Re: Restoring corrupted BIOS

Posted on 2025-03-23, 00:48

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This is a bit risky and depends on how many spare motherboards you have with an identical BIOS chip but you could flash the BIOS for the Acorp board on a donor board with an identical chip and simply swap chips. I believe you can swap the chip with the donor board still running so you can flash …

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Re: Wrong BIOS update = bricked motherboard?

Posted on 2025-03-20, 22:18

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've run into a few motherboards that don't work well with Uniflash. It wouldn't surprise me if those same boards don't work well with other generic flashing utilities either. So you might just be unlucky with the particular motherboard you're using. There are also cases where a particular type of …

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Re: Seeking Personal Thoughts For Windows 98 Graphics Cards - MX400 vs Radeon 7000

Posted on 2025-03-20, 12:52

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

It's tough to find PCI 3D accelerators at a low price. I've tried, and had bad luck with getting faulty ones. I have a lot of AGP cards but my PCI collection is mostly empty holes. I don't know much about the requirements of those games, so I won't try to say how well the 7000 would run them. Is …

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Re: No POST on my Pentium 2 system (Tyan S1846 Motherboard)

Posted on 2025-03-13, 22:59

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Do you have a multimeter? If so I'd check voltages. If you have one and want more detail, I can go into it. Go ahead, as I plan on grabbing one when I'll have the occasion! You can put the black probe on any convenient ground point, like up against the case of the PSU or plugged into the black wire …

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Re: HP Kayak XU800

Posted on 2025-03-12, 22:08

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

One of my Kayak XU computers has a Dead CMOS battery. I don’t know if these are rechargeable or if you need to replace them but the battery is soldered onto the motherboard. Any know anything about how to replace these batteries ? They are recharcheable and reload when you have the machine plugged …

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Re: Old Games Interesting to Tiny Humans (i.e. kids)

Posted on 2025-03-12, 04:19

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jAlEQ-VZaw My niece used to love this. Probably still would. Not sure if she actually played the game but she loved the music. Also, "The Learning Company" made some good DOS games. One I like is Operation Neptune. It seems prone to lock up on the intro screen, but …

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Re: No POST on my Pentium 2 system (Tyan S1846 Motherboard)

Posted on 2025-03-12, 00:40

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Booting without the CPU, expecting beeps but nothing The CPU executes code from the BIOS, which is what contains the programming for it to beep. So if the CPU is unplugged you definitely won't get a beep. When you attempted to boot with no RAM installed, a beep code would be expected. Since it …

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Re: How can I erase data and overwrite with 0 (zeros), but only a portion of the disk?

Posted on 2025-03-11, 23:49

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

I remember running a quick performance benchmark on a brand new SMR drive. Epic throughput. .. because the drive knew there wasn't any data allocated to the LBAs being queried, so it responded to almost the entire benchmark without reading anything from the platters. SMR drives seem to act like SSDs …

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Re: planning to benchmark a few isa video cards

Posted on 2025-03-07, 09:25

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

I wish DOS benchmarking wasn't so dependent on synthetic tests. Unfortunately, games for DOS that can be readily benchmarked are rare. This thread did come up with some though: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=46319 thepirategamerboy mentioned Space Simulator which I had forgotten about. I do …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2025-03-05, 13:18

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Dang, a Tandy 1000 in a thrift store for $100 with monitor? That's an absolute steal. And no worries about shipping damage. I would have bought it even though I don't have much room to add to my small collection. Space is my biggest issue and also how much is ever enough, right? It's a slippery …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2025-03-05, 13:01

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Picked up this Herc Dynamite TNT from the Bay for 25$. Pretty neat, I believe it's the fastest stock TNT Gen 1 produced at 98Mhz Core 125Mhz Mem. The active cooling is nifty as well. PXL_20250304_034553234~2.jpg My first ever AGP card! Think it did cost way too much back when I bought it in …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2025-03-05, 00:56

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've been stewing over this for a few days. I might not ever forget about it. I blew it, big time. Money is tight, so I have been in a mindset of not spending money on anything I don't have to. A few days ago I went browsing in a thrift store and saw this: front_all.jpg front_1000SL.jpg At the time, …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2025-03-04, 02:11

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The "Mystery Machines" are two Dells, a Dimension L733R(s370, no AGP) and an Optiplex GX300 (dual slot 1) 20250302_225524.jpg I still have an L733R (or similar, but I think that's the same number) that I got from a relative. I almost got rid of it, but it survived the culling. The thing that made …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2025-03-04, 01:38

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The "Mystery Machines" are two Dells, a Dimension L733R(s370, no AGP) and an Optiplex GX300 (dual slot 1) 20250302_225524.jpg I still have an L733R (or similar, but I think that's the same number) that I got from a relative. I almost got rid of it, but it survived the culling. It's the smallest …

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Re: Asus P2B-S Throttle issue.

Posted on 2025-03-03, 13:29

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think there's an error of translation here. The parts I think you're asking about are called inductors. I have a standard P2B that has had some parts removed and I recall the inductance value was marked on the board underneath. I'm not at home so I can't find it right now, but it looks like the …

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Re: Pentium III build and the thought process

Posted on 2025-03-03, 04:12

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Coppermine support depends on having a new enough BIOS, and having a voltage regulator that supports the voltage the CPU is asking for. The BIOS can be updated, so that's not a problem. For the voltage support there's a workaround - but native support is nicer. For the voltage support you need to …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2025-02-28, 01:42

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The front bezel is completely open, and it has a real power supply providing 12V+5V, (not just USB powered), so my hope was that I can swap a DVD drive into this enclosure. In regards to the power supply / power adapter: if it has screws, open it and check it inside. I don't know who Memorex used …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2025-02-27, 01:41

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

bought a Memorex 52X external USB 2.0 CDR drive at a local thrift store: driveEnclosure.jpg The front bezel is completely open, and it has a real power supply providing 12V+5V, (not just USB powered), so my hope was that I can swap a DVD drive into this enclosure. It was made in 2004. enclosureLabel …

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Re: Windows XP how many people still use for it their MAIN OS?

Posted on 2025-02-26, 07:09

by

by shamino

in Milliways

in Milliways

I had to stop using XP on my daily PC because of support from newer software. Currently I run a mix of Linux and Win7 on different machines. Win7 is okay, but I liked XP better. I do not like Win10 at all. Of all the reasons I stopped using WinXP, viruses had nothing to do with it. I've been …

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Re: Any CPU Cooling Solution Suggestions, Ridiculous Or Not - Optiplex GX280 WIN2K

Posted on 2025-02-23, 13:35

by

by shamino

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had a GX270 board with that same type of heatsink and fan on it. The GX270 is like an older version of the 280 - it's AGP with an i865 chipset and has the older mPGA478 CPU socket. It supports Prescott but the BIOS will underclock at POST if it detects the CPU is too fast, due to power draw. My …

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