Re: High-End AthlonXP Build-up

Posted on 2015-03-15, 16:44

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

For whatever it's worth, you made the right choice to use the onboard ATA controller. http://www.nvidia.co.uk/page/nf2_tech.html has a bunch of nVidia's PDF files for this chipset. The "Platform Processing Architecture" link near the bottom of that page has a blurry, but barely legible diagram which …

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Re: High-Resolution Computer Hardware

Posted on 2015-03-15, 15:56

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Like many people here, I have a fairly ridiculous amount of old PC hardware. I have at times thought about coming up with a searchable database to keep track of all my "inventory". Ideally, if I ever did this, I'd probably take photographs of all the components. I think generic photos wouldn't be as …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2015-03-11, 23:07

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm really annoyed by the fact that "widescreen" sizes have taken over everywhere. I don't understand the appeal, at all. They're just annoyingly overwide and too short vertically. In an era where many people run multiple monitors side-by-side, this makes the dimensions even more ridiculous. It's a …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2015-03-11, 13:48

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got an MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (socket 939) board from eBay, along with the components the seller had used with it. It was an as-is not working lot. They said it was working until they heard a pop, reportedly from their power supply, and then the board stopped POSTing. I did some testing of the parts …

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Re: Anything special about the ATI Radeon 7500?

Posted on 2015-03-11, 00:30

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had TruForm working on a 9800 Pro in Morrowind at one point. It had a really nice effect, smoothing out the angles on giant winding trees and such. It had a huge performance penalty though, so much that I ultimately turned it off. It did require using an older driver, ATI removed it from later …

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Re: Old hard drives - value

Posted on 2015-03-10, 17:04

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In working condition, I think old hard drives would carry significant value for people who want a completely period correct build. This would be especially true for drives from a time where people expect them to make a certain noise, and also where there are compatibility issues involved. However, …

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Re: What's Your Favorite Socket7 Chipset?

Posted on 2015-03-10, 03:53

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by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I suppose the 430VX is nothing special, but my M-Tech R533 with a 430VX chipset was the most trouble-free PC I had for the surrounding several years. It was quite a relief after all the instability I had with our preceding 486 system. The 430VX let me finally just relax and enjoy everything working …

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Re: [Build Log] ABIT KT7A-RAID Based System

Posted on 2015-03-08, 04:55

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I have only replaced capacitors that were physically bulging. Should they all be replaced then? Keep in mind that capacitors don't always bulge when they fail, and if they do bulge, it only happens after their failure has progressed to an extreme state (they were out of spec a long time ago). …

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Re: SVGA freezing?

Posted on 2015-03-08, 01:29

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does your Trio64V+ have socketed RAM chips? I wonder if corrosion on the pins could cause this kind of problem.

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Re: IBM Aptiva - AMD K7 550 Slot A. Any good?

Posted on 2015-03-04, 07:33

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My parents used to have a Pentium 2 IBM Intellistation from that time period. The case was styled very much like this one, but black. They never reported any issues with it, other than when it was getting too slow for the modern internet. It looks like your case uses standard front panel connectors. …

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Re: SVGA freezing?

Posted on 2015-03-04, 06:43

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Have you tried memtest86 on that machine, or any other types of stability tests? My old 486 used to lock up in SVGA very easily. It was basically unusable. It would also lock up in 320x200 VGA, but less easily. If only a portion of the screen was animated, like looking through the windshield of a …

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

Posted on 2015-03-03, 18:35

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Testing an Enermax EG465P-VE power supply that I got recently from eBay. It seems Enermax has had at least 3 different PSUs with the same model number, but this one is the middle child meeting ATX 1.3 spec. I've needed something like this for a long time. I've never had a PSU that could handle heavy …

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Re: Milestone games

Posted on 2015-03-03, 16:09

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

I'll add Ultima 7 (1992) as a candidate to the list. It required a 386 to run, which many people didn't have at the time. Origin wrote something in the documentation which seemed to acknowledge how controversial the requirement would be. The real reason for the requirement was because of the unusual …

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Re: Cyrix appreciation thread

Posted on 2015-03-03, 15:48

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I originally wrote this in response to a post in another thread, but realized the post is more appropriate here instead. re: why Cyrix would have been appealing at that time: AMD was practically dead with their fastest K5 running at about 90MHz. I thought they were going to go out of business, in …

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Re: Crossflashing a Compaq?

Posted on 2015-03-03, 15:10

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't know any BIOS files to suggest, but the fact that the chip is soldered would make me nervous. It's annoying that it seems like all OEM boards have soldered BIOS chips. They're more expensive to replace than home-build retail motherboards, so it's kind of weird that they don't bother making …

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Re: Drivers for Compaq Deskpro EN

Posted on 2015-03-03, 07:34

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I use one of these for some daily office stuff including printing shipping labels. I also sometimes use it to run an old EPROM programmer. They're very nicely designed machines. They're a great example of Compaq design right at the end of the company's life, before they were taken over by HP. I've …

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Re: Milestone games

Posted on 2015-03-02, 17:41

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

It's hard for me to separate the world at large from what games were significant to me personally. But I'll give one. Quake was the first FPU intensive game I ever played, and suddenly made my Cyrix 6x86 feel old. Up until then I'd been quite happy with it. It's not anywhere on my favorite games …

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Re: Computer Chronicles

Posted on 2015-03-02, 17:34

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

As corny as they are, I remember really enjoying some of the earlier "Computer Bowl" episodes. It's been a long time since I watched them but I remember thinking the earlier iterations were more entertaining than the later ones. It's kind of amazing how many famous names from the 1980s/early 90s …

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Re: Campers suck

Posted on 2015-02-26, 14:09

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by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

I don't play FPS games, and when I do, I don't play them against other humans, and when I do, they're just people in my family. But I don't have any problem with camping, I just don't like how it creates controversy in-game. I think "camping" is another word for "playing with strategy". Mindlessly …

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Re: Trustworthy buyer?

Posted on 2015-02-26, 13:16

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by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

I think the "second chance" feature on eBay is flawed. When a non-paying bidder screws up an auction, the 2nd chance offer should set the price to what would have happened if the first guy never existed. Otherwise, that person is still artificially increasing the price, which the 2nd place bidder …

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