Why does the PC speaker have four pins?

Posted on 2017-08-29, 16:45

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by jarreboum

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

And why the two in the middle are never connected? I've only ever seen PC speakers, be they with a diaphragm or piezoelectric, with two wires going to pin 1 and 4. What is the function of the other two pins and why don't anyone use them? Pin Number Pin Name Pin Function 1 -SP Speaker negative 2 GND …

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Re: What are the most demanding Win98 exclusive games?

Posted on 2017-05-31, 09:25

by

by jarreboum

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sega Rally 2 is broken on XP, the music doesn't play without a patch, the game needs to be started in compatibility mode and hardware acceleration seems to be hit or miss. According to https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Sega_Rally_2, the recommended CPU is an AMD K6-2/K7 300 MHz or Intel Pentium 2/3 300 …

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Re: Windows 95 or 98 for MS-DOS Games

Posted on 2017-05-27, 11:37

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by jarreboum

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

There is also a page for an "Embedded Windows 98" http://www.litepc.com/eos.html claiming super fast boots, smallest images. Unfortunately, the complementary site http://www.embeddingwindows.com/ is down. Anyone has information about it, or maybe knows how to shrink down windows to its absolute bare …

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Re: What's wrong with my CPU? (Athlon64 3700+)

Posted on 2017-05-08, 11:07

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by jarreboum

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Super late reply but yes, that pretty much was it. Both FEAR and Dungeon Siege had Vsync (the first I thought I turned off, the second was a hidden option in a .ini). Having both the Steam overlay and MSI Afterburner had a pretty big impact on the framerate as well. I also noticed the result I quote …

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What's wrong with my CPU? (Athlon64 3700+)

Posted on 2017-03-24, 17:29

by

by jarreboum

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

More hardware problems, yay! I've got this system for XP, with an Athlon 64 3700+ (socket 754, nforce4), paired with a mostly idle 8800GT and 2GB of DDR400 along with an Audigy 2 ZS for good measure. And the OS is installed on an SSD because why not. But when I'm benchmarking it, it doesn't give the …

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Re: My power button is acting crazy

Posted on 2017-03-11, 19:09

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by jarreboum

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The motherboard isn't gone, it's in the same state as before, with broken power and reset switches. I could use it that way but it's a hassle, and troubleshooting it is out of my range. It's a shame, as it's a great motherboard that I enjoyed using.

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Re: Newly made Gravis Ultrasound compatible cards ... what's the degree of interest?

Posted on 2017-03-11, 00:38

by

by jarreboum

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'm in

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Re: My power button is acting crazy

Posted on 2017-03-10, 18:34

by

by jarreboum

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I thought it would be an all or nothing, a fried PSU taking the motherboard with it, not a weird power button problem like that. There's probably a cap or a resistor along the way that doesn't behave properly and giving me these problems, but it's way above my debugging skills.

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Re: My power button is acting crazy

Posted on 2017-03-10, 17:32

by

by jarreboum

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Some new development: Today I plugged the power cable, I heard a fzzt and the led on my CF adapter blinked. This PSU didn't last long. The motherboard still works with my spare PSU, but I can now say that I had a flaky PSU from the start. I can't conclude anything but I will believe that it did …

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Re: My power button is acting crazy

Posted on 2017-03-08, 22:56

by

by jarreboum

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The thing is I'm not sure how to proceed. I did remove everything save for the CPU, PSU and a single RAM stick, which I tried in different positions. I tried with a different PSU with an almost identical result (the difference being the displays initialises correctly with the other PSU). From there, …

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Re: My power button is acting crazy

Posted on 2017-03-08, 17:10

by

by jarreboum

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Some more puzzling info: I booted Windows 98, and asked it to stop. it started its shutdown sequence correctly, then... rebooted, to a black screen. I think it rules out the problematic wiring, as even a software shutdown doesn't work.

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Re: My power button is acting crazy

Posted on 2017-03-08, 15:16

by

by jarreboum

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I am, and it was working fine before I put it in storage.

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My power button is acting crazy

Posted on 2017-03-08, 14:13

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by jarreboum

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ok I'm completely confused, I hope you guys can help me here. I took my old K6 ATX rig out of storage to finally install a new fanless cooler. I probably should have tested if the computer was still working first, but I suppose I was too excited to be reasonable. Once installed I plugged the power …

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Re: Am I looking at a 2gb ddr 400 module?

Posted on 2017-02-19, 02:06

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by jarreboum

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ooh, a single sided stick! I would have never thought about it. Someone else bought them, but the auction looked suspicious especially with that 2GB claim. Thank you for confirming my doubts.

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Re: Which XP?

Posted on 2017-02-17, 16:43

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by jarreboum

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Does that mean it gets better with SP3 on Pentium 4 and AMD64? The article at http://www.zdnet.com/article/xp-sp3-performance-gains-nothing-to-write-home-about/ suggests that SP3 does offer a modest performance improvement. (I never noticed until now that that article actually includes "XP RTM" in …

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Re: Which XP?

Posted on 2017-02-17, 14:50

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by jarreboum

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Tetrium wrote: hyoenmadan wrote: And it only gets worse with SP3. Does that mean it gets better with SP3 on Pentium 4 and AMD64?

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Re: Which XP?

Posted on 2017-02-11, 20:57

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by jarreboum

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

If you're referring to HSFs for s5/s7/s370/sA, these are all interchangeable. The only problem might be due to most of the older boards having stuff like caps and tiny resistors in the way. Even then, finding them used or new old stock can be quite difficult. I do have some stupid requirements of …

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Re: Which XP?

Posted on 2017-02-11, 10:54

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by jarreboum

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

So if you ever happen to have any questions, feel free to ask :) Let us be your hardware angels guiding you on your way to your own little piece of digital heaven :) Haha thanks, it's mostly because I'm a perfectionist though ;) It started when I decided to refurbish my old mid-00s computer and …

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Re: Which XP?

Posted on 2017-02-11, 01:43

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by jarreboum

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

Yea that's it :) And for most of us, it's not that we didn't try. A lot of us are unique individuals and as odd as it seems, I can usually build a XP machine, at least on my test bench, quicker than sitting down and figurung out a compatibility issue with some old game. And have a better time doing …

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Am I looking at a 2gb ddr 400 module?

Posted on 2017-02-10, 11:17

by

by jarreboum

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I thought they were only up to 1gb in non-ecc. But this seller tells me they have 2x2gb DDR-400 RAM modules? I have been googling for the past hour or so and I cannot find any other example of a non-ecc 2gb module.

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