Re: SBC with too high regulator voltage at 3.5V causing 430HX to run hot.

Posted on 2023-05-22, 19:46

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As mentioned above by majestyk and myself, the HX chipset works on a 5V supply. The 3.3V is used for CPU/cache signals so it won't make a difference when it comes to the temperature. Also, 3.5V is within the expected range for certain Pentium CPUs (VRE, 3.45 to 3.6V), so the chipset should be able …

---

Re: SBC with too high regulator voltage at 3.5V causing 430HX to run hot.

Posted on 2023-05-21, 22:05

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Most Pentium boards provide a way so set the CPU Vcc to the 3.45 - 3.6V range (VRE) instead of the standard (3.3 - 3.45V). I don't think any of those use a separate regulator for the chipset (unless maybe newer boards with dual regulators for MMX support), so feeding 3.5V to the chipset shouldn't be …

---

Re: [Advice needed] Two EISA VGA cards : build a system or sell the cards

Posted on 2023-05-14, 19:01

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

EISA is interesting, but when it comes to video cards it will not give you noticeable advantages vs regular ISA. I have 2 EISA motherboards, one with a proprietary local bus slot (ECS) and one with VLB, so I use those for video instead since the performance is way, way better than ISA/EISA. But for …

---

Re: Dallas DS12887 Replacement help

Posted on 2023-05-12, 13:00

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That Dallas chip is not soldered. It’s just inserted in a socket. You can remove it by using a DIP removal tool or just prying from the sides with a screwdriver.

---

Re: Original Voodoo 5 6000 prototype for sale on eBay

Posted on 2023-05-08, 02:17

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The 3dfx cards are generally reliable, and leaking capacitors is not a common type failure among them. Also, the only one that one could associate to DOS gaming is the original Voodoo graphics. I think our friend, the AI chatbot that frequents this forum and impersonates a retro computing fan, was …

---

Re: Why don't we have a For Sale\Trade Section here at Vogons?

Posted on 2023-05-06, 22:49

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Amibay does work well, but many (most?) sellers seem to ship exclusively to EU countries, so if you don't live there you only have access to a fraction of the stuff that's for sale. And considering that it's more focused on Amiga than PC it's kind of difficult to find specific vintage PC items.

---

Re: Recommend a couple capacitors.

Posted on 2023-05-04, 01:23

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

KZG/KZJ are known problematic series from Chemi-con, which are very sensitive to heat and almost always die early. So I strongly suggest replacing all KZGs on the board, even if they do look fine. If you take a look at the datasheet , you will notice that these are classed as "ultra low impedance" …

---

Re: List of VLB IDE Controllers

Posted on 2023-05-02, 21:26

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So, I've had this card for a while, model "VLSIO2C3" and unknown brand/manufacturer. It's a VLB controller that uses Goldstar Prime2C for the Multi I/O and an "ADD2" chip for IDE: VLSIO2C3.jpg Since there is not much to be found in the Internet about it, here's the jumper settings which I managed to …

---

Re: Datacare DI610, Tekram DC-680T Cached VLB IDE controller

Posted on 2023-05-02, 19:49

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sorry for being slightly off-topic, but I recently managed to get the Tekram DC-620B, which is kind of the EISA equivalent of OP's card (and one of the seemingly very few EISA IDE controllers). My card has only two ROM chips, they're labeled v1.30. Would anyone be interested in dumps of this …

---

Re: Market value for popular or rare classic computer hardware

Posted on 2023-04-28, 13:37

by

by TheMobRules

in Milliways

in Milliways

The “Creative” logo alone seems to increase the price of retro hardware in a ridiculous way. I’ve seen many cases of two versions of the exact same optical drive where the only difference was the logo in the tray. The Creative-branded ones tend to be significantly more expensive. So even a common …

---

Re: Need help configuring an MFM hard disk drive

Posted on 2023-04-27, 22:56

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I think you may be confusing the DOS FORMAT command with the controllers low level format (LLF). The initialization utility included in the BIOS of the MFM controller (that is accessed via the debug command) allows you to perform a low level format of the drive, effectively "pairing" the drive with …

---

Re: Floppy disk Image software

Posted on 2023-04-20, 21:16

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

WinImage does write its own stuff into the boot sector, so the image you get is not 100% exact. Not sure if you can disable this "feature" as I haven't used it in a long time. I highly recommend M. Brutman's DskImage . It's a very simple tool, but you can use it even on an 8088 and will produce a …

---

Re: Choosing new caps for motherboards

Posted on 2023-04-12, 18:26

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Pretty much all Socket 3 and early Pentium boards use linear/LDO regulators, general purpose electrolytics work just fine on those and will probably outlive other components in the board (consider that these boards are about 30+ years and they rarely suffer capacitor related problems). If you really …

---

Re: Old rusty power supply works, fancy new power supply does not.

Posted on 2023-04-06, 22:20

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There's nothing special about AT power supplies. The main issue, as I see it, was people were buying the cheapest stuff, using it for a looong time without any sort of maintenance, then possibly upgrading their PCs with more power-hungry CPUs and cards only to see the thing fail. I had way more no- …

---

Re: High quality power supplies in late 90s - early 2000s

Posted on 2023-04-02, 17:31

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Delta, Astec, LiteON are usually very well built, with good quality parts. Usually found in OEM PCs. Be careful with the Antec TP line, it is almost guaranteed that those units will have to be recapped. The manufacturer that built those at the time (called Channel Well Technology, or CWT) had a love …

---

Re: Anyone upgrade and/or repair PC power supplies?

Posted on 2023-04-02, 00:11

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Things you can upgrade/repair beside caps: Bridge rectifier Switching transistors on the primary side Rectifier diodes on the output, especially if the original ones are undersized Fan, if you want a more silent one or the current one breaks You can also upgrade the capacitors on the input line …

---

Re: Why are people like this exist

Posted on 2023-03-31, 04:39

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There's some interesting stuff among all that junk, but 7000eur??? Also, I doubt any recycler is going to pay anything close to 4500 for that, they would be out of business very quickly with those kind of "deals".

---

Re: Help identify an old PC case XT/AT ?

Posted on 2023-03-30, 19:08

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I agree with mkarcher, it probably housed an XT or 286 in its time. From the stickers on the back you can tell it originally had a CGA/Monochrome card since it has LPT1 and DISP on the same slot. So I would say late '80s. There is a slight difference in the mounting holes between XT and AT, but it's …

---

Re: Just burned two Leopard Rev C boards .. Help?

Posted on 2023-03-27, 01:22

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Can you test the fuse between the power connector and the keyboard port for continuity? If the fuse is blown, you can just replace it but first you need to determine why it's blowing up. If the fuse tests OK but the keyboard still doesn't work it's probably the keyboard controller chip, which can …

---

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

Posted on 2023-03-25, 03:08

by

by TheMobRules

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well, not even Microsoft could make up their mind about it, as the Windows 3.0 box refers to it as a "Graphical Environment" while 3.1 is called an "Operating System". I've also heard it being called an "Operating Environment" which seems to adequately describe it as something in between those two. …

---