thermal adhesive has the holding power to keep that S370 cooler attached 🤣 Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive is strong stuff. I'm sure it would hold. The Geforce2 MX chip has plenty of surface area so it should be no problem.

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