Re: Rebuilding a childhood computer: 486

Posted on 2020-05-15, 07:10

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Upgraded/replaced/repaired a few things here and there during the system build: Upgrades: RAM to 64MB FPM 60ns SIMM-72 HDD to 40GB (limited to 7.8GB) VLB I/O controller to a DTC 2278D Plus that has more PIO speeds, secondary IDE channel, and better support CPU to a Kingston TC-5x86/133 (will put in …

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

Posted on 2020-05-15, 04:31

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Modified my PB450 board with a multiple jumper header as I received the 5x86-P75 that runs at 3.3V CPU and didn't get the full 133MHz. Mod complete on the board and cannot wait to modify another board for 3.3V CPU support. I also need to figure out why the drive bay bracket doesn't want to slide in …

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Re: Help! My M571 Motheroard won't detect any PCI Cards.

Posted on 2020-05-14, 03:57

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

PC Cheaps at its finest. Glad you got it all sorted out, man.

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Re: What do you drive?

Posted on 2020-05-14, 03:55

by

by bjwil1991

in Milliways

in Milliways

Pretty good shape for a 1992. I only drive when grocery shopping is on my list and I need to fix major issues on my car at this time and find out how I can permanently fix burning oil issues on an LX5 ShortStar GM 3.5L DOHC MFI engine that has 125,501 miles on the clock. I inspected the PCV Valve …

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

Posted on 2020-05-14, 03:41

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Swapped the CD-RW drive with an Apple 32x CD-ROM drive (Matshita CR-589-B) on my 486 build as the CD-RW drive doesn't work with 486 systems when connected to the secondary channel. Tested my theory with a CR-585-B CD-ROM drive that my Packard Bell has installed externally with the 486 build and that …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-05-14, 03:34

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I have that card as well (had to do some trace repair and solder on resistors for the volume control as the volume potentiometer stopped working) and the NX Pro 16 (with Windows Sound System and WaveTable header). I love both of the cards equally as they support Adlib/Sound Blaster Pro, DSS, and …

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

Posted on 2020-05-12, 07:44

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Installed the newly acquired DTC 2278D VLB I/O EIDE controller card in my 486 and had to fix the jumper settings as they were totally wrong (mouse was detected, but not working and the IRQ for the serial and parallel ports were interfering with my Aztech sound card). Also wrote the jumper settings …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-05-11, 17:53

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Easier to bend pins back without breaking them on headers than CPU pins.

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

Posted on 2020-05-11, 07:29

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Burnt the Descent 2 CD image onto a couple of CDs and was acting rather strange when installing and had to rename some files as the -'s were replaced with _'s (CDBurnerXP does that all the freaking time and it's annoying AF) so now I can play Descent 2 on my Packard Bell using either the Sound …

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Re: 486 Tower find -- VLB Card suggestions

Posted on 2020-05-11, 07:25

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by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So if a Tantalum cap stops working or blows up, then only replace it with a new tantalum capacitor and nothing else, correct?

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-05-11, 07:23

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I had a G6-200XL back then. That was a beast of a computer back in the old days.

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

Posted on 2020-05-10, 05:07

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Modified my newly acquired PB450 board with the 3.3V CPU support, except I don't have any spare DX4-100 chips that supports 3.3V CPUs.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-05-08, 19:03

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

No hanging note bugs at all. Great choice.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-05-08, 18:06

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

DTC 2278D VLB I/O EIDE controller card and an AMD Am5x86-P75 am486dx5-133v16bgc that works at 3.3VDC, which'll be installed in my Packard Bell once I get the 3.3V CPU support installed on the newly acquired board, along with the RAM, BIOS chip, and so on to test it out to verify the 3.3V CPUs will …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2020-05-08, 08:50

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

brownk wrote on 2020-05-07, 23:37: MMaximus wrote on 2020-05-07, 22:56: Be very careful with the external rack: you can't "hot plug" it. Always plug or unplug the rack when the computer is turned off I second this. I third this.

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

Posted on 2020-05-08, 08:49

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Same here, man. Reasons why I have an IDE CD-ROM drive connected to my 486 machines so that I can play some games at the speed of light. Greased and oiled the 5.25" 1.2MB floppy drive and shrank the 40GB HDD to 7.8GB as the 4.3GB HDD wasn't sounding pleasant (clicked every 3 minutes), but works fine …

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

Posted on 2020-05-07, 22:47

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Had to copy my hard drives (10GB to 4.3GB) to fix the drive issues (might need to replace the HDD as the 4.3GB drive is having issues) on my 486. To get my 10GB drive to work, I had to insert my 3Com 3C509-TP ISA card with the XT-IDE Universal BIOS boot ROM and ran ghost on the 10GB drive to copy …

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Re: Packard bell PB450 repair / mods / upgrade

Posted on 2020-05-04, 22:57

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I hate to reopen the thread that's been here for 1 year, but I have a CL-GD5429-86QC-B chip and is that pin compatible with the PB450 board? I need further info prior to soldering it on.

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Re: What are you eating/drinking? (the vogons food thread)

Posted on 2020-05-04, 04:33

by

by bjwil1991

in Milliways

in Milliways

Thar looks delicious. Had some Chicago style pizza qith couscous for lunch and a slice of pizza for a midnight snack.

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

Posted on 2020-05-02, 05:15

by

by bjwil1991

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Because the CL-GD5428 runs at only 87Hz for the resolution of 1024x768. I believe it's because the chips were only meant for CRT displays. I get an out of sync message and it shows the V sync as 87.1Hz on the display. Might install the drivers for the monitor and see if that clears that out.

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